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I've been asked to play in a Hunter: the Reckoning game at my local game store. The store doesn't actually carry any WoD products, but they say they will get some "soon" since this Hunter game is starting.

I've been trying to decide if I will enjoy this game or not, and have asked on a couple of message boards to see what folks think of WoD in general, and Hunter in specific. So far, crickets. This is making me wonder if anyone plays World of Darkness anymore. Used to be that game line was all over game stores, but in the last few years I've seen pretty much nothing. Well, one copy of the new Vampire was around for a while.

Anyone have recent experience with WoD games? Anything I should know about them if I decide to play at the store?

New (as in V5-era) or Old (as in V20 and all the Revised editions)?

New era Hunter is basically a trash version of Hunter the Vigil with an explicit "all the organized hunters are evil and you aren't allowed to be a member" rule because all PCs must be sad sack losers in the V5-era. I would actively avoid that game and anyone interested in it like they were bearing the plague.

Revised-era Hunter was a kinda gonzo "you've been empowered by the divine powers to punch monsters" type deal and is much more fun.

For more down to earth type Hunters I'd say either try to convince them to run Hunter the Vigil (everything the V5-era HtR tries to sell itself as... only it actually delivers) or, failing that, V20 Hunters Hunted.

Funny you should ask!

After a 25-year hiatus, I joined a OWoD game. I never thought I'd go back (the settings are played out, the dice-pool mechanic is wonky, etc.) but it's actually been surprisingly fun. So much time has passed that it seems like a new thing.

What do I think of OWoD?

I think it works best when you stick to one gameline, and explore it's themes and setting, rather than using all of the gamelines to create a "kitchen sink urban fantasy" experience. Although that always seemed to be more popular. Best value for the money is to get one of the 20th Anniversary PDFs. Each one is hundreds of pages long.

What do I think of Hunter?

First choice is to decide if you want to play Normals or People with Powers. If you want to go Normals, you don't need really need any books other than one of the cores, and the character creation rules for mortals which you can probably find online. The gist of it is mortals get less dots to spend than the supernatural splats. If you go this route, keep in mind that humans don't have supernatural healing, so recovering 5 health levels is going to take a LONG time.

If you want to go PwP (which I think is far more interesting) you have two choices: Hunter The Reckoning (the orange book from 1999) or Hunter the Vigil (the green book from the NWoD.) I like both. Reckoning has different "creeds" that provide unique powers granted by supernatural beings called the "Messengers" which I always equated with angels. It gives the game a mysterious occult feel that's rich with theme.

Vigil has a more "DaVinci Code meets the X-files" feel. The PCs can join organizations that grant supernatural powers, advanced science, ancient artifacts, etc.   

Does anyone play the World of Darkness anymore?

I once saw some metrics for the Vampire 5E sales, and it surprised me. So I assume people are playing that, but I don't have any data to back it up. I have no knowledge of Hunter 5th edition. I've read the PCs are mortals without powers. My gut feeling is I don't need a new book for that, especially since I have more than enough orange and green books on my shelf.

World of Darkness is one of those things that had its peak of popularity a long time ago but is still kept alive by a core group of die-hard fans.  People still play it and new products are still being made.  It's just nowhere near as popular as it was back in the 90s. 

 

Quote from: Aglondir on September 16, 2024, 05:16:30 PMI think it works best when you stick to one gameline, and explore it's themes and setting, rather than using all of the gamelines to create a "kitchen sink urban fantasy" experience. Although that always seemed to be more popular.

I think people kept trying this because it kept seeming like it could be a thing at the surface level. But then you look deeper and you see each branch is incompatible either in lore or in mechanics somehow. Primarily lore. But trying to combine say Wraith and Werewolf was not really going to pan out for example without alot of tinkering.

Not WoD. But I am particularly fond of WW's superhero RPG Aberrant.

Quote from: Omega on September 17, 2024, 06:33:46 AM

Quote from: Aglondir on September 16, 2024, 05:16:30 PMI think it works best when you stick to one gameline, and explore it's themes and setting, rather than using all of the gamelines to create a "kitchen sink urban fantasy" experience. Although that always seemed to be more popular.

I think people kept trying this because it kept seeming like it could be a thing at the surface level. But then you look deeper and you see each branch is incompatible either in lore or in mechanics somehow. Primarily lore. But trying to combine say Wraith and Werewolf was not really going to pan out for example without alot of tinkering.

My experience is that Vampire the Masquerade works best with Lupines (cursed bloodthirtsy monsters living in the wilds... I got them to work as a variant vampire who must start with four dots in protean, only loses all their disciplines during the daylight and feeds on flesh instead of blood to restore its "blood" pool) rather than Garou, and Sorcerers (linear magic) rather than Mages. Wraiths incorporate rather seamlessly, but changelings are completely incompatible. Demons as presented in VtM splats fit the themes, but ironically, Demon the Fallen, despite having surface similarities doesn't work at all.

Hunters of either variety also fit nicely into the Vampire corner (the supernatural ones are essentially manifesting a type of True Faith) and the Hunters Hunted (psychics, hedge magic, and such) variety was from a Vampire supplement to begin with. The original version of Mummy (before they made them their own hardcover and completely borked their lore) also fit well within the Vampire-verse corner.

Werewolf plays well with nothing. It's core premise is too Dog-matic (ba dum bum tish) to play with the metaphysics of anything else.

On paper Mage with its belief creates reality metaphysics would seem to be able to incorporate everything, but in practice it's fundamental premise just melts off anything unique from the other lines and keeps only the mechanics intact... vampires are just bygone thaumivores who drink blood to feed on the quintessence of others, etc. Its probably best for a general crossover if no one cares about deeper themes, but these days I consider its underlying Gnostic themes more disruptive to my enjoyment so would never run it these days.

Changeling barely plays well with itself and Wraith is generally so removed that while it can participate in some of the other splats' settings without undermining the Wraith cosmology, others coming into their primary setting isn't very feasible.

Hunter the Reckoning fits best with Vampire, least well with Werewolf, and are probably could be arranged to have the least problems with Mage, but once you're talking PCs they may as well just be Mages with a HtR paradigm or they'll be third class at best.

Demon is basically a version of Vampire that doesn't play well with others both on power scaling or theme. It's another Werewolf basically.

These days I'm futzing on my own ruleset and cosmology that probably veers closest to the Vampire-verse above, only from the PC perspective of being a hunter and might have a dash of cyberpunk just for flavor (near future dystopian elements for its darker themes rather than aping WoD's "Gothic Punk").

Paradox has effectively killed all the momentum that WoD started building again when OnyxPath (The original white wolf writers before CCP bought the rights to the name 'White Wolf' and then sold it to Paradox) started up the 20th Anniversary editions.

Each and everyone of the 20th Anniversaries editions was a phenomenal success that updated the original games, codified all the previous material and gave room for a whole new line of supplements.

Onyx Path even had plans to do what they called a "Proper" 4th edition for Vampire the Masquerade, based entirely off of how well the 20th anniversary did and the demand was there.

Then CCP sold the rights to Paradox.

Paradox made the executive decision to make a new "5th" edition for Vampire the Masquerade. What happened to the 4th? Oh they decided 20th Anniversary edition was the true "4th edition" to the game.

Paradox didn't use any of the Onyx Path staff to write the edition. They hired Kenneth Hite to do the system, and they had a European Larper handle the setting.

Suffice to say, 5th edition was divisive as hell. The setting changes are wildly unpopular with the original audience and the system itself nerfed Vampires *HARD* which takes away from the power fantasy of you know... Being a fucking Vampire.

6 years on, 5th edition has it's audience, but it's nowhere near what 20th anniversary had. The only other 'games' that have been released are Werewolf the Apocalpyse 5th edition (EVEN MORE DIVISIVE than Vampire was) and Hunter... which has nothing to do with any previous version of Hunter.

Paradox has said there is no plans to even try and release a 5th edition of Mage. Renegade Studios handle almost all of "White Wolf" stuff these days. They briefly hired Justin Achilli to oversee Werewolf 5e and even he ended up leaving the project before it was finished.

In all of this, Paradox also got the rights to the 'New World of Darkness' (renamed 'Chronicles of Darkness' to differentiate the two) Paradox stopped allowing Onyx Path to make Chronicle of Darkness games, because even those were outselling their version of the Original World of Darkness.

Which brings us to today. World of Darkness was on the verge of a new renaissance which was effectively killed and curtailed. Chronicles of Darkness isn't even being made anymore. Paradox doesn't want the competition.

The "World of Darkness" is being written and made by people who have absolutely no history or ties to any of the original games... The system was designed by a guy who prefers Indie systems so has a ton of fiddly bits that make it more complicated. It's not a dead game, but it's probably only going to limp along until possibly a 6th edition and a system change.

In all of this though, Onyx Path and the original WoD writers aren't taking it laying down. They have a new game they've been working on to fill the "Monsters among us" conspiracy, urban horror genre.

It's called "Curseborn" and honestly the setting is really cool. October is when it's Kickstarter starts.

As for WoD? I'll probably always run 20th anniversary games, but I won't touch anything else Paradox makes.

Good synopsis Orphan.

I do not play any WoD anymore. I ran a lot of WoD all the way through NWoD, Vampire, Mage, Wereworlf, Hunter. When NWoD dropped I liked the system, I did not like the cosmology of Werewolf *at all* though there were elements of it I did like. I adored Hunter: The Vigil and Changeling the Lost. I liked Requiem because it was pretty open-ended and I could import all the OWoD elements I wanted into the game.

I dropped out of WoD in general when the writers of NWoD started to go insane and the woke bullshit started picking up steam outside of the games themselves (which are fairly clean). I simply stopped supporting them because they were the insufferable morons we now know them to be. I figured I owned all the WoD material I'd ever need so it was easy to walk away.

I did buy the 20th Anniversary Vampire, Mage and Werewolf. Very happy with those products, but I've only used them a couple of times. Still not a fan of the system. They're definitely nostalgia purchases. Returning to the setting was fun, but that system was as bad as it ever was even with the cleanup, even with my years of experience in getting around it.

I looked at 5th ed, it looked like a shitshow from the jump. I had *zero* interest in the narrative. Less interest in the shitty mechanics.

WoD is largely dead to me. I've considered translating it to Savage Worlds, but haven't had time to dedicate to it. And when I think about it, I'm always thinking - "why translate WoD to Savage Worlds, and not do my own WoD-style Savage Worlds setting and sell it?"...

WoD exists only as a mirage from my gaming past. Beautiful, but empty.

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 16, 2024, 10:25:12 PMWorld of Darkness is one of those things that had its peak of popularity a long time ago but is still kept alive by a core group of die-hard fans.  People still play it and new products are still being made.  It's just nowhere near as popular as it was back in the 90s. 

That's an understatement. It was a monster in the 90s until it died off, almost overnight. I never did know what happened.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on September 17, 2024, 01:21:25 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 16, 2024, 10:25:12 PMWorld of Darkness is one of those things that had its peak of popularity a long time ago but is still kept alive by a core group of die-hard fans.  People still play it and new products are still being made.  It's just nowhere near as popular as it was back in the 90s. 

That's an understatement. It was a monster in the 90s until it died off, almost overnight. I never did know what happened.

Chronicles of Darkness. Or as it was originally known "New World of Darkness."

Probably the dumbest move Whitewolf did as a company, even if it was somewhat understandable. They fully ended and killed the original World of Darkness in 2003 and then launched the "New World of Darkness" with the blue core book and Vampire the Requiem in 2004.

There were some good ideas in Nwod but it's initial offerings were very disappointing compared to the original WoD. It turned off a ton of the original fans.

The biggest LARP organization at the time, "One World By Night" even refused to switch to the new setting and new rules. Making the 'official' Larp club, The Camarilla (which was smaller then OWBN) the only LARP organization running the New rules and New Setting.

By the time New World of Darkness had been renamed to "Chronicles of Darkness" it had finally found it's footing and became a great setting in it's own right, but the damage was already done.

As I mentioned in my previous post, by then even Whitewolf now Onyx Path had seen the writing on the wall and had brought the Original World of Darkness back with the 20th anniversary editions.

But at the end of the day, that was the descision which led to the downfall of Whitewolf, ending their original IP with no plans to continue it, and starting fresh with what was seen as a 'lesser' and 'worse' version.

Quote from: finarvyn on September 15, 2024, 12:55:31 PMAnyone have recent experience with WoD games? Anything I should know about them if I decide to play at the store?

I had three WW books, and in a recent purge where I dumped 2/3 of my collection, two of them are gone. Vampire 3rd (I believe) and Vampire: Dark Ages (the original one). I actually liked Dark Ages because of how legitimately spooky the setting was; moody vampires in NYC never really appealed to me that much, but vampires hunting medieval peasants, yeah, that's cool.

Anyway, the third book was Changeling, and I sort of forgot about it because it was in an old Citytech box for some reason. Found it last week, along with a crapload of those cards WW made for it (probably why it was in the box). Browsed it a bit, remembered the couple fun games I played and how cool the book looks. And that's about it...I don't think I'll ever play another WoD game again. Guess that era is over?

I'm one of the heretics that actually *liked* nWoD (though not as much as oWoD) but it was an absolutely braindead choice WW made to do it. They wrote themselves into a corner with the metaplot and never ending power creep, which they got out of with nWoD. They ended up splitting the player base up and it cost them.

V5 did kind of get to a logical point with the rise of smartphones, etc., but it also comes off bland as hell compared to the real WW published books. I'd bet that there are just as many people playing V20 as there are people playing V5, if not more, but what that number is now, I have no idea.

Quote from: Orphan81 on September 17, 2024, 01:52:37 PM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on September 17, 2024, 01:21:25 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 16, 2024, 10:25:12 PMWorld of Darkness is one of those things that had its peak of popularity a long time ago but is still kept alive by a core group of die-hard fans.  People still play it and new products are still being made.  It's just nowhere near as popular as it was back in the 90s. 

That's an understatement. It was a monster in the 90s until it died off, almost overnight. I never did know what happened.

Chronicles of Darkness. Or as it was originally known "New World of Darkness."

Probably the dumbest move Whitewolf did as a company, even if it was somewhat understandable. They fully ended and killed the original World of Darkness in 2003 and then launched the "New World of Darkness" with the blue core book and Vampire the Requiem in 2004.

There were some good ideas in Nwod but it's initial offerings were very disappointing compared to the original WoD. It turned off a ton of the original fans.

The biggest LARP organization at the time, "One World By Night" even refused to switch to the new setting and new rules. Making the 'official' Larp club, The Camarilla (which was smaller then OWBN) the only LARP organization running the New rules and New Setting.

By the time New World of Darkness had been renamed to "Chronicles of Darkness" it had finally found it's footing and became a great setting in it's own right, but the damage was already done.

As I mentioned in my previous post, by then even Whitewolf now Onyx Path had seen the writing on the wall and had brought the Original World of Darkness back with the 20th anniversary editions.

But at the end of the day, that was the descision which led to the downfall of Whitewolf, ending their original IP with no plans to continue it, and starting fresh with what was seen as a 'lesser' and 'worse' version.

Duh! Now I feel really dumb. But I appreciate you letting me know what happened and why it died. I looked through some of the newer WoD stuff about a decade ago and all I could think was - boring. There's no soul to this. No passion. No wonkiness. This is a cheap copy worse than some Conan pastiches.

WoD was already losing sales in the late 90s and early 00s due to culture shift, lore bloat, and growing competition. D&D 3e was the final nail in the coffin, not CoD. CoD was made because they had to change, they couldn't keep running WoD. Sales of WoD fell.

I used to be into the creative side of CoD where people would make their own stuff and share it. I left in disgust once it became clear to me the community only cared about masturbating irrelevant lore bloat vomit and being elitist fuckwits. Fuck that. Fuck WoD.

Curseborn is written by the original writers, but it's gonna be shitty because they were always successful despite themselves. The storypath and conditions rules are godawful.

If you want actually well designed urban fantasy, then you're more or less fucked. Urban Shadows is the most flexible and best designed (it uses PbtA and doesn't frontload you with irrelevant lore bloat), but the publisher doesn't care about it so it's been in development hell for years.

Urban fantasy is a dead genre outside of paint by numbers romance novels. Sure, Harry Potter is technically urban fantasy, but Hogwarts might as well be another planet for all the difference it makes.

I'm currently working on some urban fantasy fiction, but it's not high on my to-do list. I don't get the impression there's anyone interested

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 17, 2024, 08:26:43 AMand Wraith is generally so removed that while it can participate in some of the other splats' settings without undermining the Wraith cosmology, others coming into their primary setting isn't very feasible.

Orpheus, WW's last gasp, feels like it would work with Wraith. But the setting its presented in keeps throwing large wrenches into that idea. Can be done. But its going to be messy.

On Werewolf. The bigger problem is that Werewolf is in conflict with itself internally.

Which in all honesty is the overarching theme throughout 90% of all WW settings. NOTHING is consistent. EVERYTHING contradicts something else, even internally, (and 100% externally).

Aberrant had, for a WW book, an unusual amount of internal consistency. Well least till Aeon/Trinity came out and that went out the window.

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 16, 2024, 10:25:12 PMWorld of Darkness is one of those things that had its peak of popularity a long time ago but is still kept alive by a core group of die-hard fans.  People still play it and new products are still being made.  It's just nowhere near as popular as it was back in the 90s.

Well, it's amazing to me how fast it vanished. I always attributed this to the new WoD setting, and assumed that nobody liked it, but it used to fill game stores and then ... nothing.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 18, 2024, 01:24:11 PMUrban fantasy is a dead genre outside of paint by numbers romance novels. Sure, Harry Potter is technically urban fantasy, but Hogwarts might as well be another planet for all the difference it makes.

Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" is still one of my favorite urban fantasy series out there, and it's not really a romance novel. DF has vampires and werewolves and wizards and the fae and all sorts of cool supernatural stuff.

Quote from: Omega on September 18, 2024, 02:18:41 PMAeon/Trinity

I remember seeing Aeon in the gaming store and thinking how badass it would be to play. That lasted a couple of months before it magically disappeared, changed its named, then fell off the radar completely. Funny how popular WW was for a few years (they had a fucking stable in WWF) before just almost becoming completely nonexistent.

Quote from: finarvyn on September 18, 2024, 05:31:59 PMWell, it's amazing to me how fast it vanished. I always attributed this to the new WoD setting, and assumed that nobody liked it, but it used to fill game stores and then ... nothing.

It isn't that simple, despite what haters/historical revisionists like to claim. The Vampire: The Requiem rulebook sold 100,000 copies of its first printing and nWoD had sold something like 2 million books by 2008 (4 years after release) when the last public numbers were released. For comparison, oWoD sold 5 million books over the first 13 years.

The issues that led to WW's demise were complicated. WoD was canceled because it wasn't selling anymore, they'd written themselves into a corner and couldn't do anything besides repackaging. The anniversary releases were memberberries. This was apparent even in the 90s, hence why the controversial third editions were created. When that didn't work, then WW rebooted. Then they decided to go into video games and sold themselves to CCP, which is where things took the turn for the worst. CCP had bigger concerns, since ttrpg money is pocket change to video game money and video game markets are actually competitive, so within a few years they gutted WW and ultimately sold it off. This is what killed WW, not anything they did in the ttrpg market.

The nWoD/CoD books were successful. Forsaken, Awakening, and Lost were, AFAIK, more popular than their predecessors. Lost especially was surprisingly successful, to the point where it was promoted from a limited release (only 6 books were planned, then nothing) to an ongoing release schedule. Yeah, grognards hated it, but zillennials loved it. It was an example of attracting a new audience actually working. I remember it being hugely popular in the 2000s and saw new releases on the shelves of bookstores. It was successful enough that the original writing team still wanted to make stuff for it before Paradox pulled the license.

The only reason that oWoD is still around in any form is because of Bloodlines popularizing it among tourists who never play the ttrpg. Of course, Paradox is bungling that because they're not trying to capitalize on the quirky tone that made Bloodlines a cult hit. If Requiem had a similarly quirky video game release, then you can be sure that tourists would be singing it praises. Both of the story premises for BL2 (baby vamp joining a clan after being turned, elder waking up depowered) would've worked better in Requiem anyway; indeed, you could've done both at once. Requiem's structure is, ironically, even better for video games: there's 5 classes with balanced power spreads (each has 1 unique power, plus 2 others shared with one other each), 5 defined political/ideological factions to start with, and any number of other factions and bloodlines that can be joined later. Several WoD bloodlines were already adapted and it wouldn't be difficult to adapt any remainder.

Quote from: finarvyn on September 18, 2024, 05:31:59 PMJim Butcher's "Dresden Files" is still one of my favorite urban fantasy series out there, and it's not really a romance novel. DF has vampires and werewolves and wizards and the fae and all sorts of cool supernatural stuff.

DF is a survivor from the good old days, not representative of anything being released nowadays. Most of the writers from the 90s and 2000s don't write anything anymore. It's frustrating.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 09:59:24 AMDF is a survivor from the good old days, not representative of anything being released nowadays. Most of the writers from the 90s and 2000s don't write anything anymore. It's frustrating.

To be fair... the 90's was THIRTY years ago. i.e. many of those authors not writing much anymore are in their 60's or even 70's and 80s now. Priorities change as you get older, especially if you've been successful enough earlier to be able to now live comfortably off savings and investments.

This why I've largely turned to doing things myself in terms of RPGs... for this particular genre I'm currently hammering on my Hunters of the Damned concept using a streamlined version of my "White Book Mage" as a foundation (starting with switching to d6's for the dice pools instead of d10's).

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 17, 2024, 08:26:43 AM

Quote from: Omega on September 17, 2024, 06:33:46 AMMy experience is that Vampire the Masquerade works best with Lupines (cursed bloodthirsty monsters living in the wilds... I got them to work as a variant vampire who must start with four dots in protean, only loses all their disciplines during the daylight and feeds on flesh instead of blood to restore its "blood" pool) rather than Garou, and Sorcerers (linear magic) rather than Mages. Wraiths incorporate rather seamlessly, but changelings are completely incompatible. Demons as presented in VtM splats fit the themes, but ironically, Demon the Fallen, despite having surface similarities doesn't work at all.

Hunters of either variety also fit nicely into the Vampire corner (the supernatural ones are essentially manifesting a type of True Faith) and the Hunters Hunted (psychics, hedge magic, and such) variety was from a Vampire supplement to begin with. The original version of Mummy (before they made them their own hardcover and completely borked their lore) also fit well within the Vampire-verse corner.

Werewolf plays well with nothing. It's core premise is too Dog-matic (ba dum bum tish) to play with the metaphysics of anything else.

On paper Mage with its belief creates reality metaphysics would seem to be able to incorporate everything, but in practice it's fundamental premise just melts off anything unique from the other lines and keeps only the mechanics intact... vampires are just bygone thaumivores who drink blood to feed on the quintessence of others, etc. Its probably best for a general crossover if no one cares about deeper themes, but these days I consider its underlying Gnostic themes more disruptive to my enjoyment so would never run it these days.

Changeling barely plays well with itself and Wraith is generally so removed that while it can participate in some of the other splats' settings without undermining the Wraith cosmology, others coming into their primary setting isn't very feasible.

Hunter the Reckoning fits best with Vampire, least well with Werewolf, and are probably could be arranged to have the least problems with Mage, but once you're talking PCs they may as well just be Mages with a HtR paradigm or they'll be third class at best.

Demon is basically a version of Vampire that doesn't play well with others both on power scaling or theme. It's another Werewolf basically.

These days I'm futzing on my own ruleset and cosmology that probably veers closest to the Vampire-verse above, only from the PC perspective of being a hunter and might have a dash of cyberpunk just for flavor (near future dystopian elements for its darker themes rather than aping WoD's "Gothic Punk").

I'd love to see this. Agree 100% with your stuff about oWoD.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 19, 2024, 01:33:55 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 09:59:24 AMDF is a survivor from the good old days, not representative of anything being released nowadays. Most of the writers from the 90s and 2000s don't write anything anymore. It's frustrating.

To be fair... the 90's was THIRTY years ago. i.e. many of those authors not writing much anymore are in their 60's or even 70's and 80s now. Priorities change as you get older, especially if you've been successful enough earlier to be able to now live comfortably off savings and investments.

Sure, but nobody's come along to replace them with a new generation of writers. Urban fantasy has been completely taken over by romance. Pure romance where the conflict is "will the heroine fuck the werewolf hunk, the selkie stud, the leprechaun prince, or the dragon shifter?" Other genres and conflicts like action, mystery, etc. have all faded into irrelevance.

I don't know how this happened.

I'd play old Vampire, if the people were right. But not any of that new 5e shit.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 02:12:34 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 19, 2024, 01:33:55 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 09:59:24 AMDF is a survivor from the good old days, not representative of anything being released nowadays. Most of the writers from the 90s and 2000s don't write anything anymore. It's frustrating.

To be fair... the 90's was THIRTY years ago. i.e. many of those authors not writing much anymore are in their 60's or even 70's and 80s now. Priorities change as you get older, especially if you've been successful enough earlier to be able to now live comfortably off savings and investments.

Sure, but nobody's come along to replace them with a new generation of writers. Urban fantasy has been completely taken over by romance. Pure romance where the conflict is "will the heroine fuck the werewolf hunk, the selkie stud, the leprechaun prince, or the dragon shifter?" Other genres and conflicts like action, mystery, etc. have all faded into irrelevance.

I don't know how this happened.

Yes, you do. Right from the start, World of Darkness attracted a lot of sex-starved gen x women who were into hot vampire and werewolf studs. The infatuation with urban fantasy romance goes at least back to the 80s (predating WoD by several years).

As grrrl powa~ became all the rage in the late aughts and early teens, vampire erotica became ascendant. Then Twilight came out, and I'm willing to bet men petty much checked out of urban fantasy.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 19, 2024, 02:38:36 PMI'd play old Vampire, if the people were right. But not any of that new 5e shit.

Why play that IP at all? It has so much idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules. Is this a Gen X nostalgia thing?

I wouldn't listen to anything BoxCrayon has to say when it comes to World of Darkness. He makes up actual lies, uses his own biased experiences and has an axe to grind. In short he's completely biased and hates anything and everything to do with World of Darkness.

He has nothing constructive to add to any conversation on the topic except to shit it up.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 19, 2024, 02:38:36 PMI'd play old Vampire, if the people were right. But not any of that new 5e shit.

Why play that IP at all? It has so much idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules. Is this a Gen X nostalgia thing?

Because believe it or not, people *LIKED* The world of Darkness. People think it's fun and cool. There's a reason it was the number 2 RPG series of all time for a long time running. I get that you hate the series and everything to do with it, but dude... How about you just stop posting in these threads? You add nothing to the conversation, you come in here and take a big shit in the middle of the room.

It's fucking annoying trying to talk about WoD games knowing you're going to just come in and whine like a bitch about it the whole time.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 19, 2024, 02:38:36 PMI'd play old Vampire, if the people were right. But not any of that new 5e shit.

