Question: Why u no make new thread!? Or, do you prefer small and localized adventures (town based), tiny (a haunted house or underground maze), or sprawling epics with a high chance of never getting more than a few sessions before collapsing?
I prefer adventures that take place in huge cities but where every pc is a total underdog so nothing gets epic. Basically I wouldn't call them small or tiny since there are many places the pcs can go to and many npcs they can meet but they'll probably never do anything that is really significant for anyone who is not directly involved.
Noah Reyes
Sounds gay. Why play if you never do anything significant.
Grayson Clark
>implying you can't do things that aren significant for the characters just because they don't affect the average joe who happens to be in the area
Chronicles that are like that are actually incredibly comfy.
Mason Price
>I need to diablerize elders and beat up other slats to have fun
Jackson Hall
>Pacts with Archdukes can also lower your generation permanently (V20 Rites of the Blood)
What page?
Alexander Jenkins
>That's a very rash definition. The Masses subconsciously use magic, yes, much as they would use flying carpets instead of cars in a Hermetic dominated Consensus. That would be an interesting sight.
Nathan Reyes
A mention on page 113 (last paragraph of the main text), but it's all throughout chapter 6 of the book. No hard rules for altering Generation from what I can find.
Jaxon Torres
What do you think of this rote? Why does it need spirit 3?
Is there any way to keep a Risen as a Risen after they have fullfilled their cause? I remember in the Risen book there was a Gwynneth Sarbro chick who stayed as a Risen and no one could figure out why, but could a character stay as a Risen without it being an asspull?
Julian Barnes
I think it has to do with the invoking of djinn or something like that. Also that image is hilarious.
>Ahmed! Our bullets keep bounding off of the infidel! >Don't worry, Mehmed has set up his HMG to gun him down. >Also, someone tell Mohammad that if he fires his RPG at this range he'll kill us all.
Brayden Morgan
Was it Brucatto who wrote the Dead Magic Lichdom rote? The Arisen can just keep trucking on as long as they make their descent checks. The Ascended are basically that, too.
Justin Williams
>khyber pass >home of the shitty knockoff gun market
Oh god. My sides.
Jason Cox
During the rebellion against Heaven, a third of the Elohim turned against god. But did all the remaining angels stay loyal, or did some try and remain indifferent only to be cast out of Heaven like in Paradise Lost?
Xavier Butler
Couple of questions please Would a game wth a corterie/pack or a solo game with multiple characters in the same city be better/easier to run for a first time story teller? I’m doing play by post so I have breath and think up responses. For the party game how do you decide where the group goes if it’s half sandbox half plot? My city has 13 districts for them to visit and I don’t know how to choose between player 1 wanting to do the main quest in districts 1, player 2 wanting to visit district 3 and player 3 wanting to go to district 7. This is where I think the multiple solo games would come in. My final option would be to have a mix of the 2 where they do their own thing but the prince calls them together every now and then. Combat wouldn’t be big so there wouldn’t be that sort of need. Sorry for the long post but I’m so confused. I have a new respect for Gms. Also the general rule I’ve heard is don’t split the party.
Also, if I do solo game I could probably focus on the humanity and becoming a monster side a bit more which could be better in tune with world of darkness
Christian Collins
Coterie/pack game.
For a party game: Have a rough idea of what's going on, and why. Think of VTMB: The city has 'background' friction, with the Anarchs, the Kuei-Jin, the Sabbat and the Camarilla. There are local magicians, werewolves and assorted weirdness, but that's mostly flavour since iti sn't ever touched on outside of a mention. Then there's 'direct' friction - the way these act around the agitator, the ankaran sarcophagus. The Camarilla start churning. The Kuei-Jin go sniffing and throw in with the highest of the Camarilla. The Sabbat step up their lunacy.
What you want from here is to watch what the players are doing in their sandbox, and how all of this strangeness (direct friction or background agitation) might warp that. Assuming the players are in contact with one another, they'll mention these common themes - gang intervention in their business, and uptick in anarch aggressive behaviour, the local capes being an even bigger pack of dickheads than usual. Then they'll likely look into it. Your job as an ST is to bind them together, even if you do run the odd solo session. Easier done than said. Write out some notes like "You wonder how long it's been since you last spoke to a human being", or a full blown paranoia attack about something normal for a human. Or something. Things that you can pass them if they're not really making an effort to connect with humanity.
