I like the premise of World of Darkness where a paranormal underworld hides vampires, werewolves and other monsters and the players take on the roles of said monsters, but I don't particularly like the background or the restrictive and idiosyncratic rules.
Are there are any alternatives or competitors to that game?
Well there's both the d20 version and the GURPS version if it's the rules standing in your way.
If GURPS is your thing GURPS Horror is totally awesome in every way. In fact I'd reccommend picking it up no matter what you end up with.
I can think of a few:
1. Dresden Files - well known licence, popular system if a little crunchy - http://www.evilhat.com/home/dresden-files-rpg/
2. Marchland - focusses more on ghost, fae and mages, but very simple rules - http://www.hearthstonegames.com/
3. Urban Shadows - close to WoD in theme and covers most of the basis, modern ruleset which is light but not traditional - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1287928832/urban-shadows-rpg
4. Monte Cook's World of Darkness - uses D20 ruleset, postpocalyptic vibe, but surprisingly good with lots of "official" nods to WoD - http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/50229/Monte-Cooks-World-of-Darkness
Oh there are also the older Buffy and Angel games. A bit more lighthearted and campy but could be used to run a more serious game.
For shits and giggles, there's also Everlasting, which is a WoD heartbreaker RPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?manufacturers_id=46
Don't forget Eden Studios' Witchcraft and (for a more gonzo and apocalyptic version of the same setting) Armageddon.
There's also Frank Trollman's WoD heartbreaker, whose name escapes me.
There's Nightlife
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightlife_%28role-playing_game%29
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785749I like the premise of World of Darkness where a paranormal underworld hides vampires, werewolves and other monsters and the players take on the roles of said monsters, but I don't particularly like the background or the restrictive and idiosyncratic rules.
Are there are any alternatives or competitors to that game?
what is it that bothers you?
When we played WoD we used the alternate paths , so humanity wasn't your only option, we dumped the angst and went to superhero monster mode but we used the masquerade, princes, the Sabat etc as that stuff makes a pretty playable game space.
If you look at most of the urban horror genre from Blade to Twilight to Dresden to True Blood they have a similar set of setting assumptions.
i. Mosters are amongst us
ii. They are hidden from mortal eyes
iii. There is a governing body of some sort that ensures stuff stays hidden and enforces the rules
iv. there are lots of politicking and rivalries
What is it that puts you off the game? Setting? mechanics?
Not to be shameless, but I am working on my Struggle of the Moirai system which can have multiple settings. Even something similar to World of Darkness (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=30564).
Edit: No seriously I can use some play testers for the play by post game to see how things work out.
GURPS Cabal, by Kenneth Hite, seems like another good take on the subject. Play as monster hunters or as the monsters. I think it's a bit inspired by WOD, but also by Clive Barker's Nightbreed and maybe the Nightwatch/Daywatch books by Sergei Lukyanenko.
Nowadays I'd probably translate Cabal onto Call of Cthulhu... which I've run with PCs as creepy cultists no problem... or just straight up try to run a Nightwatch game, since that setting mixes all the monster types into one big mess of politics and conspiracies and competing factions.
NIGHTBANE
Nightbane by CJ Carella is Palladium's answer to WoD. It's much more about the Monsters as Superheroes and its a tremendously fun setting. The Chargen was quite interesting - mostly random - but the end results were cool combos of strange, monstrous and very dangerous.
Order Page
https://palladium-store.com/1001/product/730-Nightbane-Role-Playing-Game.html
Wikipedia Entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightbane
Quote from: JeremyR;785759There's Nightlife
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightlife_%28role-playing_game%29
Yeah, if we cleaned up Nightlife a little bit that would be a good alternative.
JG
On the Vampire side there's Night's Black Agents, which uses the same GUMSHOE system as Trail of Cthulhu.
I always thought Unknown Armies did the postmodern magic thing far better than Mage ever did.
You can have a look at Kult (but maybe it has become hard to find and the system is a bit tedious) or WitchCraft by C.J CARELLA, the author of Nightbane, which is also worth reading, unless tou are allergic to random character creation and/or the Palladium system (the game itself is only made 6 books, one of which has been disavowed by Palladium Publishing and I thin you can find the 4 older books at a faire price in second hand market).
Quote from: Skywalker;785753I can think of a few:
1. Dresden Files - well known licence, popular system if a little crunchy - http://www.evilhat.com/home/dresden-files-rpg/
Played it, wasn't impressed really. For my money it cleaves far too closely to the books; Wizards are better than everyone else (because magic Can Do Anything) so unless you're playing one, be prepared to be a sidekick. I was left feeling the Dresdenverse works better for a series of novels about a wizard than RPGing.
Quote from: Piestrio;785754Oh there are also the older Buffy and Angel games. A bit more lighthearted and campy but could be used to run a more serious game.
Angel also has demon creation rules which are basically a toolkit for making any sort of "being with power", which is neat. And rules for organisations.
Quote from: yabaziou;785796the game itself is only made 6 books, one of which has been disavowed by Palladium Publishing
That I didn't know! Which one?
Quote from: yabaziou;785796You can have a look at Kult (but maybe it has become hard to find and the system is a bit tedious) or WitchCraft by C.J CARELLA, the author beyond Nightbane, which is also worth reading, unless tou are allergic to random character creation and/or the Palladium system (the game itself is only made 6 books, one of which has been disavowed by Palladium Publishing and I thin you can find the 4 older books at a faire price in second hand market).
Which one was disavowed and why?
Cyberpunk 2020 with the Night's Edge expansion supplement was the best.
Chaosium's Nephilim has its fans, though its not so heavy on the vampires and werewolves.
More options...
Savage Worlds has a horror expansion.
Another Palladium option is Beyond the Supernatural. Or RIFTS, even, depending on how much gonzo breaks your suspension of disbelief.
As for 'monsters behind the veil' there's always Cthulu.
Or, going the other way, the MtG Bloodlines game on Steam can probably sell you on the mythos. With the mods that update it to modern graphics anyway.
Quote from: LibraryLass;785776On the Vampire side there's Night's Black Agents, which uses the same GUMSHOE system as Trail of Cthulhu.
The author is quite explicit in his opinions on "playing the vampire" games, though (Although it would be pretty easily hackable).
Quote from: Warthur;785806Which one was disavowed and why?
@Warthur and the Butcher : It is Shadows of Light, credited to Jason Vey. It is the 5th book in the Nightbane RPG line and it is not avalaible through the Palladium Store website : https://palladium-store.com/1001/category/Nightbane.html
As the reason why, I don't know precisely but I think creative differences/bad public reception of the book which is very different from the 4 other books.
Since I don't remember it well, I will not speculate futher about it.
Quote from: Ladybird;785814The author is quite explicit in his opinions on "playing the vampire" games, though (Although it would be pretty easily hackable).
When was this? I thought Ken Hite wrote for Vampire: the Masquerade once upon a time...
Quote from: Warthur;785833When was this? I thought Ken Hite wrote for Vampire: the Masquerade once upon a time...
According to what I read on the internet, Kenneth Kite has freelanced in the following books for WW :
Bygone Bestiary (oWod) ;
Caïnite Heresy (VtDa) ;
Chicago (VtR) ;
Chicago Workings (VtR) ;
Crusade Lore (MtSC) ;
Guide to the Camarilla (VtM) ;
Mage the Sorcerers Crusade (MtSC) ;
Requiem for Rome (VtR) ;
Secrets of the Ruined Temple (MtAw).
So, yes, Kenneth Hite has written for VtM.
Yeah, I checked RPG.net's index to check on what stuff he's published (which is quite useful for that).
Googling around I've still not found any sources on him slamming RPGs where you play the vampires so hopefully Ladybird will be able to clarify.
Quote from: jibbajibba;785762what is it that bothers you?
When we played WoD we used the alternate paths , so humanity wasn't your only option, we dumped the angst and went to superhero monster mode but we used the masquerade, princes, the Sabat etc as that stuff makes a pretty playable game space.
If you look at most of the urban horror genre from Blade to Twilight to Dresden to True Blood they have a similar set of setting assumptions.
i. Mosters are amongst us
ii. They are hidden from mortal eyes
iii. There is a governing body of some sort that ensures stuff stays hidden and enforces the rules
iv. there are lots of politicking and rivalries
What is it that puts you off the game? Setting? mechanics?
As far as setting goes, I take issue with the supernatural underworld being ruled by a global conspiracy. The logistics involved make it impossible to maintain. Secondly, the different monster classes aren't integrated socially. If there were several different types of supernatural monster living in secret, I would expect that a supernatural underworld where they all interact would form. Thirdly, the monster classes have very specific backgrounds out of the box that prevent many character concepts. For example, out of the box werewolves always run in families and you can't perform a ritual to become one or pass on the condition.
As far as rules go, the system in World of Darkness is very clunky and the character classes each use completely different rules for adjudicating supernatural powers and the powers themselves are fairly restricted. Vampires out of the box are generally unable to levitate, crawl up walls, or teleport through doors like they can in plenty of movies. Powers are structured into linear paths that require you to buy filler powers before you can get the ones you actually want. There are pages and pages of laundry lists of powers because of the clunky rules.
I'm loosely familiar with Everlasting, Nephilim, Nightbane, Nightlife, Witchcraft, Immortal: The Invisible War, and Other Court Game's Factions RPG, but most don't seem to be supported anymore and use clunky 90s rules (in some cases ripped-off from World of Darkness). A lot of them have clear improvements (Everlasting has an integrated magical underworld and universal powers, Witchcraft has more flexible monster classes, etc), but the downside is that they aren't as popular or supported as World of Darkness despite these improvements.
Quote from: Kiero;785798I was left feeling the Dresdenverse works better for a series of novels about a wizard than RPGing.
I find that ironic. As quite a fan of the supernatural detective genre, one of the things that turned me off of the Dresden Files books was the very RPG-ish nature of the supernatural beings in the setting.
QuoteAngel also has demon creation rules which are basically a toolkit for making any sort of "being with power", which is neat. And rules for organisations.
We did something similar back in the day, playing in the world of Clive Barker's Cabal post-Midian using the Freak Legion book for oWoD.
Quote from: Warthur;785850Googling around I've still not found any sources on him slamming RPGs where you play the vampires so hopefully Ladybird will be able to clarify.
Night's Black Agents, page 126.
Quote from: Ken HiteVampire Agents
“I want to play the good vampire.” If it were up to me, nobody would ever get to play the good vampire ever again in any medium. It is, sadly, not up to me.
As written, vampires are, obviously, much more powerful and versatile than human agents with the same fund of points. Further, the vampire powers are not balanced against each other, because in Night’s Black Agents,vampires are intended to be scary enemies rather than game-mechanical constructs.
If a player absolutely insists on playing a vampire agent, and you as Director have made the foolhardy decision to contravene my whim on the topic, make sure he suffers all applicable vampire weaknesses and an incurable Addictive Disorder (p. 84) for human blood. In addition, player vampires draw special attention from enemy vampires; this may affect their Difficulty in contests of Surveillance, for example, if vampires can always spot their own in a crowd. Humans or player-character vampires in general must buy each vampire power as a separate ability with their fund of General ability points; rather than power them all with Aberrance, they must use the pool for the specific ability to power it. This especially includes each separate mental attack; the Director should also break, e.g., Mesmerism down into its component abilities: Entrance, Deepen Slumber, Command, Sway Emotions. Treat such powers as Paramormal abilities (see p. 196)
In addition, “being a vampire” (with whatever standard benefits and free powers that conveys in terms of armor, strength, talons, etc.) costs 20 build points at character creation. Player characters who get vampirized during the course of the campaign but do not fall completely under their sire’s sway (thus becoming NPCs) must spend those points from experience as they slowly turn. They may shift points from their existing abilities to new vampiric power abilities at the Director’s discretion (one new ability per session, for example). The Director can always rule any given vampire powers off limits to agents, even if enemy vampires have them.
Another option is to allow player character Renfields (see p. 152). This is far less unbalancing, because the package of specific abilities and bonuses falls more closely under the Director’s control.
However it works, though, the Director should remember that the purpose of the game is horror and mystery: being — or being on the same team as — a vampire should expose players to vastly higher levels of both.
{Burn-mode games} Beginning as or becoming a vampire almost certainly removes a Symbol as a Source of Stability, and may make true Solace impossible as well.
{Burn-mode games} Every use of vampiric powers also requires a 4-point Stability test to embrace one’s essential inhumanity.
{Mirror-mode games} Human agents cannot give Trust to vampire or Renfield agents.
Note that because he is a quality author not a ranting maniac, he tells you how much he hates "good" vampires, then gives you rules for them anyway.
(In practice, doing a WoD-esque vamp hack for Gumshoe wouldn't be too difficult.)
Even when he is unhappy about something, Mr Hite is able to stay classy !
I did the same thing - i.e. said "don't play vampire characters" - in Blood Games, but gave all the information for creating one. In Blood Games, there can be no 'good' vampires. They can only be, at best, not completely evil and willing for their own reasons to work with humans. They can never be trusted, because they will kill without a care if it suits their purposes, and their purposes are fickle.
I'll 2nd GURPS Horror - while GURPS is crunch heavy the Horror supplement is superb, and playing monsters is no problem.
Quote from: yabaziou;785846According to what I read on the internet, Kenneth Kite has freelanced in the following books for WW :
Bygone Bestiary (oWod) ;
Caïnite Heresy (VtDa) ;
Chicago (VtR) ;
Chicago Workings (VtR) ;
Crusade Lore (MtSC) ;
Guide to the Camarilla (VtM) ;
Mage the Sorcerers Crusade (MtSC) ;
Requiem for Rome (VtR) ;
Secrets of the Ruined Temple (MtAw).
So, yes, Kenneth Hite has written for VtM.
The Cainite Heresy is awesome btw. I like Hite. If he writes something it's usually good. Requiem for Rome is really good as well.
Chad Underkoffler of Atomic Sock Monkey Press did a game called Dead Inside, mostly about people trying to regain their souls, but it included some ghosts, vampires, zombies, and mages, plus simpler supernatural mechanics than White Wolf's mechanics and no hint of a World of Darkness-style conspiracy. Most of the setting is in some spiritual otherworld that's not all that interesting, however, but when I read it, I thought the game system at least would make a better foundation for a modern day supernatural PC game.
There was a sequel called Cold Hard World which was set in the "real" world, but I didn't read that one, so I can't tell you whether it avoids the excesses of the World of Darkness or not.
There was a recent kickstarter for Urban Shadows, which is a dark urban fantasy / monster politics RPG running on the * World system. Game is scheduled for release some time later this year.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785855As far as setting goes, I take issue with the supernatural underworld being ruled by a global conspiracy. The logistics involved make it impossible to maintain.
New WoD doesn't have conspiracies which are that powerful. The power is very localized and doesn't reach that far.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785855Secondly, the different monster classes aren't integrated socially. If there were several different types of supernatural monster living in secret, I would expect that a supernatural underworld where they all interact would form.