Why play that IP at all? It has so much idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules. Is this a Gen X nostalgia thing?

idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules? Hah!

I'll still play Rifts if someone is offering.

OWoD really only gets unplayable if you start mixing splats or playing Elder/Archmage tier games. Last V20 game I ran the elders of the city were eighth gen or weaker with one very reclusive 7th Gen present. The NPCs were mostly based on historical figures from the city in question and that was more important to the lore and schemes than any of the Metaplot nonsense (which was completely ignored). None of the rules that applied made it unplayable and the baggage can be easily ignored because outside of the oldest Elders the baggage is all Antediluvian nonsense that matters not a whit unless you choose to make it matter.

Hell, I've had more Antediluvian nonsense turn up in my old Mage campaigns than in any Vampire campaign (mostly because Mage PCs have a tendency to go digging through the ancient past seeking knowledge and ancient vampires are one of the few other supernaturals that really pose any threat to a mid-sized cabal of Mages once they start getting to four and five dots in the spheres).

But I've grown to really dislike Mage upon undergoing some spiritual growth for its Gnostic bullshit underpinnings and while Vampire's metaphysics are a bit more to my liking I dislike playing a parasite (when I do get the opportunity to play, I run a Dhampir... taking the power hit to not have to feed on blood) which is why I've turned to developing my own setting for Urban Fantasy that includes what I think will be interesting and playable and better fit the zeitgeist of the day (i.e. taking down powerful monsters preying on humanity rather than being one).

The monsters presently are based on the idea of individuals making pacts with demons (who often disguised themselves as pagan gods) for supernatural powers as the basis for the various types. Dracula is prime example, having gained his supernatural powers from the study of magic under Satan himself (most of what Dracula could do was not from being a vampire, but a warlock... undeath was just another power and drinking blood a condition of the pact that granted it).

Lycaon is another example or at least some versions of his myth where he didn't murder and try to feed Zeus his children to test the gods, but as a sacrifice to Baal/Zeus for the supernatural power to become the ultimate predator... this being so close to Caine and his bargaining with Lilith in OWoD is what I used as the legends behind the Lupines (since I don't use Garou due to their mythos conflicts) that showed up in my VtM campaign and its something I like enough to carry over into my own setting.

Blood (i.e. life) is fuel for all the monsters (Witches by default employ blood/sacrifices to fuel their rituals) and devotion to one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins is what determines their power (thus someone truly devoted to wickedness could pull a "nobody to nightmare" deal... which Dracula did historically and is probably currently at war with some Mexican cartel leader who sold his soul for an advantage over his rivals for the title of Lord of All Vampires).

Player options currently in development break down to...

The Called: Those who experienced some supernatural event or were inducted into a society that caused them to become a hunter. They have no supernatural gifts, but get other edges. Those with the right connections could even get cybernetics (I did mention I was planning a dash of cyberpunk to replace the Gothic Punk).

The Chosen: Those granted supernatural Charisms by God. They gain strength by holding true to the virtues.

The Cursed: While master vampires, werewolf founders, etc. make deliberate pacts with demons for power, they also seek to spread wickedness by cursing others through various means (ex. the werewolf bite, a witch's curse, etc.). Those who become afflicted walk a tightrope between self-control and sin. Holding to the virtues limits their power, but also keeps them from becoming a monster. Engaging in sin strengthens their power, but erodes their control (note that full-blown monsters are far more powerful than a cursed mortal is... the cursed mortals have power levels about equal to the other PC types if they keep themselves under control).

The Children: God will turn even wickedness towards goodness and so it is with the children of monsters, who gain a portion of their power to use against evil that is strengthened not by sin, but by virtue (ex. they get the sorcerous control over the world that Avarice grants, but that power is strengthened by acts of charity not greed).

Quote from: Orphan81 on September 19, 2024, 03:39:07 PMI wouldn't listen to anything BoxCrayon has to say when it comes to World of Darkness. He makes up actual lies, uses his own biased experiences and has an axe to grind. In short he's completely biased and hates anything and everything to do with World of Darkness.

He has nothing constructive to add to any conversation on the topic except to shit it up.

Ok. I apologize for annoying you, then.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 19, 2024, 04:52:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 19, 2024, 02:38:36 PMI'd play old Vampire, if the people were right. But not any of that new 5e shit.

Why play that IP at all? It has so much idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules. Is this a Gen X nostalgia thing?

idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules? Hah!

I'll still play Rifts if someone is offering.

OWoD really only gets unplayable if you start mixing splats or playing Elder/Archmage tier games. Last V20 game I ran the elders of the city were eighth gen or weaker with one very reclusive 7th Gen present. The NPCs were mostly based on historical figures from the city in question and that was more important to the lore and schemes than any of the Metaplot nonsense (which was completely ignored). None of the rules that applied made it unplayable and the baggage can be easily ignored because outside of the oldest Elders the baggage is all Antediluvian nonsense that matters not a whit unless you choose to make it matter.

Hell, I've had more Antediluvian nonsense turn up in my old Mage campaigns than in any Vampire campaign (mostly because Mage PCs have a tendency to go digging through the ancient past seeking knowledge and ancient vampires are one of the few other supernaturals that really pose any threat to a mid-sized cabal of Mages once they start getting to four and five dots in the spheres).

But I've grown to really dislike Mage upon undergoing some spiritual growth for its Gnostic bullshit underpinnings and while Vampire's metaphysics are a bit more to my liking I dislike playing a parasite (when I do get the opportunity to play, I run a Dhampir... taking the power hit to not have to feed on blood) which is why I've turned to developing my own setting for Urban Fantasy that includes what I think will be interesting and playable and better fit the zeitgeist of the day (i.e. taking down powerful monsters preying on humanity rather than being one).

The monsters presently are based on the idea of individuals making pacts with demons (who often disguised themselves as pagan gods) for supernatural powers as the basis for the various types. Dracula is prime example, having gained his supernatural powers from the study of magic under Satan himself (most of what Dracula could do was not from being a vampire, but a warlock... undeath was just another power and drinking blood a condition of the pact that granted it).

Lycaon is another example or at least some versions of his myth where he didn't murder and try to feed Zeus his children to test the gods, but as a sacrifice to Baal/Zeus for the supernatural power to become the ultimate predator... this being so close to Caine and his bargaining with Lilith in OWoD is what I used as the legends behind the Lupines (since I don't use Garou due to their mythos conflicts) that showed up in my VtM campaign and its something I like enough to carry over into my own setting.

Blood (i.e. life) is fuel for all the monsters (Witches by default employ blood/sacrifices to fuel their rituals) and devotion to one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins is what determines their power (thus someone truly devoted to wickedness could pull a "nobody to nightmare" deal... which Dracula did historically and is probably currently at war with some Mexican cartel leader who sold his soul for an advantage over his rivals for the title of Lord of All Vampires).

Player options currently in development break down to...

The Called: Those who experienced some supernatural event or were inducted into a society that caused them to become a hunter. They have no supernatural gifts, but get other edges. Those with the right connections could even get cybernetics (I did mention I was planning a dash of cyberpunk to replace the Gothic Punk).

The Chosen: Those granted supernatural Charisms by God. They gain strength by holding true to the virtues.

The Cursed: While master vampires, werewolf founders, etc. make deliberate pacts with demons for power, they also seek to spread wickedness by cursing others through various means (ex. the werewolf bite, a witch's curse, etc.). Those who become afflicted walk a tightrope between self-control and sin. Holding to the virtues limits their power, but also keeps them from becoming a monster. Engaging in sin strengthens their power, but erodes their control (note that full-blown monsters are far more powerful than a cursed mortal is... the cursed mortals have power levels about equal to the other PC types if they keep themselves under control).

The Children: God will turn even wickedness towards goodness and so it is with the children of monsters, who gain a portion of their power to use against evil that is strengthened not by sin, but by virtue (ex. they get the sorcerous control over the world that Avarice grants, but that power is strengthened by acts of charity not greed).

I didn't see this when I made my last post. Looking forward to see you publish your books.

World of Darkness is dead. Paradox killed it. The best anyone can do now is make new games. Hopefully without the bad blood that still splits the remaining WW community.

Quote from: Corolinth on September 19, 2024, 03:12:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 02:12:34 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 19, 2024, 01:33:55 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 09:59:24 AMDF is a survivor from the good old days, not representative of anything being released nowadays. Most of the writers from the 90s and 2000s don't write anything anymore. It's frustrating.

To be fair... the 90's was THIRTY years ago. i.e. many of those authors not writing much anymore are in their 60's or even 70's and 80s now. Priorities change as you get older, especially if you've been successful enough earlier to be able to now live comfortably off savings and investments.

Sure, but nobody's come along to replace them with a new generation of writers. Urban fantasy has been completely taken over by romance. Pure romance where the conflict is "will the heroine fuck the werewolf hunk, the selkie stud, the leprechaun prince, or the dragon shifter?" Other genres and conflicts like action, mystery, etc. have all faded into irrelevance.

I don't know how this happened.

Yes, you do. Right from the start, World of Darkness attracted a lot of sex-starved gen x women who were into hot vampire and werewolf studs. The infatuation with urban fantasy romance goes at least back to the 80s (predating WoD by several years).

As grrrl powa~ became all the rage in the late aughts and early teens, vampire erotica became ascendant. Then Twilight came out, and I'm willing to bet men petty much checked out of urban fantasy.

If you think that Urban Fantasy is only for women anymore, then you should read some Monster Hunter International stories by Larry Correia. There is a bunch of Urban Fantasy out there, it's just not woke so it doesn't get mentioned a lot.

Anybody want to make new urban fantasy games? Wanna share any pitches?

Like, I'm brainstorming a spiritual successor to hunter the vigil where you can join one of multiple organizations that study and/or fight the paranormal. You can play antichrist candidates, cyborgs, genemods, slayers, etc. There's conspiracies like the templars, new world order, rosicrucians, roswell grays, etc. Cryptids, aliens, angels and demons... it's a giant love letter to the paranormal investigations genre as a whole.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 06:10:59 PMAnybody want to make new urban fantasy games? Wanna share any pitches?

Like, I'm brainstorming a spiritual successor to hunter the vigil where you can join one of multiple organizations that study and/or fight the paranormal. You can play antichrist candidates, cyborgs, genemods, slayers, etc. There's conspiracies like the templars, new world order, rosicrucians, roswell grays, etc. Cryptids, aliens, angels and demons... it's a giant love letter to the paranormal investigations genre as a whole.

I'll take suggestions for mine, but I'm pretty rooted in going with Roman Catholicism as the underlying supernatural metaphysics (albeit stretched at the edges so things like vampires and werewolves can be things... fae too; though they like to appear as aliens when they abduct people these days).

There's enough anti-Christian material in the mainstream versions of the genre if that's what you're looking for. Plenty of Gnostic BS too. If I wanted to continue that trend I'd just make supplements for the Storyteller's Vault and have a guaranteed customer base.

One of the organizations I'm looking at having will be The Order of Saint Joseph; a seemingly innocuous title unless one knows that one of Saint Joseph's titles is Terror of Demons... and exorcists will tell you that calling upon Saint Joseph is second only to the name of Jesus in casting out demons).

But there will also be secular hunters like Task Force Ultraviolet; the US Government's program to investigate and exploit aspects of the supernatural (i.e. the things invisible to the public); and The Paradigm Group (founded by a billionaire innovator seeking "The Truth" about what he sees as the true frontier of human knowledge).

There's also various Cryptozoology, Ghost Hunter, and Conspiracy Theory groups out there, but most PC groups will likely get their start due to an inciting incident (or divine Providence depending on how you look at it) where a town or city is being plagued by evil and the PCs are in the right place at the right time to fight it.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 19, 2024, 07:46:37 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 06:10:59 PMAnybody want to make new urban fantasy games? Wanna share any pitches?

Like, I'm brainstorming a spiritual successor to hunter the vigil where you can join one of multiple organizations that study and/or fight the paranormal. You can play antichrist candidates, cyborgs, genemods, slayers, etc. There's conspiracies like the templars, new world order, rosicrucians, roswell grays, etc. Cryptids, aliens, angels and demons... it's a giant love letter to the paranormal investigations genre as a whole.

I'll take suggestions for mine, but I'm pretty rooted in going with Roman Catholicism as the underlying supernatural metaphysics (albeit stretched at the edges so things like vampires and werewolves can be things... fae too; though they like to appear as aliens when they abduct people these days).

There's enough anti-Christian material in the mainstream versions of the genre if that's what you're looking for. Plenty of Gnostic BS too. If I wanted to continue that trend I'd just make supplements for the Storyteller's Vault and have a guaranteed customer base.

One of the organizations I'm looking at having will be The Order of Saint Joseph; a seemingly innocuous title unless one knows that one of Saint Joseph's titles is Terror of Demons... and exorcists will tell you that calling upon Saint Joseph is second only to the name of Jesus in casting out demons).

But there will also be secular hunters like Task Force Ultraviolet; the US Government's program to investigate and exploit aspects of the supernatural (i.e. the things invisible to the public); and The Paradigm Group (founded by a billionaire innovator seeking "The Truth" about what he sees as the true frontier of human knowledge).

There's also various Cryptozoology, Ghost Hunter, and Conspiracy Theory groups out there, but most PC groups will likely get their start due to an inciting incident (or divine Providence depending on how you look at it) where a town or city is being plagued by evil and the PCs are in the right place at the right time to fight it.

I have absolutely nothing against that. If you want a Christian cosmology, then great!

I'm not into anti-Christian stuff either.

I use a hybrid approach where stuff like Jesus and angels are 100% real. You could play an angel or a member of the Jesus bloodline who uses their powers to fight crime or whatever. At the same time, I'd have various pagan deities be real: you can even play as a mythic demigod if you want to. Dragon shifters, reincarnating immortals, highlanders, whatever. I wholeheartedly embrace the diversity of the genre.

There's no games currently on the market that allow all that, so I wanted to be the first.

Quote from: Brad on September 18, 2024, 09:36:06 PM

Quote from: Omega on September 18, 2024, 02:18:41 PMAeon/Trinity

I remember seeing Aeon in the gaming store and thinking how badass it would be to play. That lasted a couple of months before it magically disappeared, changed its named, then fell off the radar completely. Funny how popular WW was for a few years (they had a fucking stable in WWF) before just almost becoming completely nonexistent.

WW also had a short lived Vampire TV series that was actually not bad. Unfortunately its lead actor died.
The Werewolf PSX game never saw light. I had the poster advertising it.

WW near the late 90s was busy like 95% of all other publishers bleeding themselves out on trying to ride the CCG biz. There were also internal squabbles going on.

The Problem with Aeon/Trinity was that it told the players. "Hey? All your heroes from Aberrant? Oh they turned into monsters and killed millions." and ramping up the conspiracy theory aspect put a damper on some folks interest.

Interesting Psionics + biopunk setting with some sci-fi space travel tossed in. But it failed to deliver.
 

If you could make your own urban fantasy game, without being chained by any prior continuity, then what would you write? It's as good a time as any to try

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 19, 2024, 05:59:21 PM

Quote from: Corolinth on September 19, 2024, 03:12:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 02:12:34 PMSure, but nobody's come along to replace them with a new generation of writers. Urban fantasy has been completely taken over by romance. Pure romance where the conflict is "will the heroine fuck the werewolf hunk, the selkie stud, the leprechaun prince, or the dragon shifter?" Other genres and conflicts like action, mystery, etc. have all faded into irrelevance.

I don't know how this happened.

Yes, you do. Right from the start, World of Darkness attracted a lot of sex-starved gen x women who were into hot vampire and werewolf studs. The infatuation with urban fantasy romance goes at least back to the 80s (predating WoD by several years).

As grrrl powa~ became all the rage in the late aughts and early teens, vampire erotica became ascendant. Then Twilight came out, and I'm willing to bet men petty much checked out of urban fantasy.

If you think that Urban Fantasy is only for women anymore, then you should read some Monster Hunter International stories by Larry Correia. There is a bunch of Urban Fantasy out there, it's just not woke so it doesn't get mentioned a lot.

I'm not particularly interested in urban fantasy. I'm just expressing my skepticism that someone who is wouldn't know how vampire and werewolf romance became so prevalent. For that to be true, you'd have to not know any women between the ages of 30 and 60.

Quote from: Corolinth on September 19, 2024, 09:00:40 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 19, 2024, 05:59:21 PM

Quote from: Corolinth on September 19, 2024, 03:12:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 02:12:34 PMSure, but nobody's come along to replace them with a new generation of writers. Urban fantasy has been completely taken over by romance. Pure romance where the conflict is "will the heroine fuck the werewolf hunk, the selkie stud, the leprechaun prince, or the dragon shifter?" Other genres and conflicts like action, mystery, etc. have all faded into irrelevance.

I don't know how this happened.

Yes, you do. Right from the start, World of Darkness attracted a lot of sex-starved gen x women who were into hot vampire and werewolf studs. The infatuation with urban fantasy romance goes at least back to the 80s (predating WoD by several years).

As grrrl powa~ became all the rage in the late aughts and early teens, vampire erotica became ascendant. Then Twilight came out, and I'm willing to bet men petty much checked out of urban fantasy.

If you think that Urban Fantasy is only for women anymore, then you should read some Monster Hunter International stories by Larry Correia. There is a bunch of Urban Fantasy out there, it's just not woke so it doesn't get mentioned a lot.

I'm not particularly interested in urban fantasy. I'm just expressing my skepticism that someone who is wouldn't know how vampire and werewolf romance became so prevalent. For that to be true, you'd have to not know any women between the ages of 30 and 60.

I know that. I just can't understand how it got so popular and displaced everything else. It's hard as hell to find something that isn't romance and the world building always leaves something to be desired.

I'm sick of it. I want decent urban fantasy. New urban fantasy. It does exist, but it's rare and hard to find.

Like, there's one about a triceratops plushie trying to solve a murder mystery in imaginary friend land. Sometimes I think authors try too hard to be weird in order to stand out, but it's something, I guess?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 20, 2024, 07:18:20 AMI'm sick of it. I want decent urban fantasy. New urban fantasy. It does exist, but it's rare and hard to find.

Not that hard. Go here. Read the blog. Buy urban fantasy books.

MonsterHunterNation.com (https://monsterhunternation.com/)

Anyway, seriously, does anyone want to play (or make) new urban fantasy games? It's an easy genre to write for.

I made a list of some existing games before: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1umoHUYUskl-oXdXM-pg1D_k8tYu7XysQiobjP4mk5l8/pub

If you could play (or make) a new game, then what would like to see in it?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 19, 2024, 02:38:36 PMI'd play old Vampire, if the people were right. But not any of that new 5e shit.

Why play that IP at all? It has so much idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules. Is this a Gen X nostalgia thing?

Eh? We made VtM our game. We played it our way (and always as Sabbat). We ignored most of the splat books. And after playing it for so long, we'd smoothed out the kinks in the rules.

So assuming that I could get players with a similar attitude, why wouldn't I play it? That's like saying why would I bother to play WFRP 1e? Because we had classic games, it's really that simple.

Sure, nostalgia comes into it. But I don't know anyone that doesn't have nostalgic feelings from a certain point in their RPGing careers, if you will.

As far as I can tell, even in that substantial list of games you've made. I still have-not seen anything that can match VtM in terms of style and substance (not talking about the V 5e wank of course).

Your second point about making an urban fantasy game. I have been, and now that I've finished Terminus and had it published, I can get back to it. I thought V5 was so bad, it actually inspired me to write my own game. I wanted to make vampires horrific and with a Lovecraftian origin. It will contain no angst stuff or politically correct krud like 5e tried to implement.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 20, 2024, 12:38:04 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 19, 2024, 02:38:36 PMI'd play old Vampire, if the people were right. But not any of that new 5e shit.

Why play that IP at all? It has so much idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules. Is this a Gen X nostalgia thing?

Eh? We made VtM our game. We played it our way (and always as Sabbat). We ignored most of the splat books. And after playing it for so long, we'd smoothed out the kinks in the rules.

So assuming that I could get players with a similar attitude, why wouldn't I play it? That's like saying why would I bother to play WFRP 1e? Because we had classic games, it's really that simple.

Sure, nostalgia comes into it. But I don't know anyone that doesn't have nostalgic feelings from a certain point in their RPGing careers, if you will.

As far as I can tell, even in that substantial list of games you've made. I still have-not seen anything that can match VtM in terms of style and substance (not talking about the V 5e wank of course).

Your second point about making an urban fantasy game. I have been, and now that I've finished Terminus and had it published, I can get back to it. I thought V5 was so bad, it actually inspired me to write my own game. I wanted to make vampires horrific and with a Lovecraftian origin. It will contain no angst stuff or politically correct krud like 5e tried to implement.

I think WitchCraft and Everlasting have style and substance, more than any other I found, but they've been dead for decades unfortunately. The owner of Everlasting died years ago and the owner of WitchCraft has health problems. Unfortunately, nothing written since the Great Recession has been any good. No idea why.

If you're ignoring most of the rules and setting anyway, then you might as well use a system that's actually designed to be played. I would recommend Vampire City or Feed. They're sparse on setting (you're expected to convert your own), but they're the most flexible I found and would save you time writing your own rules. Feed in particular has a humanity mechanic that doesn't suck: rather than punishing you with schizophrenia for stealing candy bars, it's a lightside/darkside mechanic that gives actual temptation to lose humanity and gain vampirism. Everyone I chatted with, who actually played it, says they love the mechanic.

Good luck with your original game. God knows we need more new IPs these days. I've heard a few people tried making their own games in response to V5, but I'll yet to hear of anyone getting published thus far. Hope you can break the barrier

Quote from: Orphan81 on September 19, 2024, 03:41:03 PMBecause believe it or not, people *LIKED* The world of Darkness.

That's an understatement. Even the hardcore grognards at the gaming store I frequented were running Vampire games. It was a literal phenomenon for quite some time. I'm not a fan of Anne Rice or that sort of crap, but I played in a couple of those games and had a good time.

In retrospect, WoD seems like parachute pants or pogs, insane levels of market penetration and engagement until no one but the hardcore fans were interested anymore.

The only thing about folks griping about how Trinity killed Aberrant by turning the heroes into villains?

Trinity (1997) preceded Aberrant (1999). It wasn't released after Aberrant. So if you read Trinity first, you knew the Aberrants were not going to end well.

Maybe you had your hopes up - OH KEWL A WW SUPERHEROES GAME! - if you hadn't read Trinity yet. In which case, oops.

I was never a big fan of superhero games anyway, so I was pretty cool with the Novas becoming disgusting and perverted mutations of humanity instead of evolutions of Humanity as the Psions were supposedly. But then they weren't. Oh well.

WW always had to introduce some "twist" into their metaplot rather than let a GM do it themselves. Part of the reason I grew less and less fond of their games as the piles of splatbooks grew ever-higher.

I think a few great replacements for WoD are Sigil & Shadow, Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars, and After the Vampire Wars.

Quote from: Dropbear on September 20, 2024, 09:12:15 PMWW always had to introduce some "twist" into their metaplot rather than let a GM do it themselves. Part of the reason I grew less and less fond of their games as the piles of splatbooks grew ever-higher.

Could be faulty memory but I recall this being one of the complaints about nWoD.  That they didn't have the metaplot.

Quote from: Dropbear on September 20, 2024, 09:12:15 PMI think a few great replacements for WoD are Sigil & Shadow, Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars, and After the Vampire Wars.

A big shout-out for Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars for anyone who likes old school D&D style games. It's a pretty simple system, has a good writing style, and generally is a fun game to play.

Quote from: KingCheops on September 20, 2024, 11:03:16 PM

Quote from: Dropbear on September 20, 2024, 09:12:15 PMWW always had to introduce some "twist" into their metaplot rather than let a GM do it themselves. Part of the reason I grew less and less fond of their games as the piles of splatbooks grew ever-higher.

Could be faulty memory but I recall this being one of the complaints about nWoD.  That they didn't have the metaplot.

nWoD deliberately eschewed metaplot in favor of giving more creative control to GMs. It still has tons of lore scattered across the books, but it's disconnected and you're not expected to memorize all of it to understand basic concepts. This has drawbacks, since it means that interesting concepts are never developed further, but it also resulted in a lot of really creative book concepts that aren't permitted by the stifling oWoD lore.

In second edition they added a metaplot involving an alien "god machine" trying to invade Earth so humans will mine more uranium. Yes, they literally wrote that. I thought it was awful, but the fanboys chased out the naysayers. In general I found second edition to be overall bland and soulless compared to the first edition, but that may very well have been my inner grognard talking. Looking back on all iterations of WoD as an adult, the writing is pretentious emogoth bullshit in every edition.

V5 also killed metaplot and got hate for it too. Metaplot is dead.

Quote from: Dropbear on September 20, 2024, 09:12:15 PMThe only thing about folks griping about how Trinity killed Aberrant by turning the heroes into villains?

Trinity (1997) preceded Aberrant (1999). It wasn't released after Aberrant. So if you read Trinity first, you knew the Aberrants were not going to end well.

Maybe you had your hopes up - OH KEWL A WW SUPERHEROES GAME! - if you hadn't read Trinity yet. In which case, oops.

I was never a big fan of superhero games anyway, so I was pretty cool with the Novas becoming disgusting and perverted mutations of humanity instead of evolutions of Humanity as the Psions were supposedly. But then they weren't. Oh well.

WW always had to introduce some "twist" into their metaplot rather than let a GM do it themselves. Part of the reason I grew less and less fond of their games as the piles of splatbooks grew ever-higher.

I think a few great replacements for WoD are Sigil & Shadow, Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars, and After the Vampire Wars.

I never liked metaplot either. This is supposed to be a game you play, not a serialized comic book you read. Hence why I preferred nWoD/CoD until it got taken over by metaplot in second edition.

Quote from: finarvyn on September 21, 2024, 06:31:42 AM

Quote from: Dropbear on September 20, 2024, 09:12:15 PMI think a few great replacements for WoD are Sigil & Shadow, Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars, and After the Vampire Wars.

A big shout-out for Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars for anyone who likes old school D&D style games. It's a pretty simple system, has a good writing style, and generally is a fun game to play.

I second Night Shift. Unlike prior games, it actually has support for multiple campaigns settings in the rulebook, called "Nightworlds". They're entirely separate universes, like 3pp D&D settings, or GURPS. This is really how I think WoD should've been in 1991, and it probably wouldn't have imploded so spectacularly had WW gone that route.

Unfortunately Night Shift doesn't have much support or community. The author does have more books planned, but the schedule is like one book every few years if that.

It uses a d20 class and level system, so if you prefer skill-based or whatever then you'll have to make up rules yourself.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 20, 2024, 12:54:41 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 20, 2024, 12:38:04 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 19, 2024, 02:38:36 PMI'd play old Vampire, if the people were right. But not any of that new 5e shit.