Kevin Rodriguez
Thanks, the idea is the Camarilla city is at war with Sabbat, and there are several hidden sabbat packs that need to be uncovered while players try to further their own agendas. If I’m reading what your saying right, let the players do their own thing private for 70% of the story, then they notice the weird shit and start talking in their phones or whatever, eg player 1 notices that people go missing in club x so he calls it in, player 2 happens to be in the area and they follow a suspicious person and take get details which they pass to person 3 and so on until they have enough action to present to the prince.
Caleb Morgan
Basically, let them do their own thing. If they stay that way, then run it as a mostly solo game. But touch every aspect of their solo game with what you reasonably can of your personal story and use that to draw them together when they reach out to other players for information. Otherwise, let them do their own thing but *progress the plot* on its own, without their interference.
Asher Barnes
Ok, that sounds good, thanks for the help I really appreciate it
There are some cases of for example a loyalist Angel growing so ruthless in trying to end the War of Wrath/defeat the Fallen that he ended up falling
There's another case of a badass loyalist Archangel refusing God's orders to abandon a siege because he wanted to stay and protect his mortal lover, none ever heard of the two again after this transgression
Welp, that can't have ended well, as that would have led to nephilim. Is there much reference to the nephilim in cWoD? After all, they were post-War of Wrath and Cain, but pre-flood, so not really in an area covered by the main lines.
Adam Butler
From the lore I’ve read, if God punishes you, as with Caine and the Fallen in general, then he makes a big show of it and everyone knows exactly what happened. Since it’s ambiguous he either died or got early ‘retirement’ That’s my take anyway
Nicholas Edwards
I would recommend running a coterie/pack game. Try to use some plot hooks to encourage cooperation between the pcs so they can stick together. However, if each player wants to do their own thing, just focus on a single player for a turn and then on the next (try to avoid giving one player the spotlight too much though).
I haven't tried it in vtm but an effective way to portray loss of humanity is for a character to be no longer bothered by something disyurbing, and panic when they realize it. I guess you could alter it a bit for vamps so that stuff that used to disturb them now make them happy or excite them. Basically, characters realizing that they're turning into a completely different person and panicking not because something is happening but because they are not disturbed by said thing happening is, in my experience, a pretty neat way to show that a character is losing their humanity, alongside the usual "fire is spooky" and "humans look tasty" stuff
Zachary Smith
there's evidence to suggest God seemed to punish Angels differently back then, there are examples of Fallen that stood with Lucifer being given the chance of being unmade by God or persist in their foolish ways but be subject to far greater punishment; most of them reasoned being unmade had to be the greatest punishment of all but still a few took on the offered option
Xavier Bennett
Not really many references to them, what we know is that "They possessed the gifts of man and angel, and they were terrible to behold - if not for their hideous countenance, then for their potential", they managed to kill the Ten Watchers but after Lucifer heard of what was going on he and his legions hunted and killed all Nephilim they could find
There's a passage in Houses of the Fallen that suggests there could be Nephilim hiding inside a legendary Malefactor artifact
There's another passage in Demon Storyteller's Companion mentioning a Fallen that possessed a pregnant woman and surprisingly it didn't lead to a miscarriage, so they are not really sure what will come of it, if the baby will be a nephilim. if he'll have any different powers etc
in Mage there's the Nephilim merit although that relates to high Umbrood spirits so it's not quite the same
Lincoln Gutierrez
Nonexistent or imprisoned huh, could be that he chose to be unmade. Possibilities that he was turned into a human and told to go away?
Parker Fisher
>Was it Brucatto who wrote the Dead Magic Lichdom rote?
