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Post by Stu Venable on May 14, 2013 12:34:55 GMT -8
Having heard good things about it over the years, I've picked up World of Darkness and started reading.
It's stunning as I'm reading Traveller 5 concurrently with WoD, and the difference in organization and the presentation of game mechanics is stunning.
After reading only a few pages in the White Wolf title, I feel comfortable I could competently play in a game, and could as a GM at least run a simple combat.
Contrast how may pages I read in Traveller 5, and I still don't know how damage works.
Anyway, I'm reading it because I have an idea for a short horror/mystery game that I'll run either concurrently with the L5R game or after that game concludes.
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Post by The Northman on May 14, 2013 13:14:37 GMT -8
White Wolf has always put out a really solid product. I miss when the various versions of the game were in our group's rotation.
The stock WoD core book and setting were the best thing to come out of the change in editions.
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
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Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
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Post by fredrix on May 14, 2013 13:27:37 GMT -8
I didn't have much time for Vampire: the gathering - because I wasn't a teenager when it came out and wasn't therefore into all that romantic vampire shit. (Though a friend did try to get me to join a Masquerade LARP, for which I created a fabulous character, Jedekiah Shine, who was a patron for pretty much every bit of erotica or pornography for the last three hundred years... But I digress)
When Mage the Ascension came out I finally managed to "get" world of Darkness. Here at last was a game about walking on the edge, not just a decent I to hell. But I found factions slightly stereotypical, in the end opting for the Akashic brotherhood...
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Post by The Northman on May 14, 2013 13:34:17 GMT -8
If you have a chance to read the actual vampire books, you'll find they very much emphasize the horrific side of vampirism, and while there's a certain element of seduction and sex that goes along with that, there's nothing 'nice,' about their presentation of the material. The entire game is based on the idea that no matter how hard you try to maintain your humanity, the nature of the beast and your terrible hunger are going to turn you into a monster. Even the original subtitle for the game was "A Roleplaying game of personal horror."
Of course very few people actually played that way, but it's not the game's fault.
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on May 14, 2013 14:23:08 GMT -8
If you have a chance to read the actual vampire books, you'll find they very much emphasize the horrific side of vampirism, and while there's a certain element of seduction and sex that goes along with that, there's nothing 'nice,' about their presentation of the material. The entire game is based on the idea that no matter how hard you try to maintain your humanity, the nature of the beast and your terrible hunger are going to turn you into a monster. Even the original subtitle for the game was "A Roleplaying game of personal horror." Of course very people actually played that way, but it's not the game's fault. THIS! It's the same thing as "we wanna be evil characters!" I very rarely have much of a desire to plumb the depths of depravity of what a truly EVIL persona is capable. All the evil campaigns I've seen we're mostly ha ha lampoon fears that were like a Paranoia game...funny but not much substance. My encounters with many vampire games often saw players getting ALL of the POWER with none of the price.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on May 18, 2013 2:00:59 GMT -8
I love new World of Darkness. Good choice on picking it up, Stu. I think I've mentioned this before, but in addition to the great organization of each book individually, they did something incredibly smart with the entire line: it is, essentially, modular.
The core World of Darkness book has all the rules for running the game, and rules for making mortal characters with no special powers. This allows you to play Supernatural or X-Files type games where the PCs are monster hunters or paranormal investigators. There's a great section on Ghosts towards the back so your hunters have something to go up against. My group has even use the core nWoD rules to play a completely mundane 1960's hard boiled detective game. The gritty nature of damage and the whole Morality scale is great for "grey" settings like that.
From there, each of the "supernatural race" books use the core nWoD mechanics and build on, tweaks, or otherwise modifies those basic rules. Each book says "Build your mortal character using the core book, then we'll add a few new steps at the end to turn them into a vampire, a werewolf, a mage, or a whatever". In my opinion, this was a brilliant idea. If you know how to run basic nWoD, then you already know how to run Vampire: the Requiem, Mage: the Awakening, Werewolf: the Forsaken, Promethean: the Created, Changeling: the Lost, Hunter: the Vigil, Geist: the Sin-Eaters, and Mummy: the Curse. Sure, a few things will be different or new, but because you already know the core mechanics, learning those new "racial" mechanics will be easy.