Why play that IP at all? It has so much idiosyncratic baggage and unplayable rules. Is this a Gen X nostalgia thing?

Eh? We made VtM our game. We played it our way (and always as Sabbat). We ignored most of the splat books. And after playing it for so long, we'd smoothed out the kinks in the rules.

So assuming that I could get players with a similar attitude, why wouldn't I play it? That's like saying why would I bother to play WFRP 1e? Because we had classic games, it's really that simple.

Sure, nostalgia comes into it. But I don't know anyone that doesn't have nostalgic feelings from a certain point in their RPGing careers, if you will.

As far as I can tell, even in that substantial list of games you've made. I still have-not seen anything that can match VtM in terms of style and substance (not talking about the V 5e wank of course).

Your second point about making an urban fantasy game. I have been, and now that I've finished Terminus and had it published, I can get back to it. I thought V5 was so bad, it actually inspired me to write my own game. I wanted to make vampires horrific and with a Lovecraftian origin. It will contain no angst stuff or politically correct krud like 5e tried to implement.

I think WitchCraft and Everlasting have style and substance, more than any other I found, but they've been dead for decades unfortunately. The owner of Everlasting died years ago and the owner of WitchCraft has health problems. Unfortunately, nothing written since the Great Recession has been any good. No idea why.

If you're ignoring most of the rules and setting anyway, then you might as well use a system that's actually designed to be played. I would recommend Vampire City or Feed. They're sparse on setting (you're expected to convert your own), but they're the most flexible I found and would save you time writing your own rules. Feed in particular has a humanity mechanic that doesn't suck: rather than punishing you with schizophrenia for stealing candy bars, it's a lightside/darkside mechanic that gives actual temptation to lose humanity and gain vampirism. Everyone I chatted with, who actually played it, says they love the mechanic.

Good luck with your original game. God knows we need more new IPs these days. I've heard a few people tried making their own games in response to V5, but I'll yet to hear of anyone getting published thus far. Hope you can break the barrier

Witchcraft was (is) a great game. I've never played Everlasting - So I'll def check it out! :)

Don't get me wrong, VtM certainly had its flaws. But at the time it was pretty cutting-edge and shook up the RPG world by trying to do things that we'd not seen before.

Sadly, it suffered from a terrible meta-plot that sunk its tentacles into every corner of the game and really made it unplayable (towards the end). It also suffered from lots of useless bloat. Mostly Made by people who were creatively barren (who came in after the original crew).

As I said, we pretty much went back to basics only using only the Core book, a few of the clan books, players' guide, and the Sabbat books. Everything else was meh...

Regarding my own game(s). Don't worry... I'm under no illusions. NO ONE will play them bar a scant few. In all honesty, I'm not trying to crack the mainstream, and I certainly would never compromise my vision to suit any of those 'modern' gamer-types. And I'm terrible at social media and self-promotion.

Regarding the system, I don't think I will be going to a recognizable dice pool (as they can be a bit wonky) and while I like OSR mechanics; I don't think they feel right for vampires (YMMV of course). I'm currently looking at the WaRP system or a variant of it. I've got all the lore written, but I'm just a bit stuck on the mechanics.

But I'll also look at Feed and Vampire City. Thanks for the heads-up!

I think it makes more sense to try targeting the general fantasy audience than trying to target WoD fans. WoD fans are a tiny market who are into the WoD IP, not urban fantasy. Whereas general fantasy is a huge market where you'll find at least some people who are interested in trying new things.

This is why my own efforts try to emphasize the common fantasy aspect, like having elves and dwarves and slayers. Like WotC's old Urban Arcana.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 09:59:24 AMThe nWoD/CoD books were successful. Forsaken, Awakening, and Lost were, AFAIK, more popular than their predecessors. Lost especially was surprisingly successful, to the point where it was promoted from a limited release (only 6 books were planned, then nothing) to an ongoing release schedule. Yeah, grognards hated it, but zillennials loved it. It was an example of attracting a new audience actually working. I remember it being hugely popular in the 2000s and saw new releases on the shelves of bookstores. It was successful enough that the original writing team still wanted to make stuff for it before Paradox pulled the license.

This generally tracks with my experience. VtR was met with lukewarm reactions. Promethean and Forsaken went nowhere. Mage was originally met with derision due to the "Atlantis" issue, but gained a solid following. Hunter was excellent, but I don't know if it caught on. But Lost was the apex of NWoD.

Quote from: Aglondir on September 21, 2024, 04:20:48 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 19, 2024, 09:59:24 AMThe nWoD/CoD books were successful. Forsaken, Awakening, and Lost were, AFAIK, more popular than their predecessors. Lost especially was surprisingly successful, to the point where it was promoted from a limited release (only 6 books were planned, then nothing) to an ongoing release schedule. Yeah, grognards hated it, but zillennials loved it. It was an example of attracting a new audience actually working. I remember it being hugely popular in the 2000s and saw new releases on the shelves of bookstores. It was successful enough that the original writing team still wanted to make stuff for it before Paradox pulled the license.

This generally tracks with my experience. VtR was met with lukewarm reactions. Promethean and Forsaken went nowhere. Mage was originally met with derision due to the "Atlantis" issue, but gained a solid following. Hunter was excellent, but I don't know if it caught on. But Lost was the apex of NWoD.

Vigil and Lost seemed to be most beloved. They were also the most customizable of the bunch and their splats were the most sensical (if that makes sense) of any WW game ever made.

WW games have always had this problem with their splats being pulled out of the writers' asses and being ascribed bullshit cosmological significance while simultaneously acting like straitjacketed high school clique stereotypes, but Lost and Vigil bucked that trend entirely.

Vigil didn't have any fixed splats. The various organizations were actual organizations with any number of reasons for existing and a variety of power sources. Evil corporations that cut up magical creatures for parts, secret wings of the vatican, online message boards, etc. It made so much sense and was readily customizable and inspiring. It didn't have much foundation in myth or folklore, but it felt like an organic extrapolation of the human experience that anyone could've come up with.

Lost took cues from fairy tale archetypes. Rather than specific splats for leprechauns or barghests, the splats were literal archetypes that could be customized to support a wide variety of character concepts. Because it drew directly on world fairy tales, it was easy to get into and had an obvious sense of familiarity for players of all backgrounds. The premise of playing escaped abductees living in fear of returning to fairyland was dark and there were complaints about it, but most players didn't seem to mind. The cosmology was also open-ended and writers were more or less free to make up whatever without worrying about continuity.

I really think these open-ended approaches would've hugely helped the other games. I felt they suffered as a result of trying too hard to adhere to a cosmic conflict or to idiosyncratic baggage that didn't resonate with a broad audience.

Promethean in particular made a huge mistake to focus on a nomadic pilgrimage when the audience up to that point had been trained to expect local politics as the default playstyle. I do think it was very creative, particularly the more diverse selection of powers (WoD/CoD has always struggled with this) and the various monsters like pandorans, qashmalim and assorted weirdo mutants, but it was aimed at the wrong audience.

In general, I think an optimized for monster mash approach is better than splitting the player base. See WitchCraft and Everlasting for examples. You can still have single splat focuses, but splats get more exposure if they play well together.

Promethean and Mummy and Geist and so on really have no business existing. No matter how creative the premise might be, they're so weird that they'll always be niche. The writers pulling stuff out of their asses is always gonna be inferior to drawing upon millennia of world folklore and logical extrapolations of the human experience.

Let's face it. Requiem is just a cleaned up version of Masquerade, and Masquerade is weird af. It succeeded in the 90s due to a confluence of factors that don't exist now and never will. Its fans are into it because they were trained on it, and not because they like vampires or urban fantasy in general (because in all likelihood they don't). If it wasn't for Bloodlines, then the IP would have already died in obscurity. Bloodlines bombed on release, and it only peaked in the early 2010s because of Troika's quirky writing.

Aside from the Gen Xers who got hooked on it back in the day, there's really no audience for anything like World of Darkness anymore. If there was, then you'd expect to see more clones with more successes, but stuff like WitchCraft and Everlasting never achieved success. The urban fantasy genre as a whole hasn't taken any cues from World of Darkness. There are no other series about, say, multiple different races of vampires competing for influence.

You need something like Troika's quirky writing to attract an audience now. You can't rely on exposition dumps about splats.

Or maybe I'm wrong and it's just for lack of trying because no publisher wants to spend money on competing with the sad pathetic remnants of WW.

I don't know

Sorry for the rambling

A personal thing here. I really disliked the whole amalgamation of all the WoD games that had been thrown into a melting pot in order to spit out this gargantuan monstrosity of a whole 'dark' world.

It felt so crammed full of bizarre concepts, while all trying to be shoehorned together with one generic system which couldn't really handle it.

Not to mention that the world felt ridiculous. Half the time I expected to run into a demon or mummy who ran the local newspaper kiosk or some shit.

It makes the monster elements seem so banal because they are so ubiquitous and shoved down your throat at every opportunity. All those creatures should be as rare as a three breasted nun. To keep the air of mystery and horror.

I think each of these games is at its best when they concentrate on one specific setting and the other elements are on the periphery, or not even included at all. When we played vampire, it was all just about vamps. Sure, there were werewolves and the odd demon. But they felt very alien and dangerous because of their rarity and lack of player knowledge regarding these foes.

YMMV of course.

Exactly Rob, I've been saying for ages the splats don't play well together, yet everyone had a hard on for a WWF/WWE Battle Royale or Wrestlemania cage matches. Had to spend years pointing out all this character generation theory crafting is its own separate private minigame, as is white room arena match-ups. All that nerd measuring stick contests is an orthogonal game to role playing.

One of the reasons I try to keep reminding people why the ethics matter in these games is because humans *are* the point. They are the ones who populate most thoroughly the world, they have to be more than walking resource refreshment packs. Humans have to bring forth monster feelings of fear, comfort, nostalgia, rejection, love, hate, etc. It's *their* world, your monster (and their monster society) is just living in it.

But it becomes a GM crutch to presume all powerful conspiracies hold it all together and humans are afterthoughts. It can't. And if it does, the game loses a lot of its point of "monster amidst mortals" and devolves into typical murderhobo powering up in new trappings.

The secret cool kids club means nothing if it is nothing but secret cool kids clubs all the way down. That surface layer of dreary high school doldrums and angst has to remain. And one of the better ways to make it meaningful, to bother having a club in the first place beyond survival, is to make it a liminal place to find meaning from being apart from a system you cannot join. Humans *are* the point!

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 21, 2024, 10:31:18 PMThe secret cool kids club means nothing if it is nothing but secret cool kids clubs all the way down. That surface layer of dreary high school doldrums and angst has to remain. And one of the better ways to make it meaningful, to bother having a club in the first place beyond survival, is to make it a liminal place to find meaning from being apart from a system you cannot join. Humans *are* the point!

This is it man! All the weird stuff became so normal the game itself became banal despite having some cool ideas. That why it's back to basics for me!

I have some nostalgia for oWoD because I ran it quite a bit back in the 90s.  As a game to actually run, I prefer nWoD in about every way.  A lot of oWoD books, especially the later ones, were more books to admire than books to actually use during play.  They seemed to be aimed mainly at people who read the books but didn't play.  I remember a lot of WoD fans on places like TBP who bought all the stuff but hadn't played in months or years.  The nWoD stuff seemed designed a lot more with people who play the games in mind.  nWoD had an increasingly intrusive and stupid metaplot with later books written assuming you were following it.  nWoD is much more of a toolbook with suggestions and ideas rather than a metaplot.  The way splats are structured in Requiem makes them much more flexible and usable in actual play in my opinion.  The CoD came out and they brought in a stupid metaplot and overcomplicated the hell out of everything.  They also added really niche and messed up stuff like Beast and Deviant.  They just lost me entirely.         

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 22, 2024, 06:42:45 AM

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 21, 2024, 10:31:18 PMThe secret cool kids club means nothing if it is nothing but secret cool kids clubs all the way down. That surface layer of dreary high school doldrums and angst has to remain. And one of the better ways to make it meaningful, to bother having a club in the first place beyond survival, is to make it a liminal place to find meaning from being apart from a system you cannot join. Humans *are* the point!

This is it man! All the weird stuff became so normal the game itself became banal despite having some cool ideas. That why it's back to basics for me!

I totally agree with you guys on this. The population dynamics are completely implausible and always were. IIRC a recent book spent itself on expositing the hundreds of Jewish vampire sects, despite there only being 1-200 Jewish vampires worldwide, half of which are NPC only. You can check the gaming den critiques for more.

That's actually one of the reasons I preferred nWoD/CoD. Yeah, a lot of the descriptions of secret societies implied implausible population numbers because these writers cannot do math. But the decentralized disconnected nature of the setting meant that you could just treat these secret societies as clubhouses with no more than a dozen members and not worry about implausible logistics.

Also, yeah, the splats don't play well together. But then they were never meant to be. Everlasting and WitchCraft make mashups work because they were designed to from the start. Everlasting's Codex of Immortals provides unified guidelines for creating superpowers that are shared across splats. WitchCraft uses point buy to balance characters. It's totally feasible to do monster mashes if you write the rules and setting from the ground up to support it.

This is one of the reasons I grew to dislike nwod. It advertised itself as crossover friendly, made a few crossover scenarios even, but lied about it. The mechanics were an unbalanced mess. Everlasting and WitchCraft did it first and did it better just a few years earlier. I don't understand how these writers didn't get the memo.

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 22, 2024, 09:08:10 AMI have some nostalgia for oWoD because I ran it quite a bit back in the 90s.  As a game to actually run, I prefer nWoD in about every way.  A lot of oWoD books, especially the later ones, were more books to admire than books to actually use during play.  They seemed to be aimed mainly at people who read the books but didn't play.  I remember a lot of WoD fans on places like TBP who bought all the stuff but hadn't played in months or years.  The nWoD stuff seemed designed a lot more with people who play the games in mind.  nWoD had an increasingly intrusive and stupid metaplot with later books written assuming you were following it.  nWoD is much more of a toolbook with suggestions and ideas rather than a metaplot.  The way splats are structured in Requiem makes them much more flexible and usable in actual play in my opinion.  The CoD came out and they brought in a stupid metaplot and overcomplicated the hell out of everything.  They also added really niche and messed up stuff like Beast and Deviant.  They just lost me entirely.         

Yup. That was my experience too. They fell apart for the same reasons that WoD did in the 90s.

As I said, we have games like WitchCraft and Everlasting as examples of how to do it well. Take something like that, mix in the creativity of the more toolbox nWoD supplements like Mythologies and Mirrors and Reliquary and Lost and Hunter, then you'll have something really fun.

That's why I'm not looking forward to Curseborn. Aside from the Storypath and condition rules being horribly convoluted compared to the superior simplicity of Fate or PbtA, the setting looks like it's gonna repeat the same problems that plagued later CoD books. Discarding the toolkit in favor of bizarre metaplots, social justice weirdness, and the writers' barely concealed sexual fetishes.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 22, 2024, 09:26:21 AMAlso, yeah, the splats don't play well together. But then they were never meant to be.

At the time, it seemed obvious to me that the different game lines were not really meant to cross over like that.  Changeling and wraith took place partly or almost completely in a world that the other splats couldn't see or interact with without some special condition.  Most of the main game lines had one or more special stats that had no equivalent in the other lines.  I spent years running these crossover game and it was always a janky mess.  Players were fascinated with it though and there was always at least one player who insisted on playing a splat from another game line. 

WitchCraft doesn't have any special stats. Everyone works basically the same except with point buy to handle powers and drawbacks.

Everlasting is where things get weird. It has all the splats operate on more or less the same general template. Powers are created using universal guidelines in the immortal codex. The magic system is the same for all splats, freeform with a variety of "magical paths" to cover different styles in the magician's handbook (unfortunately there's no legal PDF and the paperback can read absurd prices on the used book market). All splats have a "torment" statistic, the exact nature of which varies by splat: vampires have damnation, questers have ennui, etc. But there's occasionally outliers: the vampires have a "blood-potency" stat (it's actually called that, in 1997) that limits their trait maximum and adjusts their magic point pool, and which can be stolen by other vampires a la Anne Rice rules.

Unfortunately, the Everlasting rules are a straight heartbreaker of the ST rules. Slightly better designed (e.g. skills modify the number of pips you need to roll instead of the number of dice you roll), but still a heartbreaker. But it's actually designed for mixed play.

According to the wayback machine of the official site, they had plans for multiple other books like a book on historical eras. I get the impression that they wanted to emulate highlander and make PCs ancient immortals with detailed pasts. It sounds really fun, so I'm bummed it died. There's no games on the market that let you play ancient immortals with detailed backstories, and WoD certainly never supported it.

There must be so many cool game concepts I've seen that died without ever developing a following. It's so stupid. Ttrpgs have infinite potential, but it feels like very few people actually want to explore that potential.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 22, 2024, 08:40:32 PMThere must be so many cool game concepts I've seen that died without ever developing a following. It's so stupid. Ttrpgs have infinite potential, but it feels like very few people actually want to explore that potential.

I think that's probably on of the biggest problems in TTRPGs. That is to say, that many people won't actually ever leave their comfort zone. I always feel that looking at lots of different material will give you a new perspective on gaming, even if you don't like the game per se.

Even bad games can still ignite some original creativity that you many not have seen without looking beyond the mirror so-to-speak.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 22, 2024, 08:40:32 PMunfortunately there's no legal PDF

There is now.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/46/visionary-entertainment-studio

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 23, 2024, 06:01:23 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 22, 2024, 08:40:32 PMunfortunately there's no legal PDF

There is now.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/46/visionary-entertainment-studio

I said The Magician's Companion is missing. They only have up to the immortal codex.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 23, 2024, 09:22:25 AMI said The Magician's Companion is missing. They only have up to the immortal codex.

Ah, I misunderstood.  I thought you meant the line in general.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 22, 2024, 10:05:52 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 22, 2024, 08:40:32 PMThere must be so many cool game concepts I've seen that died without ever developing a following. It's so stupid. Ttrpgs have infinite potential, but it feels like very few people actually want to explore that potential.

I think that's probably on of the biggest problems in TTRPGs. That is to say, that many people won't actually ever leave their comfort zone. I always feel that looking at lots of different material will give you a new perspective on gaming, even if you don't like the game per se.

Even bad games can still ignite some original creativity that you many not have seen without looking beyond the mirror so-to-speak.

Exactly. Gamers are unwilling to leave their comfort zones.

That's why I'm so fond of universal and subuniversal systems like GURPS or d20 Modern. d20 Modern's plethora of sample settings introduced me to a broad selection of genres that I otherwise would never have found if I had just stuck with Faerun, Night City, or New Orleans.

I suspect the reason for this has a big part to do with ttrpgs requiring a lot of investment compared to watching a movie, reading a book, or even playing a video game. But I digress.

This is an ongoing frustration I have with ttrpgs. That's why I decided to go into writing prose instead of writing games.

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 23, 2024, 09:24:26 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 23, 2024, 09:22:25 AMI said The Magician's Companion is missing. They only have up to the immortal codex.

Ah, I misunderstood.  I thought you meant the line in general.

On the bright side, it's probably really easy to make a retroclone or spiritual successor. Everlasting draws heavily on folklore and public domain resources, so you could easily create a very close approximation without running afoul of copyright. I know a fan who has one on the backburner.

The only splat that seems to be original are the gargoyles. They're like the gargoyles in "I, Frankenstein", but they're also sin-eaters. They recharge their magic batteries by touching sinners, causing a "curse of absolution" to punish the sinner for whatever their sins are. So they're basically ghost rider.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 21, 2024, 07:43:36 PMIt felt so crammed full of bizarre concepts, while all trying to be shoehorned together with one generic system which couldn't really handle it.

Not to mention that the world felt ridiculous. Half the time I expected to run into a demon or mummy who ran the local newspaper kiosk or some shit.

I think this was WW trying to cater to the fans instead of correcting their misconception that the settings were somehow all connected.

Initially they were not and the books even told you that they were not. They shared a theme and kinds-sorta setting. But the WOD of Werewolf was not the same WOD of Vampire.

At some point that got tossed out the window and all of a sudden WW is trying to stitch these deliberately incompatible settings together and well. You know how that went.

It was always a silly strategy. The urban fantasy genre inherently lends itself to diverse "kitchen sink" settings. Any series that limit themselves to one or two archetypes early on will inevitably add more as books or seasons progress. Even WoD did this with its splats, adding increasingly bizarre concepts as they went.

Like, the ecoterrorists and technophobes haven't aged well at all.

Anyone have a Kickstarter version of V20 they want to sell? (I don't want a POD copy.)

I glanced over drivethrurpg again and noticed that there's been some new additions whenever I search for vampires, werewolves, etc. Moonsuits and briefcases, paint the town red, nightbound, myth-stakes... Most of these are quickstarts for games still in development. A few are low budget one-offs.

Maybe it's because I'm old and disillusioned, but none of these really stand out to me. I think that about pretty much everything nowadays, so maybe that's just me.

Adding it to the list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1umoHUYUskl-oXdXM-pg1D_k8tYu7XysQiobjP4mk5l8/pub

One of the things that still puzzles me is the notion that WoD conceptually is now dogshit because of whatever is the newest iteration of the game is dogshit.

There is a *point* where the game is great and inspired - why not simply play the game at that point and have fun? My problem with the game has to do with the system *and* I don't like the people that ruined it.

I can still apply the same thing to D&D. But I can also point clearly where D&D and I have a deep connection conceptually. I still use that to inform my D&D Fantasy games as a standalone genre, but I don't use the system.

So I'm curious about those that don't actually play WoD - is it just the system? Or is there some need to have the latest edition be the best apotheosis of the concept?

I do intend to run WoD again someday, but it'll likely be with a new group or with a new system. Maybe both.

My advice is to find or make a new game that you would enjoy playing and discussing. I'm currently working on a game involving investigating cryptids, conspiracies, etc inspired by the various games of the 80s, 90s, and 00s that explored such space but died out because they weren't Call of Cthulhu.

Quote from: tenbones on September 26, 2024, 05:16:34 PMOne of the things that still puzzles me is the notion that WoD conceptually is now dogshit because of whatever is the newest iteration of the game is dogshit.

There is a *point* where the game is great and inspired - why not simply play the game at that point and have fun? My problem with the game has to do with the system *and* I don't like the people that ruined it.

Yeah. I don't have anything against new systems per se if that's what someone enjoys. What the community really needs, though, is more people playing the myriad of excellent systems that already exist. Adding new systems is just making a thicker pile of "dead" games.

Personally, I did play a Changeling: the Dreaming (1E) game early this month, but I've never been a big WoD fan.

I do plan on playing more of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, which is one of my favorite iterations of Eden's Unisystem. I also liked Witchcraft, and I might give it another look.

A lot of people are shallow and only play games that you can easily buy copies of and which have thriving communities. Many of those dead games are not easy to come by and don't have much in the way of communities even if they do. Copyright law prevents fans from reviving and maintaining dead games. Creating retroclones and spiritual successors is expensive. Lots of gamers aren't interested in expending the effort required to create and maintain games.

It's not rocket science. If copyright terms were a reasonable length, say 20-30 years, then fans could maintain all those dead games and share them with new players who otherwise would never be introduced to them.

Instead we're stuck in this rut where Paradox has a stranglehold over the urban fantasy market because nobody cares to compete with their emogoth vomit.

Quote from: tenbones on September 26, 2024, 05:16:34 PM[...]
So I'm curious about those that don't actually play WoD - is it just the system? Or is there some need to have the latest edition be the best apotheosis of the concept?

I do intend to run WoD again someday, but it'll likely be with a new group or with a new system. Maybe both.

Yeah, I'm perfectly fine playing houseruled older editions. I never got the need to play the newest thing because it is the newest thing. Even the excuse that shiny new thing popularity provides more players doesn't really sell me. :)

Seems like neighbors trying to keep up with the Jones'.

Any thoughts on "The Vampyre Hack?"

Looks like OSR plus VtM with the serial numbers filed off. And a lot of the "usage die":

QuoteRoll your starting Hit Points: your Hit Die (HD) +4. The size of your HD is determined by your vampyre Tribe.

You also have a Wealth UD (p39), a Frenzy UD (p36) which measures your bestial nature, a Flock UD which describes the mortals you can feed from (p30) and a Security UD (p37) which measures how safe you are from enemies.

Two of these UD start at d6 and two at d4. You can lower one d6 to start at d4 and in return raise the other d6 to d8. The description of each Tribe lists some default values for these Dice.

Your starting Blood UD is a d4 and your Corruption UD is d6.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/430585/the-vampyre-hack

Quote from: tenbones on September 26, 2024, 05:16:34 PMThere is a *point* where the game is great and inspired - why not simply play the game at that point and have fun? My problem with the game has to do with the system *and* I don't like the people that ruined it.

For me, that sweet spot is VtM 3rd with house rules. Just returned to it after decades. Would I like a better system? Sure, but the dicepool madness is working Ok. As for the people who ruined it? Vanished from the rear-view mirror. Time has a way of erasing bad memories, I guess.

Tenbones, I'm sure you could make Savage VtM in 3 hours. I'd buy it!

Quote from: Aglondir on September 26, 2024, 10:19:32 PMAny thoughts on "The Vampyre Hack?"

Looks like OSR plus VtM with the serial numbers filed off. And a lot of the "usage die":

QuoteRoll your starting Hit Points: your Hit Die (HD) +4. The size of your HD is determined by your vampyre Tribe.

You also have a Wealth UD (p39), a Frenzy UD (p36) which measures your bestial nature, a Flock UD which describes the mortals you can feed from (p30) and a Security UD (p37) which measures how safe you are from enemies.

Two of these UD start at d6 and two at d4. You can lower one d6 to start at d4 and in return raise the other d6 to d8. The description of each Tribe lists some default values for these Dice.

Your starting Blood UD is a d4 and your Corruption UD is d6.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/430585/the-vampyre-hack

I bought it and read it. The whole time I was thinking "why make this bizzaro ripoff when you could make something original? The writer clearly has the creativity but is deliberately shackling himself."

Quote from: Aglondir on September 26, 2024, 10:34:45 PMFor me, that sweet spot is VtM 3rd with house rules. Just returned to it after decades. Would I like a better system? Sure, but the dicepool madness is working Ok. As for the people who ruined it? Vanished from the rear-view mirror. Time has a way of erasing bad memories, I guess.

Tenbones, I'm sure you could make Savage VtM in 3 hours. I'd buy it!

Heh I have given a lot of thought about doing a Savage WoD - all of it. All the splats. The "wall" I run into is what BoxCrayonTales intimates - for all the work *I* would put into it, it would be in my own personal interest as someone who is the process of publishing, of simply "doing my own take" and publish it. Which for me means having all those elements but weighted differently with obviously a different cosmology that hopefully will be better (if not more sparse - one of the issues with WoD in the latter-era was way too overgrown).