Are there any good Hunter groups for a character with a lot of expression and artistic abilities? My other players have found solace in the Shadow Congregation and the VASCU, but I feel bad that I don't know one offhand that my third player, a former artist, could really embrace
Chase Morales
It says Gabriel's name was never heard in the Abyss so he didn't get sent there, just speculating but being unmade seems likely knoing how much of an asshole God is, but I'd like to imagine the latter, that he got what he wanted
Eli Bennett
Because with anything beyond a certain wordcount, he likes to justify himself. I was hoping for a blog post or somnething on the topic justifying whatever lunacy he thought was involved
Julian Perez
Yeah, I think I read somewhere that WW stance on canon was ‘head canon is real canon’ or something. If you believe he got what he wanted then he did. I personally believe the whole Ghenna thing is a hoax and there will eventually be space vampires, some will agree others will not buts how I take it.
Sebastian Nelson
More like the first Maelstrom, given that Abel is the first murder victim.
Personally, I would not be surprised if such punished angels were altered in such a way they became the Tuatha de Danaan, either by design or by choice. And freedom to decide what to create on their own terms instead of according to God's plan might end up creating the weird shit of Changeling.
Noah Carter
This is the mold likely thing, he probably took the unmaking option (though I don't recall whether we hear of God actually doing this, so for all we know it was simply a test of loyalty and they were put in time-out until after the war).
To be fair, as the redeemer path for a Demon can be pretty optimistic and end well (or bitter-sweet at least) depending on how everything plays out, those that went to the abyss might have gotten the better deal.
Neither, if you're a Hunterfag. You're just there to meme on other splats while playing Dan Hibiki.
Matthew Garcia
Never got replies about fun/interesting ways to use this (possibly the best, it's budget Chimerstry 9/10 really) Thaumaturgical path
>"The magician can set whatever rules he wants for this pocket of altered reality. People can fly, they become rotting animate corpses, *anything* Some of my ideas were: >the non-actual inner boundary of the altered reality is infinite, there's a whole new universe inside it >time dilation fo the pocket is 1 year for every second of real life >nothing can ever extinguish the sacrificial fire >you cannot ever be destroyed etc
How could it be used to carry results over to the real world other than self-defense?
I've always liked the idea of playing underdog-to-a-terrible-degree hunters in cWoD. Is that possible using the Hunter the Reckoning rules? Do any of the supplements offer that choice? The Imbued as a concept just bothers me. It feels like it defeats the purpose of playing a squishy human when they are basically a minor superhero. I suppose you could just not give players the option to make powers, but they might resent that.
I know Vigil is more up the alley of normies fighting the supernatural, but I'm all about the cWoD setting and metaplot, and it's not like the Imbued where the first hunters to ever grace the World of Darkness.
Hell yeah he is, just like Hunters. But you need to out fucking play people to win with him, just like Hunters.
Jason Reyes
I pretty much grew out of Veeky Forums, though not the World of Darkness fandom. I just can't spare the time on a set schedule or deal with timewasters who want to spend an hour chatting rather than playing. (inb4 call them out or discuss it; fact is chitchat was brought up a few times, but it always creeps back in, and if they are good friends, it's not worth ruining friendships over games that they clearly aren't as invested in as you. I assume some people are in it more to talk to/see their friends with the actual gaming being a distant motivation, if it even factors in.)
I do like to okay with World of Darkness themes in vidya, however. I'm in the planning stage of a long playthrough of Fallout 3, New Vegas and Fallout 4 as a Demon (FO3 is heavy on themes of redemption and has a lot of Biblical references), Vampire (the city of sin), and Mage (it has some fun magic mods, a few quest mods about insane sorcerers, and an excuse to fuck around with all sorts of whacky stuff) respectively. Image related; I can't say I really love the retro/campy Demon look, especially as a war-form, but it IS Fallout, and you make do with what you have avalable. I'm also hoping AGONY releases soon, as it looks amazing, and the demo is pretty cool.
Since it isn't listed as a limitation can you make it so that the altered reality pocket follows you around? The magician alters the sacrificial flame so it cannot burn him and is safely kept inside his heart
Even better, what if you weaponize the reality pocket and have turn into a moving bubble that darts at the intended target and screws the victim up (without inflicting real damage)?
