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

Understandable but the constant freaking out over the mere use of the word Wendigo is insane. Now we're seeing some people in official WW Discords outright censor the word with asterisks.

I fucking hate when people do that. It's Wendigo and NOT W*nd*g* or whatever. As an actual Shawnee, I give all non-indigenous folks full permission to use that name in any context you want. If anyone from the WW Discord is reading this, you have full permission from me to engage in "cultural appropriation"

Trust your Indian on this, the Shawnee people do not give a shit about whether or not you use the names Wendigo or Manitou in your creative works. If anything, I find the self-censoring of the word from white people far more offensive and insulting.

They claim that they want to respect my culture and yet they censor, erase, and suppress it instead? They treat a mythical creature from our folklore as some dark taboo to avoid even saying the mere name of, like it's Voldemort or some sort of Lovecraftian eldritch horror.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Feb 13th 2024 at 10:56:46 AM

Chicago by Night 5th Edition and Cults of the Blood Gods are the two greatest VTM supplements ever made.

LA By Night, New York by Night, and Seattle by Night are fantastic.

So is Coteries and Shadows.

So are the Choice of One games.

So....I don't really think anyone can take the "Everything is V5 sucks" because CBN 5 E and COTBG itself justifies their existence and with their supplements are like 10 books.

I mean name taboo exist, think jesus taboo(we even have a trope for it) specially in western show, you can show luficer, you can show the angels, even G god can be show....but hardly Jesus, is one of the few areas you have to treat carefull because people(at least anglo cristians) get mad, it go so far in US you will hardly see someone callig his son jesus, while here in latin america is very comon(well, you cant throw a rock in middle east without probably hitting some mohadmmed or variation of it).

I mean for what I see it was a native who sugest the change, I dont mind then if it wasn the fact the names seens kind of bland. Stolen moons sound better as name for slain or stolen werewolf children, no for a tribe of people using horrific rituals to craft inself as werewolf, call me edgy but damn this damn game it is.

And about tecnocracy...yeah, I think a lot of gamer they saw it as sort of SCP fundation analoge, the tecnocracy have the means and often the will to fight back the supernatural and plenty of it SUCKS. like using a kill sat against Ravanos antidiluvian? yeah.

Is probably why tecnocracy it seen as grey faction, the traditions dosent seen to have anything to offer against depredation of black spirals, vampires, umbral incursions and quite frankly I can see the game being better as fight of diferent mages making the world worst because they belive their only choice it was right one.

Yeah, I think it was the biggest mistake of the gameline to have the Galactic Empire of Mage Equivalent destroy Ravnos.

It was like the vampires killing Baba Yaga instead of werewolves.

Crossover characters shouldn't be doing this.

What's next, Changeling knights slay Ur-Shulgi?

(cautiously raises hand) That last one sounds really cool, actually.

That said, yeah, the gamelines are sufficiently silo'd off from each other playerbase-wise that it'd feel really crappy to have a major NPC to your favorite (or active chronicle) removed in some other crossover event. I suppose the compromise position, is it'd be fun if there were the equivalent of a "Time of Judgement" crossover book with a cross gameline gauntlet of NPC's and challenges for PC's of any splat could run through. Kind of like the vampire ones to fetch Caine's blood and the reincarnated Saulot.

I mean, that happen, Vasilisa(heavly imply to be a nictuku) was the one who actually kill her even when werewolf were doing the heavy lifting.

Considered by many to be the worst published adventure of all time.

Especially as it ends with all Nosferatu characters being killed.

Sure but I havent see a complain about that particular moment since it bring a huge oh shit with confirmation that...yeah, nictuku are actually 100% real and they just kill baba yaga. Shame they dont appear anymore but it is what it is.

Also right now there is a discussion in the religion thread about the topic of native beliefs in fact

Yeah but what's the point of the Nictuku anyway if they can't be killed by players or fought in any way?

And don't have any personality?

Unlike Baba Yaga who has loads.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 17th 2024 at 11:13:40 AM

Mechanically in V20 they made Nictuku (now spelled w/ a k instead of a c) playable and gave them 2 Clan Weaknesses: the 1st is that human blood is only 1/3 nourishing but vampire blood gives the normal 1/1 Vitae so they're forced to be diablerists and the 2nd is that as the years pass they become uglier yet stronger (every 100 years swap 1 dot in Appearance for 1 dot in any Physical Attribute) and their Clan Disciplines are Auspex, Celerity and Potence. In the new lore they tend to Embrace attractive youths and tend to be reclusive due to their 1st weakness but as to why they have a blood feud w/ Nosferatu, they blame them for some unforgivable sin that they themselves can't remember and especially in modern nights they Niktuku NPCs tend to suffer as walking Mystery Boxes as nobody in their right mind would want to party up w/ an open diablerist, even other diablerists.

Edited by KRider on Feb 18th 2024 at 2:09:48 AM

Fuck no.

IMHO, LA By Night sucks and so does NY By Night.

Also, I think Coteries of Shadow, Cults of the Blood Gods and CBN 5e were all just overrated dreck and V5 was doomed from the very moment that shitty corebook came out.

I get that you really are dedicated to V5 and you also pushed for Chicago 5E in particular to the point of working on the book itself, but V5 was bad from the start and any of the "good" V5 supplements were just polishing a turd. You did your best but fundamentally, there's only so much you can do when the foundation material itself is so utterly shit.

Also, I really HATE LA By Night. Like even more than I hate Critical Role.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Feb 18th 2024 at 11:56:58 AM

I have no dog in this argument (I'm strictly a CofD person) — but either way I don't understand what makes those VtM 5e books awesome or horrible, and evidently opinions are split on the matter. Help a guy out?