This is clearly a "me-problem" in terms of what I'm willing to do with my time. HOWEVER... there is nothing saying I couldn't do my version and then create WoD version from that. Inversely, it might be worthwhile to do that in reverse order... I'll give it some thought.

Vampires and Werewolves as mini-Iconic Frameworks seem to be pretty straightforward. Squeezing all the nuance of the Clans and Tribes could be easily handled with discrete Power lists including Edges and Hindrances.

Mages would need to have Power lists correspond to the assumptions of what the Spheres entail. Otherwise the standard Savage Worlds rules would apply modified by new rules for coincidental/vulgar and Paradox. None of which should be too hard but would require more thought than I'm giving it here.

Changeling - I'll be honest, I'd have to give this a lot of thought. It *could* be actually playable and interchangeable in ways that the original wasn't. I dearly love Changeling: The Lost, but I'd like to err on the wonderous potential from The Dreaming. Again, this would take a lot more thought.

Wraith - same boat. I do like Wraith. But it would require more thought to make meaningful<---this is the secret sauce.

Mummy - I love the Shemsu-Heru conceptually. Mechanically in the original WoD it was a mess. I'd love to take a crack at it with SW. In fact, I think it could easily support itself if contextually handled right without the messy WoD mechanics. SW could make it feel *far* better and more playable.

Paradox might sue you if you're too similar. So my advice is to draw inspiration from public domain. Rather than making a WoD ripoff, make an urban fantasy game. This is what Everlasting, WitchCraft, Fireborn, Nephilim, etc did.

Stop thinking in terms of "how can I copy WoD?" and think "how can I make a fun game using various archetypes from folklore and urban fantasy fiction?" Open your mind to the possibilities.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 27, 2024, 03:23:02 PMParadox might sue you if you're too similar. So my advice is to draw inspiration from public domain. Rather than making a WoD ripoff, make an urban fantasy game. This is what Everlasting, WitchCraft, Fireborn, Nephilim, etc did.

Stop thinking in terms of "how can I copy WoD?" and think "how can I make a fun game using various archetypes from folklore and urban fantasy fiction?" Open your mind to the possibilities.

No, I get it. My goal would not be to copy WoD in my own design. I'm saying that my own design would absolutely stand on its own, but if I wanted to use those mechanical designs to do a nice WoD freebie for the fans, and just release it into the wild under SW, that would be nice in general for people that want to stay in the WoD milieu. Much like Palladium Rifts fans are glomming onto SWRifts. The only difference being I'd do it for free - but not until I'm done doing my own "urban fantasy" thing which I could use for heavy lifting.

I mean, the only thing that sets WoD apart is that they took established mythical monsters, cribbed intensely from Anne Rice and rode the zeitgeist wave. Those concepts weren't original for them. The trick, to pull a card directly from Mark Rein-Hagen's own mantra "Creativity is to hide ones sources" (which was a nod ironically to the fact he didn't even coin that phrase either), is to reframe these concepts into something novel. And more importantly: something fun and playable.

I'm actually kind of laying the groundwork for that now. Without getting too much into the detail, I'm working on a grimdark(ish) fantasy setting where one of the options is for barbaric/semi-barbaric tribes that can take on rituals that inducts them into "werecreature" status. There are big social ramifications to this in and outside the tribe.

The mechanics for the design would operate in the abstract way say WoD Werecreatures operate (multiple forms, ritual spirit magic) but the cosmology and the focus of this aspect of the game is entirely different. Not to mention in this case the genre is entirely different.

Whereas, when I get around to doing Urban Fantasy, I could leverage a lot of these mechanics for the same purpose with tweaks and total reworks for the cosmology and context of the game.

One way to distinguish yourself is to not be grimdark. Emphasize the fantasy in urban fantasy. Everlasting does this: the PC options include mythic hero archetypes, angels, elves, grail questers, and reincarnating wizards.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 27, 2024, 04:57:08 PMOne way to distinguish yourself is to not be grimdark. Emphasize the fantasy in urban fantasy. Everlasting does this: the PC options include mythic hero archetypes, angels, elves, grail questers, and reincarnating wizards.

Very well said. Thanks for saying it and letting it sink into my little brain pan. :)

Quote from: Jason Coplen on September 27, 2024, 05:13:58 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 27, 2024, 04:57:08 PMOne way to distinguish yourself is to not be grimdark. Emphasize the fantasy in urban fantasy. Everlasting does this: the PC options include mythic hero archetypes, angels, elves, grail questers, and reincarnating wizards.

Very well said. Thanks for saying it and letting it sink into my little brain pan. :)

I also say it for marketing reasons. It's a lot to easier to market something if it's made to appeal to a broad audience, like by being light hearted or actively heroic.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 27, 2024, 06:23:36 PM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on September 27, 2024, 05:13:58 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 27, 2024, 04:57:08 PMOne way to distinguish yourself is to not be grimdark. Emphasize the fantasy in urban fantasy. Everlasting does this: the PC options include mythic hero archetypes, angels, elves, grail questers, and reincarnating wizards.

Very well said. Thanks for saying it and letting it sink into my little brain pan. :)

I also say it for marketing reasons. It's a lot to easier to market something if it's made to appeal to a broad audience, like by being light hearted or actively heroic.

I've never thought in terms of marketing, at least when it comes to gaming. If I like it, I like it. Screw what everyone else is doing. I keep forgetting so many think about marketing and the bandwagon that comes along with that.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 26, 2024, 08:18:24 PMA lot of people are shallow and only play games that you can easily buy copies of and which have thriving communities. Many of those dead games are not easy to come by and don't have much in the way of communities even if they do. Copyright law prevents fans from reviving and maintaining dead games. Creating retroclones and spiritual successors is expensive. Lots of gamers aren't interested in expending the effort required to create and maintain games.

It's not rocket science. If copyright terms were a reasonable length, say 20-30 years, then fans could maintain all those dead games and share them with new players who otherwise would never be introduced to them.

Instead we're stuck in this rut where Paradox has a stranglehold over the urban fantasy market because nobody cares to compete with their emogoth vomit.

As far as what will develop a thriving community, I think it would be good to look at what is most popular. The best measure I have of that is the "Best-Seller" flag in DriveThruRPG. I've made a spreadsheet of the urban fantasy RPGs from the list.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W-AF-MCRje8pmdrh2zrmaeBCWkFoMPG-018mWu4b8jM

It's interesting to look at which are the best sellers, as far as what might develop a thriving community.

What seems to sell is monster hunters and dark/light superheroes.

This isn't really surprising. The most popular vampire character type is the dark brooding superhero who refuses to hunt the innocent and uses his powers to fight crime. The Dark Prince novels are an entire series of such protagonists, which has been receiving new entries every year or two since the late 90s. Women desire him, men want to be him.

Quote from: tenbones on September 26, 2024, 05:16:34 PMSo I'm curious about those that don't actually play WoD - is it just the system? Or is there some need to have the latest edition be the best apotheosis of the concept?

I still have my first ed Vampire and think first ed Wraith. Picked both up out of curiosity at Gen Con way back. Later picked up Werewolf, and one of my players got me Mummy. Changeling and Hunter are the two know near nothing about. DMed Werewolf the most, But had the most fun with Wraith.

All that came to a grinding hault when started having trouble with WW staff.

I'll stick with pre  nWOD as it is the better setting, and feels the better system too, all around. Everyone I know pretty much feels the same. They disliked nWOD, the setting and/or the mechanics.

A game like Mummy where the PC's are immortals hunting other monsters of legend which have their own societies is a real winning concept.

The problem with the original Mummy game was in its attempt to gamify Egyptian mysticism and cosmology, they made it so byzantine with weird mechanical oddities that it was unplayable. Conceptually cool as fuck. But a mess mechanically.

Skirting the obvious Highlander/Scion thing where you're just immortal for other reasons, Mummy ala Ramses Damned could be a much cooler vibe. It's a wonder that it was never made into a movie. It would have had all that pulp gloriousness and potential for a cool franchise. Now? I don't trust anyone to do it.

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2024, 12:24:59 AMA game like Mummy where the PC's are immortals hunting other monsters of legend which have their own societies is a real winning concept.

The problem with the original Mummy game was in its attempt to gamify Egyptian mysticism and cosmology, they made it so byzantine with weird mechanical oddities that it was unplayable. Conceptually cool as fuck. But a mess mechanically.

Skirting the obvious Highlander/Scion thing where you're just immortal for other reasons, Mummy ala Ramses Damned could be a much cooler vibe. It's a wonder that it was never made into a movie. It would have had all that pulp gloriousness and potential for a cool franchise. Now? I don't trust anyone to do it.

Mummy was a great concept but terribly implemented.

I'm really surprised that nobody has swooped in and pulled a Paizo. The original White Wolf hasn't existed as a company for a decade, all the original writers have moved on... why hasn't any publisher released a new urban fantasy game to takeover the market? The original game is over three decades old now. The zeitgeist has long since moved on. It's as good time as any for a competitor to step in.

Probably BECAUSE the Zeitgeist has moved on.

It's sorta like how the public generally prefers sci-fi in good times and leans towards fantasy in harder times... the sort of urban fantasy characterized by Vampire needs a certain environment in order to thrive.

Specifically, it was easy to fake angst about fake existential crises when the economy was strong, the Cold War was over, and America had resurrected its image of military strength via the first Gulf War.

When the economy sucks, crime is up, and our leaders seem determined to start WW3 then nihilistic dystopian settings akin to the WoD lose a lot of their appeal.

I think in the present Zeitgeist games like Delta Green are probably the logical successors to the WoD.

I get that much. But Delta Green is dark horror, not urban fantasy. What about urban fantasy that isn't dark horror? Stuff like Urban Arcana, Dresden Files, etc.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 01, 2024, 06:19:32 AMMummy was a great concept but terribly implemented.

Which version?

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 01, 2024, 10:11:47 AMProbably BECAUSE the Zeitgeist has moved on.

It's sorta like how the public generally prefers sci-fi in good times and leans towards fantasy in harder times... the sort of urban fantasy characterized by Vampire needs a certain environment in order to thrive.

Specifically, it was easy to fake angst about fake existential crises when the economy was strong, the Cold War was over, and America had resurrected its image of military strength via the first Gulf War.

When the economy sucks, crime is up, and our leaders seem determined to start WW3 then nihilistic dystopian settings akin to the WoD lose a lot of their appeal.

I think in the present Zeitgeist games like Delta Green are probably the logical successors to the WoD.

Curseborne by Onyx Path just Kickstarted two hours ago, and is already funded. That's probably due to the OP faithful more than any zeitgeist. But if it breaks the $1M mark, that could be saying something.

The kickstarter is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/curseborne-tabletop-roleplaying-game

The setting looks like a simplification of World of Darkness and the rules look way more complicated than V5. It's pretty obviously funded by OP faithful.

I'll start caring if they announce a video game adaptation directed by Brian Mitsoda.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 15, 2024, 03:40:03 PMRevised-era Hunter was a kinda gonzo "you've been empowered by the divine powers to punch monsters" type deal and is much more fun.

Being able to actually play the good guys in world of darkness was refreshing, none of the nonsense "woe is me I'm a blood sucking superhero"

Nope, you're the divine reckoning of all these punks who have squibbled over and fed on humanity, perfect kerma.

Yeah, the "woe is me, I'm a blood sucking superhero" thing is just so obnoxious. It's quite refreshing to see them get their comeuppance.

You know, I'd like to see a game where the vampires are outright b-movies supervillains who enjoy it and only use their humanity as a cover.

Did more research on Curseborne.

It doesn't have a humanity mechanic. So if you steal candybars, you won't develop schizophrenia.

It uses a "fail forward" mechanic where you get action points (https://koboldpress.com/5-action-point-variants/) whenever you fail a roll.

So if you fail to rip your victim's face off, you get an action point and don't have to worry about developing schizophrenia.

There's no social/political splats like there were in Chronicles. Instead, your beliefs and personality are determined by your "family." E.g. all vampires are gay fashionista baristas, all werewolves are hairy uneducated mountain men, all ghosts are... whatever the stereotype for ghosts is, etc. And they all love squabbling over superficial garbage.

The core rulebook supports mixed groups. It only took, what, 33 years?

Truly, we live in exciting times. /s

For urban Fantasy/SF now maybe a revival of the old Dark*Matter RPG would work.

Quote from: finarvyn on September 15, 2024, 12:55:31 PMAnyone have recent experience with WoD games? Anything I should know about them if I decide to play at the store?

I gotta admit, I never played V:TM or any WoD RPGs. They never appealed to me.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 02, 2024, 08:19:47 AMYeah, the "woe is me, I'm a blood sucking superhero" thing is just so obnoxious. It's quite refreshing to see them get their comeuppance.

You know, I'd like to see a game where the vampires are outright b-movies supervillains who enjoy it and only use their humanity as a cover.

I personally double down on that notion, fiction writers are often interested in the concept of the vampire society, but to me that humanizes them to much.

I agree, the lone b-movie evil apex predator is the best model, classic Dracula and his spin-offs come to mind for a charismatic force of nature bad-guy.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on October 05, 2024, 10:49:44 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 02, 2024, 08:19:47 AMYeah, the "woe is me, I'm a blood sucking superhero" thing is just so obnoxious. It's quite refreshing to see them get their comeuppance.

You know, I'd like to see a game where the vampires are outright b-movies supervillains who enjoy it and only use their humanity as a cover.

I personally double down on that notion, fiction writers are often interested in the concept of the vampire society, but to me that humanizes them to much.

I agree, the lone b-movie evil apex predator is the best model, classic Dracula and his spin-offs come to mind for a charismatic force of nature bad-guy.

My approach for Hunters of the Damned is mostly classic Dracula, but with the ability to create mooks (ie. the equivalent of Dracula's Brides and, in this case, probably another tier below them) so the "Big Bad" can be an arc villain rather than just a monster of the week.

For those who want the "Woe is Me" type I'll have the Cursed... PCs who, like Mina, have been bitten and could become a full monster if not able to resist the temptations of hunger and power being so cursed inflicts (which is what the Virtues in the game allow them to resist until they can kill the monster who cursed them and be freed of its influence). The key point though is that they're basically "humans in transition to monster" not a full-blown monster themselves. Their abilities are a shadow of the true monsters (unless they embrace the temptations and become and NPC in the process).

I had some similar ideas. One time I had this idea for a setting where there were two types of magical creatures, each being counterparts. On one side were the evil monsters that prey on innocents, and on the other were tortured antiheroes who hunted the monsters while struggling against their own inner monsters.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 05, 2024, 03:15:58 PMI had some similar ideas. One time I had this idea for a setting where there were two types of magical creatures, each being counterparts. On one side were the evil monsters that prey on innocents, and on the other were tortured antiheroes who hunted the monsters while struggling against their own inner monsters.

Dresden Files (the book series that so happens to have an RPG) played with this concept, Red Court Vampires are basically more or less a contagion of sorts, once you're infected you don't become a vampire until you actually take someone's life via feeding on them, but they always have this underlying hunger, and while they are strong it scales with their hunger so...

Unlike VTM, where the beast is basically a non-existent factor, more so if you're playing Sabbat. I never ever heard of a situation where a vampire lost their humanity.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on October 05, 2024, 10:09:47 PMRed Court Vampires are basically more or less a contagion of sorts, once you're infected you don't become a vampire until you actually take someone's life via feeding on them, but they always have this underlying hunger, and while they are strong it scales with their hunger so...

So Lost Boys rules? It scales? Proportionally or inversely?

That reminds of a 2013 indie game titled Feed. Rather than having a vampire's power determined by generation, blood potency, dynasty, age or w/e, it's determined by how much humanity you've surrendered to the addiction. The downside is that this increases the hunger ceiling. More powerful vampires develop stronger hunger, emphasizing how, like real addictions, it's a curse that feels good rather than a gift. In one of the sample settings, the vampires are outright supervillains and use their humanity as a cover for their villainy, rather than being tortured antiheroes.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 06, 2024, 09:48:35 AM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on October 05, 2024, 10:09:47 PMRed Court Vampires are basically more or less a contagion of sorts, once you're infected you don't become a vampire until you actually take someone's life via feeding on them, but they always have this underlying hunger, and while they are strong it scales with their hunger so...

So Lost Boys rules? It scales? Proportionally or inversely?

That reminds of a 2013 indie game titled Feed. Rather than having a vampire's power determined by generation, blood potency, dynasty, age or w/e, it's determined by how much humanity you've surrendered to the addiction. The downside is that this increases the hunger ceiling. More powerful vampires develop stronger hunger, emphasizing how, like real addictions, it's a curse that feels good rather than a gift. In one of the sample settings, the vampires are outright supervillains and use their humanity as a cover for their villainy, rather than being tortured antiheroes.

Proportionally, Most "half-vampires" in the Dresden Files are either sleeper agents for actual Vampires, which are horrible evil bat monsters that wear literal human skin suits, or they inversely they work for a pseudo Catholic-Organization called the Order of Saint Julie's.

Basically put there is no moral grey-area in being a half vampire, you're either a thug for something more evil that slow burns your addiction, or you have literal divine aid to help not become a horrible monster.

Dresden Files has four (notable) vampire courts:

Red Court: As Socratic DM said, "horrible evil bat monsters that wear literal human skin suits."
White Court: Appear human, feed on emotions, manipulative rather than combative.
Black Court: Classic Dracula types.
Jade Court: Chinese, secretive, feed on breath.

Not sure how the "Lost Boys rules" fits into that.

Quote from: Aglondir on October 06, 2024, 09:39:39 PMRed Court: As Socratic DM said, "horrible evil bat monsters that wear literal human skin suits."

It is not literally a suit of human skin. It's a coating of ectoplasm that conceals their true form and gives them the appearance of being human. No actual human skin is involved. If the ectoplamic coat is damaged, it takes them time to mend it (but there isn't any specifics on how long). For most, it was stricktly a disguise, but some of the Red Court could also perform tricks with their coat, like hiding items under it or pulling a limb out of the coat and doing some sleight of hand trickery.

Quote from: Aglondir on October 06, 2024, 09:39:39 PMWhite Court: Appear human, feed on emotions, manipulative rather than combative.

This isn't necessarily true. The most commonly seen White Court in DF stories (House Raith, IIRC) fed upon lust, so they were manipulative because it served them, not because they couldn't be combative (they were quite effective in combat when well fed).

Other White Court houses specialized in feeding upon terror or despair. These, particularly those that fed upon terror, probably had less use for manipulation.

The organization of red court infected is the Fellowship of St Giles, patron of lepers and outcasts. 

You probably could go solo as a red court infected, but without a support group you are probably going to lose your shit, kill somebody, and go full vampire right away.


Lost Boy vampires are Red Court, because of their sunlight issues, changing features, screaming, leaping about and blood drinking.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on October 05, 2024, 10:49:44 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 02, 2024, 08:19:47 AMYeah, the "woe is me, I'm a blood sucking superhero" thing is just so obnoxious. It's quite refreshing to see them get their comeuppance.

You know, I'd like to see a game where the vampires are outright b-movies supervillains who enjoy it and only use their humanity as a cover.

I personally double down on that notion, fiction writers are often interested in the concept of the vampire society, but to me that humanizes them to much.

I agree, the lone b-movie evil apex predator is the best model, classic Dracula and his spin-offs come to mind for a charismatic force of nature bad-guy.

Non-evil vampires were a thing very early on in the movies. Son of Dracula had Alucard. One of the House of movies had Dracula seeking a cure. Theres a few others where someones been infected and is either seeking a cure, or at least trying to curb the worst of the urges. Serums, artificial blood and so on.

Theres always been these "flip the script" notions and it goes back to at least Greek Hero times with some plays turning heroes into villains. Villains into at least sympathetic monsters.

So WOD fits right in with that concept and leaves plenty of room to play good or bad. Though the general theme was not good. But mostly not full on evil. WW really loved their conspiracy theory/secret cabal plot as they used it for about every book.

Quote from: Omega on October 07, 2024, 05:22:02 PMNon-evil vampires were a thing very early on in the movies. Son of Dracula had Alucard. One of the House of movies had Dracula seeking a cure. Theres a few others where someones been infected and is either seeking a cure, or at least trying to curb the worst of the urges. Serums, artificial blood and so on.

Theres always been these "flip the script" notions and it goes back to at least Greek Hero times with some plays turning heroes into villains. Villains into at least sympathetic monsters.

So WOD fits right in with that concept and leaves plenty of room to play good or bad. Though the general theme was not good. But mostly not full on evil. WW really loved their conspiracy theory/secret cabal plot as they used it for about every book.

I think why I disdain for WOD's vampire  isn't just for the "woe is me" aspect, you either eating or not, being a vampire is pretty morally binary, even more than a humans because slipping off the straight and narrow path means cracking your old human friend like a cherry capri sun.

And even just eating "people who deserves it" doesn't really justify it to me,

Though also I kinda of dig early White-Wolf because there was satire to it, kind of like early 40k, which made some of the more stupid elements make sense, as though it was semi-aware the decade it existed in sucked ass.

But later White Wolf dropped that as much, and Paradox straight up has second hand guilt/remorse for the politics in those books despite being progressive for their time and most of their current authors not even directly linked to the older products.

If I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

Off the top of my head, without referencing a book: yes.

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

They do not need to drain someone dry, but sometimes it happens if they lose control.

Quote from: V20, p260If the character catches prey, but currently has fewer blood points in her body than [7 minus Self-Control or Instinct], the character is considered to be hungry and a frenzy check (p. 298) is necessary — Self-Control to see if the character frenzies, or Instinct to see if the character can control her frenzy while feeding. If the player fails this roll, the character continues to gorge on the vessel until she is completely sated (at full blood pool), the victim dies from blood loss, or she somehow manages to regain control of herself.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on October 07, 2024, 05:52:03 PMBut later White Wolf dropped that as much, and Paradox straight up has second hand guilt/remorse for the politics in those books despite being progressive for their time and most of their current authors not even directly linked to the older products.

It is always Year Zero for the Revolution.

WW/Paradox's problem is that they've lived long enough for the WoD's heroes to become today's villains. All the "oppressed" factions they supported who demanded tolerance and a voice in the 90's turned into the same "got mine so fuck you!" oppressive, intolerant, censorious types once they had power themselves.

But rather than lean into that truth; the natural corruption of power achieved; they instead insisted on presenting imaginary far-right bugbears (the Catholic Church and far-right elements of Intelligence Community form the Second Inquisition to hunt down all the oppressed innocent LGBT-proxy vampires) and basically jumped the shark.

The original VtM worked because it was satirizing uncomfortable truths and the only thing you needed suspension of disbelief for was the vampires who were themselves metaphors related to those truths.

ParaWolf VtM doesn't work because the very foundation of its setting is now lacking in any truth which makes any suspension of disbelief harder because you aren't just applying it to the existence of vampires, but the "truths" of the setting itself.

It's why my own efforts at a setting for Hunters of the Damned is leaning towards a '20 minutes into the future' approach focusing on the worst turns our present society can take...

- the Blackguard and Vanrock megacorps, and NGOs like the cult that is the Global Commerce Council, control the political and economic spheres for their Satanic masters.

- Police State surveillance, censorship, and state-condoned militias akin to Antifa keep the population fearful of speaking out.

- Engineered wars, famines and plagues are used to force the poor into lawless urban hellscapes where the monsters can more easily feed.

- Transhumanism-obsessed elites experiment with AI (ghosts in the machine), neural links, cybernetics, and bio-engineering, slicing away at the humanity of themselves and their test subjects.

- Transnational drug and trafficking cartels supply human misery and the behest of inhuman masters and clients.

- Orthodox faiths are persecuted using hate-laws, and in some places (large urban hellholes) driven to financial insolvency, while faithless Unitarian and Prosperity Gospel pushing megachurches in step with the views of the State are allowed to flourish.

... and so on. Just throw supernatural evils into the margins and shadows manipulating these attacks on humanity and you've got yourself something that isn't satire, but is making commentary on where today's society is at.

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

Correct. Unless they're in the midst of a frenzy, a vampire could get their nightly nourishment from a single pint of blood.

This process is also intensely pleasurable for the person being drunk from so one of the merits available is "herd" a group of mortals addicted to the pleasure of being fed upon who willingly allow the vampire to drink from them.

If a WoD vampire is able to stay well fed, there is virtually no way for them to overfeed except deliberately. If a victim does die it's more likely because of some underlying medical condition that losing a pint exacerbates (ex. chronic anemia, extremely low blood pressure, hemophilia, etc.).

You pretty much need some alternative to "must kill humans to feed" if you want any longer term campaign with PC vampires. The number of people okay with playing complete monsters long term is vanishingly small.

As I will have "cursed" options for PCs, my approach is to treat the need to feed for those as akin to an addiction or hunger. They are still living and so do not need to consume the blood of innocents to survive... the curse just drives them to desire it (and acts of virtue allow them to push past those desires until the next temptation arises).

Once lost to the curse the addiction passes. The consuming of life, the more innocent the better, adds potence to their satanic powers but is unnecessary to their survival. Instead the Damned crave feeding/killing as an act of pure malevolence.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 09, 2024, 11:39:43 AMAs I will have "cursed" options for PCs, my approach is to treat the need to feed for those as akin to an addiction or hunger. They are still living and so do not need to consume the blood of innocents to survive... the curse just drives them to desire it (and acts of virtue allow them to push past those desires until the next temptation arises).

Once lost to the curse the addiction passes. The consuming of life, the more innocent the better, adds potence to their satanic powers but is unnecessary to their survival. Instead the Damned crave feeding/killing as an act of pure malevolence.

Neato. You're not the first to come up with this. The 2013 indie game Feed does the same, treating vampirism very explicitly as an addiction metaphor. It outright has a statistic labeled Addiction. Vampires don't feed to survive, they feed to satisfy their Hunger statistic. They can resist their hunger and, depending on the GM's choice, cure their addiction. So the metaphor doesn't fall apart upon further inspection, the way it would if vampires had to feed to survive or were treated as a metaphor for being gay.

The evil apex superpredator thing got boring back in the day.  Honestly there's not that much you can do with them storywise.  Now we're bored with the anguished "I don't want to be a monster" thing because it's been overdone.  I get it, I'm tired of it too.  Besides, I have teenagers at home so I get more than enough adolescent drama.  I wonder what happens now?  Do we go back to the old thing?  Strike a balance?  Switch to another theme for our primary entertainment?  I don't much care as long as it's entertaining.

I was thinking of emphasizing the fantasy aspect of urban fantasy. Stuff like ancient empires ruled by mummies, werewolves, wizards, vampires, dragons, etc. straight out of pulp fiction. Chronicles teased this in a few supplements but never did anything with it before Paradox cancelled them for the crime of not having come out in the 90s.

I was thinking of doing something more with that. A lot of ancient cultures have animal-headed deities descended from earlier totemic religions, so it makes sense to have werewolves and other shifters be god-kings of ancient civilizations. You could invent entire myth cycles around that.