Bentley James
>inb4 magefags It's the Boston thing that get posted here from time to time. Our cabalmate just got a magically-induced heart attack, and only the fact that he got involved in some guy's Awakening' mystery play saved him. We suspect Seer involvement, and now we'll have to: 1. Get him out of there alive when he fulfills his role in the play. 2. Make sure that the random guy either Awakens or dies or both. 3. Get the artifact that might've been causing all the ruckus to the athenaeum. 4. Watch out for at least Life 3-capable potential Seer agent (who might've been casting through his anal mind slaves as well). Whatever happens the entire Consilium is going to get spooked hard.
On a personal note: Obrimos is always tired as fuck from reading two books inside his mental library connected to the Egregore at the same time and has a 5 dot mentor who gave him an equivalent of "save the city" mission. Mastigos is a yound lad who might just get his Sleeper ex in trouble by ignoring her, and there's that awakened criminal who knows his sympathetic name and has another one of his Sleeper friends hostage as well. Acanthus just got heart attacked. He's all about gambling, and he was preparing some leverage for his new year's eve game with Fae until in a fit of silliness (or inspiration) he decided to tell the awakening guy that he's some fairy tale character.
Ryan Barnes
Hunters Hunted
Henry Gonzalez
>Hunters Hunted
Glorious. Thank you.
Angel Taylor
The book of madness (pre-revised) is missing from the pastebin.
The revised one is also missing some pages at the end.
Eli Parker
Is there anything the Tremere snowflakes cannot do? WW shat the bed when they introduced Thaumaturgy
Ryan Reed
They shat the bed when they introduced Assamite.
Jordan Gonzalez
What's so impressive about the Assamites? The way I see it WW had the Tremere snowflakes overall do much more to warrant all the rage
Brayden Watson
Wrong. Tremere are wizards of the setting, and all in all not overly more impressive than the wizards of any other setting. Assamite are snowflakes. Their rituals and powers more broken, their traditions flaunt outright violation of vampire customs, they're powerful independent super-assassins/mages/warriors who are respected and pandered to instead of being exterminated like a threat that will not conform to most basic customs.
Lucas Carter
Atleast the Assamites are one of the original clans while the Tremere should have been hunted to extinction when they diableried Saulot and pissed off both Gangrel, Salubri and Tzimisce
Christopher Scott
A few threads back I saw someone suggesting something about the Fallen using their powers as if they were the Sphere from Mage instead of the standard linear abilities, or even turn the Lores into mini-Spheres of their own. Anyone got any ideas for this?
Michael Richardson
>Their rituals and powers more broken Name these so called broken powers you speak of
>"Tremere are wizards of the setting, and all in all not overly more impressive than the wizards of any other setting..." "...They're powerful independent super-assassins/mages/warriors who are respected and pandered to instead of being exterminated like a threat that will not conform to most basic customs. The Tremere came to be in 1022 when they usurped vampirism, in a few hundred years they have BTFO'd a coalition of Tzimisce, Nosferatu and Gangrel in the first Omen War; exterminated pratically the entire Salubri Clan, they have BTFO'd the Inconnu so hard they lost the way of Gehenna and were doomed for the next 1000 hundred years; they BTFO'd the Order of Hermes (and allied war-cabals of other Fellowships) down to 100 Awakened mages in the First Massassa War and in the Second Massasa War completely curbstomped them again; Councilor Meerlinda pitched the idea for a vampire league 100 years before the Camarilla was created/the Tremere were pivotal for the foundation and continued existence of Camarilla where they rose to the very top; it was a Tremere plot to spread paranoia through propaganda to make the Assamites look like mindless diablerizing savages - it worked. The Assamites were so scared of a Tremere-led Camarilla raid breaching the gates of Alamut and using the Heartsblood well for a sympathetic ritual that would kill Haqim and the rest of the Clan that they submited to the Thaumaturgical curse levied by the Pyramid.
All that in less than 471 years of vampiric existence, meanwhile what have the Assamites done in their +12000 years of existence as an institution? What's something notable they have done recently?