Nope they aren't. New Wod is designed more for crossover ruleswise, but each setting is it's own. I think Nightlife, Marchland, and Witchcraft will be better for that. Or maybe that new Urban Shadows game.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785855Thirdly, the monster classes have very specific backgrounds out of the box that prevent many character concepts. For example, out of the box werewolves always run in families and you can't perform a ritual to become one or pass on the condition.
Yep those specific backgrounds are part of the themes of each game. Each game is pretty narrow in focus. They are not so open ended as advertised.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785855As far as rules go, the system in World of Darkness is very clunky and the character classes each use completely different rules for adjudicating supernatural powers and the powers themselves are fairly restricted. Vampires out of the box are generally unable to levitate, crawl up walls, or teleport through doors like they can in plenty of movies. Powers are structured into linear paths that require you to buy filler powers before you can get the ones you actually want. There are pages and pages of laundry lists of powers because of the clunky rules.
True.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785855I'm loosely familiar with Everlasting, Nephilim, Nightbane, Nightlife, Witchcraft, Immortal: The Invisible War, and Other Court Game's Factions RPG, but most don't seem to be supported anymore and use clunky 90s rules (in some cases ripped-off from World of Darkness). A lot of them have clear improvements (Everlasting has an integrated magical underworld and universal powers, Witchcraft has more flexible monster classes, etc), but the downside is that they aren't as popular or supported as World of Darkness despite these improvements.
Correct I have the same problem as you. Especially Witchcraft is a shame. I like that setting. There isn't a solution for that, I am afraid.
Fractured Kingdom (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/113604/Fractured-Kingdom) is mysticism and conspiracy and while it lacks the you are X Monster factor it's easy to craft characters that fit into classic monster type archetypes. This was done so that players and GMs can revisit classic notions of monsters with a different twist.
I did find a rules-lite vampire RPG called Feed on RPGNow. One of the steps of character creation is deciding what rules your vampires follow, each set of rules called a "strain."
Quote from: Ladybird;785897There was a recent kickstarter for Urban Shadows, which is a dark urban fantasy / monster politics RPG running on the * World system. Game is scheduled for release some time later this year.
Urban Shadows sounds like it might be what I'm looking for. It's rules-lite, has a flexible background, and includes the popular archetypes (vampires, werewolves, witches, fairies, ghosts, dragons) out of the box. I can only hope it will prove a viable competitor to World of Darkness with its own vibrant community.
There's Chill, about which I know nothing except a few people once said nice things about it.
I REALLY liked Buffy/Angel games, though I found the brass tacks actual game design not that interesting. But the ideas about how to blend regular folks + witches + slayer was really cool, and some of the ritual magic stuff is some of the best ideas for generating Mythos-like stuff ever.
Oh hey, thanks for the tip about rpg.net's game index.
I can see the vast four year arc of my entire RPG career. Sigh.
Quote from: Will;785908I REALLY liked Buffy/Angel games, though I found the brass tacks actual game design not that interesting. But the ideas about how to blend regular folks + witches + slayer was really cool, and some of the ritual magic stuff is some of the best ideas for generating Mythos-like stuff ever.
Agreed & seconded.
The rules were intended to blend into the background afaik.
It is indeed good at "common/everyday everymen + proper action heroes and/or wizards + possibly a superhero in the same team", functioning pretty much like the source material. The everymen types Are pretty much how you expect Horror protagonists to be, the main thing separating them from Victims Of The Week is that they catch a bunch more breaks.
And yeah it'd work very well for something Mythos-esque. Both monsters vise and Magic vise (the Magic is actually very S&S, and divides "smart guy who can do a ritual given time" and "horrifying sorcerer"
very well).
The camp/comedy thing is easily removed if desired (I do love the comedy bits mind, like calling the (armed) Melee skill "Going Medieval" :D).
As a more offbeat choice, you may also go for Kult. Kult knows "Children of the Night" as catch-all term for things that were once human and now go bump in the night, and it may well be something that happens to a PC, or something that a ruthless PC actively seeks out.
There are no "clans" or "templates" you need to care about - every children of the night is unique. While many accrue supernatural disadvantages and advantages that cluster to resemble traditional horror monsters like vampires, werewolves or zombies, many are just *strange*. After all, Kult is a kitchensink splatterpunk RPG that has equal room for Hellraiser cenobites and skinwalkers, Sonja Blue vampires, cult-building tantric Pornomancers and possessed Chucky puppets...
And as a splatterpunk game, there is also no such thing as Humanity, or a Sanity Game Over Mechanic. You just accrue more mental disadvantages as you slide down the insanity slide. Kult characters don't write tragic poems about their woes and and don't spin intrigues to deal with their enemies - they punch them straight into the face with a baseball bat and then chainsaw them in half.
NIGHTLIFE was great unpretentious goofball fun. Even though it's not D&D-related it has a certain je ne sais quoi in it's art and attitude that IMHO puts it in the OSR ballpark.
UNKNOWN ARMIES was a fucking brilliant masterpiece. It had great, simple percentile-based rules, genuinely adult grit, and a voice all it's own.
Somebody pull the stakes out of the hearts of these two undeservedly dead games.
Quote from: Skyrock;785924As a more offbeat choice, you may also go for Kult.
Is Kult in print? Is a new edition planned? What edition would fans recommend?
KULT today is sorta what
Empire of the Petal Throne was back in the 80's... this legendary game that I occasionally hear older gamers much cooler than me mention in hushed whispers, yet I have never seen a copy of it anywhere myself nor ever meet anyone who actually played it.
Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;785928Is Kult in print? Is a new edition planned? What edition would fans recommend?
AFAIK Kult is dead as dirt at the moment.
The only edition I tried to run was the first English one and that never really got off the ground. I didn't really take to the rules... it seemed overly concerned with combat/guns as I remember... the madness/insanity rules were cool though... and the magic books that came out later were full of flavor as well.
I've got the later edition that came as a couple of hardbacks but I never pored through those to the same degree to realize what the differences were.
The big deal about it was the setting... it's the anti-Lovecraft setting, where humans - rather than being insignificant and powerless were the primary concern of most of the higher powers and horrific goings on. Keeping humanity in the dark regarding its true heritage and potential.
Also, how bleak and horrific it's baseline of horror was. Much more A Serbian Film and Martyrs and Hellraiser... vs. Dracula/Wolfman/Mummy... it even made Lovecraft's stuff look a bit charming in comparison.
It's a great source of ideas for dark urban horrors... but straight up I think it's a bit heavy/bleak for an ongoing campaign. When I've run CoC games 'Kult' is the dial setting I turn to when I want things to get disturbing and personal.
Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;785928Is Kult in print? Is a new edition planned? What edition would fans recommend?
KULT today is sorta what Empire of the Petal Throne was back in the 80's... this legendary game that I occasionally hear older gamers much cooler than me mention in hushed whispers, yet I have never seen a copy of it anywhere myself nor ever meet anyone who actually played it.
I have played it as a player, without personally owning or actually looking into the books beyond the character creation stuff.
We have essentially played it as a more bloody version of Cthulhu, with cop, PI and merc characters manhandling the evil of the week, then eating a bag of donuts at the scene of the splattering. Some eventually became insane enough to become half-vampires and other lesser fiends that could still function in human society, but had very unhinging "qualities" like literal bloodthirst (with very minor kewl powers).
It was only later that I found an used copy of the 3rd edition - and boy, was I blown away by the possibilities we didn't tap into. (Or maybe hadn't available - the game was based on the German translation of Kult, which only covered the 1st edition and then died the inglorious death of a translation that was kult[sic] to many, but bought by few.)
In hindsight, the basic system has aged badly. The combat resolution is clunky, and especially the complex wound track is something that only the early 90s could have embraced. The advantage/disadvantage system also reeks much of the 90s where everyone picked up fluffy crap like Heavy Phobia of Sauerkraut to pay for Combat Reflexes and other battle badassery.
But the way sanity and insanity are handled, the fluidity between sane men, insane children of the night, too-sane-to-be-human saints, and the setting that is essentially a buffet of every splatterpunk and horror b-movie thingie you want to sample are still something I think very fondly of.
Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;785926NIGHTLIFE was great unpretentious goofball fun. Even though it's not D&D-related it has a certain je ne sais quoi in it's art and attitude that IMHO puts it in the OSR ballpark.
UNKNOWN ARMIES was a fucking brilliant masterpiece. It had great, simple percentile-based rules, genuinely adult grit, and a voice all it's own.
Somebody pull the stakes out of the hearts of these two undeservedly dead games.
UA3 is being written, and iirc headed to Kickstarter next year.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785855As far as setting goes, I take issue with the supernatural underworld being ruled by a global conspiracy. The logistics involved make it impossible to maintain. Secondly, the different monster classes aren't integrated socially. If there were several different types of supernatural monster living in secret, I would expect that a supernatural underworld where they all interact would form. Thirdly, the monster classes have very specific backgrounds out of the box that prevent many character concepts. For example, out of the box werewolves always run in families and you can't perform a ritual to become one or pass on the condition.
As far as rules go, the system in World of Darkness is very clunky and the character classes each use completely different rules for adjudicating supernatural powers and the powers themselves are fairly restricted. Vampires out of the box are generally unable to levitate, crawl up walls, or teleport through doors like they can in plenty of movies. Powers are structured into linear paths that require you to buy filler powers before you can get the ones you actually want. There are pages and pages of laundry lists of powers because of the clunky rules.
I'm loosely familiar with Everlasting, Nephilim, Nightbane, Nightlife, Witchcraft, Immortal: The Invisible War, and Other Court Game's Factions RPG, but most don't seem to be supported anymore and use clunky 90s rules (in some cases ripped-off from World of Darkness). A lot of them have clear improvements (Everlasting has an integrated magical underworld and universal powers, Witchcraft has more flexible monster classes, etc), but the downside is that they aren't as popular or supported as World of Darkness despite these improvements.
Fair enough.
I am not familiar with NWoD but with the OWoD and there the differences between supernatureal forces are becuase each is part of a separate game so its kind of inevitable.
I don't find the Vampire disciplines model difficult or the mage spell system but I can see if you are looking for a game that can run any supernatural then the different systems won't mesh well.
the setting stuff is easily handwaveable. Want a lone urban Werewolf ...okay done.
Does popularity matter if you are playing with your mates? I mean agree a thing and you are good right.
I hope you find what you are looking for with so many games out there to choose from there is bound to be somethign you like or can kluge yourself out of all the ideas floating about.
The problem with just playing those OOP games is that they're either hard to acquire or the books are incomplete because it was cancelled. Nephilim, for example, is available on RPGNow, but the game was cancelled early in its run and the newest books were essentially a 2nd edition update of the rules and the Selenim book promised in Major Arcana was never published. Everlasting has every book except for the Magician's Companion available on RPGNow, but the existing books reference the Companion. The Witchcraft PDFs are awful quality with extra blank pages or missing fonts.
Is there any interest in new editions or kickstarters for Everlasting, Nephilim, Nightbane, Nightlife, Witchcraft, or Immortal: The Invisible War? Because I'm all up for urban fantasy games that aren't World of Darkness or Dresden Files. Heck, is it legal to open a kickstarter with the stated intent to raise funds to simply bribe the copyright holders into transferring the rights to someone who would actually do something with it? Does that constitute lobbying?
EDIT: As far as I know, The Everlasting is owned by Chip Dobbs, WitchCraft is owned by Eden Studios, Immortal Invisible War is owned by Ran Valerhon, Nightbane is owned by Palladium, Nephilim is owned by Chaosium, and I don't know who owns Nightlife.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785855...but the downside is that they aren't as popular or supported as World of Darkness despite these improvements.
TBH you aren't really going to find an urban fantasy RPG that is as well supported as WoD, even after its downsize to Onyx Path.
One reason I KSed Urban Shadows is that the Apocalypse World movement is popular where I am in recent years and a lot of WoD fans won't play the WoD RPGs any more. Its much like I managed to get more D&D play from Dungeon World than I have from any D&D edition or clone in recent years. It helps that Urban Shadows also covers all the supernatural types and more, has easy to run modern rules that support the themes of World of Darkness and is all in a single book.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785959Nephilim is owned by Chaosium
I thought Nephilim was just licensed to them to print an English translation? There's a whole bunch more for it in French.
Quote from: Skyrock;785933I have played it as a player, without personally owning or actually looking into the books beyond the character creation stuff.
We have essentially played it as a more bloody version of Cthulhu, with cop, PI and merc characters manhandling the evil of the week, then eating a bag of donuts at the scene of the splattering. Some eventually became insane enough to become half-vampires and other lesser fiends that could still function in human society, but had very unhinging "qualities" like literal bloodthirst (with very minor kewl powers).
It was only later that I found an used copy of the 3rd edition - and boy, was I blown away by the possibilities we didn't tap into. (Or maybe hadn't available - the game was based on the German translation of Kult, which only covered the 1st edition and then died the inglorious death of a translation that was kult[sic] to many, but bought by few.)
In hindsight, the basic system has aged badly. The combat resolution is clunky, and especially the complex wound track is something that only the early 90s could have embraced. The advantage/disadvantage system also reeks much of the 90s where everyone picked up fluffy crap like Heavy Phobia of Sauerkraut to pay for Combat Reflexes and other battle badassery.
But the way sanity and insanity are handled, the fluidity between sane men, insane children of the night, too-sane-to-be-human saints, and the setting that is essentially a buffet of every splatterpunk and horror b-movie thingie you want to sample are still something I think very fondly of.
Something to consider: Could you port Kult to the Fuzion or Interlock systems? The Friday Night Firefight from Cyberpunk is nice and brutal. All you would need to do is mash up the mental balance from the original Kult.
I tried Kult with the Storytelling system. It didn't work too tell.
Quote from: Ladybird;785947UA3 is being written, and iirc headed to Kickstarter next year.
Whoa!
Quote from: BarefootGaijin;785976I tried Kult with the Storytelling system. It didn't work too tell.
White Wolf really briefly put out a shitty magazine called Inphobia, which was a bizarre Frankenstein concoction... I don't know what the Hell they were attempting, I guess a SPIN magazine for gamers. It was "Hipster" in all the stereotypical worst ways, 15 years before hipsters.
Anyway, the one good article they published was one for merging Kult with the WW World of Darkness. All of my friends were
obsessed with WoD at the time (They wouldn't play anything else). I read that article and just from the brief window it gave into the world of Kult I was like "Screw the vampire crap, I wanna play
this game!!!". But it was Pre-Internet and RPG options were limited to whatever the one local comics store got in and I could never find it and I probably soon gave up due to no player interest.
The one detail I can remember is that in this setting vampires were the exiled aristocracy of Heaven, the proudest and fairest of the rebel angels.
I only read Kult once, and it was a mind-blowing experience.
It's gnostic on speed. The idea of Cities as the natural state of existence, and all this nature as something other?
Man.
Quote from: The Ent;785910Agreed & seconded.