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

On a practical level, it depends on what the vampire is doing.  They needed a pint a day or about the amount a healthy adult would give when they donate blood for basic maintenance.  That's if they are just living from day to day and not using their blood points for anything.  PCs often needed a lot more than that because they were using it for other things like healing as well.

Quote from: yosemitemike on October 09, 2024, 06:45:06 PM

Quote from: Omega on October 09, 2024, 07:22:48 AMIf I recall right, WOD vamps do not need to drain someone dry?
That was part of the system even. Resisting the urge to drain someone to death.

On a practical level, it depends on what the vampire is doing.  They needed a pint a day or about the amount a healthy adult would give when they donate blood for basic maintenance.  That's if they are just living from day to day and not using their blood points for anything.  PCs often needed a lot more than that because they were using it for other things like healing as well.

It probably makes more sense for worldbuilding and game design to not link consumption to a specific real world amount and to have a separate pool of power points to fuel superpowers. Even in V5, they replaced tracking blood consumption with a hunger statistic. Using powers didn't automatically increase Hunger, you rolled to determine whether it increased Hunger. It's impossible to clear Hunger without killing someone, anything less only diminishes it to a certain point.

Quote from: Mishihari on October 09, 2024, 02:32:44 PMI wonder what happens now?  Do we go back to the old thing?  Strike a balance?  Switch to another theme for our primary entertainment?  I don't much care as long as it's entertaining.

If its WW we are talking about then whatever they come up with will be worse than what came before.

Quote from: Omega on October 10, 2024, 12:32:21 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on October 09, 2024, 02:32:44 PMI wonder what happens now?  Do we go back to the old thing?  Strike a balance?  Switch to another theme for our primary entertainment?  I don't much care as long as it's entertaining.

If its WW we are talking about then whatever they come up with will be worse than hat came before.

They haven't existed as a company since about 2010.

Paradox, the current owners of the IP, have acknowledged they have no faith in it anymore. When Bloodlines 2 predictably bombs, they're most likely gonna retire it forever. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/paradox-wants-to-get-out-of-the-rpg-business-if-bloodlines-2-god-willing-is-successful-bloodlines-3-will-be-done-by-someone-else/

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 10, 2024, 04:04:35 PM

Quote from: Omega on October 10, 2024, 12:32:21 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on October 09, 2024, 02:32:44 PMI wonder what happens now?  Do we go back to the old thing?  Strike a balance?  Switch to another theme for our primary entertainment?  I don't much care as long as it's entertaining.

If its WW we are talking about then whatever they come up with will be worse than hat came before.

They haven't existed as a company since about 2010.

Paradox, the current owners of the IP, have acknowledged they have no faith in it anymore. When Bloodlines 2 predictably bombs, they're most likely gonna retire it forever. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/paradox-wants-to-get-out-of-the-rpg-business-if-bloodlines-2-god-willing-is-successful-bloodlines-3-will-be-done-by-someone-else/

In that article, they are talking about getting away from computer RPGs. They have been busy adding several lines to their tabletop RPG portfolio.

Quote from: HappyDaze on October 10, 2024, 05:03:57 PMThey have been busy adding several lines to their tabletop RPG portfolio.

Like what?

I think linking blood points to a real world unit of measure was a mistake.  It just allowed people to do the numbers and see that they didn't work at all. 

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 26, 2024, 08:18:24 PMemogoth vomit

Yes!

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 10, 2024, 05:43:10 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on October 10, 2024, 05:03:57 PMThey have been busy adding several lines to their tabletop RPG portfolio.

Like what?

Sorry, I was confusing Renegade Game Studios (the ones that put out the WoD 5e titles as well as GIJoe, Transformers, and a few others) with Paradox.

In any case, I imagine that Paradox isn't gonna renew the license when it comes up. There's an opportunity for another publisher to swoop in and corner the market. So if you were making your own urban fantasy game, then what would you do?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 11, 2024, 08:13:39 AMIn any case, I imagine that Paradox isn't gonna renew the license when it comes up. There's an opportunity for another publisher to swoop in and corner the market. So if you were making your own urban fantasy game, then what would you do?

Except Paradox doesn't have a license, they bought it outright. They would instead be the ones offering a license to a third party and WoD will go the way of all licensed IP's... if it actually gets successful they'll keep hiking the license fees until it fails, then license it to someone else and repeat until no one wants to touch the property again.

This is why you're ALWAYS better off owning your IP.

If WoD5e fails, it needs to stay buried. If it's actually dead then the better details can be re-imagined in other settings without an extant company looking for excuses to send C&D notices at anything remotely similar to their IP.

Ex. In the cosmology of my HotD setting, Cain probably IS the first of the Damned, simply because he was the first murderer, but at present I have no plans to include that simply because of VtM. It doesn't matter that in my setting first doesn't actually mean most powerful and Cain has long since been surpassed by more wicked figures (and the Damned's power comes from their devotion to sin)... it's close enough that I wouldn't want to risk it.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 11, 2024, 10:12:33 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 11, 2024, 08:13:39 AMIn any case, I imagine that Paradox isn't gonna renew the license when it comes up. There's an opportunity for another publisher to swoop in and corner the market. So if you were making your own urban fantasy game, then what would you do?

Except Paradox doesn't have a license, they bought it outright. They would instead be the ones offering a license to a third party and WoD will go the way of all licensed IP's... if it actually gets successful they'll keep hiking the license fees until it fails, then license it to someone else and repeat until no one wants to touch the property again.

This is why you're ALWAYS better off owning your IP.

If WoD5e fails, it needs to stay buried. If it's actually dead then the better details can be re-imagined in other settings without an extant company looking for excuses to send C&D notices at anything remotely similar to their IP.

Ex. In the cosmology of my HotD setting, Cain probably IS the first of the Damned, simply because he was the first murderer, but at present I have no plans to include that simply because of VtM. It doesn't matter that in my setting first doesn't actually mean most powerful and Cain has long since been surpassed by more wicked figures (and the Damned's power comes from their devotion to sin)... it's close enough that I wouldn't want to risk it.

What I mean is that Paradox will probably retire the IP after it bombs rather than continuing to let anyone publish new official products for it, once the current contracts expire.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 11, 2024, 01:04:33 PMWhat I mean is that Paradox will probably retire the IP after it bombs rather than continuing to let anyone publish new official products for it, once the current contracts expire.

Ah, I guess I misread it as, what would you do if you were working on a project and then the opportunity to get WoD's IP dirt cheap came up. So, to try it again...

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 11, 2024, 08:13:39 AMThere's an opportunity for another publisher to swoop in and corner the market. So if you were making your own urban fantasy game, then what would you do?

As I already explained my setting conceits, let me move to the more practical bits.

First things first is that's I'd aim for something with a bit more of a mechanical spine than WoD has ever used and I think I'd try to make it a system that uses only a relatively small number of d6s for its resolution. I'd also aim for something not exactly rules light, but with an extremely simple core mechanic.

For modeling skills in modern and more grounded settings I've become rather enamored of Silhouette's mechanics. Your attribute is a modifier of -3 to +3 (though in practice -2 and -3 are essentially crippled so for players its effectively -1 to +3) and skills are rated 0-5 indicating the number of d6 you roll (if the skill is 0, you roll 2 dice and take the lower). For the roll result you take the highest result of those rolled and add your attribute modifier and any situational modifiers to it). If the highest result is a 6, then each extra 6 adds 1 to the result (ex. 6, 6, 3, 1 would be read as 7... 6 + 1 for the extra six).

The reason I like it is I feel it better models actual performance a bit better... low skill tends to produce erratic results, high skill tends to be more consistent and on the higher end and the occasional instance of exceptional results and raw talent on its own only gets you so far (lower of 2d6 + 3 will usually be less than best of 5d6 + 0).

Combat is opposed skill checks with damage based on margin of success and weapon used. Since the rolls for really skilled combatants will often be close, combatants will need to leverage situational modifiers to achieve success against an evenly matched opponent.

Attribute spread is basically a measure of Power, Precision and Speed in the categories of Physical, Mental and Spiritual tasks. In testing I've found that merging Strength and Constitution while splitting Dexterity into two categories largely solves the God-stat problem that Dex has in many systems.

Spiritual stats are used for checks related to supernatural abilities.

Which abilities are available depend on the type of Hunter archetype you choose;

- Called spend their Spiritual stats for extra non-supernatural advantages (allies/contacts, rank, resources, special training, cyberware, etc.)

- Chosen gain supernatural gifts based on their chosen virtue.

- Children gain supernatural powers based on their Damned parent's type (Cambions being the default for more traditional fantasy spellcasters), but they fuel them with Providence instead of Damnation.

- Cursed gain powers associated with their curse (typically weaker versions of the actual Damned) and have to balance their use with earning Damnation they must purge with acts of virtue.

Not playable, but built along similar lines, are the Damned themselves whose power grows as they increase their Damnation (current major types are Vampires, Shapeshifters, and Witches/Warlocks).

Also not playable, but built on different rules entirely, are Ghosts, Angels, Demons, Fae, and Cursed Beasts (animals lack the reasoning needed to deliberately sin, but can be corrupted into monsters by the Damned and their allies).

I can't constrain myself to a single setting, so I have loads of ideas.

I had this idea for a generic non-cthulhu mythos paranormal investigation and monster hunting game, inspired by the likes of Chill, Tabloid!, Bureau 13, Dark•Matter, Conspiracy X, Necroscope, Hunter: The Vigil, etc. You can play as secret agents, psychic superspies, reluctant vampires, chosen slayers, sons of Satan, alien hybrids, scions of the Jesus bloodline, cyborgs, mutants, frankensteins, etc. These characters are generally human, but may have something extra that comes in handy in a pinch. I'd provide a variety of organizations, but by default you're expected to be part of one that accepts a variety of origins and pays full time. These would include the private think tank who studies the paranormal for pure research purposes, the ancient chivalric order that fights evil, the tabloid journal that wants lurid stories to get eyeballs, and the cursed repo agency that needs to repossess cursed antiques, damned souls escaped from hell, etc.

It seems like wod 5e is doing fine. Reddit and discord are active, lots of fan materials,  kikstarter things do we
L

Quote from: PencilBoy99 on October 12, 2024, 03:29:28 PMIt seems like wod 5e is doing fine. Reddit and discord are active, lots of fan materials,  kikstarter things do we
L

5e doesn't use kickstarter and never did. The kickstarter is for Curseborne, a new IP made in direct competition. It met its goal within a few hours of starting. It's pretty obvious that WoD no longer has staying power and fans will readily drop it for something else that looks sufficiently pretty.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 12, 2024, 06:01:27 PMfans will readily drop it for something else that looks sufficiently pretty.

Thats been a thing with RPGs and board games and probably video games for ages.

Mechanics matter. But I think (especially for WoD urban-fantasy stuff) that setting matters more.

I don't know anyone that actually liked the WoD dice-pool system. It was very easy to manipulate. The math behind it was horrible. But we made it work.

What we liked was the fact that we got to jump into an Anne Rice world with cool not-Anne Rice conceits. The whole "History is a Lie" thing appealed to the fact that your characters were "in the conspiracy - you're now in the know!". Clans working under a large umbrella within the conspiracy appealed to the inclusivity with built-in friction with other Clans which promoted RP opportunities already cooked into the pseudo-history of the setting. This appeals instantly to our tribal instincts. The more sub-division that they dug into, the more we got pulled into it. Inter-Clan politics was just as interesting as Intra-Clan history.

Then, *finally* we had a game that centered first and foremost around politics - which could be engaged in as the players see fit, even when trying not to engage in them. The political nature of Vampire appealed to people that weren't even into politics because the "super-hero monster" vibe allowed for you to fight against the Real Evil(tm) while you were still a monster. So it let everyone have a baby-martyr complex... oooo the delicious annnngst.

Of course... for those of us that didn't give a shit about the angst... We could go for the pure power-trip and roll Sabbat. Which had its own fun baggage by implication as well as overt conceit.

That's a tall order to fill. It's one of the reasons "just being a Vampire" isn't particularly appealing without some cool conceits of "why". I'm not sure that it can even be recaptured. WoD didn't do anything but deepen and recontextualize Anne Rice (we're free to argue here, as I'm sure Lumley fans would have a lot to say) - the fact is the appeal should be subtle without throwing out the baby in the bathwater. Can it be done? I think so. I haven't given it enough thought.

The idea of  Cain being the first Vampire, for instance, is a solid myth. The curse has to be commensurate to the crime - and Cain fits wonderfully. Of course in Rice it was some Egyptian sorcery highjinks which let's face it, barely passes muster (binding a spirit into a person who suddenly cannibalizes people? Not bad. Could be better). I thought the NWoD of Longinus being the progenitor is a good one too. But it implies that Vampires are no older than that. There is something about giving vampires and supernatural monsters common to us a history that goes into antiquity a very cool appeal.

Marvel Comics vampires are traced back to Atlantis - and beyond (they come from the Darkhold which was written by Cthon and elder god). And that's COOL! Hence you see references to Vampires in their lore going into Conan references within their various books.

So while I have no interest in running the WoD system - I'm equally interested in reimaging a new cosmology, and using a different system - which means a new game. But the cosmology part is where the rubber hits the road for me.

One conceit I saw in Everlasting is that anyone who commits sufficient atrocities spontaneously becomes a vampire patient zero. Cain never became one because one murder isn't enough, but Dracula and Bathory did. Pretty much every historical figure with sufficient atrocity under their belt—King Leopold II, Hernando Cortez, Ivan the Terrible, Giles de Rais, etc—is fair game as a potential patient zero.

Also, the token Chinese vampire bloodline are composed of computer nerds who know kung fu and carry around archaic Chinese swords.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 14, 2024, 04:04:55 PMOne conceit I saw in Everlasting is that anyone who commits sufficient atrocities spontaneously becomes a vampire patient zero. Cain never became one because one murder isn't enough, but Dracula and Bathory did. Pretty much every historical figure with sufficient atrocity under their belt—King Leopold II, Hernando Cortez, Ivan the Terrible, Giles de Rais, etc—is fair game as a potential patient zero.

I *like* this idea nested within a larger cosmological constant. However, given the realities of history, I assume that the original WoD crew understood this as well. Their solution of course was that all of history itself was a fiction created largely by the vampires themselves (which they unwound more as they added more splats).

But in the situation Everlast is suggesting, there would likely have been a *lot* of vampire-0's. Which then requires an explanation of why they have never proliferated - whether by organized hunters (Inquisition etc.) Again the elegant solution to this is WoD's "Masquerade". A recapitulation of the RP aspect with stakes in playing a vampire.

Whether intentional or not, it's an elegant solution. I could totally see the Everlasting concept work, but I'd want more meat on the bone (there might be, as I'm not as familiar with it). What else is cool about the setting?

I think it's a great starting point for sure.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 14, 2024, 04:04:55 PMAlso, the token Chinese vampire bloodline are composed of computer nerds who know kung fu and carry around archaic Chinese swords.

Ugh. The whole Kuei-jin thing was a missed opportunity and horribly executed imo within WoD. I LIKE the idea of Asian Clans, but due to the Judeo-Christian assumptions of Vampire (specifically), this made it weird.

Now, using Cain as a metaphor for the Devourer Wyrm - made a LOT of sense. But it also both made the Kuei-jin both weirder from the Vampire perspective but much more relatable from the Werewolf camp.

I think the Everlasting concept works strong thematically for a rework of these ideas.

Quote from: tenbones on October 14, 2024, 05:21:20 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 14, 2024, 04:04:55 PMOne conceit I saw in Everlasting is that anyone who commits sufficient atrocities spontaneously becomes a vampire patient zero. Cain never became one because one murder isn't enough, but Dracula and Bathory did. Pretty much every historical figure with sufficient atrocity under their belt—King Leopold II, Hernando Cortez, Ivan the Terrible, Giles de Rais, etc—is fair game as a potential patient zero.

I *like* this idea nested within a larger cosmological constant. However, given the realities of history, I assume that the original WoD crew understood this as well. Their solution of course was that all of history itself was a fiction created largely by the vampires themselves (which they unwound more as they added more splats).

But in the situation Everlast is suggesting, there would likely have been a *lot* of vampire-0's. Which then requires an explanation of why they have never proliferated - whether by organized hunters (Inquisition etc.) Again the elegant solution to this is WoD's "Masquerade". A recapitulation of the RP aspect with stakes in playing a vampire.

Whether intentional or not, it's an elegant solution. I could totally see the Everlasting concept work, but I'd want more meat on the bone (there might be, as I'm not as familiar with it). What else is cool about the setting?

I think it's a great starting point for sure.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 14, 2024, 04:04:55 PMAlso, the token Chinese vampire bloodline are composed of computer nerds who know kung fu and carry around archaic Chinese swords.

Ugh. The whole Kuei-jin thing was a missed opportunity and horribly executed imo within WoD. I LIKE the idea of Asian Clans, but due to the Judeo-Christian assumptions of Vampire (specifically), this made it weird.

Now, using Cain as a metaphor for the Devourer Wyrm - made a LOT of sense. But it also both made the Kuei-jin both weirder from the Vampire perspective but much more relatable from the Werewolf camp.

I think the Everlasting concept works strong thematically for a rework of these ideas.

Yeah, while only a dozen bloodlines are presented, more are mentioned in passing, and it suggests that there may be hundreds descended from history's most prolific killers. Bloodlines can also be wiped out: kill the founder and the bloodline will go with him unless members raised enough blood-potency to survive it.

Everlasting isn't specifically Judeo-Christian, but it does make several Judeo-Christian concepts true in its cosmology. For example, there are Christian-style angels, but in-universe they claim not to be specifically Christian.

You can read a review here: https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/halloween-jack/the-everlasting-book-of-the-unliving/

Long story short, a guy who previously wrote for White Wolf wrote it in response to perceived problems with their design. It has a unified cosmology, allows cross-splat play, and uses unified rules for superpowers and sorcery. It was basically new world of darkness before that was a thing. It's also not bleak af: the 13 PC splats include mythic heroes, good angels, grail questers, spiritual warriors, vigilante gargoyles and Tolkien-style elves and dwarves.

Sweet. I'll check it out!

As an aside... I've been wondering when/why there aren't more WoD ala Dark Ages games out there? Where you're playing the Vampire/Werewolf/etc. but set in a medieval fantasy setting? No interest?

I'm toying around with aspects of that in this project I'm working on - but it's not a dedicated theme of the setting. Just a regional thing.

Quote from: tenbones on October 15, 2024, 03:26:51 PMSweet. I'll check it out!

As an aside... I've been wondering when/why there aren't more WoD ala Dark Ages games out there? Where you're playing the Vampire/Werewolf/etc. but set in a medieval fantasy setting? No interest?

I'm toying around with aspects of that in this project I'm working on - but it's not a dedicated theme of the setting. Just a regional thing.

There's numerous supplements for playing vampires, playing lycanthropes, and playing in literal medieval Europe using D&D rules. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of demand for those kinds of supplements, much less a campaign setting where you play magical creatures living in medieval Earth. I remember that Ubik worked on a game like that in the mid 2000s, Nephilim: Secret, but it was canceled.

You can say the same thing about pretty every genre and pitch you could think of. It's probably because gamers are trained early on to have a taste for certain kinds of games, to conform to whatever is currently popular when they get into the hobby, and then never leave their comfort zone for the rest of their lives. I've seen numerous creative game concepts that withered on the vine because they weren't able to compete with the first movers that had already colonized the existing niches, like D&D, Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, Battletech, Call of Cthulhu, etc.

I find it very frustrating. Ttrpgs run on the most powerful computer there is, the human imagination, but gamers are too afraid to leave their comfort zone and actually use that imagination. So interesting ideas are constantly created, tossed in the trash, the existing niches are mined out and driven into the ground, and the hobby remains stagnant.

On the other hand, I'm completely burnt out on medieval fantasy because it's so oversaturated. I've read supplements that let you play as levitating swords, giant sapient spiders... I've seen bestiaries with entries for non-evil holy undead, strife elementals, and at least three different cenobite expies. When people aren't copying LotR, they're in a contest to write the most bizarre stuff to stand out. It's long ago gotten exhausting.

I only wish other genres were even a fraction as diverse and creative.

Quote from: tenbones on October 14, 2024, 01:06:26 PMThen, *finally* we had a game that centered first and foremost around politics - which could be engaged in as the players see fit, even when trying not to engage in them. The political nature of Vampire appealed to people that weren't even into politics because the "super-hero monster" vibe allowed for you to fight against the Real Evil(tm) while you were still a monster. So it let everyone have a baby-martyr complex... oooo the delicious annnngst.

I think this is one of Vampire's biggest draws. It was for the most part, alot more about interaction and social dynamics than combat.

It tickles the same interests as Call of Cthulhu did before it for RPGing that was not as combat heavy as many perceived D&D and its knock-offs to be. And what D&D leaned into heavily for a while which did not help.

And it is one of the few RPGs that can be run as a LARP without the hassles of extensive props and combat procedures which D&D still has yet to ever impliment.

Quote from: tenbones on October 14, 2024, 05:21:20 PMUgh. The whole Kuei-jin thing was a missed opportunity and horribly executed imo within WoD. I LIKE the idea of Asian Clans, but due to the Judeo-Christian assumptions of Vampire (specifically), this made it weird.

Now, using Cain as a metaphor for the Devourer Wyrm - made a LOT of sense. But it also both made the Kuei-jin both weirder from the Vampire perspective but much more relatable from the Werewolf camp.

I think the Everlasting concept works strong thematically for a rework of these ideas.

I had 2 of the "East" books. The Werewolf one and think either the Vampire or Wraith one. Probably the Wraith one if that ever saw print. Have not looked at anything WW aside from Aberrant in 20+ years.

It worked. But it was a quirky sort of works. Personally there was something about the art style that never clicked with me.

Hilariously what put me off the Shapechangers of the East book was yet another in the interminable Coyote inserts gag which WW had to slip into what felt like every damn Werewolf book.

Something I noticed with the later WW books is a marked deterioration in direction and cohesion, and WW books were always weak on cohesion to begin with. You see it even in Aberrant.

Any thoughts on Undying? I recently picked this up.

I wish there was a universal engine for playing urban fantasy, like how D&D lets you play medieval fantasy. I don't give a flying crap about failed microfiction and exposition dumps pretending to be a game. I don't like tribalistic nutjobs who make fiction into their effing religion. I just want to play games and make stuff up.

I don't know why there isn't an OSR-like movement for urban fantasy. Is the genre just not popular enough to support that?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 17, 2024, 08:41:32 AMI don't know why there isn't an OSR-like movement for urban fantasy. Is the genre just not popular enough to support that?

I'm going to say it probably isn't popular enough to support it.

D&D isn't just the 800lb. gorilla, its the blue whale of RPGs. Even the OSR movement is just a spin-off of the older editions and so can largely recruit from people coming off WotC D&D.

The only thing comparable in the urban fantasy sphere is VtM and it basically pulled a D&D 4E before there was a D&D 4E in creating a widely division new edition (NWoD) that divided its fanbase... only there wasn't an OGL in place for someone to build a retroclone of the old material (which was already 90% copyrighted and trademarked fluff or hung off that fluff) so instead of getting a strong alternative in a Pathfinder-like competitor and budding OSR-like movement the fans who didn't want the new edition mostly just dissolved, playing independent home games with older books or finding new systems or just leaving the hobby entirely.

Then the WoD got a bonafide miracle resurrection with Vampire 20th, only for the people in charge of the IP to crap the bed again with the massively divisive V5 that split the fanbase again.

The OSR is a viable thing, but it wouldn't have been without the massive pool of D&D players to pull from and an OGL SRD to make retrocloning the older systems comparatively painless and low-risk (no "They Sue Regularly" to worry about).

Urban Fantasy has never had that... and lingers far behind D&D-style fantasy as a result.

* * * *

Another factor is that D&D style fantasy is much easier for new players to grok because you have specific classes. Not sure what to play? Pick a class and try it; most of your choices are made for you.

Virtually every modern-setting RPG, including Urban Fantasy, instead opts for a classless system that offers all the flexibility you need to play virtually anyone in the modern world, but robs the new player of easy archetypes to latch onto. One of the things WoD did well was, even if the mechanical effect was nearly non-existent, it made sure to have Clans, Tribes, Traditions, etc. to create a sort of archetype for new players within the splat.

As much as I'm loathe to say it, to get something like an OSR-ish Urban Fantasy system with enough gravity to get new players into it, you'd probably need to build it as a class/level system with customization options.

It's one reason why, regardless of the final mechanics, I started naming specific Hunter concepts... Called, Chosen, Cursed, and Children function as a high-level archetype and direction for building a character out of. Subclasses like Cambion, Dhampir, Changeling, Nephilim, etc. could be attached as specific builds.

Unfortunately, that's also not the sort of system most people coming from other Urban Fantasy systems would be interested in... its too restrictive and too much like D&D.

D&D has been able to leverage the popularity of anime, manga, and video games to draw in newer players.

Urban fantasy went Anne Rice -> vampire hunter chick who banged werewolves -> sparkle vampire high school drama.

Urban fantasy is a romance subgenre for women.

You can tell me all about how it's totally something else and you can do so much more with it, or how there's all this great urban fantasy out there, but all I see is bodice-ripper novels and TV shows with soap opera plots. Let's be honest, even back in the 90s, most guys who were into urban fantasy were really just hoping to bang a goth chick.

It's not that urban fantasy isn't popular, it's just not very popular among people who are into tabletop gaming. Most of those goth chicks from back in the day are wine moms with radical feminist politics today.

tl;dr - There is an OSR-like movement for urban fantasy, it's called "Powered by the Apocalypse."

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 17, 2024, 11:34:38 AMUrban Fantasy has never had that... and lingers far behind D&D-style fantasy as a result.

Another key difference is that WoD was always about its dense lore and that alienates new players and people who don't care about lore. "You're playing your character wrong! Shun the heretic!" D&D, even CoC, are their own genres with a multitude of settings. Nobody expects players to memorize the history of Faerun to be a true fan. Many groups don't even play in Faerun. D&D has decades of lore, sure, but nobody's restricted by it.

You can write fantasy supplements and not have to worry about adhering to canon. There are countless books released under OGL or DM's guild licenses. Whereas the fan books on Storyteller's Vault are all expected to adhere to canon or be shunned as heretics. It's even more restrictive than fanfiction.

You wanna play, I don't know, werewolves who infect new werewolves via bite? Unless you play D&D, you're fucked. When it comes to urban fantasy, your only option is hereditary neopagan treehugging dogfucking incestuous alphabet cannibal psychopaths. That's really fucking stupid.

Quote from: Corolinth on October 17, 2024, 12:52:57 PMtl;dr - There is an OSR-like movement for urban fantasy, it's called "Powered by the Apocalypse."