Ayden Bennett
Are you sure it wasn't Umbrood demon lords rather than the Fallen? They have access to Spheres (some even archspheres), charms & demonic investments
David Ortiz
>the Tremere should have been hunted to extinction Sure wasn't for a lack of trying
All in all the status as a clan is merely political, something the Tremere are masters of
As for usurping vampirism it certainly isn't unprecedented, the Nagaraja did it thousands of years before the Tremere, then you have the Ramanga, Bonsam, Kiasyd & Impundulu, other than the magically-created bloodlines like the Gargoyles and the Blood Brothers
Evan White
That's rich, coming from the clan of diablerizing thieves. At least for Tremere it was means to an end and not lifestyle and raison d'être.
Besides Tremere were both foresightful and cunning enough to evade just that, exterminate Salubri and turn Gangrel into their allies, create the Camarilla while letting Ventrue take the heat. Assamite reasoning for not being hunted to extinction is literally 'I'm above the rules durr'.
Compare their innate signature disciplines or means to lower generation for starters. Thaum is overpowered only when you get secondary paths, and even then each of those loses to the proper discipline of similar purpose, is a massive point sink besides, and Marduk's Throat hadn't even required any vitae before V20. Mind, I'm not arguing that a savvy Tremere could be extremely powerful.
All that's precisely why Tremere weren't exterminated wholesome despite having too many enemies, and even then they've lost by the end of it.
Noah Sanders
What is your most/least favourite Clan? I'm guessing Tremere would be the answer for both often enough.
No, it specifically had replacing their current powers as a goal rather than them having Spheres on top of their regular powers.
Nathaniel Gray
cappadocian for most toreador for least
Logan Thomas
Malkavian/Tremere
Carson Gutierrez
>edgelords or emofags? But user, emofags are edgelords
Lincoln Gutierrez
>Thaum is overpowered only when you get secondary paths, and even then each of those loses to the proper discipline of similar purpose, is a massive point sink besides Thaumaturgy's biggest strengths aren't the Paths but rather the rituals which incidentally cost no Experience points to learn, there are really only a few Paths that are worth learning
Let's take an Assamite Warrior for example, he has Celerity, Obfuscate and Quietus, with a single ritual of level 3 (Incorporeal Passage) the Tremere can no-sale all levels of Celerity and 1-5 Quietus; with another level 3 ritual he can also get Donning the Mask of Shadows and no one without Auspex 3 or heigher will be able to see him; Mirror of Second Sight (level 3 ritual) no-sales Obfuscate if you use it creatively
>Marduk's Throat hadn't even required any vitae before V20 True, but before it was a rare & hoarded level 6 ritual of Assamite sorcery, so only the crème de la crème would have access to it, not to mention only a small part of all Assamites are of the Sorcerer caste meanwhile pretty much all Tremere are Thaumaturges - and that the Tremere can just diablerize their victims (gaining half of their disciplines) and then use rituals to cloak their aura rather than needing to subject themselves to all that hassle; no to mention that stuff like V20 Pursuit of Apotheosis > V20 Marduk's Throat
Robert Adams
You can play as actual mortals who hunt splats. You don't really need to be imbued to hunt them.
Although I'd recommend having at least one imbued member so you can find splats. To avoid cell balancing problems, you could make the imbued character a sort of quest giver or something who can't fight for some reason (maybe a child or a paraplegic stpc)
David Flores
what kind of splats would you throw at them though? sedentary fledglings?
Dylan Morales
Favorite:Caitiff. Not sure if they count as a clan. Also Nagaraja and Gargoyles Least favorite: Giovanni and Cappadocians
Hunter Turner
Rituals are their own bag o' worms. Asses have plenty enough of their own. >Marduk's Throat(a common rite for lowering ass generation) is rare, but everyone has Blood Cloak, Bitter Rose, Apotheosis and TMR rites This meme pisses me off to no end. It's the other way, damn it. Were you my player, I would've responded with "Are you Tremere/TMR founding member or elder? Then no, you can't have any of those."
Samuel Cook
13th+ generation Kindred I guess, maybe the occasional wraith. They'd have many mortal servants to fight if they want to though (ghouls, thralls, etc)
Here's the situation: you want to play a Caitiff in a Vampire game but your Storyteller tells you that you can only pick from the eight "common" Disciplines (Animalism, Auspex, Celerity, Dominate, Fortitude, Obfuscate, Potence and Presence) both at creation and buying with XP without committing Diablerie. Which would you pick?