The rules were intended to blend into the background afaik.
It is indeed good at "common/everyday everymen + proper action heroes and/or wizards + possibly a superhero in the same team", functioning pretty much like the source material. The everymen types Are pretty much how you expect Horror protagonists to be, the main thing separating them from Victims Of The Week is that they catch a bunch more breaks.
And yeah it'd work very well for something Mythos-esque. Both monsters vise and Magic vise (the Magic is actually very S&S, and divides "smart guy who can do a ritual given time" and "horrifying sorcerer" very well).
The camp/comedy thing is easily removed if desired (I do love the comedy bits mind, like calling the (armed) Melee skill "Going Medieval" :D).
Of course, this system was also used to adapt
Army of Darkness, in which in order to create Ash, they developed the special Advantage "Really Big Chin."
Also, instead of White Hats, regular-level characters were called "Primitive Screwheads."
JG
Quote from: BarefootGaijin;785976Something to consider: Could you port Kult to the Fuzion or Interlock systems? The Friday Night Firefight from Cyberpunk is nice and brutal. All you would need to do is mash up the mental balance from the original Kult.
I tried Kult with the Storytelling system. It didn't work too tell.
The Good/Evil balance supernatural "sanity" system was weird AND important to the setting. I think you could just port it over wholesale. Having the supernatural settings for Cyberpunk 2020 would help.
I think it would be easier to port the whole thing to GURPS with the various Horror advice and "GURPS-ify" the Good/Evil balance thing or even better just ditch it and focus on the personal horror...
Kult's setting is deliciously dark however, I think you need a special brand of player who enjoys a little nihilism sprinkled on top of their game. :-)
Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;785979White Wolf really briefly put out a shitty magazine called Inphobia, which was a bizarre Frankenstein concoction... I don't know what the Hell they were attempting, I guess a SPIN magazine for gamers. It was "Hipster" in all the stereotypical worst ways, 15 years before hipsters.
Anyway, the one good article they published was one for merging Kult with the WW World of Darkness. All of my friends were obsessed with WoD at the time (They wouldn't play anything else). I read that article and just from the brief window it gave into the world of Kult I was like "Screw the vampire crap, I wanna play this game!!!". But it was Pre-Internet and RPG options were limited to whatever the one local comics store got in and I could never find it and I probably soon gave up due to no player interest.
The one detail I can remember is that in this setting vampires were the exiled aristocracy of Heaven, the proudest and fairest of the rebel angels.
I remember at least reading a few of those articles, mainly the one of adapting Kult for either Mage or Vampire, based on the "magic attunements" Time, Space, Madness, Death and Passion, .. or something like that.
Like WoD, they were divided into power levels of 0-5.
An interesting part is that it seems that several of those aspects carried over into the KULT cardgame.
Quote from: Ladybird;785868Note that because he is a quality author not a ranting maniac, he tells you how much he hates "good" vampires, then gives you rules for them anyway.
(In practice, doing a WoD-esque vamp hack for Gumshoe wouldn't be too difficult.)
It is a shame that he doesn't explain
why he feels the way he does on the subject, though. I mean, it obviously is an odd fit for the concept of Night's Black Agents, but less so for V:tM, so is he just objecting to playing the good vampire in games where that doesn't fit or is he disowning his V:tM/V:tDA work?
Quote from: Simlasa;785968I thought Nephilim was just licensed to them to print an English translation? There's a whole bunch more for it in French.
You may be thinking of In Nomine
Quote from: Simlasa;785968I thought Nephilim was just licensed to them to print an English translation? There's a whole bunch more for it in French.
You may be thinking of In Nomine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Nomine_(role-playing_game))
No, he's correct. Nephilim is a French game published by Multisim (per the Wikipedia page). Now in its 3rd edition. Chaosium only published the first edition in English.
Quote from: Certified;786016You may be thinking of In Nomine
Nope. According to wikipedia Nephilim was originally by the French company Multisim... and there have been subsequent editions that were also only Published in French. Chaosium did furnish a bit of original material, but there's a whole lot that has never been in English.
Quote from: Warthur;786001It is a shame that he doesn't explain why he feels the way he does on the subject, though. I mean, it obviously is an odd fit for the concept of Night's Black Agents, but less so for V:tM, so is he just objecting to playing the good vampire in games where that doesn't fit or is he disowning his V:tM/V:tDA work?
Reasons Ken Hite might hate the Good Vampire Trope:
- Players are incapable of playing the monstrous sides of their protagonist vampires, leading to just another lot of fanged supers (q.v. an earlier post)
- "Good Vampire" characterisation substitutes existential angst and brooding for any real depth of character
- Twilight happened between VtM and NBA
Mostly the good vampire trope is used for either bragging rights (oh, so you're a "good vampire"? how about just playing a "good person"? what does the vampire part add apart from a black trenchcoat?) or power gaming. It's not big and it's not clever.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785749I like the premise of World of Darkness where a paranormal underworld hides vampires, werewolves and other monsters and the players take on the roles of said monsters, but I don't particularly like the background or the restrictive and idiosyncratic rules.
Are there are any alternatives or competitors to that game?
C J Carella's Witchcraft is free in pdf, last time I looked. Better system, lots of cool supplements, compatible with other Unisystem games.
The other ones I would mention have already been mentioned. I like Nephilim a lot.
Quote from: smiorgan;786021C J Carella's Witchcraft is free in pdf, last time I looked. Better system, lots of cool supplements, compatible with other Unisystem games.
The other ones I would mention have already been mentioned. I like Nephilim a lot.
Maybe it's just me, but I always felt the covenants in Witchcraft are more true secret societies than the splats in the WoD. I also find it more open and free than the new WoD, which is supposed to be toolkit. Just a shame there are so few books of that setting.
Eh, I found Witchcraft kind of bland (http://refereeingandreflection.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/magic-and-mystery-in-a-world-gone-mild/) myself.
I mentioned Witchcraft because it's free.
For paid stuff I really like Ghosts of Albion; it's Victoriana, but it is a complete toolkit for urban fantasy. Rules for Vampires, Ghosts and Faeries as PCs, and not your traditional versions either (lots of varieties of types of vampirism). Good magic system, evolved from the Buffy RPG (Magic Box supplement)
The OOP Angel and Buffy RPGs are also good to pick up s/h. Got my copy of Angel for a song.
Quote from: smiorgan;786020Reasons Ken Hite might hate the Good Vampire Trope:
Reasons Ken might write stuff for Fangy : The Biting (Or Fangye: The Ye Olde Bitinge) despite not liking the "Good Vampire" trope:
* Money
...or he changed his mind on the subject in the years since.
Quote from: smiorgan;786018No, he's correct. Nephilim is a French game published by Multisim (per the Wikipedia page). Now in its 3rd edition. Chaosium only published the first edition in English.
Oh, I didn't know that Nephilim was also a French game. I find it very interesting that two of my favorite games of a vaguely blasphemous nature both come from France.
Both are solid games, very different feels.
Quote from: Certified;786029Oh, I didn't know that Nephilim was also a French game. I find it very interesting that two of my favorite games of a vaguely blasphemous nature both come from France.
Both are solid games, very different feels.
As a Frenchman, it is quite funny to read about old French RPG on a English/American speaking RPG forum in 2014.
INS/MV is at least 20 years old and its original French version is actual a satytical RPG which lambasts religion and France.
Nephilim is at least 15 years old and the French and the American versions are quite similar, for whar I know about it.
To return to OP question, I will also second the motion that Urban Shadows might be able to fulfill your desire of playing WoD without none of the WW/OPP wankery.
The Buffy RPG is quite interesting and solid, according to what I read in it and it also might be a good way to have fun with the creatures of the night.
Quote from: Warthur;786024Eh, I found Witchcraft kind of bland (http://refereeingandreflection.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/magic-and-mystery-in-a-world-gone-mild/) myself.
Yep, that's the biggest flaw of both Witchcraft and Conspiracy X. It's very, very standard. No originality. Very generic. But I like the writing style. It's very matter of fact and to the point. That's easy to ready for me, maybe because English isn't my native language. I really hate the flowerly WW writing style. And I like the absence of politics and morality in the game. It's almost a Mage the Ascension (Wicce = Verbena, Rosicrusians = Order of Hermes) clone setup as Hunter the Vigil with all the groups working on their own and only on occasion working with each other to kill some monster.
Quote from: JeremyR;785759There's Nightlife
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightlife_%28role-playing_game%29
I came to the thread to mention
Nightlife! It was a fun little game with some truly innovative monsters that came out around the same time as V:tM. I only messed with it a little bit, and can't remember anything about the system, but I'd recommend at least checking it out.
I'm kinda with Hite, personally. Fuck playing the "good" vampire, just play the vampire. If I may paraphrase the recent Fright Night remake (which they totally shot in my hometown!) you're a monster and you're not brooding, or lovesick, or noble. You're the fuckin' shark from Jaws. You kill, you feed, and you don't stop until everybody around you is dead.
Quote from: James Gillen;785986Of course, this system was also used to adapt Army of Darkness, in which in order to create Ash, they developed the special Advantage "Really Big Chin."
Also, instead of White Hats, regular-level characters were called "Primitive Screwheads."
JG
Hahaha!:rotfl:
I always wanted to Get my hands on AoD but somehow never did. :-/
Quote from: LibraryLass;786062I'm kinda with Hite, personally. Fuck playing the "good" vampire, just play the vampire. If I may paraphrase the recent Fright Night remake (which they totally shot in my hometown!) you're a monster and you're not brooding, or lovesick, or noble. You're the fuckin' shark from Jaws. You kill, you feed, and you don't stop until everybody around you is dead.
Yeah, I love the bit in that movie where it shows how the vampire gets around not being invited into the house (Solution? Burn the fucker down!)
I understand the draw of The Anne Rice, the desire to know the secrets of such creatures... to hang out with them for a bit. The draw of the enigmatic and dangerous stranger. Temptation to join the secret club...
Except that secret club is all about being an undead parasite. A serial murderer with a natty wardrobe.
Hard to play that character for very long and keep it up... for me at least.
I'd much rather play a human who rubs shoulders with the monsters on occasion... hunting them, tentative alliances on occasion. More like Supernatural or Grimm or Buffy... where there are monsters and then there are MONSTERS.
Nephilim got a 2nd and 3rd edition in France. The 2nd edition made a number of rule changes and the 3rd edition used a new ruleset entirely. Then the French RPG industry crashed around 2003/4, and Nephilim was cancelled with it. Edge Entertainment recently released a 20th anniversary edition which again used an entirely new system. Last I checked all reference to Nephilim has vanished from their redesigned website. So I'm pretty sure the game is not still supported.
Witchcraft sounds like it might be great, but the free PDF is crap quality with missing fonts and stuff. It's never received a new book since 2004 despite promises and the official website with bonus content was taken down years ago (I could only find it with the wayback machine).
Most of the games competing for the dark urban fantasy niche are OOP, have badly aged rules, bad writing, or heavily reference future books that were never produced. It's frustrating for someone who wants a more or less complete experience.
I like my vampires like this:
(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a116/jmidget123/30daysofnight.jpg)
Ken Hite is an excellent author and his horror stuff is amongst his best.
He just recently came out with a new Gurps Horror PDF book called "The Madness Dossier".
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/madnessdossier/
Blurb from the website below.
Can You Handle The Truth?
History is a lie. The truth is that the godlike Anunnakku enslaved mankind, co-opted language to program us, and established the superhuman šedu as our overseers. And that would have been The End if reality-warping disaster hadn't overturned everything in 535 A.D., leaving the true past forgotten but not gone, shoved from human memory by a collective delusion. Now the irruptors – servants of the Anunnakku, dimly remembered as monsters of myth – gnaw at the edges of our world, seeking to return their masters to power and history to the way it was.
Most humans are clueless about all this. Worse, those who discover snippets of the truth tend to worship the Anunnakku or irruptors as gods, or turn the power of language and symbols to misguided ends, making the situation worse. Fortunately, a stalwart few are moved to defend our reality from forces that would rewrite it. Welcome to Project SANDMAN!
Quote from: Will;786071I like my vampires like this
Yeah, those were some brutal vampires... and not very chatty.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786069Most of the games competing for the dark urban fantasy niche are OOP, have badly aged rules, bad writing, or heavily reference future books that were never produced.
'Badly aged'? Because rules are like old cheese?
'Badly aged rules' translates to 'Rules that are not currently in fashion'... and if that's a concern have fun chasing down that trendy rabbit hole.
Quote from: LibraryLass;786062I'm kinda with Hite, personally. Fuck playing the "good" vampire, just play the vampire. If I may paraphrase the recent Fright Night remake (which they totally shot in my hometown!) you're a monster and you're not brooding, or lovesick, or noble. You're the fuckin' shark from Jaws. You kill, you feed, and you don't stop until everybody around you is dead.
Which is my preferred stance on vampires in general, not just for PC vampires. More Christopher Lee-Dracula and Nosferatu, less Lester and Edward.
Badly aged rules seemed fresh and innovative at the time, before time and experience showed all the wrinkles and flaws, or better ways to handle things have come around.
Some rule systems are just good. Torg, for example, could stand a few tweaks, but DAMN the core of that game is just awesome.
Some... not so much.
(I mean, heck, my arc with D&D 3e is loving it initially, and then it ... aged. I started seeing all the flaws, seeing other games handle what I liked better, etc)
Quote from: Simlasa;786075Yeah, those were some brutal vampires... and not very chatty.
'Badly aged'? Because rules are like old cheese?
'Badly aged rules' translates to 'Rules that are not currently in fashion'... and if that's a concern have fun chasing down that trendy rabbit hole.
Eh, sometimes you can improve on rules after you've seen them at the table and understand what they're like in actual play. If the new set produces the sort of games you want better than the old set, then the new rules are better (Obviously, it's possible to make them worse, as well).
Rules shouldn't be put on a pedestal just because of what decade they were written in, there are good old games, bad old games, good new games, bad new games, and everything in between.
I think in new vampire you are really supposed to play a bad vampire. I mean at least three out of five factions are very evil and the other two can be evil.
The evil vampire church who burns heretics at the stake, the evil cultists who sacrifice mortal on a bloody altar, the unethical scientists who experiment on other vampires to achieve becoming übervampire, the draconian powermongerers and the revolutionaries who blow up your haven if you disagree with them.
Especially the three mystical ones (and mostly the Lancea et Sanctum) are evil. But you have to play them. I think an evil relegion makes a great baddie and if I want to play something mystical it will be the stereotypical occult detective like Harry Dresden or Constantine.
So yeah, Hite may be right.
Quote from: Will;786080(I mean, heck, my arc with D&D 3e is loving it initially, and then it ... aged. I started seeing all the flaws, seeing other games handle what I liked better, etc)
But the rules did not 'age'... they didn't change at all. If you suddenly decide the rules suck it's not because they suddenly went bad... they were always bad and you didn't realize it or maybe it's just that your tastes have changed... but the rules didn't 'age', you did.