Ugh. I'm not trying to sound sexist here, but can't we make a new genre like urban fantasy that appeals to the male demographic? How can we market urban fantasy to general tabletop gamers?

Quote from: Corolinth on October 17, 2024, 12:52:57 PMIt's not that urban fantasy isn't popular, it's just not very popular among people who are into tabletop gaming. Most of those goth chicks from back in the day are wine moms with radical feminist politics today.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 17, 2024, 01:17:24 PMUgh. I'm not trying to sound sexist here, but can't we make a new genre like urban fantasy that appeals to the male demographic? How can we market urban fantasy to general tabletop gamers?

There's the Larry Correia (Monster Hunter International) segment of the Urban Fantasy market which has, by dint of not being far left, been lumped into the "extremist right" category for daring to appeal to men and traditional values.

As noted by the name of Correia's series, the focus of that genre is explicitly humans who hunt down evil monsters and the main reason you don't see it in the mainstream much is because mainstream media is wholly controlled by Childless Cat Ladies and their allies (including Marxist wine moms).

Which is also the reason why I'm going with the "Hunters of the Damned" angle vs. "play the monster" angle; that is the part of the genre that appeals to the broadest tabletop gaming market.

It's basically D&D with guns, katanas, fast cars, military hardware, and even potentially some sci-fi (cybernetics and bio-mods) layered on top depending on the specifics the monster hunter setting you design.

For similar reasons, the games I'm interesting in working on first are focused on investigating cryptids, conspiracies, etc. from the perspective of PCs who are human. At most they have a little extra, like being the Slayer, the Charmed Ones, the Son of Satan (but working for Good), the Necroscope, half-alien, whatever. In the vein of Conspiracy X, Bureau 13, Tabloid!, Dark•Matter, Chill, Hunter: The Vigil, Necroscope, basically every game that isn't affiliated with the Cthulhu mythos.

After that my go-to choice is something like Nightbane, where you play monsters with souls that valiantly fight against their demonic kin.

But ultimately, I still want do stuff in the vein of Nightlife, WitchCraft, Everlasting, Fireborn, Nephilim, Invisible War, War of Ages, whatever, where you play as outright magical beings who do stuff. It doesn't have to be villainous. Everlasting lets you play as angels, mythic heroes, grail questers, etc.

I miss the days when writers just made stuff up because they thought it would be a cool idea for a writeup. Monsters of the week, magic objects of the week, magic places of the week, splats of the week... It was hit or miss, but at least they tried.

I feel like ever since the Great Recession hit, tabletop gamers have lost all passion and just go through the motions trying to recreate their nostalgic glory days from the 80s and 90s before losing interest and leaving the hobby. There are new creators making new stuff all the time and selling it on drivethrurpg by the truckload, but none of its leaves an impression. It's just content that comes, goes, and is immediately forgotten.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 17, 2024, 01:17:24 PMUgh. I'm not trying to sound sexist here, but can't we make a new genre like urban fantasy that appeals to the male demographic? How can we market urban fantasy to general tabletop gamers?

I don't know. I'm not part of this "we" you're throwing around. I have some familiarity with WoD, through Exalted. Enough for me to check a thread out of curiosity and follow along.

Tenbones hit the nail on the head earlier. Somehow White Wolf hit the magic formula where you could have it both ways - you could play your Anne Rice game while simultaneously acting like you were too cool for Anne Rice.

I'm not interested in Anne Rice. I'm interested in the modern fantasy. Dresden Files, Anita Blake, that sort of thing. I know it's currently romance fodder, but it doesn't have to be. Back in the good old days there were lots of detectives and monster of the week series.

But that's just it - Dresden and Anita Blake are themselves derivative of Anne Rice. I'd say Dresden is effectively a derivative of WoD - but I'm not holding that against Butcher.

Anne Rice ignited what was a stale genre but from a gaming perspective absolutely can and does contain the elements you're talking about, if you want it.

There is a legitimate reason why WoD was such a milestone and it certainly wasn't the shit-tastic system, nor was it the heavy handed metaplot (though a lot of people at that shit up).

A cool "middle-ground" for the Monster-of-the-Week/Detective vibe was *absolutely* a thing in WoD via "Forever Knight".

Quote from: tenbones on October 17, 2024, 09:25:27 PMBut that's just it - Dresden and Anita Blake are themselves derivative of Anne Rice. I'd say Dresden is effectively a derivative of WoD - but I'm not holding that against Butcher.

Anne Rice ignited what was a stale genre but from a gaming perspective absolutely can and does contain the elements you're talking about, if you want it.

There is a legitimate reason why WoD was such a milestone and it certainly wasn't the shit-tastic system, nor was it the heavy handed metaplot (though a lot of people at that shit up).

Is there anything to indicate that Dresden was inspired by WoD?  There are plenty of other possible sources.  WoD is a small fish in a big genre.

Tenbones, All you seem to be saying here is that WoD is generic, derivative and uninspired.

Maybe I should use Gumshoe as a basis for an urban fantasy detective game?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 18, 2024, 07:18:28 AMTenbones, All you seem to be saying here is that WoD is generic, derivative and uninspired.

Maybe I should use Gumshoe as a basis for an urban fantasy detective game?

I'm not *just* saying that. I'm saying they did a GREAT job with their obvious inspirations. I'm saying that while everyone is asking "why people don't play WoD anymore?" - I'm pointing to the fact that the people that originally made WoD *left* their own inspirations behind. I'm saying that they turned their back on their own creations and what made them cool and interesting.

Mark Rein-Hagen said it himself - he was riffing on Anne Rice. There is nothing wrong with that. What people seem to be forgetting or not realizing is the ground between where we're standing now, not playing WoD and when we did play it is not very far in distance. We should be retracing those steps back and recontextualizing - whether that means simply changing the names and system, or doing an actual *good* cosmology that doesn't get in the way of what players really want. Super-hero Horror with ties to conspiracy-shit. Now mix and flavor carefully and slowly, with no half-assery.

I suspect people are so jaded with the WoD brand that any kind of whiff that reminds them of WoD is suddenly rank. I point to the derivative nature to get everyone to look at the GOOD stuff in there that's worth re-creating.

Hope that's a little more clear.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 18, 2024, 07:18:28 AMTenbones, All you seem to be saying here is that WoD is generic, derivative and uninspired.

McDonalds' food is generic and uninspired. It is also the number one fast food in the world. Oscar Meyer hot dogs are a pale imitation of genuine all beef franks, much less genuine sausage. Guess which sells more?

You say generic, but a lot of people would instead call it familiar or iconic.

Plenty of people just want to play a Superman or Wolverine expy, not invent their own unique superhero... the same holds for playing vampires or werewolves or what have you; and the closer to their idea of those critters as possible the better.

I get that you find these things boring and tiresome, but you are significantly outside the norm on that.

Quote from: tenbones on October 18, 2024, 05:34:28 PMI suspect people are so jaded with the WoD brand that any kind of whiff that reminds them of WoD is suddenly rank. I point to the derivative nature to get everyone to look at the GOOD stuff in there that's worth re-creating.

Hope that's a little more clear.

Indeed. I also think there's a zeitgeist factor involved. Subversion sells in good times, but in bad times people are looking for "comfort food."

VtM was satire and subversion of contemporary times and came out in the best of times; the Cold War was over, we were still riding the momentum of the Reagan economy, America got respect for its military back with the Gulf War, the internet was showing all sorts of potential, etc. People were inventing stresses just to pretend they had it as bad as prior generations.

In short, it was the perfect time for faux-angst and poking at a reasonably benign establishment. But times changed while the authors' belief that it was always Year Zero of the Revolution remained fixed.

When the towers fell in 2001, the audiences stopped feeling like satirizing their own society (which was under threat) and had an external threat to contend with.

WoD still had its fans, but their failure to pivot with the times (plus D&D 3e and LotR reigniting interest in more traditional heroic fantasy) curtailed much of its future growth potential (which at one point stood on the threshold of dethroning D&D) and likely had some impact on their effort to relaunch with the NWoD.

Only they completely lost the wave they had ridden with the decision for a more generic sandboxy approach.

The huge irony for me is how they basically caught lightning in a bottle again with the 20th anniversary editions and probably could have ridden that wave if they'd been self-aware enough to realize that their 90's oppressed groups had become the current establishment and the zeitgeist today, at least in my area, is more of a counter-revolution against it.

Instead they lost the plot, pretending their views were still those under oppression (instead of doing the oppressing) and pushed out mechanics to enforce their view of how the should be played.

Worth noting with that is that when we say World of Darkness, we need to acknowledge that it was really only Vampire the Masquerade that truly caught lightning in a bottle and even that was more due to horror-themed superheroes fighting conspiracies than the existential angst the creators intended.

All the other splats were merely attempts at replicating the success with a traditional monster being the protagonist and those that succeeded to greater or lesser degrees did so mostly based off things largely unconnected to the authors' original intent (ex. werewolf was basically violence porn with buckets of dice and not the nihilistic environmental angst-fest intended, Mage in my experience always appealed to zany escapes from the mundane and not the persecution of dying minority cultures), but from everything I've read all of them combined were less than VtM on its own (MtA being a distant second, WtA third, and the rest barely worth mentioning in comparison to VtM).

Anyway, the WoD's biggest issue has always been it's prima donna creators who were butthurt people weren't playing the games as they intended and kept trying to hammer that playstyle into the game with each new edition (culminating in V5 making many playstyles entirely unworkable with their mechanical changes) coupled with the lack of self-awareness that the times have changed and they are no longer the oppressed minority... their positions are now those of the elites and those who oppose those views are now oppressed.

Those same creators also decided they were frustrated authors and started introducing their Metaplot elements that did nothing but cause issues (many of the books focusing heavily on metaplot had "adventures" that amounted to the PCs standing and watching while the DevPCs do something and are told how awesome it is to witness).

Basically, the "lost their way" comes down to their losing the zeitgeist, trying to force their OneTrueWay onto their fanbase, and trying to make players into spectators of their "brilliance" in the same vein as the worst railroady frustrated author GMs.

Getting back to the brilliant parts would be figuring out the current gamer zeitgeist, present that as the beliefs and positions of the protagonists with appropriate antagonists, then layer onto that the fantastic elements until it functions as metaphor and satirism for that.

My own view with HotD is that those of faith and virtue are under assault by the legions of the damned, who control much of the apparatus of power (Satan is "King of this world" per the saying). Lots of people feel like they should be doing something, but feel too powerless and isolated to do so.

So the protagonists are those with the power and courage to act against supernatural evil who have banded together with others of like mind to fight for a better world.

The villains are supernatural monsters controlling the levers of worldly power to slake their desires through the misery of mankind. Vampires work with human traffickers to supply themselves with victims. Feral lycanthropes form violent criminal gangs to indulge their urges for violence. Covens of witches weave the power of Hell into media to raise up entertainers devoted to them and curse those spreading messages of faith and virtue. Demons encourage futurists towards transhumanism and the stripping away of the very soul of humanity and replacing it with hollow AI.

I also think, though I'm sure Box will find it trite, that since most of the humans-turned-monsters in actual myth and legend are ultimately some combination of "actually witchcraft" and "too evil to stay dead" it is pretty easy to have a common origin for most such monsters as the result of various pacts with the Devil and his demons.

After all, when you actually look at him, the literary Dracula is actually just a warlock who was too evil to stay dead. His many powers are not "vampire powers", they are sorcery learned from the Devil himself at Scholomance; the legendary school for black magic in the Carpithian mountains. Even his cheating of death via vampirism could be said to have been just another power granted by the Devil to one of his favored students and devotees.

The vampire and werewolf's bites are just curses via a particular medium and have particular counters, just as a witch's curse requires certain conditions and have particular counters.

Undeath (i.e. too evil to stay dead) can be just another power of Hell granted by the Devil giving leave to a damned soul to return to its body or enter the world as a disembodied spirit.

The Fae, depending on interpretation of the actual myths, are such wicked spirits, either demons or of the restless dead.

People of faith against the creations of The Devil is suitably iconic/mythic to match VtM's Caine among the general public. The Devil is even older, more timeless, and can adapt to the times (he loves to turn the virtuous into hypocritical sinners... making heroes of the past into today's villains).

Cain could even be the first vampire under that setup... the WoD version didn't become one from the curse of God but through bargaining with the demon Lilith for magical power.

That said, I would actually find it more interesting to have Cain long since surpassed by a succession of even more ambitiously evil beings and ultimately by the invoking of the "from nobody to nightmare" trope for some recent setting original character to be the Devil's current most favored.

For a default setting I'm envisioning the head of Blackguard; the multi-trillion dollar hedge fund megacorp with its finger in everything; as the current Dark Lord's Favored; having supplanted the prior one, Dracula, after WW2) and he would lead a council of other potent Damned who in turn seek to bring about the ruin of souls in their respective spheres of influence.

I'll admit, my main reasoning for the above is so the Big Bad can unleash evil AI Terminators and Cyborgs upon PCs funded through their trillions in managed assests.

I don't mind a Christian cosmology. It's not trite if nobody else does it. Even the WW writers and fans hate that the Christian God is real in their game but refuse to change it because of their OCD grognardism.

Chris, I totally respect that you want to build a coherent universe around that, aren't afraid to do something new and rethink assumptions. When you say I find that trite, I must protest.

I find monolithic canons dominating entire genres trite and annoying. Speaking from my experiences with the toxic WoD fandom, that design attracts religious nutjobs who hate fun and creativity. It's failed microfiction pretending to be a game. I prefer universal systems that explicitly support multiple settings and the freedom to just make shit up without worrying whether it fits into some dude's fanfic he wrote 30 years ago.

Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS, Unisystem All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Night's Black Agents, that sort of game is what I want. Variety is the spice of life.

I've said this loads of times. Do I have to make my own game to stress my point?

I used to enjoy the game system, playing VTM, Vampire Dark Ages, Hunters Hunted, and planning on GMing Mage The Ascension. However after DMing an evil group for a summer in AD&D 1e and running a short villains version of Marvel Superheroes I got tired of playing and GMing villains. Heck, when I played VTM all the other players ever wanted to do was to attempt to diablerize <sp?> the more powerful vampires.

I don't have any problems with an actual Christian presence in any RPG. In fact, Gygax' clerical spells in D&D were based on the miracles granted by God to the Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles in the Bible.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 19, 2024, 01:50:47 PMI've said this loads of times. Do I have to make my own game to stress my point?

Please do. I'd much rather see what you come up with rather than just continuing see you grouse about.

Quote from: HappyDaze on October 19, 2024, 04:19:41 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 19, 2024, 01:50:47 PMI've said this loads of times. Do I have to make my own game to stress my point?

Please do. I'd much rather see what you come up with rather than just continuing see you grouse about.

Thank you! Well, coincidentally I just started working on a d10+Attribute+Skill system inspired by 90s and 2000s games like Fuzion and Unisystem. I'm releasing it into public domain so that I don't have to worry about it dying off in the event that I lose interest.

Quote from: tenbones on October 17, 2024, 09:25:27 PMBut that's just it - Dresden and Anita Blake are themselves derivative of Anne Rice. I'd say Dresden is effectively a derivative of WoD - but I'm not holding that against Butcher.

Anne Rice ignited what was a stale genre but from a gaming perspective absolutely can and does contain the elements you're talking about, if you want it.

There is a legitimate reason why WoD was such a milestone and it certainly wasn't the shit-tastic system, nor was it the heavy handed metaplot (though a lot of people at that shit up).

As teenagers we bought the WoD books and then just wanted to recreate the Underworld and Blade movies with them, movies which were themselves highly derivative of WoD. I think a big part of the reason why the system never stuck for us was that it was never designed for doing "90s-Cool" wire-fu action, but we were young and didn't spot that.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 19, 2024, 12:23:20 PMMy own view with HotD is that those of faith and virtue are under assault by the legions of the damned, who control much of the apparatus of power (Satan is "King of this world" per the saying). Lots of people feel like they should be doing something, but feel too powerless and isolated to do so.

So the protagonists are those with the power and courage to act against supernatural evil who have banded together with others of like mind to fight for a better world.

Sounds like a cross between Witchhunter: The Invisible World and a Stryper album.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 19, 2024, 01:50:47 PMI don't mind a Christian cosmology. It's not trite if nobody else does it. Even the WW writers and fans hate that the Christian God is real in their game but refuse to change it because of their OCD grognardism.

It's almost inevitable in anything that wants to focus on Vampires and Werewolves. Most of the lore around those monsters is from Christian cultures, and like Chris said, in their traditional manifestations they're inextricably tied in with witchcraft and Satanism. Various attempts have been made over the years to divorce the logic of vampirism from Christianity, but they always come across to me as kind of toothless and milquetoast. Trying to explain vampirism away as a blood disorder or saying that they're somehow weak to faith of any kind, regardless of the object of that faith just cheapens the monster to me.

Besides, Satan is just such a fun villain, why would you not want to use him?

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 19, 2024, 05:35:26 PMIt's almost inevitable in anything that wants to focus on Vampires and Werewolves. Most of the lore around those monsters is from Christian cultures, and like Chris said, in their traditional manifestations they're inextricably tied in with witchcraft and Satanism. Various attempts have been made over the years to divorce the logic of vampirism from Christianity, but they always come across to me as kind of toothless and milquetoast. Trying to explain vampirism away as a blood disorder or saying that they're somehow weak to faith of any kind, regardless of the object of that faith just cheapens the monster to me.

How did people repel vampires before the Crucifixion? How did non-Christians deal with vampires? What about their other weaknesses? What even are vampires under Christian theology?

Christian-based vampirism is fine, but the concept of the evil dead long predates Christianity. It's not "cheap" outside Christianity. Ancient Sumer had stories of ekimmu and akakharu, ancient China had stories of jiangshi, ancient India had stories or pretas and vetalas...

However, and you may feel vindicated by this, all of those cultures agreed that these were the evil dead. Man-eating monsters that spread terror and suffering.

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 19, 2024, 05:35:26 PMBesides, Satan is just such a fun villain, why would you not want to use him?

I don't disagree. Chill even features him as a villain under the name "The Deceiver."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 20, 2024, 10:19:26 AMHow did people repel vampires before the Crucifixion? How did non-Christians deal with vampires?  What even are vampires under Christian theology?

So I think taking that first question with Christian assumptions, you get one of two answers, either of which has narrative potential. The first answer is that they didn't. i.e., before Christ came to redeem the world there was no power capable of staving off unholiness, darkness ruled the world, etc. The second answer would be that a non-Christian has  to fight black magic with black magic, which gives you the same kind of thematic thrust.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 20, 2024, 10:19:26 AMWhat about their other weaknesses?

Oh man, the list is endless! Garlic, salt, fire, poppy seeds, coins in the mouth, being buried at a crossroads, locking your windows... There's probably hundreds of folk remedies for vampirism.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 20, 2024, 10:19:26 AMWhat even are vampires under Christian theology?

Quite a lot of ink has been spilled on that, too. I think the conclusion Montague Summers came to was that they are the devil animating the corpse of someone who sold their soul to him in life, but you can cook up plenty of alternatives that still fit the Christian worldview.

Incidentally, if you want a pretty good summary of the folklore of vampires, I recommend his book "The Vampire in Europe" if you can get a hold of a copy.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 20, 2024, 10:19:26 AMChristian-based vampirism is fine, but the concept of the evil dead long predates Christianity. It's not "cheap" outside Christianity. Ancient Sumer had stories of ekimmu and akakharu, ancient China had stories of jiangshi, ancient India had stories or pretas and vetalas...

However, and you may feel vindicated by this, all of those cultures agreed that these were the evil dead. Man-eating monsters that spread terror and suffering.

Sure, but when people say "vampire" what they almost always mean is a derivative of the monster Victorian novelists cobbled together from Slavic and Mediterranean folklore. Post Anne Rice, there's been a noticeable trend of siting the origin of European vampires somewhere in Egypt or the Middle East, but that still kind of keeps them in a Judeo-Christian context, since it just traces them back to Old Testament times.

I'm not actually Christian myself, but I find that vampires and similar monsters are more compelling when they're not just "evil dead", but "unholy dead", and that carries a lot of weight in a Christian conception precisely because historical Christianity is so binary when it comes to God and the Devil. They get boring to me when people try to give them a pseudo-scientific or non-denominational explanation.

Regarding non-Christians and vampires... most accounts I've found mostly discuss avoidance (don't violate the taboos which attract them) and destruction while they are helpless during the day (piercing them with various objects seems common). Lacking Christian implements, the only common theme seems to be playing to certain psychological weaknesses (scattering seeds/rice/etc. that they are compelled to count so that you can flee) and that they can't stand to see their reflection so keeping mirrors around will scare them off.

Basically, they just don't have things like the Crucifix or holy water to drive them away... to borrow from Game of Thrones, for them "the night is dark and full of terrors."

In terms of what Vampires are in Catholic theology... they're mythical creatures and superstitions, no more real than dragons or green-skinned witches with the power of flight by broomstick. If you want to place them into a largely Catholic setting you have to make something up that feels consistent.

For my own version the "Master Vampire" is a witch/warlock who has made a pact with the Devil for physical immortality at the cost of their eternal soul and the necessity to feed on blood to maintain their youth.

Some Masters choose to create servant vampires through a curse delivered with their bite. The curse grants minor vampiric powers, a hunger for blood and the temptation towards sin. Indulging their urges for blood and vice increases their power at cost to their soul until it is finally lost entirely. Lacking a soul, the body dies and the now forever damned soul rises as a vampire in service to their master.

Only acts of virtue and repentance can keep the curse from progressing... and is the struggle for PCs that fall under the category of The Cursed. Only destroying the vampire who cursed you will free you from the curse (dying before your soul is lost will save it, but that's not terribly useful for continuing to play the PC... just consolation for the player and PC's friends/family).

The other reason they're that is because Satan is both an excellent villain (though being pure spirit is not someone you can fight physically... one must settle with thwarting his schemes) and an excellent common origin for monsters... who can basically be divided into potentially saveable (those still living) and the eternally damned (those who are now undead... ancient crones, elder werewolves, full vampires, etc.).

It's easy to have a coherent cosmology when you don't have a bunch of competing mythologies. The Devil is older than Man and has influenced all cultures throughout history. His demons presented themselves as pagan gods granting power and good fortune to those who would worship and sacrifice to them and follow their commands (typically to mercilessly conquer, enslave, rape and murder those who would not bow to their faith).

Historically, some demons may play the role of "good" deities while others play the monsters to drive people into worship of them instead of seeking the Truth. Some superstitious wards against evil may just be play acting by monsters in on the larger con.

Alternately, there is also a belief in Catholicism that, to the extent there is something good and true in other faiths, that goodness and truth comes from God laying out paths that point to Him for the earnest seekers of Truth.

The ideal is to get onto the main road that is the Catholic faith, but for those lost far from that road, a game trail is better than nothing and, with God's grace, might get one close enough that God can step in to carry the earnest seeker the rest of the way Home.

So too in an urban fantasy based off Catholic theology, one could say that those things used by non-Christians as remedies and wards against supernatural evil are things placed by a loving God to offer some protection to them in absence of better options.

My thinking on this for my game is that the simpler the ward, the more likely that it was placed by God (ex. Salt and silver are ancient symbols of purity so are probably genuine counters to the supernatural woven into them by God at the creation of the world... silver as the common backing of a mirror also explains the weakness to their reflections... which may not extend to many modern mirrors using other materials for the reflective surface).

By contrast, the more ridiculous or humiliating or sinful in other ways the method is (dressing in ridiculous fashion, inscribing prayers to false gods on doorways, etc.) the more likely it is the result of monsters play acting (meaning those fail utterly the moment play acting ceases to be useful to their plans... noteworthy in Dracula is that the Cross doesn't work to counter vampires; only a Crucifix will truly work).

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 20, 2024, 01:27:37 PMMy thinking on this for my game is that the simpler the ward, the more likely that it was placed by God (ex. Salt and silver are ancient symbols of purity so are probably genuine counters to the supernatural woven into them by God at the creation of the world... silver as the common backing of a mirror also explains the weakness to their reflections... which may not extend to many modern mirrors using other materials for the reflective surface).

Another direction on the reflection thing is to play into the revulsion at what they have become (kind of a "Picture of Dorian Gray" thing).  They cannot stand to see the evil/unholiness/decay that their reflection shows, so that it becomes a revulsion thing as opposed to a mystical one.  It still fits with the religious theme, too (especially as a revulsion against the alienation from God by the damned).

Neato. The religious underpinnings sound fascinating when explained like that. So much more sensible and coherent than whatever the mall goths were smoking. I think your game concept would be a nice change of pace after so much ignorant secular nonsense. Good luck!

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 20, 2024, 02:59:41 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 20, 2024, 01:27:37 PMMy thinking on this for my game is that the simpler the ward, the more likely that it was placed by God (ex. Salt and silver are ancient symbols of purity so are probably genuine counters to the supernatural woven into them by God at the creation of the world... silver as the common backing of a mirror also explains the weakness to their reflections... which may not extend to many modern mirrors using other materials for the reflective surface).

Another direction on the reflection thing is to play into the revulsion at what they have become (kind of a "Picture of Dorian Gray" thing).  They cannot stand to see the evil/unholiness/decay that their reflection shows, so that it becomes a revulsion thing as opposed to a mystical one.  It still fits with the religious theme, too (especially as a revulsion against the alienation from God by the damned).

That is an excellent suggestion as, upon further research, historically (as in until the 19th century) few mirrors were silver (silver tarnishes to unreflective black rather quickly). Most were bronze or polished stone or polished steel and none were nearly as good as the modern mirrors (the phrase "I see as though through a mirror, darkly" is in reference to the poor quality of reflected images compared to looking at something directly).

Given the plethora of ancient materials used, making the effect genuine due to revulsion at seeing oneself makes more sense than something intrinsic to the material a mirror is made from and the degree to which it is effective depends on how corrupted the entity is.

The Cursed may be put off by the signs of the curse taking hold, but it's not enough to actually drive them back... those who have become truly undead though are hideous both to themselves and those with the ability to perceive true forms (ex. a common trait of dhampirs in folklore was being able to see invisible and disguised vampires) and their ability to withstand the sight of themselves might require some test of resolve/mental fortitude (the idea being that lesser counters can sometimes be overcome because they are imperfect).

The other useful element there from an associated mechanics sense is that their reflection can give a Cursed PC a rough gauge of their corruption after they've given in to sin and whether acts of virtue and penance are reversing what has been lost to sin (Catholicism has whole sections of dogma about habitual sin and that, so long as you're trying to avoid the repetition, falling back into a habitual sin doesn't make it unforgivable, just something you need to keep working on). Basically, having a corruption track the player is aware of is less of a metagame element if there's an in-character element that can be observed.

This could also be why the Children archetype (dhampirs, cambions, changelings, etc.) do NOT have this problem (they don't have the traditional weaknesses of their monstrous half, but still have most of the human frailties the monster lacks) and that would be because they are the result of God choosing to create something good out of evil; a person who, by God's grace, can turn the Devil's own gifts against his Damned. They don't show signs of corruption in mirrors because they are what God created them to be.