Michael Morales
Always funny seeing Tremerefag wank lore that has zero merit. I bet you thought the Hobbit was a masterpiece.
Kevin Harris
Dom, Cel, Obf. Fort, if I can pick fourth. Caitiff shouldn't get signature disciplines, anyway.
Cameron Rogers
Was meant to be these von Carsteins but I am so tired I clicked the wrong image. Countess is still great though.
Sorry darling but I was just stating facts (regardless of whether you like it or not they're true in the setting) against someone's baseless claims
Jace Collins
Tzimisce, more likely.
Chase Peterson
There are some Gangrel that can use Protean to transform into a swarm of insects and there are also some that can use Animalism to control insects, both through Merits
Kayden Morales
Presence over Dominate if my generation wasn't high enough Obfuscate is great for a Caitiff, he'd want to keep his identity concealed and avoid the spotlights; few people have counters for Obfuscate too Likely Celerity to use it to combo attacks with Obfuscate before your cover is blown
Obfuscate/Celerity combo is pretty dangerous, especially when you couple it with aggravated damage, one of the reasons City Gangrels are considerably strong
Aaron Reed
Right. You say that, whilst the majority of, well, everyone, treats it as the meme-representation of just how awfully biased and nonsensical White Wolf was in their heighday. I don't mean to be mean, I just find it odd that you're, quite literally, the only person to treat it as some glorious work of art. You remind me of the pro-Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand flock. Only they're not a single person.
Lucas Rivera
He's still loads better than Assamite fans, though.
Jackson Fisher
I still think they're Tzimisce. Wicked class, grotesque fixations, embracing their monstrosity, Vicissitude + Animalism.
Matthew Robinson
I agree Bitter Rose and Apotheosis are rare, but Marduk's Throat is even more rare because not only you need to be member of the Sorcerer caste of the Assamites (the are already a pretty small force) to have a chance to learn it, but in some editions it's even a level 6 ritual; by no means it's a common rite for lowering generation, it's also stated this ritual is one of the few ways the Sorcerers have to get leverage over the Clan's main body, so they'd do everything in their power to prevent it from falling in the wrong hands or becoming trivialized
As for Blood Cloak, it's only a rank 1 ritual that "can be easily performed by a neonate"; there's also the fact if you know a ritual you can develop a better version of such a ritual quite easily, and low level rituals don't take much time to make
Jacob Myers
Quite a lot of people like the Tremere and their past as outlandish as it may be, people who have a problem with it more often than not are buttblasted Tzimiscefags & Magefags
Brayden Cook
Which clan is the best lay? Don't day toreador.
Chase Jenkins
Kind of hard to be buttblasted over something we know wouldn't have worked in a realistic scenario. I'd say they're more miffed than anything. Leave them to hate the goat, not the canine.
Jacob Nelson
Tzimisce will make you into a full-body fleshcrafted pussy for their Vohzd
Lasombra domme will try to peg you with her shadow tentacles
Gangrel will let you hut her like she's on heat
Ventrue will be into boring financial domination
Setite will show you the time of your life, you'll get to snort cocaine on the tits of hookers and be involved in huge orgies but in the end you'll end mentally broken, addicted, enslaved and collared to its chair like a bitch
Chase Perry
oWOD is a work of fictional world where there exists supernatural creatures, there's no realism when magic is involved; underdogs sometimes win and that was the case with the Tremere
Jordan Perez
Nice excuse
Benjamin Edwards
Your misconception is the problem. Those three should be known not to every Caitiff diaberist pack but only to Tremere/TMR elders, and weren't used all that often by them despite being much easier to preform, perhaps, than many others. Marduk's Throat, on the other hand, was the prime ritual through which Assamites raised their generation for a long time, and thus while nominally within the viziers' grasp was far more known even to those outside the clan. Of course when it comes to diablerist packs bothering with rituals was usually altogether redundant before WW decided that every run of the mill mongrel gang should have access to the most secret rituals of the most secretive vampire societies.
Jason Parker
Is there any rule against having a passion that's just plain open ended? e.g. "protect my wife" vs "avenge my wife"