Quote from: Ladybird;786086Rules shouldn't be put on a pedestal just because of what decade they were written in, there are good old games, bad old games, good new games, bad new games, and everything in between.
Totally agree... newer or older shouldn't carry any points in how a game is judged... which is kind of how I feel about art and layout (though not organization) as well, because those things fade out once we're playing at the table. I love the look of classic Traveller's clean white pages... but that doesn't bear on the way the game plays at all.
I like some old games and some new ones. I don't have any interest in old editions of D&D except what they've inspired in 'new' games like LotFP and DCC.
Quote from: Simlasa;786097But the rules did not 'age'... they didn't change at all. If you suddenly decide the rules suck it's not because they suddenly went bad... they were always bad and you didn't realize it or maybe it's just that your tastes have changed... but the rules didn't 'age', you did.
I think your usage of the term 'age' is overly narrow, and is contradicted by a lot of media-related discussion.
When people say a movie didn't age well, they don't usually mean that the film stock has degraded (and if they DO mean that, they generally don't say 'this movie has aged poorly.')
Quote from: Will;786104When people say a movie didn't age well, they don't usually mean that the film stock has degraded (and if they DO mean that, they generally don't say 'this movie has aged poorly.')
Yeah, I'd argue with that usage of 'aged' as well. It's too much a matter of taste and has everything to do with the viewer's perspective. Like guys I know who just can not stand anything in black and white... and go on about the 'bad acting'... not recognizing that styles change... but the acting isn't 'bad'... just not the current fashion.
Aaah. Everyone is using it wrong but you. :)
Ok then.
(To be a bit more positive, I've found myself arguing that everyone's usage of a word is wrong. At which point I embrace it and elect to either make up a new word or keep it to myself, because, well, words are 'what people mean'. If most people MEAN it that 'wrong' way, well. That's the word)
Quote from: Will;786106Aaah. Everyone is using it wrong but you. :)
I'd argue that not 'everyone' uses it that way. To my ears it sounds better and more accurate when they say 'it's a product of its era'... or somesuch expression that doesn't imply the thing itself has changed.
Quote from: Will;785985I only read Kult once, and it was a mind-blowing experience.
It's gnostic on speed. The idea of Cities as the natural state of existence, and all this nature as something other?
Man.
A roleplaying game where the physical universe is a product of your collective imagination.
What a concept.
JG
Quote from: James Gillen;786112A roleplaying game where the physical universe is a product of your collective imagination.
What a concept.
JG
That isn't actually the case in Kult.
Quote from: James Gillen;786112A roleplaying game where the physical universe is a product of your collective imagination.
What a concept.
JG
First, is this snark? If so, about which game? If you mean Mage, Kult predates it by two years.
Second, that's... not really what it's about. The idea that I thought was neat is more like some of the deep backstory written up about Hellraiser -- that humans were once godlike beings dwelling in Cities in some realm, they were ousted to this realm.
That we feel apart from the world and constantly build cities because all of this is wrong to us, and we build cities out of a semiconscious desire to recreate the true realm we once built/inhabited. Or something.
It's very literally gnostic, demiurge and everything. Most of the monsters are our former servants who now rejoice in our lowly state.
Quote from: James Gillen;786112A roleplaying game where the physical universe is a product of your collective imagination.
What a concept.
JG
Quote from: Warthur;786125That isn't actually the case in Kult.
Yeah. You can say a lot of stuff about
Kult - even some bad stuff - but "consensus reality" isn't one of them.
Kult is a very inspiring setting with a strong need of a better game system. I found a fan-retooled system for Kult on the web and I ran a very satisfying one-shot with it (Echoes from the past featuring Jesus Christ Himself !!!)
Alas, the whole thing is in French (if you are interested, you can PM me and I will send you the link) !
Given that Kult's system strikes me as having a fair amount of BRP influence, I'd be inclined to cook up a BRP version with the Big Gold Book and port over the mental balance rules.
Quote from: Warthur;786180Given that Kult's system strikes me as having a fair amount of BRP influence, I'd be inclined to cook up a BRP version with the Big Gold Book and port over the mental balance rules.
I'd probably try to go with CoC, just because it's already a minimal setup of the BGB... but swap out the Insanity rules for Kult's version... and maybe look at Enlightened Magic for ideas on converting the magic (which I don't remember that well and would have to read again to see how Kult worked it).
Quote from: James Gillen;785774Yeah, if we cleaned up Nightlife a little bit that would be a good alternative.
JG
Quote from: The_Shadow;785810Chaosium's Nephilim has its fans, though its not so heavy on the vampires and werewolves.
Quote from: Simlasa;785765GURPS Cabal, by Kenneth Hite, seems like another good take on the subject. Play as monster hunters or as the monsters. I think it's a bit inspired by WOD, but also by Clive Barker's Nightbreed and maybe the Nightwatch/Daywatch books by Sergei Lukyanenko.
I have this crazy idea of one day mashing up Nightlife, Nephilim, Cabal, and Witchcraft, and running it with Fate.
One day...
Quote from: yabaziou;786049As a Frenchman, it is quite funny to read about old French RPG on a English/American speaking RPG forum in 2014.
INS/MV is at least 20 years old and its original French version is actual a satytical RPG which lambasts religion and France.
Nephilim is at least 15 years old and the French and the American versions are quite similar, for whar I know about it.
To return to OP question, I will also second the motion that Urban Shadows might be able to fulfill your desire of playing WoD without none of the WW/OPP wankery.
The Buffy RPG is quite interesting and solid, according to what I read in it and it also might be a good way to have fun with the creatures of the night.
Thank Benoist, a Frenchman here for many years who touted the wonders of French RPGs, for educating us.
Quote from: Herne's Son;786258I have this crazy idea of one day mashing up Nightlife, Nephilim, Cabal, and Witchcraft, and running it with Fate.
One day...
Those games are all designed to portray magic and the supernatural and as a result their concepts overlap everywhere. Each makes wildly different assumptions about the nature of reality and their backgrounds and mechanics extend from that. Each one of them is written to evoke a particular theme and genre. You can't mash them up without either watering them down completely or creating a nonsensical cosmology.
Nightlife's premise is that monsters are the manifestation of humanity's fears. Vampires, werewolves, wights and whatever all coexist in a supernatural underworld (metaphorically). It is set firmly in the splatterpunk genre and the late 80s.
Nephilim's premise is that sunlight and the earth's magnetic fields are really the magical fields that give rise to the five elements and magical beings born of these elements, but the Bavarian Illuminati are keeping this secret so they can exploit those magical creatures for themselves because humans can't perform magic on their own. It is set firmly in the conspiracy thriller and apocalyptic genres.
I haven't read Cabal, but I know Witchcraft bases its cosmology on Kabalah with Wicca and spiritualism and animism and whatever shoehorned into that. You have witches, intelligent cats, ghosts, emotional vampires, spirits, lycanthropes, demons, Cthulhu wannabes, and so on. It is set firmly in the "everything and the kitchen sink" urban fantasy genre. In fact, it was created directly in response to World of Darkness, but at least it doesn't suffer the same absurd pretentiousness of The Everlasting.
EDIT:
Quote from: yabaziou;786049Nephilim is at least 15 years old and the French and the American versions are quite similar, for whar I know about it.
I'm pretty sure it came out in 1992. It released a 20th anniversary edition volume that obviously wasn't just an attempt to cash in on the craze of Vampire: The Masquerade 20th anniversary edition.
Quote from: Warthur;786024Eh, I found Witchcraft kind of bland (http://refereeingandreflection.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/magic-and-mystery-in-a-world-gone-mild/) myself.
In Witchcraft the splats don't run into each other that often and only work together on occasion. Hunter the Vigil is almost the same. The splats don't interact that often. They only work together on a hunt. Politics isn't the focus. Do you think that game is bland as well?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786276T
I haven't read Cabal, but I know Witchcraft bases its cosmology on Kabalah with Wicca and spiritualism and animism and whatever shoehorned into that. You have witches, intelligent cats, ghosts, emotional vampires, spirits, lycanthropes, demons, Cthulhu wannabes, and so on. It is set firmly in the "everything and the kitchen sink" urban fantasy genre. In fact, it was created directly in response to World of Darkness, but at least it doesn't suffer the same absurd pretentiousness of The Everlasting.
.
That's why I like Witchcraft. Yes it is generic. But yes it's a kitchen sink. It's so broad you make it what you want it to be. I find it more flexible than new WoD. Maybe I just like maximalistic (kitchen sink) settings better than minimalistic (toolkit) ones? Mage the Awakening is a bit vague in it's background, but I don't think you can turn the game into an angel-demon war, a Great Old One horror setting or a setting where the apocalypse is happening right now.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786284That's why I like Witchcraft. Yes it is generic. But yes it's a kitchen sink. It's so broad you make it what you want it to be. I find it more flexible than new WoD. Maybe I just like maximalistic (kitchen sink) settings better than minimalistic (toolkit) ones? Mage the Awakening is a bit vague in it's background, but I don't think you can turn the game into an angel-demon war, a Great Old One horror setting or a setting where the apocalypse is happening right now.
I saw someone once refer to Witchcraft as: "If 'Call of Cthulhu' is the official H.P. Lovecraft RPG, then 'Witchcraft' is the unofficial Stephen King RPG."
I think that's a pretty decent description.
Quote from: Herne's Son;786329...'Witchcraft' is the unofficial Stephen King RPG."
So interesting characters but the book is at least twice as long as it ought to be and desperately needed a good editor and at least one more rewrite? ;)
OK, I'm trying to sort through what the OP actually wants:
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785749I like the premise of World of Darkness where a paranormal underworld hides vampires, werewolves and other monsters and the players take on the roles of said monsters, but I don't particularly like the background or the restrictive and idiosyncratic rules.
Are there are any alternatives or competitors to that game?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785855I'm loosely familiar with Everlasting, Nephilim, Nightbane, Nightlife, Witchcraft, Immortal: The Invisible War, and Other Court Game's Factions RPG, but most don't seem to be supported anymore and use clunky 90s rules (in some cases ripped-off from World of Darkness). A lot of them have clear improvements (Everlasting has an integrated magical underworld and universal powers, Witchcraft has more flexible monster classes, etc), but the downside is that they aren't as popular or supported as World of Darkness despite these improvements.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786069Witchcraft sounds like it might be great, but the free PDF is crap quality with missing fonts and stuff. It's never received a new book since 2004 despite promises and the official website with bonus content was taken down years ago (I could only find it with the wayback machine).
Most of the games competing for the dark urban fantasy niche are OOP, have badly aged rules, bad writing, or heavily reference future books that were never produced. It's frustrating for someone who wants a more or less complete experience.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;785905Urban Shadows sounds like it might be what I'm looking for. It's rules-lite, has a flexible background, and includes the popular archetypes (vampires, werewolves, witches, fairies, ghosts, dragons) out of the box. I can only hope it will prove a viable competitor to World of Darkness with its own vibrant community.
Sounds like you're much better informed than the OP would suggest. In which case you probably know the answer is no, there is no urban fantasy rpg that is current and as well supported as WoD — if well supported means "lots of supplements to spoon-feed me the metaplot".
You realise Urban Shadows is a brand new PbtA game with indie roots, and therefore pretty much a toolkit system? You're happy with indie's DIY approach ("flexible background"), but lament the lack of mainstream alternatives to WoD with lots of supplements?
You don't like Witchcraft for the fonts? Really?
I mean, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you don't like the rules, use different ones. If you don't like the conspiracy, reject it. If no commercial product exists that scratches your itch, do what we all do, suck it up and make your own. But given how well informed you are I suspect you already know this.
Quote from: smiorgan;786351You realise Urban Shadows is a brand new PbtA game with indie roots, and therefore pretty much a toolkit system? You're happy with indie's DIY approach ("flexible background"), but lament the lack of mainstream alternatives to WoD with lots of supplements?
Indeed; * World games are designed with quite a few specific assumptions about the world they are played in, but don't have "a setting" as such. It's really up to the GM to build that world, sometimes asking players for suggestions.
* World games also attract a lot of misguided hate and false assumptions, because REASONS!!!, I guess.
Don't get me wrong, I KS'd it, but it ain't going to be the next big thing in urban fantasy games.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786283In Witchcraft the splats don't run into each other that often and only work together on occasion. Hunter the Vigil is almost the same. The splats don't interact that often. They only work together on a hunt. Politics isn't the focus. Do you think that game is bland as well?
Not read H:tV, couldn't say. Though I find in Witchcraft the individual splats themselves lack a certain something - you've got Generic Wiccans, Generic Freemasons and so on and in general there's no hooks to make me sit up and feel excited about playing any of the splats.
Quote from: Bren;786347So interesting characters but the book is at least twice as long as it ought to be and desperately needed a good editor and at least one more rewrite? ;)
and the games are great in the middle but kind of peter out with no real ending and some sort of giant spider shows up....
...and the Stanley Kubrick adaptation is better and tighter than the actual game...
Quote from: CRKrueger;786272Thank Benoist, a Frenchman here for many years who touted the wonders of French RPGs, for educating us.
I was aware that Benoist was a fellow Frenchman. But I didn't not that I did spent some of his posting time educationg you on French RPGs.
For what I see, Benoist see most French authors as annoying that the most smuggish WW/OP/Evil Hat freelancer, high on the power of storytelling (Yes, they are as aggravating as that !), in strong of learning how properly play D&D.
I would rather thank him for his works as a moderator and the pictures of very nice pics of D&D dungeons.
Regarding of the OP subject, the only game that would maybe help him in his endeavor of dark urban fantasy is again Urban Shadows.
And if he really want to play vampire, he just needs (according to me) to stick to VtM 2edition, its playerbook and Chicago by Night 1st edition.
Immortal: The Invisible War is World of Darkness with everything turned up to 11. *Hilariously* complicated setting. If you trim out about 90% of the backstory, the mechanics are simple and work pretty well.
Quote from: smiorgan;786351Sounds like you're much better informed than the OP would suggest. In which case you probably know the answer is no, there is no urban fantasy rpg that is current and as well supported as WoD — if well supported means "lots of supplements to spoon-feed me the metaplot".
I consider myself relatively well-informed, but I'm open to the possibility I missed things. By well-supported what I mean is that it has a complete system for running what it is intended to run. The Everlasting has a complete game system, because all the books they intended to produce were produced, but the rules are clunky. Witchcraft is incomplete.
QuoteYou realise Urban Shadows is a brand new PbtA game with indie roots, and therefore pretty much a toolkit system? You're happy with indie's DIY approach ("flexible background"), but lament the lack of mainstream alternatives to WoD with lots of supplements?
Games that aren't supported by a publisher generally have small or shrinking communities. That's part of the reason why retro-clones exist: they provide support and attract communities.
QuoteYou don't like Witchcraft for the fonts? Really?
It's not the fonts themselves, but the fact that Eden Studios didn't bother to assure their product's quality. It's a pretty basic concept in business to preflight PDFs and make sure they have all their fonts embedded, much less making sure the presentation actually looks professional.