I remember seeing something like that in the BBC Netflix Dracula show a few years back. Mirrors (and livestreams on cameras) showed a vampire what they truly looked like inside. Dracula, regardless of the youth he drained, always looked like a terrible old man.

Neato.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 21, 2024, 08:23:17 AMI remember seeing something like that in the BBC Netflix Dracula show a few years back. Mirrors (and livestreams on cameras) showed a vampire what they truly looked like inside. Dracula, regardless of the youth he drained, always looked like a terrible old man.

Neato.

Not entirely familiar with that iteration, but yeah, it's really only the supernaturally attuned who see the vampire as it truly is. Video cameras and reflective surfaces are just far too common in the modern world for any sort of masquerade to exist (and if you want the setting to even slightly resemble the real world the monsters need to be hidden) if the vampire's true form could be exposed because someone happens to be recording something where a vampire is present on their smart phone and uploads it to TikTok.

I guess it somewhat depends on how you see the monsters.

If they're liminal beings hiding in the shadows on the edges of human life and not participating in it then their ugliness being exposed by any mirror or camera would work... the monsters hide in sewers and abandoned buildings and work through mind controlling people to perform tasks out in the world.

If they're instead beings of power and influence then they shouldn't have more than some odd habits or hints (see the recurring joke that Mark Zuckerberg is actually one the lizard men whose disguise isn't very good) in appearing on camera and only supernatural sight sees the truth.

The latter makes more sense if the common origin is deals with the Devil. Who's going to sell their soul if everyone will see them as hideous?

One element that might be interesting is if being able to perceive their true forms is related to faith (and in this the non-Christian earnest seeker counts) so that the monsters once had to exist on the fringes of a much more faithful world, but as secularism spread and faith waned in the populace below some critical threshold the ability to see evil for what it is was lost.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 21, 2024, 09:10:01 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 21, 2024, 08:23:17 AMI remember seeing something like that in the BBC Netflix Dracula show a few years back. Mirrors (and livestreams on cameras) showed a vampire what they truly looked like inside. Dracula, regardless of the youth he drained, always looked like a terrible old man.

Neato.

Not entirely familiar with that iteration, but yeah, it's really only the supernaturally attuned who see the vampire as it truly is. Video cameras and reflective surfaces are just far too common in the modern world for any sort of masquerade to exist (and if you want the setting to even slightly resemble the real world the monsters need to be hidden) if the vampire's true form could be exposed because someone happens to be recording something where a vampire is present on their smart phone and uploads it to TikTok.

Only the vampire sees the truth in the show. It works exactly like how you described your revulsion mechanism

Another factor that I think WoD did rather well and is worth considering how to include similar elements is that the main monsters for each book tended to have a slew of ancillary supernatural elements/creatures built into them.

It wasn't just Mages, you had constructs (from Frankenstein's monster to golems to HIT Marks), bygones (dragons, mermaids and other fantastical creatures), familiars and spirits filling in the void.

Vampire had ghouls and revenants (human and animal), ghosts/zombies (via necromancy), mutated beasts and men (via Vicissitude and some Nosferatu rituals), demons (via the Baali), gargoyles (bloodline), dhampirs (supplement), and hedge magic, psychics and true faith (via Hunters Hunted supplement) all floating around in the setting even without adding the other splats. Heck, mummies were originally a Vampire splat as well (first edition Mummy came out about the same time as WtA did).

That wealth of ancillary supernatural elements that fit into the established cosmology of the setting really helped flesh out the world in a way many other vampire games don't bother to.

So, in terms of an urban fantasy setting, it's worth considering what the "ancillary" stuff looks like. What is real, what's actually just a myth, and what's real but not what most think it is?

For example, I'm going with the idea that Fae and aliens are actually the same supernatural phenomenon. One of the Cursed types will be the Alien/Fae abductee (on thinking about it, not all curses need to end with transformation into one of the creatures... that may just apply to certain types, some curses just have some benefit along with their drawbacks... ex. Alien probing leaves you with psychic powers, migraines and nose bleeds). Similarly, half-alien/fae will be a type of the Children archetype with the actual Fae probably being a spirit (probably the restless dead that can't be directly fought except by engaging with it via "fairy tale logic" that resolves it's restlessness).*

Now, going hunter-based and being able to fold most of the intelligent human-adjacent monsters into demonic pacts covers a lot of ground. Allowing for curses and part-monster children covers even more. But certain elements from those WoD were added for good narrative reasons. The villain needs some fanatical stronger than mere mortal lieutenants that don't share their weaknesses (if they all explode in sunlight then one trick solves the whole conflict)... so, Ghouls (who are also meant to reflect Renfeld) and the blood bond that controls them were added.

From my perspective as well, if you're aiming at having the PCs be generally heroic, needing to kill a bunch of mind-whammied human dupes to get to the actual villain really dampens the heroism. That's where willing cultists and lesser monsters (ex. a necromancer's zombies) feels a lot better to overcome.

Thus, I see the need for minion-tier supernatural elements that the Damned can call upon to fill in the gaps.

* Yet another reason to go with a Catholic foundation is that we believe in ghosts. We have rules about lay people interacting with them because there's no way to tell if they're being truthful and could be demons or a damned soul trying to lead you into sin, but also have experts trained in evaluating and dealing with them. One case a priest who specialized in this shared with us involved a haunting where a priest had died. Upon investigating the priest discovered the haunting elements were focused on drawing attention to a desk where there was found a list that the departed priest had made of intentions he had promised to say masses for, but had died before saying them. Once they had been given out and said by other priests the haunting ceased entirely.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 21, 2024, 11:39:13 AMThat wealth of ancillary supernatural elements that fit into the established cosmology of the setting really helped flesh out the world in a way many other vampire games don't bother to.

You mean having a monster manual like D&D? I assumed that was something you did automatically whenever you wrote urban fantasy.

Also, what other vampire games are there? Particularly ones that don't bother with bestiaries? Not counting one off indie games like Feed or Vampire City, urban fantasy games like Nephilim, Nightlife, Nightbane, Everlasting, WitchCraft, etc. usually include bestiaries or at least build-a-beast chapters.

In Nephilim, the vampire splat (only published in France) could rely on ghosts, zombies, "living dead" (people corrupted with black magic), and an assortment of "entities" summoned from the lower astral planes made of human fears and nightmares. Nightlife had generic renfields for all character types, zombie dogs, etc. Everlasting's vampires had several types of minions: "drones" who were just humans hypnotized to serve a while, "dhampirs" who could learn powers but could walk in sunlight (think half-vampires from The Lost Boys), and weaker vampire minions; You could even turn animals into drones, dhampirs or vampires.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 21, 2024, 11:39:13 AMFor example, I'm going with the idea that Fae and aliens are actually the same supernatural phenomenon.

I saw that in Changeling: The Lost too. Later on they invented a separate "deviant" character type to handle alien abductees and other scifi stuff, but it was never as interesting because the concept was a hyper vague mess that covered everything from RoboCop to Eleven from Stranger Things.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 21, 2024, 11:39:13 AMThus, I see the need for minion-tier supernatural elements that the Damned can call upon to fill in the gaps.

Again, neato.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 18, 2024, 07:18:28 AMTenbones, All you seem to be saying here is that WoD is generic, derivative and uninspired.

Maybe I should use Gumshoe as a basis for an urban fantasy detective game?

Gumshoe is an idiot trying to "fix" a problem that did not exist.

You know what could do Dresden Files and all that now that think of it?

Older editions of Call of Cthulhu. Especially with the Dreamlands expansions.

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 19, 2024, 05:35:26 PMBlade movies with them, movies which were themselves highly derivative of WoD.

Blade at least is older than the Ann Rice books. The movies though barely scratch the surface.

Quote from: Omega on October 21, 2024, 09:32:57 PMBlade at least is older than the Ann Rice books. The movies though barely scratch the surface.

Blade was changed quite a bit from the original version to the one that was in the Wesley Snipes movie.

Quote from: yosemitemike on October 21, 2024, 09:47:04 PM

Quote from: Omega on October 21, 2024, 09:32:57 PMBlade at least is older than the Ann Rice books. The movies though barely scratch the surface.

Blade was changed quite a bit from the original version to the one that was in the Wesley Snipes movie.

That is a huge understatement.

And in the 90s saw a huge retooling along with several other supernatural themed superheroes and eventually teamed up into Midnight Sons in the early 90s. I had the early issues and it had a strong mystery of the week feel to it with an underlying interconnection with the Darkhold.

Massively more broad in variety of creatures compared to the Blade movie's focus on just vampires.

Quote from: Omega on October 22, 2024, 05:30:25 AMAnd in the 90s saw a huge retooling along with several other supernatural themed superheroes and eventually teamed up into Midnight Sons in the early 90s. I had the early issues and it had a strong mystery of the week feel to it with an underlying interconnection with the Darkhold.

Massively more broad in variety of creatures compared to the Blade movie's focus on just vampires.

  I'm not certain, but I think a Midnight Sons boxed set was planned for FASERIP before TSR lost the license.

EDIT: A Google search confirms that it was not only planned, but David Pulver got a first draft written. But it's currently locked up in old data formats and legal issues, so there's no way to get a hold of it. :(

Quote from: yosemitemike on October 21, 2024, 09:47:04 PM

Quote from: Omega on October 21, 2024, 09:32:57 PMBlade at least is older than the Ann Rice books. The movies though barely scratch the surface.

Blade was changed quite a bit from the original version to the one that was in the Wesley Snipes movie.

Yeah I don't know to what extent the Blade movies were inspired by VtM, as I never read the comics, but they certainly felt like they were. The Underworld movies definitely looked like they were just a cross between WoD, Blade and the Matrix.

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 22, 2024, 09:06:01 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on October 21, 2024, 09:47:04 PM

Quote from: Omega on October 21, 2024, 09:32:57 PMBlade at least is older than the Ann Rice books. The movies though barely scratch the surface.

Blade was changed quite a bit from the original version to the one that was in the Wesley Snipes movie.

Yeah I don't know to what extent the Blade movies were inspired by VtM, as I never read the comics, but they certainly felt like they were. The Underworld movies definitely looked like they were just a cross between WoD, Blade and the Matrix.

I don't think so. I think they were influenced by general trends seen in fiction around the time.

I don't see anything in the Blade movie that cannot be traced back to works that predate WoD. Like, sympathetic vampires go back to at least the 1960s. Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows, Carmilla in Hammer Horror... Anne Rice described vampire covens back in the 1970s. Familiars? Goes back to Renfield. Secret societies specifically dedicated to keeping their existence a secret? Goes back to at least The Vampire Lestat. Multiple types of vampires in the same story? Goes back to at least Captain Kronos in the 70s, and Nightlife did so in 1990.

Even the idea of connecting werewolves with a superficial exoticized misunderstanding of Native American folklore goes back to at least Wolfen in 1981.

Strangely, I cannot think of a single common trope in urban fantasy that can be traced back specifically to WoD. It just isn't influential. It's so derivative and generic that there's nothing in the broader genre that can be traced back to it.

I find this odd. Given its brief popularity in the 90s, you'd think at least some of the fans then would grow into writers and have that influence their work. But I just don't see that.

Dresden Files has multiple types of vampires, so does Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. None of them are particularly comparable to Mark Rein-Hagen's work: their subspecies are very much not distinguished by bizarre high school clique stereotypes like fashion designer, jock, the weird kid, or basement dweller computer hacker.

What do you think?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 22, 2024, 10:42:01 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 22, 2024, 09:06:01 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on October 21, 2024, 09:47:04 PM

Quote from: Omega on October 21, 2024, 09:32:57 PMBlade at least is older than the Ann Rice books. The movies though barely scratch the surface.

Blade was changed quite a bit from the original version to the one that was in the Wesley Snipes movie.

Yeah I don't know to what extent the Blade movies were inspired by VtM, as I never read the comics, but they certainly felt like they were. The Underworld movies definitely looked like they were just a cross between WoD, Blade and the Matrix.

I don't think so. I think they were influenced by general trends seen in fiction around the time.

I don't see anything in the Blade movie that cannot be traced back to works that predate WoD. Like, sympathetic vampires go back to at least the 1960s. Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows, Carmilla in Hammer Horror... Anne Rice described vampire covens back in the 1970s. Familiars? Goes back to Renfield. Secret societies specifically dedicated to keeping their existence a secret? Goes back to at least The Vampire Lestat. Multiple types of vampires in the same story? Goes back to at least Captain Kronos in the 70s, and Nightlife did so in 1990.

Even the idea of connecting werewolves with a superficial exoticized misunderstanding of Native American folklore goes back to at least Wolfen in 1981.

Strangely, I cannot think of a single common trope in urban fantasy that can be traced back specifically to WoD. It just isn't influential. It's so derivative and generic that there's nothing in the broader genre that can be traced back to it.

I find this odd. Given its brief popularity in the 90s, you'd think at least some of the fans then would grow into writers and have that influence their work. But I just don't see that.

Dresden Files has multiple types of vampires, so does Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. None of them are particularly comparable to Mark Rein-Hagen's work: their subspecies are very much not distinguished by bizarre high school clique stereotypes like fashion designer, jock, the weird kid, or basement dweller computer hacker.

What do you think?

In WoD documentary, I don't remember if they downright say they copied from them or left it at "heavily inspired", but True Blood tv show (based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels) has parallels to WoD lore. It's possible the changes were enough that WW couldn't sue them like they did with Underworld.

As for Blade, they used WoD artist Timothy Bradstreet's drawings without his permission. Someone working on the movie told Bradstreet who rightfully said "so you used my artwork but didn't thought of contacting me?" Guillermo del Toro personally hired him for Blade 2 and he is credited as "vampire designer" there.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 22, 2024, 10:42:01 AMDresden Files has multiple types of vampires, so does Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. None of them are particularly comparable to Mark Rein-Hagen's work: their subspecies are very much not distinguished by bizarre high school clique stereotypes like fashion designer, jock, the weird kid, or basement dweller computer hacker.

What do you think?

Honestly? I can't even label the Clans of VtM as subspecies. The physical differences between them are utterly trivial and societal differences come down almost entirely to the Embrace/admission policies... meaning they literally ARE cliques and while you call them "high school" I've seen just as many in supposedly adult organisations like government (the local election board is hilarious) and corporations (gossip mongers, sportsbros, barflies, sales sociopaths, the HR Karens club, IT department, etc.).

Humans are just naturally prone to assigning In- and Out-group status to each other. Formerly human immortals stuck with mostly each other for genuine company (as in capable of understanding you) dividing themselves into cliques over stupid centuries or millennia old spats and grudges (and then creating progeny based on who will reinforce their positions) is probably the most realistic thing about the WoD vampires. That they're predators who see each other as potential competition and can't turn to things like sex to destress and alliance-build because they're sterile and only feeding gives them any pleasure is just arsenic-laced cherry atop the crap sundae that is normal intersocial politics.

The most unrealistic thing is how Vampire society hasn't been discovered by the masses given how utterly petty and out of step with the times they are and how flamboyant both their powers and sunlight allergies are (not to mention flipping out at the sight of even trivial flames). The number of vamps with broad spectrum memory erasure is pretty small and the number of potential witnesses on a nightly basis makes murdering them all pretty much impossible without drawing even more attention to the situation.

Werewolves have the Delirium and a lot of the crazier stuff happening in the spirit world to protect them (the same for ghosts and changelings). Mages are fundamentally human, DO have a lot of flexible mind effects, and get punished by the universe if they're too obvious (to the point of sometimes even getting erased from existence begore you were born just so the blatant magic you fired off never got cast).

The most annoying thing about WoD vampires, especially cross splat, is their daylight allergy is so severe they basically cannot work with other types of supernaturals without copious handwaving. Not only can they be burnt to death by even reflected twilight sun (so mid-summer in the midwest they might have only seven hours from the last flicker of twilight at dusk to the morning twilight before dawn... even at the winter solstice at my latitude there's still only 12.5 hours between twilights), they also turn into a sack of potatoes during daylight hours... even waking up when someone is setting you on fire takes an act of extreme willpower and only for a few seconds before you fall back asleep again at that.

In a campaign were I was playing a dhampir, my biggest advantage over the other PCs (and vampire NPCs) was by simple dint of having 16+ hours of active time a day, every day, much of it coinciding with normal business hours (and with Stamina 5 I could often do a couple days without sleep or long stretches with just four hours a night).

Trying to incorporate that into a cross splat campaign where it's not one PC you can speedrun through their daylight activities with, but a large chunk of the party is actively diurnal and doesn't have your insane sleep requirements. The vamp PC is either missing vast swaths of the adventure or the rest of the party is twiddling their thumbs for 6-10 hours each day while waiting on the vamp.

Now, it's less an issue for my Hunters setting; if full vampires sleep all day it's not going to place restrictions on the PCs. Even so, I feel its more interesting to limit the sunlight aversion to what would be manageable for PCs. The big one would just be that, like Dracula, many of their powers are severely diminished by daylight. If you're only super strong and quick and able to hypnotize at night then you'll likely just adopt a nocturnal lifestyle to get the most advantage from your powers without even needing a sunlight allergy.

If I did impose a sunlight allergy it would probably just be to the direct sun so that indoors activity and life in the concrete canyons of a cyberpunk megacity are less curtailed.

Quote from: Lythel Phany on October 22, 2024, 11:06:20 AMIn WoD documentary, I don't remember if they downright say they copied from them or left it at "heavily inspired", but True Blood tv show (based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels) has parallels to WoD lore. It's possible the changes were enough that WW couldn't sue them like they did with Underworld.

As for Blade, they used WoD artist Timothy Bradstreet's drawings without his permission. Someone working on the movie told Bradstreet who rightfully said "so you used my artwork but didn't thought of contacting me?" Guillermo del Toro personally hired him for Blade 2 and he is credited as "vampire designer" there.

What parallels? That all sounds like reaching to me. I'm familiar with the lore of all of those and there's zero indication that they copied or were inspired by Mark Rein-Hagen's work in particular.

Using artwork by Tim Bradstreet? He did plenty of other stuff outside of WoD. There were plenty of other artists involved in movie production too.

If you read the Underworld lawsuit, it's pure pareidolia. Their so-called "80 points of similarity" are bullshit. One of the points is this: since the leader of the Death Dealers is a black man, then Sony must be copying the Arab ninjas from White Wolf's game. Wow, real convincing!

It's all bullshit pareidolia. Seriously, give me all the parallels you can see and I'll discount every single one with citations to older works and folklore.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 22, 2024, 12:44:28 PMwhile you call them "high school" I've seen just as many in supposedly adult organisations like government (the local election board is hilarious) and corporations (gossip mongers, sportsbros, barflies, sales sociopaths, the HR Karens club, IT department, etc.).

Unfortunately true. However, those still aren't political blocs. They don't have representation in politics. We don't have positions in our government to represent the interests of the Fashion Designer Party, the Jock Party, the Weird Kid Party, etc.

In Mark Rein-Hagen's world building, the vampires actually base their entire political system on a high school clique structure. Their idea of politicking has nothing to do with real politick and everything to do with interactions between high school cliques. None of the cliques actually have any kind of policies or anything like what an actual political party would have. They're defined solely by shallow features like hobbies or physical appearance.

Even European politics, which normally deal with multiple parties, have nothing in common with these high school cliques. Every party has actual policies that they're trying to legislate. For example, the Pirate Party constantly tries to loosen copyright law.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 22, 2024, 12:44:28 PMHumans are just naturally prone to assigning In- and Out-group status to each other. Formerly human immortals stuck with mostly each other for genuine company (as in capable of understanding you) dividing themselves into cliques over stupid centuries or millennia old spats and grudges (and then creating progeny based on who will reinforce their positions) is probably the most realistic thing about the WoD vampires. That they're predators who see each other as potential competition and can't turn to things like sex to destress and alliance-build because they're sterile and only feeding gives them any pleasure is just arsenic-laced cherry atop the crap sundae that is normal intersocial politics.

The bit about seeing each other as competition sounds like it would cancel out the part about recruiting people for their social clubs based on superficial hobbies.

Vampires are still individuals. It doesn't make sense that they would maintain the same clique structure they did 10,000 years ago when any vamp could gather together like-minded individuals and form a new clique. The game even expects the default party to consist of multiple unrelated vampires from different cliques, even though that contradicts the established clique structure.

There's even turnover in the vampire governments. The vampires who rule currently are not the same ones who ruled 10,000 years ago. The setting makes a big deal about its gerontocracy, but then doesn't commit to it. In V5, it even follows up on this by introducing the Beckoning as the latest explanation for turnover. I know a lot of grognards hate it, but it's actually true to the lore. The world building issue comes in when you take into account the generation statistic. This acts as a hard limit on a vampire's power and the global average has been weakening over time. Eventually the vampires will go extinct as a result of this periodic culling.

Vampire: The Requiem neatly solves this issue by ditching generation in favor of blood-potency that can rise or fall over time depending on circumstances. As blood-potency rises, vampires accumulate more banes and ennui and stuff, and the most accessible way to escape it is by hibernating. The Invictus covenant exploits this by being a mix of gerontocracy and meritocracy: elders eventually hibernate a la Underworld, allowing younger vampires to assume their positions. If you want to, you can even start play as an 80,000 year old vampire from the lost continent of Mu who has been depowered to starting PC level as a result of this.

I don't see the appeal of the gerontocracy because I get enough of that stupid bullshit in real life and I play games for escapism. But I digress.

---

Anyway, that whole high school clique stuff is actually something I would consider very much a defining characteristic of WoD and it's very conspicuously something I don't see in urban fantasy. Whether or not the two occur in the same work, there don't seem to be many original works that have multiple types of vampires or vampires that organize into cliques.

I did find this European tv show from 2019 called Heirs of the Night that was about teenage vampires from different families coming together and teaching each other their powers so that they can survive against the Church's hunters and the revenge of Dracula (he's an antagonist too). The structure is so different that I cannot say there's any clear influence from WoD here. It does use the word "clans", but that's circumstantial evidence at best. The clans were geographically isolated in different parts of Europe and so developed their cultures and powers in isolation for centuries before recent events forced them to open contact. Furthermore, there's two types of vampires: those who were born vampires and those who were turned by and subservient to the born vampires. It's based on a series of YA novels written by a woman born in 1966. She would've been in her late 20s by the 90s. I don't know how likely it is she would be familiar with the German LARP scene at the time, but I don't see any clear influence either way. The story itself isn't about politics but about working together, the complete thematic opposite of WoD.

You have any idea why we don't see more vampire inter-species and inter-clique politics in urban fantasy stories? Maybe I'm not reading the right stories, but I've gone through various rec lists and 99% of the time it's romance and the only clique conflicts are the heroine deciding which hunky clique leader she dates.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 22, 2024, 10:42:01 AMStrangely, I cannot think of a single common trope in urban fantasy that can be traced back specifically to WoD. It just isn't influential. It's so derivative and generic that there's nothing in the broader genre that can be traced back to it.

I find this odd. Given its brief popularity in the 90s, you'd think at least some of the fans then would grow into writers and have that influence their work. But I just don't see that.

Dresden Files has multiple types of vampires, so does Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. None of them are particularly comparable to Mark Rein-Hagen's work: their subspecies are very much not distinguished by bizarre high school clique stereotypes like fashion designer, jock, the weird kid, or basement dweller computer hacker.

What do you think?

I don't follow the genre with anything approaching enough diligence to be able to comment on the lineage of its ideas.

As regarding the non-appearance of a broader urban fantasy genre, to the extent that's true I suspect you can explain it in a single word: Twilight.

Only partially joking there. Twilight was simultaneously so successful and so hated that it's not implausible to suggest that it tarnished the whole genre. Combine it with things like the Anita Blake series, and people get the idea that Urban Fantasy is a genre for lonely, overweight goth girls. Not a lot of people want to associate themselves with that image. In general, the Vampires vs. Werewolves subgenre of urban fantasy was pretty well tied in people's minds to the goth/industrial/nu-metal 90s subculture, that became seriously uncool somewhere around 2006, and hasn't come back around to being in style yet (though it almost certainly eventually will).

Urban Fantasy as a wider genre has plugged along in the meantime. Carnival Row, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel and Penny Dreadful were all reasonable successes as far as I know, but it seems like people are more comfortable with it as a period piece, usually Victorian/Regency/Edwardian type periods.

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 22, 2024, 09:06:01 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on October 21, 2024, 09:47:04 PM

Quote from: Omega on October 21, 2024, 09:32:57 PMBlade at least is older than the Ann Rice books. The movies though barely scratch the surface.

Blade was changed quite a bit from the original version to the one that was in the Wesley Snipes movie.

Yeah I don't know to what extent the Blade movies were inspired by VtM, as I never read the comics, but they certainly felt like they were. The Underworld movies definitely looked like they were just a cross between WoD, Blade and the Matrix.

Vampires having some form of organized society goes back well before Ann Rice. There was a big vampire kick in the early 70s. Rice, King and many others were part of it. Then it kind of percolated till about the 90s and boom theres vampire movies left and right. Right around the same time as a popular vampire RPG.

WOD came out at about the perfect time.

Vampires had covens and cults before, but outright conspiracies of many dozens living secretly in metropolitan areas seems to be an invention of 80s fiction at the earliest I could find. I'm not counting vampire plagues ruled by a master, since those don't seem to have any kind of culture.

George Martin's 1982 Fevre Dream may count, but it doesn't go into much detail on organization beyond covens.

I did more research, and it turns out that Fevre Dream's vampires are descended from the biblical Cain. At least, one of the vampires in the story speculates about this being the case. This novel was published in 1982!

So yeah, the number of ideas supposedly invented by Mark Rein•Hagen keeps growing smaller the more research I do.

There's pagan cultist snake vampires in the movie Lair of the White Worm, three-eyed soulsuckers come from the anime Sazan Eyes...

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 23, 2024, 09:01:42 PMThere's pagan cultist snake vampires in the movie Lair of the White Worm

If it turned out that VtM based a vampire clan on Lair of the White Worm that would become one of my favorite bits of trivia ever. I absolutely love that movie. Kinda doubt it, though. If we're talking about the Followers of Set clan, then it seems like the just proceeded from the assumption that vampires are descended from Cain and then followed the Cain -> Satan -> Set line of connections.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 23, 2024, 09:01:42 PMI did more research, and it turns out that Fevre Dream's vampires are descended from the biblical Cain. At least, one of the vampires in the story speculates about this being the case. This novel was published in 1982!

So yeah, the number of ideas supposedly invented by Mark Rein•Hagen keeps growing smaller the more research I do.

There's pagan cultist snake vampires in the movie Lair of the White Worm, three-eyed soulsuckers come from the anime Sazan Eyes...

With fantasy in general I think nearly all the individual elements have been done before. What makes something distinguishable as original to the genre is the particular combination of elements employed, possibly with one unique thing to make it stand out.