And because everything is built from those core rules, all those splat books work together almost seamlessly. It's really not recommenced, but if you wanted to, you could have a party made up of a mortal, a vampire, a werewolf, a mage, a promethean, a changeling, a hunter, a sin-eater, and a mummy. It would be totally nuts, but the system could handle it.
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Post by ericfromnj on May 20, 2013 14:00:26 GMT -8
I love that they have a book with a section for creating your own eldritch horrors...
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Post by Stu Venable on May 21, 2013 14:05:22 GMT -8
Which book is that?
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Post by The Northman on May 22, 2013 10:24:15 GMT -8
Antagonists outlines creation rules for most..er...antagonists. Not sure if there was a separate book put out, but I know that one goes heavily into cults.
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Post by ericfromnj on May 22, 2013 19:41:17 GMT -8
It was the paranormal/psychic book....SECOND SIGHT. That's it, Stu.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2013 2:19:31 GMT -8
I have 4 shelves in my collection assigned to the New World of Darkness books. They are still a great read, but I haven't ran a game for 3 years or so in the system.
The organisation of the books, the consistency of the world and the general layout make them some of the better books out there.
The only flaw I have found is that the indexes in some of the books are out by a hundred page (the index said pg176 but it was 276 or something), which makes me think it was a typo.
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Post by ironnikki on May 23, 2013 12:16:37 GMT -8
Glad to hear that you're enjoying the book so far, Stu. I was also impressed with how easy it is for a newcomer to pick up the game. For what its worth, the nWoD books I've been able to get my hands on are some of the most interesting RPG books to read that I own. I've occasionally pored over the splat books just because the lore is so interesting. For what you're describing, I don't think that you'll need anything other than the core book, but if you do think about expanding your Chronicle, I'd highly recommend Changeling: the Lost. That's my favorite splat to play in, and an excellent read.
I'm looking forward to hearing your nWoD game on the AP!
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Post by muntjack on May 27, 2013 3:37:57 GMT -8
Great book and system! We started playing WoD during our early roleplaying days, so the system has a close place in our hearts. We don't play it a lot, but it's something we toss into the rotation from time to time. I've run oWoD twice at recent cons over the last few years. It's a very con friendly game in my opinion.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2013 10:02:45 GMT -8
I have played in a WoD mortals campaign for three years or so and it is easily the favorite campaign I have every played. I am going to run Hunter for the first time in June and I am using the God Machine rules update and I am very excited about it.
My biggest gripe with WoD is that it is virtually impossible to find out how to actually create a monster. I own the WoD Bluebook, Hunter, Shapeshifters, Hunter Recognition Guide (which is all fluff and no crunch...and the pdf is virtually impossible to use because of the multitude of layers) and Antagonists. While there are examples all over the place in most of those books what I REALLY need is a monster template I can modify for my own uses.
...or a bestiary, but after trolling the White Wolf boards apparently that will never happen...
Any veteran Storytellers that can throw me a bone?
(Sorry if I just hijacked the thread.)
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2013 0:32:48 GMT -8
coldinminneapolis, I had the same problem when I was running a nWoD game.
The best advice I can give is just wing it, what I mean is: 1. Give the monster the abilities that you want it to have 2. Give the monster a vivid description 3. Keep the stats vague.
When the players get around to fighting it (either in Social / Mental / Physical combat), figure out if you want the contest to be easy / hard / omg / your-fighting-a-god then choose the appropriate stat number. It takes a little bit of confidence in your GMing skills to do this , but after a few mistakes I managed to get it to the point where most of my monster descriptions were vague and more just reminders to me to what I wanted the fight to be like.
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