QuoteI mean, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you don't like the rules, use different ones. If you don't like the conspiracy, reject it. If no commercial product exists that scratches your itch, do what we all do, suck it up and make your own. But given how well informed you are I suspect you already know this.
I am making my own, but that takes time and effort. The entire reason I ask others for information is to make sure I haven't missed anything and don't have to spend time and effort making a new game myself.
Quote from: Warthur;786367Not read H:tV, couldn't say. Though I find in Witchcraft the individual splats themselves lack a certain something - you've got Generic Wiccans, Generic Freemasons and so on and in general there's no hooks to make me sit up and feel excited about playing any of the splats.
Yep, it's generic. Anyway in Hunter the splats hunt together but they don't have a hunter regime or a hunter prince. They don't go to court like vampires and changelings do.
Did anyone already name Monte Cook's WoD?
You did it right now !
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786415The Everlasting has a complete game system, because all the books they intended to produce were produced, but the rules are clunky. Witchcraft is incomplete.
Well, OK, now we're getting subjective in terms of "completeness". The Witchcraft main book is the main book, and it's a playable game.
Also if you're concerned about a game line making promises about future supplements and then failing to deliver them, well, Eden released all of the supplements I see advertised in the back of the core book.
While we're talking about completeness, let's consider WoD and its clunkiness and inhomogeneous rules. The different races don't hang together, and the various overlapping conspiracies make no sense.
Thing is, VtM 1e is the vampire's perspective on the WoD, and is not intended to be part of one homogeneous world. The vampire isn't a character class, it's the game, period. So VtM is "complete" for playing vampires, and complaining that the different games don't interoperate is missing the point. You don't need to own Werewolf to represent Lupines in VtM (and to vamps they're lupines, not garou. They're not meant to be friends)
QuoteIt's not the fonts themselves, but the fact that Eden Studios didn't bother to assure their product's quality. It's a pretty basic concept in business to preflight PDFs and make sure they have all their fonts embedded, much less making sure the presentation actually looks professional.
This is a fair point, although
- at the time the game was published, sales would have been nearly all hard copy, so embedding fonts isn't as relevant
- this particular pdf is free
- I don't have any issue with the presentation myself, nor rendering on any of my devices. But then maybe I haven't spotted any "issues" because it's not my area of expertise.
So yeah, if Eden want you to buy their pdfs then making the freebie "better" makes some sense. But maybe the custom they'd lose doesn't make the effort worth it.
The old wod had competing mega conspiracies. Is the world being ruled by Pentex, the Technocracy or the Camarilla? You weren't supposed to mix settings, it wouldn't make any sense.
New WoD doesn't have that problem. Mechanically werewolves don't have much more oompf than vampires or mages. There is also no mega conspiracy ruling the world. Or conflicting metaplots.
Still it doesn't really makes much sense to mix vampire with mage for example, because those games have different themes. You can use werewolf with it's spirit hunting and interaction with the shadow in a vampire game. But vampire is all about politics and backstabbing, so that doesn't really add something. I think it maybe deludes the whole game.
What do you mean with complete btw? Five or six different books? And still making new books? I think maybe Buffy and Angel have the largest book amount of them all.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786509New WoD doesn't have that problem. Mechanically werewolves don't have much more oompf than vampires or mages. There is also no mega conspiracy ruling the world.
It's a mess. There's no sense of game balance anywhere and some classes and powers are clearly better than others. (That's the reason why drawing powers from a common list for all classes is a good design choice.) The mage orders are already global conspiracies and it makes no sense the different monsters haven't merged societies or subjugated one another. These are the same writers behind the mess of mechanics that is Exalted.
QuoteStill it doesn't really makes much sense to mix vampire with mage for example, because those games have different themes.
The new Lasombra are designed specifically to deal with spirits (vampires call them strigoi) and werewolves have competing packs and conclaves. I can understand wanting each monster to embody a different theme, but I think it does the monsters a disservice.
QuoteWhat do you mean with complete btw? Five or six different books? And still making new books?
Complete, as in you can use the existing rules to play all the classes the fiction teased you with and it doesn't tell you to refer to a book that doesn't exist. Supported, as in the publisher still cares about it and it still has a community that cares about it and can offer insight and assistance.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786415Games that aren't supported by a publisher generally have small or shrinking communities. That's part of the reason why retro-clones exist: they provide support and attract communities.
The PbtA RPGs embed a lot of the theme into the mechanics rather than setting material. So rather than having supplements of setting material showing what being a Werewolf may be like and the society they are in, the Werewolf Playbook (think class or type) demonstrates what being a Werewolf may be like and who the society they are in through play. The specific details, such as clan names, leaders and histories, are for the player and GM to extrapolate in game.
On saying that, due to the KS, there is already the Dark Streets sourcebook covering seven cities from around the world, the Victorian era, Wild West and additional bits and bobs. The city material won't be exhaustive (I would expect 20 or so pages) but will provide a good starting point from which the player and GM can expand from easily with mechanics that encourage that.
Also, given the PbtA licence, I am sure we will see a lot of community made stuff for Urban Shadows. Dungeon World's community has rapidly grown very large, and it only has released one book. There are over a 160 DW supplements on DTRPG (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_44819_0_0).
tl:dr Don't expect a weight of setting material like WoD. Instead, US will give you support to create and expand on this detail through play.
Quote from: Warthur;786372...and the Stanley Kubrick adaptation is better and tighter than the actual game...
That's just cold.
JG
Quote from: James Gillen;786548That's just cold.
JG
Jack agrees.
(http://d2tq98mqfjyz2l.cloudfront.net/image_cache/1350845502845114.jpg)
Quote from: LibraryLass;786062I'm kinda with Hite, personally. Fuck playing the "good" vampire, just play the vampire. If I may paraphrase the recent Fright Night remake (which they totally shot in my hometown!) you're a monster and you're not brooding, or lovesick, or noble. You're the fuckin' shark from Jaws. You kill, you feed, and you don't stop until everybody around you is dead.
I don't necessarily agree with Hite on this. It depends on the setting and the tone. I'm fine with "good" vampires or vampires trying to be good, as long as they're not whiny and pretentious. Overly pretentious
evil vampires are just as annoying as good ones - ooh I'm so intense, so evil, so dark... yawn. As long as you don't take it all too seriously there is IMHO a place for both. Buffy/Angel did it right, Vampire Diaries to
some extent, Twilight did not. True Blood was too "mature" to be any fun for me. YMMV
That said, the truly monstrous or evil vampire does deserve more appreciation.
Quote from: The Ent;786066Hahaha!:rotfl:
I always wanted to Get my hands on AoD but somehow never did. :-/
You should. It's a really fun game.
Quote from: 3rik;786601I don't necessarily agree with Hite on this. It depends on the setting and the tone. I'm fine with "good" vampires or vampires trying to be good, as long as they're not whiny and pretentious. Overly pretentious evil vampires are just as annoying as good ones - ooh I'm so intense, so evil, so dark... yawn. As long as you don't take it all too seriously there is IMHO a place for both. Buffy/Angel did it right, Vampire Diaries to some extent, Twilight did not. True Blood was too "mature" to be any fun for me. YMMV
That said, the truly monstrous or evil vampire does deserve more appreciation.
I like vampires capable of both too. Along the lines of the better vampire movies of late, such as Byzantium and Let the Right One In.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786537It's a mess. There's no sense of game balance anywhere and some classes and powers are clearly better than others. (That's the reason why drawing powers from a common list for all classes is a good design choice.) The mage orders are already global conspiracies and it makes no sense the different monsters haven't merged societies or subjugated one another. These are the same writers behind the mess of mechanics that is Exalted.
Ok, I agree. But it wasn't designed this way. The WW community has some sort of consencus that the new WoD is way more crossover friendly, both ruleswise and no conflicting cosmologies.
I must admit I never tried any other game than vampire. So I guess you are right. I do like Hunter because it uses one system for all creatures. Just a shame they aren't playable.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786537The new Lasombra are designed specifically to deal with spirits (vampires call them strigoi) and werewolves have competing packs and conclaves. I can understand wanting each monster to embody a different theme, but I think it does the monsters a disservice.
It's not really about wanting anything. I was just making an observation. Each game has it's own feel, themes, mood and struggles. Werewolf obviously is all about the pack, the hunt, Father Werewolf, dealing with spirits, being guardians of the spirit world and perhaps fighting a rival tribe of werewolves like the Pure or the Balehounds. The books have a very tribal shamanistic vibe.
Very different from the mood of ennui, the politics, the corruption of mortal ideologies, the fight for good feeding grounds and the slow descent of becoming a cold predator of vampire. Or the dark fairytale that is changeling with all it's wonders and it's dark shadow side, it's focus on themes of abuse and the hiding for the True Fae.
I don't really see how these games mix.
I must say there is now one cosmology in the new wod and that is the cosmology of mage. Mage the awakening explains everything you want to know about the world. It emcompasses the material world and the realms of werewolf, changeling and more.
But I still don't see how they mix.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786537Complete, as in you can use the existing rules to play all the classes the fiction teased you with and it doesn't tell you to refer to a book that doesn't exist. Supported, as in the publisher still cares about it and it still has a community that cares about it and can offer insight and assistance.
Pfff, this is hard. Witchcraft only has one covenant books, so no. Monte Cook's WoD is only one book. Same about Marchland. Nighlife, not sure. Nightbane, not sure either and I think you have very different races in that game. I think Buffy/Angel is your best bet.
Quote from: 3rik;786601I don't necessarily agree with Hite on this. It depends on the setting and the tone. I'm fine with "good" vampires or vampires trying to be good, as long as they're not whiny and pretentious. Overly pretentious evil vampires are just as annoying as good ones - ooh I'm so intense, so evil, so dark... yawn. As long as you don't take it all too seriously there is IMHO a place for both. Buffy/Angel did it right, Vampire Diaries to some extent, Twilight did not. True Blood was too "mature" to be any fun for me. YMMV
That said, the truly monstrous or evil vampire does deserve more appreciation.
You should. It's a really fun game.
I think vampire is designed to be morally grey. You want to be good and keep your humanity, but you have to do stuff to survive in the world and climb the ladder. Just like Michael Corleone in the Godfather. You end up as a loser, dead or as a cold ancient mofo.
Quote from: Skywalker;786657I like vampires capable of both too. Along the lines of the better vampire movies of late, such as Byzantium and Let the Right One In.
Let the right one in get's mentioned a lot. But to me that's a little bit too much horror for me to play. I play it more like an urban fantasy game. I believe it;s supposed to be gothic horror.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786658- snip - Nightbane, not sure either and I think you have very different races in that game. - snip- .
Nightbane is a 6 books RPG line (7 if you count Dark Conversions) which is quite complete and playable with the first 4 books, even the core book is pretty useful on its own.
Nightbane does not feature a lot of races per se but each Nightbane is quite unique thanks to random table use during character creation.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786662I think vampire is designed to be morally grey. You want to be good and keep your humanity, but you have to do stuff to survive in the world and climb the ladder. Just like Michael Corleone in the Godfather. You end up as a loser, dead or as a cold ancient mofo.
The problem with the morality mechanics in all World of Darkness rulebooks is that while they're intended to be an indicator of how much a dick/monster the character is, in practice they're poorly-contextualized and punish the player for playing their character like a typical RPG character (aka psychopath) by making characters go insane for doing such trivial things as shoplifting or casually murdering anyone in their way. It's basically Call of Cthulhu's sanity meter except in a totally wrong context because the goal of World of Darkness (accumulate temporal power as a monster) is the exact opposite of that of Call of Cthulhu (die or go crazy fighting monsters). To add insult to injury, the 2nd edition of "new" World of Darkness abruptly changed the genre to cosmic horror and made morality into even more of a sanity meter than it already was.
The humanity mechanic in Nightlife, despite predating and having originally inspired the humanity mechanic in Vampire: The Masquerade, is better designed than the mechanic used in World of Darkness. Players don't roll to determine if their character feels regret or goes crazy. No, if the character acts like a psycho they lose humanity automatically. The flaws, however, are that humanity will fluctuate very much very often and characters are rewarded with humanity for doing trivial chores. By simply working at a customer service job for a few months, the character can max out all their superpowers. Furthermore, superpowers impose a humanity tax for learning and using them rather than anything approaching a real "temptation to use the dark side" mechanic (I think the superpowers themselves were meant to be the actual temptation, but this is not explained well when the point of the game is playing a monster in the splatterpunk genre). In any case, Nightlife's humanity mechanic is a diamond in the rough and with a few simple changes it would actually accomplish what World of Darkness spent 20 years failing to.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786670The problem with the morality mechanics in all World of Darkness rulebooks is that while they're intended to be an indicator of how much a dick/monster the character is, in practice they're poorly-contextualized and punish the player for playing their character like a typical RPG character (aka psychopath) by making characters go insane for doing such trivial things as shoplifting or casually murdering anyone in their way. It's basically Call of Cthulhu's sanity meter except in a totally wrong context because the goal of World of Darkness (accumulate temporal power as a monster) is the exact opposite of that of Call of Cthulhu (die or go crazy fighting monsters). To add insult to injury, the 2nd edition of "new" World of Darkness abruptly changed the genre to cosmic horror and made morality into even more of a sanity meter than it already was.
I couldn't agree more. We never rolled for it. It punishes players for manslaughter, which is also self defense. Now how many times will my players kill when they are attacked by a monster, cultist or serial killer? Every game session. It happens every time. So defend yourself and go nuts or get yourself killed.
I do like the sanity meter in GMC. More flexible. I hate it in B&S. That one is really "gothic".
How do you feel a bout the settings? I never cared much for the crappy rules anyway. I just houserule (or ignore) morality, virtue/vice and predators taint. I am still a little hung up about the setting background (or lack of) in nWoD. I just can't stand the subjective lore in the games. Nothing is certain, conflicting myth, multiple story seeds, left open or just make up your own details. I could kill for a good explanation about what the God Machine is and why it does what it does. But they leave it open as usual. :rolleyes:
I don't use any of the extra rules in supplements as well. I just don't see the point in a lot of rules they make. I mean now they make rules for becoming a personal myth or legend. Why do you need rules for that? Can you just let some NPC's act impressed everytime they meet you?
Rant! :mad:
Quote from: Snowman0147;786671The humanity mechanic in Nightlife, despite predating and having originally inspired the humanity mechanic in Vampire: The Masquerade, is better designed than the mechanic used in World of Darkness. Players don't roll to determine if their character feels regret or goes crazy. No, if the character acts like a psycho they lose humanity automatically. The flaws, however, are that humanity will fluctuate very much very often and characters are rewarded with humanity for doing trivial chores. By simply working at a customer service job for a few months, the character can max out all their superpowers. Furthermore, superpowers impose a humanity tax for learning and using them rather than anything approaching a real "temptation to use the dark side" mechanic (I think the superpowers themselves were meant to be the actual temptation, but this is not explained well when the point of the game is playing a monster in the splatterpunk genre). In any case, Nightlife's humanity mechanic is a diamond in the rough and with a few simple changes it would actually accomplish what World of Darkness spent 20 years failing to.
