World of Darkness (New & Old) - General Discussion Thread

There are apostate mages and tribeless werewolves. But since the default state of a Wo D character is "the world hates you for living", going without the support and resources of a larger community is hard and it's more difficult to learn gifts/rotes by yourself.

As for where the non-Atlantean mages went, well, neither the Diamond Order nor the Seers would have "live-and-let-live" attitudes towards smaller, less organized groups of mages when competing with them for lore and resources. They probably got either wiped out or incorporated. I haven't read Magical Traditions, but there might be stuff in there about that.

Edit: There are also the Scelesti and Bale Hounds, but since those are the sorts of people who go "world-devouring evil, hooray!", they're not really good options for P Cs.

edited 17th Mar '12 2:52:03 PM by Neep

It doesn't make sense for the mages and werewolves to have their respective magical cold wars, because it's a holdover from Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension. It makes more sense for them to have the same political system that vampires and hunters do.

Going back to my "WOD: BESM" concept, Kyubey from Puella Magi is a textbook Achamoth. He's constantly duplicitous, has utterly nonsensical motives, and doesn't care about what happens to Earth as long as he fills his quota.

Well, since this is also a thread for the "classic world of darkness," I'd like to address that too.

Let's see... Werewolf: The Apocalypse. What sorts of problems does it have? Ah yes, the villains are utterly evil with no redeeming values.

How could the bad guys be portrayed in a morally ambiguous light? First, replace the backstory about the Weaver and the Wyrm going insane. Instead, the Weaver continues to force human progress, but this also produces dangerous toxic waste, which it gets rid of by dumping it elsewhere, because the Weaver is bad at devising long-term solutions. However, this harms the Wyld, causing it to withdraw to protect itself. The Wyrm realizes this is a problem, so it decides to create a new Wyld that thrives in the toxic waste the Weaver throws away. As the Wyrm, like the Weaver, is bad at devising long-term solutions, this creates a bigger problem. The Wyld and the Weaver cannot survive in the conditions of toxic waste, but the new Wyld requires it to survive, through no fault of its own. Both sides are not evil and both deserve to survive, but one must die so that the other can survive... bam! Instant moral conflict! A more in-depth explanation can be found here.

This also removes the inherent conflict between Vampires and Werewolves, as now the werewolves could see the vamps as the creations of the Wyrm, designed to cull humans, who have been "poisoned" by the Weaver, contributing to the growth of civilization without using ecologically-friendly means. Therefore, some would try to convert the wayward vampires back into the service of Balance, such as the Path of the Beast and its derivatives (Harmony, Feral Heart, etc).

Another option is that the Garou could be changed from worshipers of Gaia to viewing the conflict through the lens of human religions, and not always in a way analogous to the Triat. While Hindu werewolves would have a worldview based on the Trimurti, Muslim or Christian werewolves may see the Black Spirals and Banes as victims of Iblis or Satan in need of redemption.

edited 24th Mar '12 1:47:20 PM by Zenoseiya

Re: Genius vs. Mage: the most important difference is that their powers are orthogonal to each other.
Which is why the Spheres/Arcana system can't describe mad science adequatly. If I want to play Rotwang or Moreau, I need to get 2 Arcana at 6 - or just thank Kyle and get Automata 4. If I want to be a mix of both (like John Bowman) I'd need 3 Arcana at 7 - or, again, Automata 4 and decent Crafts, Medicine and Academics. Genius doesn't force me to grind through alchemy and prescience to build a time machine - and while it's true I need to grind through aeronautics, rocketry and FTL instead, those were assosiated with time travel as early as HG Wells'es Trope Maker.

Also, a big problem with WtA's cosmology is that the Triad's roles do not correspond to their portfolio - in particular, the faction promoting preservation from thoughtless destruction is associated with Growth and Change, while the (sub-)faction promoting adaptation to the changed world is associated with Preservation and Stasis. *

edited 23rd Mar '12 4:53:50 AM by Tambov333

Those criticisms of the Triat sound valid. That's just more reason for the alternative cosmology I found.

edited 24th Mar '12 11:23:41 AM by Zenoseiya

I propose we just straightforwardly drop Genius discussion for a while. It seems that, like Creation, this thread has been trapped in an infinite cycle in which everyone argues forever and never actually gets anywhere.

So...Leviathan The Tempest. Anyone got an opinion?

How do they compare to the Brineborn in War Against the Pure? That section was really creepy.

Looks interesting. I hadn't seen that one before. I thought it was "Scion! In the ocean!" by the beginning description on the trope page, but reading on, it definitely develops its own thing. I shall have to read further into this one, it looks very well thought out.

Say what you will about the fan supplements, but I have yet to find one that doesn't add something interesting to the whole Wo D in some way...

As someone who isn't much of a Werewolf fan (nothing personal, I just don't really 'get' them like I do, say, Mages or Prometheans), I have no idea.

^^^^ We can just ignore discussing the fansplats. I'm not even sure why @Zeno'd even bring them up on the first page. I mean I think (now that I recall the username) that you've had the discussion here on the WW forums and rpg.net already? @Zeno, were you trolling? o_o

Well, I guess this IS a "General Discussion Thread", so, whatever.