Edited by desdendelle on Feb 18th 2024 at 6:57:40 PM

V5 made a lot of changes to both the rules and settings as well as the lore compared to how prior editions w/c only made small changes and were still compatible w/ each other. V5 also took some mechanics from Vampire the Requiem, most specifically Blood Potency w/c didn't exist in prior VtM editions and now coexists in V5 along w/ Generation.

Lorewise, a lot have been changed. Every government spy agency now knows about vampires so there's now a global anti-vampire task force called Second Inquisition (no connection to the Technocracy as M5 doesn't yet exist). Vast majority of older Gen vampires are compelled to travel to the Middle East to wage war w/ the Antediluvians I think and the Sabbat went too, leaving the vampire power vacuum as Anarchs vs Camarilla. There were also some reshuffling of w/c Clan is predominantly aligned w/ w/c of the 2 remaining factions. Also every vampire clan w/c have a necromancy/death-themed Discipline combined together under a new Clan named Hecata.

And these are not counting the various landmines Paradox White Wolf stepped on during advertising V5 as well as during publication, like accusations of alt right sympathies from the book writers (based on pretty thin evidence) and using the real-life persecution of LGBT people in Russia-controlled Chechnya as a backdrop to say vampires were behind said persecution (previously old White Wolf took great pains not to attribute atrocities to supernaturals and said atrocities like the Holocaust are 100% humanity's fault).

W/c begs the question, what part of V5 is the problem? The changes to the lore? Or the very new and different game mechanics?

Edited by KRider on Feb 18th 2024 at 4:41:45 AM

Both

I hate the lore and setting changes far more, but I don't care for the mechanics either. If I want Requiem 2e, I'll play Requiem 2e. And I say this as someone who actually likes COFD 1e/NWOD

The setting and lore changes are far more egregious of an issue for me. I don't care for much of the later Revised metaplot either, mind you. Which is why I like the metaplot-neutral take that V20 generally went with up until Beckett's Jyhad Diary came out.

Edited by NinjaGoth on Feb 18th 2024 at 11:55:32 AM

A lot of people really liked V20, which is now 4th Edition, which is basically Revised but all of the lore compiled together in one place. They were annoyed when Paradox Interactive took V5 away from the people who produced V20 AKA Onyx Path Publishing.

V5 has also been dogged with controversies but the primary reason people don't like it are the fact it is much street level, Elder Powers are removed, the Sabbat are unplayable, Anarchs vs. Camarilla, and it's a very "bad to basics" 1st Edition style approach.

(I worked on Let the Streets Run Red, which is a supplement for Chicago by Night)

I was a big V20 fan but really enjoyed their V5 stuff and there was a not inconsiderable number of third party, OPP V5 stuff.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 18th 2024 at 8:14:27 AM

Personally the 20th Anniversary Editions still remain my favorite in WOD, not counting NWOD/COD bec that's something entirely different, but aside from W5, I don't mind the changes in V5. While my old game group is no more since we're too old, too busy and too scattered, V5's mechanics are still workable and lowering the power level to street level isn't that big of a dealbreaker. It's Vampire the Masquerade after all, not Demon the Fallen.

The whole Paradox era has been a clusterfuck of mistakes and controversies. They gave initial control to an edgelord who went and hired a developer notorious for running harassment campaigns against other writers including one which forced a White Wolf/Onyx Path writer to move to Japan, and then went and publicly praised his character and until massive backlash from everyone forced the, to cut ties. Then there was him forcing Onyx Path to make chances to their W20 books to make the Garou transphobic. Then there were all the unfortunate implications in the initial books including making light of ongoing genocide, suicide, etc. Then they fired the edgelord and outsourced to Mophidious who made one supplement so poorly written Paradox cut ties with them.

But for as much as a think V5 was a step down in every way at least it was recognisable as a continuation. As a Hunter the Reckoning fan they skinned my favourite, draped it over the lovechild of Hunter the Vigil and Hunters Hunted and passed it off for the name brand recognition. Or W5 where they stripped every Tribes identity away, removed kinfolk as a concept, turned the Get into nazis, and that’s on top of the allegations of racism experienced by one of the initial writers. And that was after the initial plan for W5 where the Garou Nation was trying to bring back culling the human race.

So yeah, the only upside to Paradox is they got lucky and partnered with a few talented developers who made some good video games and board games.

Is the developer you're referring to the same developer behind Beast the Primordial?

No, completely unrelated.

Ok. Didn't even knew there was a H5.

H5 is really good but naming it the Reckoning confused a bunch of people?

Can we name this guy so I can do more research?

Zac Sabbath aka Zack Smith, indie TTRPG writer. Did 'We Eat Blood' for Nu White Wolf. His been banned for RPG.net, the RPG redrit and several similar spaces. He stuck his fans on the developer for Changling the Lost who had to move twice because of it, he's been accused by four women of assaulting them, and he's currently suing his ex girlfriend for slander because she accused him of assaulting her.

Reading up on the guy and looks like he got hired by Paradox and WOTC bec he won some awards at the ENnie awards but the sexual assault allegations resulted in WOTC and Paradox cutting ties w/ him. And he's also a porn actor.

Thanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zak_Smith

The specific games of his that won ENnie Awards were:

A Red and Pleasant Land (gold for best setting & writing and silver for best adventure & product of the year)

Maze of the Blue Medusa (gold for best electronic book, silver for best cartography & writing)

Frostbitten & Mutilated (gold for best monster/adversary, silver for best interior art & setting & writing)

He also worked on Vornheim w/c won a Diehard GameFAN award for best campaign setting

Haven't read any of these RPG books. Have any of you read these games?