Ouch! Is Nightlife pretty complete? Oh, four books.
Quote from: yabaziou;786666Nightbane is a 6 books RPG line (7 if you count Dark Conversions) which is quite complete and playable with the first 4 books, even the core book is pretty useful on its own.
Nightbane does not feature a lot of races per se but each Nightbane is quite unique thanks to random table use during character creation.
I believe Angel/Buffy is also something like this amount. I think with Angel there are seven books, not counting the expanded char sheet and the GM screen.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786678Ouch! Is Nightlife pretty complete?
You could easily play a long campaign from the many PC types and antagonists in the corebook. There was also a Magic sourcebook (entitled
Magic, IIRC) that added a Sorcerer PC type.
There were a few interesting rules for playing bands and having music be the focal theme of a campaign scattered around a few of the modules. There was also a fascinatingly weird and bleak alternate campaign setting sourcebook called
KinRise that took place in a Post-WWIII nuclear winter Cormac McCarthy-meets-Troma hellscape.
Nightlife is eccentric, very 80's, and utterly without any pretension or gloss. I love it, of course.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786678Oh, four books.
There was a 5th book called
America Afterdark that for some weird reason is rarely mentioned and isn't listed on the Wikipedia page.
*Look at post 125 and reads the whole thing.*
Damn jan paparazzi! I said all that without making a single post? Wow what super powers do I even have?
Okay joking about quotes aside I will say this. Basicly what you want is a smarter world of darkness? No major supernatural organization that controls every thing. You want access to all the venues at the core book. Then you want to make sure every thing is supported for as long as possible. I think your best bet might be Urban Shadows.
The play test idea I had doesn't have supernatural classes. Instead you play as a normal mundane human being that don't even know what would hit him.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786663Let the right one in get's mentioned a lot. But to me that's a little bit too much horror for me to play. I play it more like an urban fantasy game. I believe it;s supposed to be gothic horror.
Its told from a mortal perspective which most Vampire games aren't. That's a valid distinction, but I still think its a good example of what things should look like to a mortal outsider. Byzantium is a better example from a vampire's perspective.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786678I couldn't agree more. We never rolled for it. It punishes players for manslaughter, which is also self defense.QuoteIt sounds like you're confusing legally acceptable with morally acceptable. Killing another human (or sentient being, whatever) is profoundly affecting to most people, regardless of whether the act was defensible. You can look at the mechanic as representing either being okay with it/getting a taste for it (lose a point of Humanity) or having it affect you and cause you great consternation (don't lose a point of Humanity).
While the trenchcoat-and-katana brigade certainly did take over the Vampire line almost immediately, the original concept was embodied in the line "monsters we are, lest monsters we become" - as a vampire, you had a choice between committing small atrocities over and over again to sate your unnatural appetites, or succumbing to those appetites and going full Season 3 Stefan the Ripper.
QuoteNow how many times will my players kill when they are attacked by a monster, cultist or serial killer? Every game session. It happens every time. So defend yourself and go nuts or get yourself killed.
Yes. The original point of VtM1 was that you were inevitably fucked.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786658Ok, I agree. But it wasn't designed this way. The WW community has some sort of consencus that the new WoD is way more crossover friendly, both ruleswise and no conflicting cosmologies.
I must admit I never tried any other game than vampire. So I guess you are right. I do like Hunter because it uses one system for all creatures. Just a shame they aren't playable.
The new WoD is designed to allow crossover insofar as the mechanics for the "power" stat (Blood Potency, etc.) and the "juice" stat (e.g. Vitae) are analogous between groups, and rules for using powers generally include what happens when you use the power on a supernatural (substituting the mage, werewolf or changeling stat for Blood Potency and vice versa).
QuoteIt's not really about wanting anything. I was just making an observation. Each game has it's own feel, themes, mood and struggles. Werewolf obviously is all about the pack, the hunt, Father Werewolf, dealing with spirits, being guardians of the spirit world and perhaps fighting a rival tribe of werewolves like the Pure or the Balehounds. The books have a very tribal shamanistic vibe.
Very different from the mood of ennui, the politics, the corruption of mortal ideologies, the fight for good feeding grounds and the slow descent of becoming a cold predator of vampire. Or the dark fairytale that is changeling with all it's wonders and it's dark shadow side, it's focus on themes of abuse and the hiding for the True Fae.
I don't really see how these games mix.
I must say there is now one cosmology in the new wod and that is the cosmology of mage. Mage the awakening explains everything you want to know about the world. It emcompasses the material world and the realms of werewolf, changeling and more.
But I still don't see how they mix.
They don't necessarily HAVE to. But White Wolf (while it still existed) was trying to respond to demand, namely insofar as a lot of people were creating "supernatural superhero" campaigns on their own without encouragement anyway. So while the backgrounds don't necessarily have to be compatible, they aren't completely contradictory either. Of course being less contradictory than the old World of Darkness is not much achievement.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786670The problem with the morality mechanics in all World of Darkness rulebooks is that while they're intended to be an indicator of how much a dick/monster the character is, in practice they're poorly-contextualized and punish the player for playing their character like a typical RPG character (aka psychopath)
No, a psychopath is somebody who is clinically incapable of feeling empathy, as opposed to a normal person who just doesn't give a damn. You're thinking "sociopath." ;)
Quoteby making characters go insane for doing such trivial things as shoplifting or casually murdering anyone in their way. It's basically Call of Cthulhu's sanity meter except in a totally wrong context because the goal of World of Darkness (accumulate temporal power as a monster) is the exact opposite of that of Call of Cthulhu (die or go crazy fighting monsters). To add insult to injury, the 2nd edition of "new" World of Darkness abruptly changed the genre to cosmic horror and made morality into even more of a sanity meter than it already was.
It's basically the same problem you get when trying to apply Catholic morality to real life. :D
jg
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786670The problem with the morality mechanics in all World of Darkness rulebooks is that while they're intended to be an indicator of how much a dick/monster the character is, in practice they're poorly-contextualized and punish the player for playing their character like a typical RPG character (aka psychopath) by making characters go insane for doing such trivial things as shoplifting or casually murdering anyone in their way.
The most absurd thing with Vampire is the way you can have a high conscience and it makes you more likely to do horrible things, because you have a better save vs. Humanity loss.
But, regardless of how bad the execution is, VtM has always been about the personal guilt and trauma thing, the horror of metamorphosis, etc. If you don't want that getting in the way of your fanged superhero campaign — and I suspect you don't if you want to be able to casually murder people — then just cut that bit out. You'll probably be better served with a decent superhero rpg, or maybe a spy rpg where morality isn't a question. Otherwise just use the humanity meter as a guideline and house rule some stuff, which is what everyone had to do to make it work IME.
Quote from: James Gillen;786703They don't necessarily HAVE to. But White Wolf (while it still existed) was trying to respond to demand, namely insofar as a lot of people were creating "supernatural superhero" campaigns on their own without encouragement anyway.
Yes, spot on
Quote from: daniel_ream;786689It sounds like you're confusing legally acceptable with morally acceptable. Killing another human (or sentient being, whatever) is profoundly affecting to most people, regardless of whether the act was defensible. You can look at the mechanic as representing either being okay with it/getting a taste for it (lose a point of Humanity) or having it affect you and cause you great consternation (don't lose a point of Humanity).
While the trenchcoat-and-katana brigade certainly did take over the Vampire line almost immediately, the original concept was embodied in the line "monsters we are, lest monsters we become" - as a vampire, you had a choice between committing small atrocities over and over again to sate your unnatural appetites, or succumbing to those appetites and going full Season 3 Stefan the Ripper.
Yes. The original point of VtM1 was that you were inevitably fucked.
I get all this. Of course killing someone in self defense does affect you. I just find it very unpractical. We are not trenchcoat katana warrior, but we do a lot of investigation. And sooner or later you get attacked by something. It is a karma meter, but it feels like unfair punishment.
Quote from: James Gillen;786703No, a psychopath is somebody who is clinically incapable of feeling empathy, as opposed to a normal person who just doesn't give a damn. You're thinking "sociopath." ;)
There is not really a difference between those two terms. They are just fashion words. In psychiatry people always speak of personality disorders anyway. And those are already pretty vague and changing a lot. I found some people online who wrote psychopathy is violent and sociopathy isn't, but I don't see where that's based on. It's just an opinion really. Anyway both psychopathy and sociopathy and some personality disorders are all terms for people with a lack of empathy.
And that's not the case in an RPG. An RPG has more action and plays out like an action movie. People play it more light hearted. You don't see James Bond or Indiana Jones being all hung up about all the people he killed in a movie. Those guys would be psychopaths as well if you put them in the real world. But it isn't the real world, it's just a game.
I think UA's madness meters would work great for a WoD-esque game.
Quote from: Will;786768I think UA's madness meters would work great for a WoD-esque game.
A sanity meter is good. A karma meter and sanity combined sucks. What do people use for wod as sanity? The sanity rules from Mirrors? Or the Integrity rules from the GMC?
I just look at that stuff and do what Mirrors had done. Toss the morality out the damn window.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786757And that's not the case in an RPG. An RPG has more action and plays out like an action movie. People play it more light hearted.
While this is certainly the case generally with VtM (vide the trenchcoat-and-katana stereotype) it wasn't the design goal, and I know several groups who played it as originally intended.
If you want a game that plays light-hearted like an action movie, then a game explicitly designed to force players to make impossible moral choices isn't the right game for that.
Quote from: daniel_ream;786778While this is certainly the case generally with VtM (vide the trenchcoat-and-katana stereotype) it wasn't the design goal, and I know several groups who played it as originally intended.
If you want a game that plays light-hearted like an action movie, then a game explicitly designed to force players to make impossible moral choices isn't the right game for that.
I like city games and I like investigative horror. I like the fact you don't stick your sword in 90% of the NPC's you meet. It's a talk RPG. I like that as well. I am not so much into the morality and not so much into the politics. I have to say the social combat rules make a lot of sense for a political game.
Quote from: Snowman0147;786776I just look at that stuff and do what Mirrors had done. Toss the morality out the damn window.
Did you toss the Virtue/Vice system as wel as is suggested with the Absent Morality part on page 23?
What do you think of the Forbidden Lore system on page 28?
What do you think of the Sanity system on page 48? It doesn't feel very fleshed out to me. It looks like a "Just roll when you feel like it" system. I expected a list with scary shit that makes you lose your mind.
Btw I copy pasted your name by accident in this topic a few posts ago. Oops.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786799Did you toss the Virtue/Vice system as wel as is suggested with the Absent Morality part on page 23?
I had nothing against them since they were just willpower points restore.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786799What do you think of the Forbidden Lore system on page 28?
I actually like it. Reading my play test I figured you know what inspired potency and drowning rules.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786799What do you think of the Sanity system on page 48?
The only flaw in forbidden lore. See unlike what WoD did and tried to make it mental I just kept things simple in my play test. If you get too much potency you simply disappear from the mundane world because you have too much supernatural density. You just sink towards the hidden worlds.
Quote from: Snowman0147;786807The only flaw in forbidden lore. See unlike what WoD did and tried to make it mental I just kept things simple in my play test. If you get too much potency you simply disappear from the mundane world because you have too much supernatural density. You just sink towards the hidden worlds.
No I meant the other Sanity system. Not the Forbidden Lore, but the one that's replacing Morality. Together with Conscience and Spiritual Purity.
Oh that one just sucks. I toss those out too.
Quote from: James Gillen;786703It's basically the same problem you get when trying to apply Catholic morality to real life.
I'm a humanist. We generally agree with Catholics on the whole "killing, raping and stealing are wrong" thing even if that makes us sanctimonious prudes. The problem with the karma meters in World of Darkness aren't that they measure a character's monstrosity, but that they punish characters for acting like monsters by making them go crazy. The books includes loads of special rules to get around being punished for committing atrocities, which wouldn't even be necessary in the first place if the karma meters weren't designed by idiots who thought it would be a good idea to combine a sanity meter with a karma meter.
Quote from: smiorgan;786715If you don't want that getting in the way of your fanged superhero campaign — and I suspect you don't if you want to be able to casually murder people — then just cut that bit out.
I'm glad you noticed my equation between shoplifting and casual murder. I was making a satirical comment on how RPGs are generally about being racially-motivated well-armed mass murderers that specialize in home invasion. Most players characters, if they existed in real life, would be heinous monsters any sane person would want to see put in the electric chair.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786769A sanity meter is good. A karma meter and sanity combined sucks. What do people use for wod as sanity? The sanity rules from Mirrors? Or the Integrity rules from the GMC?
I read the Mirrors book. The Conscience (as a karma meter) rules are pretty much what Morality tried and failed to accomplish in the first place and I certainly prefer it over that damned Integrity meter. It's still problematic for being a combined karma/sanity meter, but it's a huge step in the right direction that GMC shat all over.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786788I have to say the social combat rules make a lot of sense for a political game.
Are you talking about the social combat rules that force characters to spend a week of in-game time trying to convince a bouncer to let them into a club?
Quote from: Snowman0147;786807I had nothing against them since they were just willpower points restore.
Ditto. I have no idea why people threw such huge fits over these and why suddenly being able to make your own was any improvement.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786820Ditto. I have no idea why people threw such huge fits over these and why suddenly being able to make your own was any improvement.
I didn't know anyone had a fit over virtue and vice. It was basicly the good and bad side of the character. If any thing it added more fluff.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786820[...] RPGs are generally about being racially-motivated well-armed mass murderers that specialize in home invasion. Most players characters, if they existed in real life, would be heinous monsters any sane person would want to see put in the electric chair.
You've been reading Power Kill (http://johntynes.com/revland2000/rl_powerkill.html) again, haven't you.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786820I'm glad you noticed my equation between shoplifting and casual murder. I was making a satirical comment on how RPGs are generally about being racially-motivated well-armed mass murderers that specialize in home invasion. Most players characters, if they existed in real life, would be heinous monsters any sane person would want to see put in the electric chair.
I get your satirical point.
I disagree with "most player characters". With the exception of a few mission-focused amoral characters the people I roll with just don't play like that. But then we don't play D&D where the primary reward system is killing things and taking treasure.
I know you were being glib, but you're technically wrong if you argue VtM equates shoplifting with murder. In 1e, petty crime comes at 8 on the Hierarchy of Sin, and murder comes in at 2.
You're also wrong if you say Humanity is a madness meter. Losing humanity points does not force gains in derangements, nor does it force more and more reprehensible actions. Losing Humanity also doesn't make you more likely to lose more humanity in and of itself, unlike Call of Cthulhu and SAN.
I think vampire's framework is fine, it's the execution that's questionable. Frenzy leads to derangements, and so the player has to manage Frenzy. But in most cases doing the things that trigger Humanity loss are choices the player makes, and nothing to do with madness. It's just the Virtues that are broken.