Leviathan: it does suffer a bit from different people starting it than the ones continuing it. But yeah, I liked it.

A big draw for me in fan supplements is the new core systems. For example, Genius' innovation was the "tying Power Point dots" system to limit your magical tools. Leviathan's big idea was to treat the ability trees as a single pool that you can "transform" towards based on your core power stat. So you've got this huge pool of experience points that would be normally used to buy powers that you instead translate into stuff like Size. Not a bad system I think, for a game about mortals that turn into demigods.

I do wish they gave more emphasis to the sea creature angle so that the X-splats would map better to myhical creatures, like mermaids or sirens and such. It's not like the splats are too unlike that in the end but I always like to make easy access points for imagination.

Now you say it, Doc Enkephalin is trolling, and poorly at that.
He thinks Mad Scientists should pour tons of XP into buying their devices as Merits.
He thinks Mad Scientists should be able to set fire by snapping their fingers.
He thinks Deal with the Devil is an integral part of Mad Science.
And then he bashes Kyle for making a Mad Scientist game that actually is suited for them mechanically.
I know only one instance where Hypocritical Humour was funnier.

edited 24th Mar '12 12:25:25 PM by Tambov333

Here's the opening fiction:

Lying on a bed made of barrel halves, Sally barely registered what was happening. Seven shadows stood around the makeshift bed, human bodies with wolfish faces, each whispering to the other about what to do with her. Sometimes, one would shift, and it would give her the opportunity to look outside and see the bloated carcasses of her kidnappers. The wind blew in, bringing the smell of death, that rank odor of bodies gone to rot far sooner than what’s natural.

Her kidnappers, even now how she recalled them couldn’t be right. Eyes like frog eggs. Veiny webbing between gray-flesh fingers. Gills glistening, working at the open air like hungry mouths. But these new monsters, they had destroyed every last one of them. They killed the whole town, from the looks of it — and worse, from the smell.

She felt something in her belly kick. She winced. Was it time?

Her guts twisted up inside her, as if little hands were wringing her intestines like a dishcloth, and she felt something give way. From her womb poured a hot rush of salt water, stinking of brine and fishbones. Something slid free from between her legs, plopping on the ground. Then, more of the same. Little plops, like fat globs of lard or jam hitting the floor.

“Fish eggs,” one of the wolf monsters said. Another’s lip curled in disgust as something else shook free from her body. This one was bigger. This was the baby, and she felt it wrenching itself free, forcing its own birth with slick and insistent hands.

It came loose and hit the floor with a thud. Squalling (wet screams, horrible in a way but still the sound of a baby) followed.

“What do we do?” the one wolf said to the other, and Sally didn’t want to hear the answer, she just thought that maybe she could have and hold her baby, no matter what it looked like.

“Take it outside,” another wolf said, sighing. “Dash it against the rocks, and burn it with the others. We’re done here.”

edited 24th Mar '12 1:55:33 PM by Zenoseiya

That's...not pleasant.

This is pretty much typical of opening fiction.

General discussion, eh? Well, here's a question: since Matter can be used to create any biological substances that aren't technically "alive", can it be used to create pharmaceutical drugs, proteins, prions, viruses, retroviruses, and viroids? When you think about it, Matter is pretty much a way to become the richest person on the planet, without turning lead into gold.

I'm pretty sure using magic to get out of working for a living constitutes an act of hubris. But I can't quite remember the Wisdom chart and I've been wrong before.

Anybody ever do a big Alternate Universe for the World of Darkness? You know, something like Brighthammer 40k, but for Wo D. It'd be... kind of wonderful, if you think about it.

So...the World of Lightness?

I approve.

Can you imagine the hilarity? Keep all the traditional horror tropes, but make things all warm and gooey. It'd be... possibly the best thing ever. :D

And you could even do the Brighthammer goofy/serious split. Goofy is, of course, my specialty, but even the serious could be done awesomely. Imagine a Wo D game where the vampire elders have everyone's best interests at heart- which involves trying to run herd on all the things trying to eat the world. Vampire heroes, in a sense, if of the perpetually overworked and "god why can't you guys stop touching the abyssal horrors" kind. And that's just one gameline!

And of course the Wyrd would be the Werewolf bad guy. I love shit like this. IT'S OPPOSITE DAY

@Zeno

I think prions and viruses would still fall under Life. Even if they aren't biologically organisms, they're still conceptually tied to living stuff. Concept seems to carry more weight than science (i.e. Death being used to create and manipulate shadows). Pharmaceuticals are mostly synthesized rather than being extracts, and so would be more Matter than Life.

Hmm. Since Transmute Matter and Create Matter both have prolonged durations rather than lasting, what happens what that cocaine you sell somebody turns back into, I dunno, your old T-shirt? Or something altogether nastier, if you don't like them.

Hilarity Ensues, I presume.

"Cause of death?"

"He shat a kitten. Literally crapped out a live tiger cub. It wasn't pretty."

Can you imagine being that coroner?

" I... I think he died from shitting a tiger. I... I think I need to sit down."

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise this was the FATAL discussion thread.

Surprise! :D

[this analogy redacted by order of the Technocratic Union]