So going back to your original point -- if you're complaining that vampire punishes players for playing like the amoral dungeoneers they're used to, that's not a fault of vampire. Even if the execution is rubbish, it's not like VtM tries to sneak that feature in -- it's the game you signed up to play.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786820I'm glad you noticed my equation between shoplifting and casual murder. I was making a satirical comment on how RPGs are generally about being racially-motivated well-armed mass murderers that specialize in home invasion. Most players characters, if they existed in real life, would be heinous monsters any sane person would want to see put in the electric chair.
You have to to make the story move forward. If you just went home it would be a short game.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786820I read the Mirrors book. The Conscience (as a karma meter) rules are pretty much what Morality tried and failed to accomplish in the first place and I certainly prefer it over that damned Integrity meter. It's still problematic for being a combined karma/sanity meter, but it's a huge step in the right direction that GMC shat all over.
Conscience is indeed the same morality meter as usual, only with the hierarchy of sins being more logical to me. It's more humanistic in nature.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786820Are you talking about the social combat rules that force characters to spend a week of in-game time trying to convince a bouncer to let them into a club?
Yeah, it takes a while. Are you talking about the Door system in GMC/B&S or the system in Danse Macabre which is just like regular combat? There is another social combat system in Mirrors as well. Crap, I just can't be bothered to read them all.
I think social combat makes sense in a political setting. I think Court/Ship in Fate Worlds in Shadow does this better btw. It seems more streamlined and focused than any WoD system.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786820Ditto. I have no idea why people threw such huge fits over these and why suddenly being able to make your own was any improvement.
They never come up in my games. I like it better to ditch those as well (as is suggested in Mirrors) and gain willpower when you complete a task, like surviving a fight, escaping from prison, convincing someone to give you intel or finding the lair of a serial killer.
Quote from: smiorgan;786855I get your satirical point.
I disagree with "most player characters". With the exception of a few mission-focused amoral characters the people I roll with just don't play like that. But then we don't play D&D where the primary reward system is killing things and taking treasure.
Agreed. But what if players run into monsters, evil cults, serial killers, mobsters or other nasty stuff? You gotta kill to survive sometimes.
Quote from: smiorgan;786855I know you were being glib, but you're technically wrong if you argue VtM equates shoplifting with murder. In 1e, petty crime comes at 8 on the Hierarchy of Sin, and murder comes in at 2.
Yes, true. And that conscience system changes the hierarchy a little bit. Murder in self defense is higher on the list and killing for pleasure is lower for example. It just makes more sense.
Quote from: smiorgan;786855You're also wrong if you say Humanity is a madness meter. Losing humanity points does not force gains in derangements, nor does it force more and more reprehensible actions. Losing Humanity also doesn't make you more likely to lose more humanity in and of itself, unlike Call of Cthulhu and SAN.
It does in the Integrity system. Lower Intergrity means penalties on degeneration rolls. So the lower you are, the quicker you fall. The Forbidden Lore system is different. That system sacrifices social interaction and increases the chance for getting derangements for a boost in your occult skills. The Sanity system in Mirrors is a joke. You have to come up with your own degeneration check based on your char beliefs and pas experiences.
Anyway the default system is morality and sanity in one. Instead of seeing bad stuff makes you mad, it is doing bad stuff makes you mad.
Quote from: smiorgan;786855I think vampire's framework is fine, it's the execution that's questionable. Frenzy leads to derangements, and so the player has to manage Frenzy. But in most cases doing the things that trigger Humanity loss are choices the player makes, and nothing to do with madness. It's just the Virtues that are broken.
You have to explain this to me. I don't get it. Bad stuff you do can lead to degeneration which can lead to derangements. Bad stuff can be intentional (player choice) or unintentional (frenzy). Virtues and vices are tied to willpower.
In any case, World of Darkness' karma meters don't do much good and don't make the personal horror work better. Characters do terrible things over the course of of play as a matter of course and karma punishes them with madness. Personal horror is about being disgusted by your descent into villainy, not reveling in it or being punished by outside forces.
Nightlife implements the humanity mechanic better by simply making character's existing magical weaknesses worse as humanity declines rather than interfering with their roleplaying. As characters act more monstrous, they look and feel more monstrous. By making losses automatic, it also removes the annoying "a die roll determines if my characters feels remorse or not." Whether the character feels remorse or not is up to their player, and if they really do feel remorse they would stop doing bad things rather than keep doing them and turn into a monster. It's good because there aren't any outside consequences for losing humanity and nothing to stop you from losing it further except to stop doing bad things.
Urban Shadows' corruption mechanic is great because it exists to give characters temptation. They can gain corruption to get an edge, but going too far is bad. If there isn't reward in being corrupted, there's no temptation.
A good humanity mechanic should reward characters for acting monstrous so that they'll be continually tempted to sacrifice it and not realize the true consequences until it's almost too late.
You mean how I handled potency at my play by post? The more potency you have the more powerful you become. The down side is that your slowly fading away from the mundane world, but fading into the hidden worlds where the real monsters live.
Sure you can try to surface, but the more you try the more effort you need. That effort can leave you weaken and worst it is not a solution. Eventually your going to fade away to your currently level of potency. Your constantly bubbing up and down the potency levels like a man that is drowning in the ocean. Thus why I call the process of getting potency points drowning.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786887You have to explain this to me. I don't get it. Bad stuff you do can lead to degeneration which can lead to derangements. Bad stuff can be intentional (player choice) or unintentional (frenzy). Virtues and vices are tied to willpower.
That's the nWoD way. I was referring to rules from VtM 1e.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786902I
Nightlife implements the humanity mechanic better by simply making character's existing magical weaknesses worse as humanity declines rather than interfering with their roleplaying. As characters act more monstrous, they look and feel more monstrous.
Urban Shadows' corruption mechanic is great because it exists to give characters temptation. They can gain corruption to get an edge, but going too far is bad. If there isn't reward in being corrupted, there's no temptation.
First Urban Shadows sounds interesting. I will check it out. My list with games to check out becomes ridiculously long.
In the new vampire 2nd edition it is an option to take bane to replace certain sins from your hierarchy. So you can make a vampire who doesn't slide down anymore when stealing or killing, but he or she now can't enter a house, smells like decay or attracts bugs. That is pretty cool.
Quote from: Snowman0147;786908You mean how I handled potency at my play by post? The more potency you have the more powerful you become. The down side is that your slowly fading away from the mundane world, but fading into the hidden worlds where the real monsters live.
No, with the Forbidden Lore mechanic you lose contact with reality. With reason 0 you are so detached from reality the player loses control of the character.
I am sorry if that wasn't clear. There are so many subjects going on in this topic, both about the settings and about different rule systems. It's hard to keep track of it all.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786022Maybe it's just me, but I always felt the covenants in Witchcraft are more true secret societies than the splats in the WoD. I also find it more open and free than the new WoD, which is supposed to be toolkit. Just a shame there are so few books of that setting.
It's my understanding that the various unpublished
WitchCraft books are going to be released as PDFs. That should help, at least.
And, of course, everything published for
All Flesh Must Be Eaten is compatible with
WitchCraft.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786670Furthermore, superpowers impose a humanity tax for learning and using them rather than anything approaching a real "temptation to use the dark side" mechanic (I think the superpowers themselves were meant to be the actual temptation, but this is not explained well when the point of the game is playing a monster in the splatterpunk genre). In any case, Nightlife's humanity mechanic is a diamond in the rough and with a few simple changes it would actually accomplish what World of Darkness spent 20 years failing to.
That's actually why I had a hard time believing that what pass for the good guys in Nightlife stand a chance against the bad guys, who can cheerfully max out their powers at the cost of a human side they don't care about in the first place.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786916No, with the Forbidden Lore mechanic you lose contact with reality. With reason 0 you are so detached from reality the player loses control of the character.
I am sorry if that wasn't clear. There are so many subjects going on in this topic, both about the settings and about different rule systems. It's hard to keep track of it all.
Still game over either way. Not to mention the more forbidden lore you have the more powerful you are as well.
Quote from: Snowman0147;786908You mean how I handled potency at my play by post? The more potency you have the more powerful you become. The down side is that your slowly fading away from the mundane world, but fading into the hidden worlds where the real monsters live.
I mean it in the sense of a carrot as opposed to a stick. Characters could burn humanity to gain additional benefits as opposed to having their humanity penalized for normal character progression.
The karma meters were designed as a stick, not a carrot. I prefer eating a carrot to being hit with a stick. Don't you?
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786914In the new vampire 2nd edition it is an option to take bane to replace certain sins from your hierarchy. So you can make a vampire who doesn't slide down anymore when stealing or killing, but he or she now can't enter a house, smells like decay or attracts bugs. That is pretty cool.
That's one of the mechanics I mentioned, that was designed specifically to get around being punished by the karma meter for playing the game, as an example of bad design.
The rules should have punished characters for losing humanity by giving them banes
instead of insanity. "A monster I am, then a monster I become." It's still a stick and not a carrot, but it's a huge improvement over the stupid insanity rules as opposed to being a revolting murder-people-guilt-free card in a game where the theme is supposed to be self-disgust.
EDIT: Had I been in charge of development, I would've replaced Morality with Conscience and dumped the derangements. Rather than rolling to determine whether the PC feels remorse, he'd roll Conscience to resist acting like a dick. If he fails he gets to act like a dick and loses a dot of Conscience. The only penalty of low Conscience is that it would act as a cap on social rolls (borrowed from Humanity) as the character gradually becomes more and more apathetic to others around him. On the other hand, players could elect to give their character a dot of Insanity
instead of losing a dot Conscience to reflect that they regret what they've done and now suffer trauma because they care.
As you say above, one of the big appeals of Urban Shadows is that they have made several core aspects of WoD into both simple yet powerful mecahnics.
Corruption basically allows a PC to gain a boost in power (often leading to more Corruption) but at a real cost. If used unchecked, the consequences are high for the PC.
I also liked how Debts operate to deal with the social intrigue that pervades WoD in a concrete way. PCs are tangled up pretty quickly in a web of obligation and are forced to become more entangled to deal with the resulting complication.
These are both great inspiration for stories too. Once each PC has a position on Corruption and a series of Debts owed to and owing, its easy to spin these into stories.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;786939EDIT: Had I been in charge of development, I would've replaced Morality with Conscience and dumped the derangements. Rather than rolling to determine whether the PC feels remorse, he'd roll Conscience to resist acting like a dick. If he fails he gets to act like a dick and loses a dot of Conscience. The only penalty of low Conscience is that it would act as a cap on social rolls (borrowed from Humanity) as the character gradually becomes more and more apathetic to others around him. On the other hand, players could elect to give their character a dot of Insanity instead of losing a dot Conscience to reflect that they regret what they've done and now suffer trauma because they care.
I do agree with you. I don't think you should get crazy for acting evil. Losing your humanity would cost you social interaction, if I had any say about it. I do think you are just switching things around with this solution. Instead of going crazy unless you take a bane, now you get a bane unless you want to become crazy. Not that different. And conscience isn't that different from morality. It's not as big of a difference between WoD morality and CoC sanity for example.
You are probably looking for something like Shadowrun, where you have the option to use many implants at the cost of your humanity. So that's always a balancing act.
I like that stuff about corruption and debts. That seems to me mechanics that could drive a game instead of slowing it down. I saw cool mechanics in Court/Ship (Fate Worlds) about keeping secrets and acquiring secrets of others. That seems like an auto must have in any vampire game. Instead those vampire developers only come up with rules you don't need, because you could do that stuff already just by roleplaying it.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786956Losing your humanity would cost you social interaction, if I had any say about it.
I can't be arsed to look it up, but I'm pretty sure VtM1 had a rule that any social skill dice pool was capped at your Humanity score.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;786678I couldn't agree more. We never rolled for it. It punishes players for manslaughter, which is also self defense. Now how many times will my players kill when they are attacked by a monster, cultist or serial killer? Every game session. It happens every time. So defend yourself and go nuts or get yourself killed.
I do like the sanity meter in GMC. More flexible. I hate it in B&S. That one is really "gothic".
How do you feel a bout the settings? I never cared much for the crappy rules anyway. I just houserule (or ignore) morality, virtue/vice and predators taint. I am still a little hung up about the setting background (or lack of) in nWoD. I just can't stand the subjective lore in the games. Nothing is certain, conflicting myth, multiple story seeds, left open or just make up your own details. I could kill for a good explanation about what the God Machine is and why it does what it does. But they leave it open as usual. :rolleyes:
I don't use any of the extra rules in supplements as well. I just don't see the point in a lot of rules they make. I mean now they make rules for becoming a personal myth or legend. Why do you need rules for that? Can you just let some NPC's act impressed everytime they meet you?
Rant! :mad:
Ouch! Is Nightlife pretty complete? Oh, four books.
We just switiched out the Humanity Path for others that are available online and in the rules for Sabat and stuff. Effectively treating your Path like an alignment and if you take actions against it penalties come.
Not so very tricky.
Quote from: daniel_ream;786969I can't be arsed to look it up, but I'm pretty sure VtM1 had a rule that any social skill dice pool was capped at your Humanity score.
That and capping dice pool size during the day.
Quote from: daniel_ream;786969I can't be arsed to look it up, but I'm pretty sure VtM1 had a rule that any social skill dice pool was capped at your Humanity score.
Quote from: smiorgan;786997That and capping dice pool size during the day.
That also applies in VtR.
JG
Quote from: daniel_ream;786969I can't be arsed to look it up, but I'm pretty sure VtM1 had a rule that any social skill dice pool was capped at your Humanity score.
You are right. Same as in Requiem. Maybe they should do more with that and drop the derangements.
Quote from: jibbajibba;786985We just switiched out the Humanity Path for others that are available online and in the rules for Sabat and stuff. Effectively treating your Path like an alignment and if you take actions against it penalties come.
Not so very tricky.
There aren't any Paths in new WoD. I think they didn't want players to play an evil as fuck character with an alternative morality that lets him get away with everything.
Again I don't like morality rules. It's a stick for punishing players. But that's one of the main problems of the OP. I don't really care about it. I just scrapped it. I scrapped Predators Taint and the virtue/vice system as well. My problems with the wod are more with the ambiguous nature of the setting material. But that's another story.
I made a summary about the points the OP wants change from the WoD.
Setting:
1. No conspiracies
2. All monsters in one setting
3. No specific monster backgrounds
Rules:
1. No restrictive powers
2. No laundry lists of powers
3. No morality system that punishes the player
Someone mentioned GURPS Cabal. There was a guy on a forum who was ranting for a long time that GURPS was way more toolkit than the new WoD. He called nWoD a toolkit with ten different hammers and he sometimes needed a screwdriver or a saw. Did he have a point?
Let me elaborate. Both GURPS Cabal and Witchcraft don't have anything in mind how you should play your game. WoD games always have a certain type of gameplay in mind. Werewolf is all about hunting on spirits in packs. Vampire is all about covenant politics. Both Unisystem and GURPS ask you how you want your game. And then tell you how you can achieve that.
Gritty: less xp with char creation. Epic: more xp with char creation. You can easily do covenant politics with Witchcraft or use only one covenant or use one playable and one as the bad guys. You can do that in the WoD, but it somehow always feels a little wrong. Just a voice in the back of your head.
Cabal and Witchcraft are broader. That's it. You can do politics with Witchcraft, but you can also do one faction fighting a zombie plague if that's what you want. That's also why I like Fading Suns. You could do politics with that game, but you could also isolate your party on an abonded mining station with a few symbiotes and you have "Alien". Or go demon hunting with the Avesti or go relic hunting with the Ascetonic Order. Those games are so broad, it has something for everyone. The only new wod game that has that is Requiem for Rome.
I've always been partial to After Sundown (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52316) for my WoD substitute. It has at least some of what the OP wants with no morality system and mixed supernatural type parties being the default.
Quote from: gamerGoyf;787362I've always been partial to After Sundown (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52316) for my WoD substitute. It has at least some of what the OP wants with no morality system and mixed supernatural type parties being the default.
I find Trollman's writing style quite repellent. Even if you ignore all the condescension, his fluff writing is questionable at best. He includes the "world crime league" as a faction. Yes, the same guys from the Buckaroo Banzai movie. Virtually all his fluff quotes were taken from other, better works such as the cult children's show Invader Zim (the quote "I hope you like nightmare worlds" is from the episode "Game Slave 2"). No seriousness, no originality, no creativity, no appeal.
The worst part is that he sometimes make genuinely good observations that end up being horribly marred by the rest of his writing.
Alternatives to World of Darkness?
Well, I guess there's radical lobotomy...
Quote from: RPGPundit;789158Alternatives to World of Darkness?
Well, I guess there's radical lobotomy...
According to Ron Edwards there's no real difference.
Quote from: Skywalker;785756For shits and giggles, there's also Everlasting, which is a WoD heartbreaker RPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?manufacturers_id=46
What makes it a heartbreaker? I can get into a good (?) heartbreaker.
Quote from: RPGPundit;789158Alternatives to World of Darkness?
Well, I guess there's radical lobotomy...
Is it mostly the Metaplot you are against? Because the new games don't have that. If not the Metaplot, then what else?
My $0,02. I don't like the bad layout and the fact they need twice as many words as necessary. I don't mind the Metaplot. You can always ignore that. For the new WoD in particular I don't like the vagueness of the setting material. Just give me one good explanation instead of five unfinished ones, thank you WW.
Anyway, I do like city games and I like dark urban fantasy/gothic horror where monsters and magic are real. So I am stuck with the WoD. :p
Btw, what does the OP think of the newer settings? Still the same problems as the old ones?
Or is it the still somewhat narrow game design? Instead of opening the game up to what the players want to do, they focus the games on the themes. Is that it? Can you please answer it. I am really curious.
Quote from: RPGPundit;789158Alternatives to World of Darkness?
Well, I guess there's radical lobotomy...
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
JG
Quote from: Tetsubo;789187What makes it a heartbreaker? I can get into a good (?) heartbreaker.
As in a fantasy heartbreaker is for D&D (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/). Effectively, an RPG designed by a person with one or two innovations from an existing RPG without drawing on wider RPG developments outside of that RPG for the rest of the design.
Quote from: Skywalker;789482As in a fantasy heartbreaker is for D&D (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/). Effectively, an RPG designed by a person with one or two innovations from an existing RPG without drawing on wider RPG developments outside of that RPG for the rest of the design.
I know the definition of a 'heartbreaker'. I am curious what makes *this game* a heartbreaker.
Quote from: Warthur;789163Quote from: RPGPundit;789158Alternatives to World of Darkness?
Well, I guess there's radical lobotomy...
According to Ron Edwards there's no real difference.
Forgites can now emulate Edwards' concept of "trad RPG-induced brain damage" by playing Dungeon World.
Quote from: James Gillen;789477I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
JG
Hey, Tom Waits.
God, I had to do some research. You are all way deeper into this than I am. Didn't the Ron E. dude say something against the WW railroading? And is the Forge method absolutely not railroading and not similar to WW storytelling? Despite being called narrativism?
Btw, I think more WoD players play D&D than the Forge or Storygames. I never heard form those games untill I came to this site.
Edit:
I found an article from Ron Edwards while he was talking about GNS theory. While not the most complete classification of games I still got what he said about the WoD. It is a simulationist game (the rules simulate being a vampire for example) but it has narrativist game master advice. Put on top of that the sandbox like setup with a lot of NPC's, locations and factions and that all make it even worse to play scene by scene.
Quote from: 3rik;789543But Forgites can now emulate Edwards' trad RPG-induced brain damage by playing Dungeon World.
So Dungeon World is indie, but it doesn't get the Forge approval stamp? I am clueless here.
Actually I get way more worked up by bad music than with bad games. I hate you, Nickelback. :mad:
So maybe I should just step out of this discussion. :confused:
Dungeon World is apparently Forge-approved emulation of old school gaming, though I'm not sure this was on purpose. I believe a WoD kind of game using the Apocalypse World engine is in the making, so Forgies can then also emulate WoD without losing hipster cred.
Quote from: 3rik;789624Dungeon World is apparently Forge-approved emulation of old school gaming, though I'm not sure this was on purpose. I believe a WoD kind of game using the Apocalypse World engine is in the making, so Forgies can then also emulate WoD without losing hipster cred.
Its called Urban Shadows: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1287928832/urban-shadows-rpg. Arguably, Monster Hearts and Monster of the Week can do WoD too.
Quote from: Skywalker;789646Its called Urban Shadows: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1287928832/urban-shadows-rpg. Arguably, Monster Hearts and Monster of the Week can do WoD too.
What's that game called again? ;)
Quote from: jan paparazzi;789710what's that game called again? ;)
Urban Shadows ;)
Quote from: jan paparazzi;789259Is it mostly the Metaplot you are against? Because the new games don't have that. If not the Metaplot, then what else?
The metaplot, sure, but mainly the pretentiousness and the totally undeserved claims of superiority over the "unwashed masses" who play D&D.
And no, in the case of WoD its not just the fans, it's very literally the game itself, its right there in the GM-advice of the nWoD book.
Quote from: RPGPundit;790063The metaplot, sure, but mainly the pretentiousness and the totally undeserved claims of superiority over the "unwashed masses" who play D&D.
And no, in the case of WoD its not just the fans, it's very literally the game itself, its right there in the GM-advice of the nWoD book.
Ah, yeah I know what you mean. It's the scene by scene way of GM'ing. Scenes, chapters, stories and finally chronicles. I felt that part very contrived. It was more in the way than helping me as a GM. My games are usually one long session with occasional downtime.
I hope they ditch that part in the 2nd edition. I like stories, but I think plot based doesn't work in an RPG, because you can't control the main characters. I think character based storytelling works the best. The weird thing is this all feels very tacked on. WoD could be perfectly sandboxed, especially with all those aspirations (if you apply them to the NPC's).
My biggest problem with the newer games is they got rid of all the interesting origins of all the factions. Those origins gave a good impression what those splats were all about. A show don't tell blueprint. Now all the origins are very obfuscated, usually having multiple explanations to "enhance the mystery". To me this is the dumbest thing ever. A game with ancient vampires, but without a sense of history? Because they can't remember it so well anymore?
The claims of superiority WoD games have been making
right there in the books since the very beginning and the general pretentious tone are indeed rather off-putting.
There's plenty of players who never took to it, though, and just ran WoD like the sandbox game of occult supers it actually is.
Quote from: Skywalker;789748Urban Shadows ;)
Powered by the Apocalypse Turd Engine.
I must have read WoD books from some parallel timeline because I don't recall a single line putting down non-WoD gamers.
I've certainly got the attitude from some individuals, maybe twice, back in the mid-1990s and all in the LARP scene. But most of the crew I LARPed with we're D&D fans and in fact we played a hell of a lot of AD&D 2e and GURPS.
Quote from: The Butcher;790229I must have read WoD books from some parallel timeline because I don't recall a single line putting down non-WoD gamers.
I've certainly got the attitude from some individuals, maybe twice, back in the mid-1990s and all in the LARP scene. But most of the crew I LARPed with we're D&D fans and in fact we played a hell of a lot of AD&D 2e and GURPS.
I never heard them talking about Fate, the Forge or Storygames either. The people who play it, play mainstream RPG's like D&D. Cthulhu is pretty rare either. But D&D, yeah, a lot play D&D.
The WoD core is pretty pretentious. For example this:
"And that brings us to Storytelling. Many roleplaying games are more concerned with rules and statistics than the drama created within the game. Some people call those roll-playing games, since they're more focused on dice rolling than role-playing. Storytelling certainly provides for a simple and consistent set of rules, but it seeks more than just dice rolls and character sheets. Storytelling is about drama, the wonder of a make-believe tale told by the players."
Or this:
"Unlike child's play or corporate roleplaying, Storytelling can strive to be an art form. This might sound pretentious, but anybody who's played roleplaying games long enough has experienced more than one epiphany, a moment when the game seems to become a living entity, a Muse dictating strange and wonderful things to the players. These moments are worth striving for."
You say pretentious, I say trying to encourage people to think of other ways of gaming.
I mean, yeah, sometimes people invent stuff themselves, but sometimes people experience nothing but 'clear room A3, clear room C1a, search for secret doors, random encounter, clear room A1' games and feel frustrated, and lack direction or guidance to help their friends give it a shot.
Now, mind you, the distance between the game rules and what they were tying to accomplish was... large. But I think they helped encourage a lot of development and design that would eventually foster things like Fate.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;790237"Unlike child's play or corporate roleplaying, Storytelling can strive to be an art form. This might sound pretentious, but anybody who's played roleplaying games long enough has experienced more than one epiphany, a moment when the game seems to become a living entity, a Muse dictating strange and wonderful things to the players. These moments are worth striving for."
Shame I have those moments when I was playing DnD far more than any storyteller/storytelling game. Oh wait that maybe because you can use any system and just fucking role play it out instead of assuming the game system creates the role play.
Quote from: Snowman0147;790254Shame I have those moments when I was playing DnD far more than any storyteller/storytelling game. Oh wait that maybe because you can use any system and just fucking role play it out instead of assuming the game system creates the role play.
Yeah, the best roleplaying moments I've experienced in RPGs have had pretty much nothing to do with the rules... and if anything happened in spite of them, having much more to do with who was sitting at the table.
Quote from: Will;790251You say pretentious, I say trying to encourage people to think of other ways of gaming.
The intent might be praiseworthy, but the language undermines it... and IS pretentious.
Back in that day it would have appealed to me though, because I had a hate on for what I saw as D&D/roll-playing/class-level/power fantasy gamers who wanked over character sheets full of large numbers.
Then I mellowed out, mostly.
I remember being a ST for a nWoD/Scion chat known as Legendary Deeds. I was doing werewolf at the time. Hell only reason I did it was because there werewolf venue was dying out as there was no ST for that venue in the chat. So after saving that venue I had a couple of new guys showing up.
My advice for them? Follow the basic tenant which is fun > setting/story > and rules are dead last. Fuckers thought I was insane and I should obey all the rules in the book. Even the rules that go against the other rules.
So to say the least when they eventually replace me the werewolf venue died again. Sure some people thought the new ST "saved" the venue, but actual results beg to differ. When I was on werewolf was not only surviving, but it was thriving. When I left werewolf quickly died out.
Banality seemed pretentious to me. ;)
Quote from: The Butcher;790229I must have read WoD books from some parallel timeline because I don't recall a single line putting down non-WoD gamers.
So, for just one example, you haven't read the GM section of the nWod book?
Quote from: RPGPundit;790439So, for just one example, you haven't read the GM section of the nWod book?
jan paparazzi produced a paragraph putting down other
games. Do you really want to fault a product for marketing itself?
Claims of "art"? Pretentious, yes, but not significantly more so than the 1e DMG with its turgid prose and condescending capitalizations.
But I have yet to see a single sentence doing what you and a few others claim — criticising
gamers.
Quote from: Snowman0147;790278I
My advice for them? Follow the basic tenant which is fun > setting/story > and rules are dead last. Fuckers thought I was insane and I should obey all the rules in the book. Even the rules that go against the other rules.
That's kinda odd. If there is a game where you just make up a roll on the fly, it's nWoD. I do it all the time. Just roll something + anything and add/substract 3 dice.
Quote from: The Butcher;790495jan paparazzi produced a paragraph putting down other games. Do you really want to fault a product for marketing itself?
Claims of "art"? Pretentious, yes, but not significantly more so than the 1e DMG with its turgid prose and condescending capitalizations.
But I have yet to see a single sentence doing what you and a few others claim — criticising gamers.
That was out of the GM chapter of the nWoD. To me this isn't really the big issue. If it bother me I skip it. I do think the scene by scene way of GM'ing is the worst advice you can give to a GM. Very contrived.
Ok, big cliché. It's all about the gamers. Sure. But still something sticks with the people that read the books. You never see a tactical combat grid in a WoD game for example. Because it isn't promoted in the books.
Quote from: Will;790310Banality seemed pretentious to me. ;)
In principle it represented the real horror of the Changeling approach to the World of Darkness- not political corruption or apocalypse, but the psychological grinding down of losing your dreams under the pressure of real life and becoming "normal." In the Players' Guide they called it "The Horror of Loss."
In practice, of course, it bogged down in issues of whether stuff like technology and modernism were necessarily Banal because a. WoD once again had not properly defined their concepts, and b. there was at least a lingering dose of oWoD's typical pomo collegiate "Science BAD!" dogma involved.
JG
When I ran and wrote for Changeling, my personal guide to Banality was "Would this character be a dick villain in a Roald Dahl book? If so, then Banal."
Not so surprisingly, this strategy works like a charm.
P. S. I remember writing the NPCs and Treasures for Inanimae and deliberately putting in non-Renfair characters and items (the manikin version of Mr. Punch as John Travolta's character from Pulp Fiction, the air elemental jazz clarinetist from New Orleans, the fire elemental worker from the Pittsburgh steel mills, the dryad who was Johnny Appleseed's muse, the leaf that stored data as though it were a ZIP drive, etc.). When the final book came out, it was clear that I was in the minority of the writing staff.
Hogwarts by Night - A Magical World of Darkness
http://www.hogwartsbynight.com
Call of Cthulhu - Wizarding World - Old World of Darkness
PBP - Non-combative (with some chance of PVP), LFP
HBN is based upon White Wolf's Old World of Darkness, J.K. Rowling's Magical World and Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu. All works of literature are welcomed to be played in our world so long as the story can be adapted into our setting. Our game takes place in the Modern Era (current date), but within the Magical World you can be as anachronistic as your imagination takes you.
Did anyone mention Nights Edge for Cyberpunk 2020?