In VtMs case it was combining a bunch of vampire elements in one place and being the first to make an RPG where the vampires are the protagonists. Which is why nothing in that particular sphere of playing as a vampire has really eclipsed it. If you're doing vampire protagonists in a modern setting exclusively, you're competing with something that was the gold standard for that; to the point even it's successor brand and attempt at a soft reboot basically get unfavorably compared to the original.

Which is why if you're going after urban fantasy you really need your own non-vampire unique thing. I have mine (Catholic Urban Fantasy with Cyberpunk seasoning), but for others looking at doing something in the genre I think the advice holds... don't make vampires your sole or even primary focus (they don't  have to be absent, just don't make them the center of your setting 's universe) and find some other unique angle.

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 24, 2024, 07:42:56 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 23, 2024, 09:01:42 PMThere's pagan cultist snake vampires in the movie Lair of the White Worm

If it turned out that VtM based a vampire clan on Lair of the White Worm that would become one of my favorite bits of trivia ever. I absolutely love that movie. Kinda doubt it, though. If we're talking about the Followers of Set clan, then it seems like the just proceeded from the assumption that vampires are descended from Cain and then followed the Cain -> Satan -> Set line of connections.

It probably comes from Robert E. Howard's Conan stories. He invented an evil snake god called Set. Mark Rein•Hagen took that, linked it inaccurately to the Egyptian deity Set, and the rest is history.

It's really weird, because changing their founder/deity to Apophis would've neatly solved the Egyptology gaffes. Set is the Egyptian equivalent of Loki, not the Devil.

In Vampire: The Requiem, they finally fixed this by making the Cult of Seth into demon hunters/tricksters with shadow powers. Then cancelled it.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 24, 2024, 08:14:57 AMWhich is why if you're going after urban fantasy you really need your own non-vampire unique thing. I have mine (Catholic Urban Fantasy with Cyberpunk seasoning), but for others looking at doing something in the genre I think the advice holds... don't make vampires your sole or even primary focus (they don't  have to be absent, just don't make them the center of your setting 's universe) and find some other unique angle.

Even that doesn't seem to work. There have been numerous attempts at urban fantasy games without centering vampires and nothing sticks.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 22, 2024, 08:28:17 AMI'm not certain, but I think a Midnight Sons boxed set was planned for FASERIP before TSR lost the license.

EDIT: A Google search confirms that it was not only planned, but David Pulver got a first draft written. But it's currently locked up in old data formats and legal issues, so there's no way to get a hold of it. :(

The Unofficial Canon crew have done Midnight Sons, and TONS of horror supplements for Marvel. They have one that is exclusively for Vampires and Occult characters. It's pretty amazing. In fact the last MSH game I ran was mostly occult stuff and had little to do with the "supers" aspect of Marvel. It felt more like Sandman/Dr. Strange where the heroes were dealing with Vampire Cults (literal Antediluvians from pre-flood Atlantis.) and it felt very "WoD" but with more power.

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 24, 2024, 07:42:56 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 23, 2024, 09:01:42 PMThere's pagan cultist snake vampires in the movie Lair of the White Worm

If it turned out that VtM based a vampire clan on Lair of the White Worm that would become one of my favorite bits of trivia ever. I absolutely love that movie. Kinda doubt it, though. If we're talking about the Followers of Set clan, then it seems like the just proceeded from the assumption that vampires are descended from Cain and then followed the Cain -> Satan -> Set line of connections.

I agree... Lair of the White Worm is a classic. That and Salem's Lot (the original) had a huge influence on me when it came to writing Vampire lore.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 23, 2024, 09:01:42 PMI did more research, and it turns out that Fevre Dream's vampires are descended from the biblical Cain. At least, one of the vampires in the story speculates about this being the case. This novel was published in 1982!

So yeah, the number of ideas supposedly invented by Mark Rein•Hagen keeps growing smaller the more research I do.

There's pagan cultist snake vampires in the movie Lair of the White Worm, three-eyed soulsuckers come from the anime Sazan Eyes...

IIRC Hagen said something to the effect of - nothing is original, so hide your sources.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 24, 2024, 09:59:39 AMEven that doesn't seem to work. There have been numerous attempts at urban fantasy games without centering vampires and nothing sticks.

To be fair, most every one I've seen is either actually D&D in the modern world (ex. Urban Arcana), still focused on the "play the monster" gig that doesn't fit the mood of the day (ex. Feed), is more interested in Lovecraftian Horror (ex. Call of Cthullu, Delta Green) or runs on a system closer to a Storygame than an RPG (Dresdan is FATE and way too many attempts seem to use PBtA).

And I really want to reiterate the whole "mood of the day" part, because way too many options I've looked at are fundamentally focused on angst, nihilism, and Gnosticism (God is evil and the material world a prison we're trapped in unless you're one of the special enlightened ones).

That works in times of peace and prosperity (like the 90's) when we had the luxury of inventing imaginary unsolvable problems and wallowing in them.

But this is a time when there is more than enough real problems to deal with. People are looking for escapism and hope spots in their entertainment. The urban fantasy needed today just isn't being offered much at the present.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 23, 2024, 09:01:42 PMSo yeah, the number of ideas supposedly invented by Mark Rein•Hagen keeps growing smaller the more research I do.

They didnt invent anything. I should know. Part of my long running detestment of WW staff is I cought them lifting stuff from my very obscure little RPG. This on top of the other disckery going on behind the scenes and even recent. Hagen's pulled the old kickstarter scam routine of "Working on it! Coming soon! Working on it! Coming soon!"

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 23, 2024, 08:40:27 AMVampires had covens and cults before, but outright conspiracies of many dozens living secretly in metropolitan areas seems to be an invention of 80s fiction at the earliest I could find. I'm not counting vampire plagues ruled by a master, since those don't seem to have any kind of culture.

George Martin's 1982 Fevre Dream may count, but it doesn't go into much detail on organization beyond covens.

I am Legend came out in 54 and probably the earliest instance of organized vampires. Though totally different from the 70s and onward ones.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 25, 2024, 12:19:05 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 24, 2024, 09:59:39 AMEven that doesn't seem to work. There have been numerous attempts at urban fantasy games without centering vampires and nothing sticks.

To be fair, most every one I've seen is either actually D&D in the modern world (ex. Urban Arcana), still focused on the "play the monster" gig that doesn't fit the mood of the day (ex. Feed), is more interested in Lovecraftian Horror (ex. Call of Cthullu, Delta Green) or runs on a system closer to a Storygame than an RPG (Dresdan is FATE and way too many attempts seem to use PBtA).

And I really want to reiterate the whole "mood of the day" part, because way too many options I've looked at are fundamentally focused on angst, nihilism, and Gnosticism (God is evil and the material world a prison we're trapped in unless you're one of the special enlightened ones).

That works in times of peace and prosperity (like the 90's) when we had the luxury of inventing imaginary unsolvable problems and wallowing in them.

But this is a time when there is more than enough real problems to deal with. People are looking for escapism and hope spots in their entertainment. The urban fantasy needed today just isn't being offered much at the present.

Yeah. That's why my ideas focus on the fantasy aspect and I don't concern myself with angst or nihilism. I'd like you play angels and dragons and stuff, and they'd fight crime and monsters of the week instead of moping around.

Call of Cthulhu is horror, not urban fantasy.

I have no idea why Urban Arcana died. There's nothing wrong with D&D in modern times. Most gamers coming into the hobby are sucked into D&D and never leave it, so using that as a springboard sounds like a better way to get them into urban fantasy.

Quote from: Omega on October 25, 2024, 02:42:21 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 23, 2024, 09:01:42 PMSo yeah, the number of ideas supposedly invented by Mark Rein•Hagen keeps growing smaller the more research I do.

They didnt invent anything. I should know. Part of my long running detestment of WW staff is I cought them lifting stuff from my very obscure little RPG. This on top of the other disckery going on behind the scenes and even recent. Hagen's pulled the old kickstarter scam routine of "Working on it! Coming soon! Working on it! Coming soon!"

Really? What did they steal? Got receipts?

I noticed this myself once. Feed came out in 2013, whereas V5 came out in 2017. The hunger mechanics in the latter bear some clear similarities to the former, so I wonder if it was inspired by that. Although V5's hunger mechanic is clunky and inferior by comparison, because of course it would be.

I think the main problem with Urban Arcana (owned by WotC) is that after 4E failed to perform any plans for an official 4EModern died. Similarly, while most look at the juggernaut it became, 5e started as an "authors saving throw" to keep Hasbro from pulling the plug on D&D entirely and one of the side effects of that was an extreme cutback on the in-house capabilities and in-house supplements (especially compared to the hardcover and two digital magazines every month of peak 4E)... which would have included any prospect of producing effectively a complete separate line like Urban Arcana.

Yeah, you could crossover monsters and spells, but you'd at least need some different classes as society and technology make using classes either very different (the modern fighter uses a rifle not a sword and their armor is such that it's not terribly good at stopping claws and fangs as it's been optimized for protection from bullets) or outright untenable (where exactly do rage channeling warriors trained in wilderness survival fit into a modern urban setting?)... plus some different skills (tool proficiency works at the medieval level where it's nearly all supplemental elements like crafting, gaming, musical instruments and a few things like theives tools and the rare vehicle... but the modern world centers around using tools, computers, and vehicles and would realistically need to be more central (skills) vs. peripheral (tools) for the modern setting.

That's more work than the scaled back WotC could commit to (and could have been outright blocked by Hasbro... who are perfectly happy with as few people as possible leaving the D&D trough. Even if it's their game it's still getting customers to raise their heads to see the possibility of other games existing).

That said, there IS a d20 Modern SRD (http://www.spellbooksoftware.com/d20mrsd/srdhome.html) that includes Urban Arcana and d20 Future, which could serve as a foundation for something akin to a Urban Arcana 5e if someone were so inclined (you'd need your own fluff, name, and possibly to pull from the 5e SRD, but way less work than doing it from scratch).

Everyday Heroes already seems to be doing the d20 Modern successor. They'll have an urban fantasy setting where magic is public.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 25, 2024, 11:35:59 AMwhere exactly do rage channeling warriors trained in wilderness survival fit into a modern urban setting?)

Well...they could always be an elite version of Doomsday Preppers.

Quote from: HappyDaze on October 25, 2024, 11:56:21 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 25, 2024, 11:35:59 AMwhere exactly do rage channeling warriors trained in wilderness survival fit into a modern urban setting?)

Well...they could always be an elite version of Doomsday Preppers.

Heh, rage monsters will generally be villains in my setting; a lot of the "werewolf" traits are tied to Wrath and they are traditional man-eating beasts, not valiant eco-warriors.

Actually, the biggest debate I'm having with myself right now is how to handle character building and specifics of measuring attributes.

The modern world lends itself to a more classless approach, while supernatural elements tend to lend themselves better to being silo'd into a class structure. Factoring in as well is that, in my experience, handing players a pile of points to build with only works if they have a genuine concept already in mind and that, at minimum, some type of guided approach will make it easier for normal players to get into it without dropping the workload of building everyone's first characters onto the GM.

As much as I broadly dislike V5, it does make it pretty easy to make characters. For one, you're all playing vampires so your "class" is worked out. For another they ditched the pseudo-point buy that could be munchkin'd by char-oppers and replaced it with an array; ex. one attribute at 4, three at 3, four at 2, and one at 1; super-easy for a new player and repeated for skills. Starting disciplines determined by clan and feeding style (so sub-classes).

I'm leaning towards something like that, though the order might change a bit, where you pick your hunter type as essentially your race/class, then some type of background for skills and WoD type background elements. I'm thinking an array (with a bit of flex) under hunter type for attributes and "powers" and a similar array for skills and a set of background traits for some guided customization.

For improvement, I've become fond of the "menu" approach I first saw in the Arcanis RPG (the one they attempted between their 3e and 5e supplements) and most commonly these days in SWADE where it has "levels" but instead of getting a specific thing, you pick from a menu of options like "improve two skills of rank 0-2 by one rank" or "increase a skill of 3-4 by one rank" or "gain a new power", etc.

The reason for the above is one of the elements of the Cursed archetype is the prospect of ending the curse (ex. by killing the werewolf that bit you). While in a story this would tend to be their ending, an RPG isn't a story and the player probably doesn't want to start an all new character so instead they ge t to basically "respec" (short for re-specification in City of Heroes where you can re-pick your powers and redo their slotting entirely... originally requiring a trial during which you're exposed to a lot of weird radiation) into one of the other archetypes (Called/Mortal by default, but could be Chosen/Gifts from God or Children/some element of the curse lingers, but is no longer a bane to your soul).

Having discrete picks (and a note to specifically track them for Cursed types) makes that "respec" process easier.

My attribute debate is purely presentation. Do I go with 0 average (scores range from -3 to +3 for mortals, though PCs would be mostly -1 to +3) or the WoD style 1-5? The first makes the dice mechanic easier to intuit, the latter is probably easier for character building as a 1-5 stars ranking is pretty intuitive for pe (and the entire TN table gets bumped by +2 since it would be 2 average instead of 0).

I mean, I guess I COULD instead use the same d20-check based game engine as my Ruins & Realms science fantasy (Thundarr/He-Man style) game, but in general I am a fan of bespoke systems whose mechanics specifically support the genre and despite similar building blocks (ex. both have the supernatural and advanced science) the actual assembly is too different to use the same rule set (both a building and a car use steel and glass and both typically have electrical systems and climate control, but are very different things).

There's actually more work in making mechanics to fit the setting than there is in devising the setting itself.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 25, 2024, 10:48:47 AMReally? What did they steal? Got receipts?

Some lines of text and a baser concept. It was small, just a paragraph in one of their Japan setting spin-offs. Palladium was more annoying as they swiped a class name, function, and in the CCG the card art had alot of telltales that indicated someone had glanced at the book. And the card quote.

Keep in mind that at the time WW had some rather draconian business practices and work terms. But so did a few other publishers at the time.

But what really pisses me off is Bethsada came to me posing as fans "wanting to know more about my old company and setting. And then ganked my company name and the name of a really old board game I worked on as a kid... and used it for the title of... Starfield. I would not have cared if theyd just said "hey, we are making a game with a title same as your defunct company. Just FYI. Or not said anything at all. But no. They came to me under false pretenses.

Dont know who, but another company pulled the same stunt a year or two ago. Havent seen it pop up in anything yet. But odds are it will.

Stuff like this happens alot more than people think. That ice age movie Day after Tomorrow ganks its plot heavily from a novel from the 80s or 90s. Not the one they claim. Arrival is another one.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 26, 2024, 08:56:45 AMAs much as I broadly dislike V5, it does make it pretty easy to make characters. For one, you're all playing vampires so your "class" is worked out. For another they ditched the pseudo-point buy that could be munchkin'd by char-oppers and replaced it with an array; ex. one attribute at 4, three at 3, four at 2, and one at 1; super-easy for a new player and repeated for skills. Starting disciplines determined by clan and feeding style (so sub-classes).

WW first did that in Vampire: The Requiem back in 2004. V5 liberally rips off its design. Requiem went even further with it by having 10 disciplines and 5 clans with a vaguely symmetrical spread. Each clan had a cost break on 3 disciplines. 5 discipline cost breaks were limited to 1 clan: Daeva has Majesty, Nosferatu had Nightmare, Mekhet had Auspex, Ventrue had Dominate, Gangrel had Protean. Then, the remaining 5 disciplines were each allocated to 2 clans: Daeva had Celerity and Vigor, Nosferatu had Obfuscate and Vigor, Mekhet had Obfuscate and Celerity, Gangrel and Ventrue both had Animalism and Resilience. I get that grognards hate it for being different from the 90s iteration, but it makes perfect sense for a game. Indeed, it would be an even better basis for video game adaptations. But I digress.

Quote from: Omega on October 26, 2024, 04:47:26 PMStuff like this happens alot more than people think.

Rough, dude.

In terms of Clan-like structures for HotD it's basically going to come down to a founder's effect.

Ex. Dracula bargained with the Devil for various sorcerous powers including sustaining himself even past death on the life's blood* of others in trade for his soul and certain weaknesses. All those he later curses through his bite gain similar powers to Dracula that grow the more sin accumulates in them until they are fully damned.

Similarly, Lycaon became the first werewolf through his sacrifice of his children to Zeus/Baal (a slight twist on the usual tale, but not one invented by me, I read it elsewhere first) and so the powers of those cursed and damned through his line are similar.

A founder can come from anywhere, but most started as what we'd call a witch or warlock who, through depravity above and beyond, caught the attention of Hell and bargained with it for power. Basically all the Damned are "kin" in a loose sense.

For many I'm going to go with mythical founders when possible (Lycaon for werewolves, Dracula as the latest vampire variation... there have been similar blood-drinking founders before, but Drac is the origin of the "modern vampire", etc.).

I am presently leaning towards the infliction of the curse being being something under the control of the Damned (and requires a fair amount of damnation to attempt so those merely cursed and those newly damned aren't super-spreaders) and that it can be used in two ways.

The first is to create one of the cursed; Mina in Dracula, those bitten by a werewolf who lose control under the full moon, a ghost takes up residence (but lacks full control), under a witch's curse, etc. Basically something they choose to inflict on one of the living. They gain powers and a temptation to use them that leads ultimately to damnation.

The second is to create minions from the corpses of their victims (how many depends of the damned's power)... so vampire spawn, zombies, etc. The Damned have no purchase on souls (who must damn themselves), but the bodies left behind are fair game.

The first use leads to cursed PCs and NPCs on the path to becoming monsters. The second leads to the sort of disposable minions a Big Bad needs as I want the Damned to generally be a bit more than mere Monsters of the Week with a party clearing out a different one each session. Ideally you could place half-a-dozen or so Damned in a major metro area and have an extended campaign dealing with them all.

* notably, I'd make the point that the Damned prefer to kill sinners (to try and send them to Hell before they can repent), but not the innocent (who would go to heaven if killed). Instead they'd aim to curse the innocent and seek to lead them into sin (then they'd kill them).

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 28, 2024, 11:31:43 AMIn terms of Clan-like structures for HotD it's basically going to come down to a founder's effect.

I've seen something similar in The Everlasting: The Book of the Unliving and The Codex of Vampiric Bloodlines. In those books, anyone who commits sufficient atrocities is damned with vampirism by some higher power. They don't actively make a pact with hell. A bloodline's magical aptitudes and curses are generally based on the proclivities and life experiences of their founder. Book of the Unliving is fairly conservative in its choices, with most of the bloodlines being based on myths, folklore or fiction like Lamia, Kali, Dracula, Bathory, Chernobog, etc. By contrast, Codex names Heinrich Himmler, Hernado Cortez, Ivan the Terrible, King Leopold II of Belgium, and several infamous serial killers as founders.

I find this to be perhaps the best trope if you're writing prose or other passive fiction, or writing antagonists for the PCs to fight. The premise of "any sufficiently evil git can found a vampiric bloodline" makes it easy to invent new ones when you feel the need. It's flexible and the introduction of a new bloodline keeps players on their toes rather than assuming every antagonist fits a predictable box.

The trope I'm tired of is "cursed with vampirism for crimes."

It makes the higher power doing the "cursing" into either a real dick or utterly clueless.

"I know! I shall punish someone who loves to murder people with eternal life that requires murdering people to sustain and super powers! They'll totally change their ways!"

That's why, for my setting, it's a reward from Hell for their great sins against God and Man. God only permits this evil because He will not deny His creations their free will and because the Devil is "King of This World" until the Second Coming.

But He did have a say in the foundations of Creation that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess (which is why the things of God affect the Damned as they do, and why the forces of Hell seek to trick Men into doing away with the things of God that counter them).

He also takes their evils and spins what good is possible from it (giving ordinary people a chance to grow in virtue in the face of evil and allowing children of monsters to be born with the power needed to oppose them (dhampirs, cambions, changelings, ghost-touched, etc.).

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 28, 2024, 02:56:15 PMThe trope I'm tired of is "cursed with vampirism for crimes."

It makes the higher power doing the "cursing" into either a real dick or utterly clueless.

"I know! I shall punish someone who loves to murder people with eternal life that requires murdering people to sustain and super powers! They'll totally change their ways!"

It's not explained in either what higher power does the damning. I think the author uses it in lieu of an explicit pact with hell as a way to avoid any theological discussions. Everlasting in particular has Christian-style angels who go around doing good deeds and fighting evil, but they themselves state they're not specifically Christian. The setting is a fantasy kitchen sink where a party of good guys is expected to have angels alongside pagan demigods and elves, so it's understandable why the author wouldn't commit to a specifically Christian worldview.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 28, 2024, 02:56:15 PMThe trope I'm tired of is "cursed with vampirism for crimes."

It makes the higher power doing the "cursing" into either a real dick or utterly clueless.

"I know! I shall punish someone who loves to murder people with eternal life that requires murdering people to sustain and super powers! They'll totally change their ways!"

Yeah that one bugs me too. But usually vampires, at least classical ones, are more spontaneous undead. They just spring up... like weeds...

But I've seen a few other depictions of undead of various sorts that effectively turn some wrong-doer into a horrendous plague upon the land.

Quite a few vampire depictions in media show it as an absolute corruption though which leaves no room for redemption. Anyone turned becomes flat out evil.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 28, 2024, 07:38:07 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 28, 2024, 02:56:15 PMThe trope I'm tired of is "cursed with vampirism for crimes."

It makes the higher power doing the "cursing" into either a real dick or utterly clueless.

"I know! I shall punish someone who loves to murder people with eternal life that requires murdering people to sustain and super powers! They'll totally change their ways!"

It's not explained in either what higher power does the damning. I think the author uses it in lieu of an explicit pact with hell as a way to avoid any theological discussions. Everlasting in particular has Christian-style angels who go around doing good deeds and fighting evil, but they themselves state they're not specifically Christian. The setting is a fantasy kitchen sink where a party of good guys is expected to have angels alongside pagan demigods and elves, so it's understandable why the author wouldn't commit to a specifically Christian worldview.

I suspect sometimes the power of the curse is effectively a literal genie and carries out exactly what was said to do. Especially when the one calling the curse is a mortal.

The curse is very much related to the power of transformational restraint. It's better elucidated in the book East of Eden, where the relief of God's curse is a blessing is not "Thou [Cain] shalt have power over darkness" but a mistranslation of the Hebrew that more accords to "mayest" and "one's own wickedness" as in "Thou mayest have power over one's own evil." In a word the blessing is: self-restraint.

Hence why I thought it was all the more magnificent to have the Paths of Heaven (Dark Ages), Path of Humanitas (most of VtM), Path of Community (Ashirra), and Kuei-Jin Dharmas, be the restraint -- BE THE BLESSING -- to rein in their beast and have a modicum of a self-aware second-chance at life. Granted that'd expect people to be familiar with a bit more theology and literature than is now expected, but I grokked it immediately perhaps due to my humanities exposure. Overall it reinforces my view that a major game focal point is the humans, morality, and humanity.

But Vampions is far more lowest common denominator alluring to the broader populace. Remember, each of the sects see themselves as the "good guy" and yet each succumbs to their inner evils in their own peculiar way. The argument is how do you Self-Restrain in the face of temptation that WILL consume you. Well, far too many players want pew-pew powers and little to no interest in responsibility; the RPG play they came for is a power fantasy clad in macabre trappings.

Same paging expectations is so important before running a game. :)

So, I've been brainstorming out Hunter and opposing organizations to fill in my setting.

First, we have the Catholic Order of St. Joseph. Seems fairly innocuous with a symbol of a stylized hammer and three oversized nails. But, if you're not Catholic you might not know that one of St. Joseph's titles is "The Terror of Demons" and those "nails" are actually stakes. They're your classic secret Vatican-backed monster hunter organization.

Next up, we have Project Ultraviolet; a secret agency within the Deep State dedicated to eliminating "Malicious Entity Influence" (as close as the hyper-secular security state can get to admitting there are literal demons without inducing terminal levels of cognitive dissonance). They get all the superspy, cybernetic and biomod toys to play with as they basically play MiB to stop evil spirits from preying on the citizens. A huge portion of their job is inter-institutional operations against other silos of the Deep State since evil spirits seem especially drawn to those with power and authority.

The opposite number for them is GASLIGHT, a Deep State silo whose leaders are servants of Hell tasked with cleaning up signs of the supernatural world by any means necessary. All the same toys but with a focus on wetworks, blackmail and destruction of evidence.

In a similar vein we have the Covenant for Global Cooperation; an NGO/think tank that recruits members from "the brightest minds" in business and government to push their agenda of breaking down barriers in society. Their inner circle doesn't have a name, but is called The Coven by outsiders who've learned of it; a group of 13 powerful witches and warlocks who want to break down barriers alright; the very gates of Hell so that demonic influence can run rampant upon the Earth believing they will be rewarded with power over the Earth for a millennia.

One of its major contributors is Blackguard, a megacorp international hedge fund with its fingers in nearly every publicly held corporation and whose founder is the embodiment of greed* among the Damned.

Not all business is evil though. On the flipside is Sophia Enterprises, a private R&D company behind a number of next generation computer and biomedical systems (source of some of the Cyberpunk tech) whose founder started noticing the "Malicious Entity Influence" in several fields they were exploring (specifically the existence of noncorporeal entities... i.e. spirits) and started up a division devoted to investigating potential instances and "managing" them accordingly. Basically an upscale Ghostbusters.

On a more local level there's Stakeout; the unofficial name for a group of police who've "seen stuff" and are coordinating as best they're able among themselves and locals who've also seen the supernatural to fight off the monstrous influence in their city. The name derived from the double entrandre they covered their actions with... "going on a stakeout" for putting a stake into the heart of a vampire.

Contrasting them is Familia de Sangre, a criminal cartel devoted to crime (particularly drugs and human trafficking - the latter for supplying victims for the Damned who won't be missed). The spreading of human misery is the ultimate goal of their Damned masters and they reward the most devoted with their "Blessing" (ie. The Curse).

Also on the side of the wicked that I don't have names for yet are a false non-denominational church preaching a combo of the prosperity gospel and tolerance is the highest good, some version of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (working name based on an old joke from my Mage campaign is the New World Order of Hermes) and an expy for the Freemasons with a secret inner circle with a direct line to Hell via ritual demon summoning.

I figure I need a few more Hunter organizations as well; since there's currently only the Catholic, a government op, a private business, and an unofficial band of police as examples.

* Greed being the vice that grants the Damned control over the material world... i.e. classic sorcery.

I'm doing something similar for my conspiracy thriller and urban fantasy settings.

My conspiracy thriller setting is very much X-Files inspired, with a kitchen sink of aliens, secret societies, demons, cryptids, and multiple magic systems all operating at odds with one another. The PCs are expected to work for a "good" organization like a private think tank or an ancient chivalric order. Plenty of villainous orgs exist, like the "real" Satanic Church, the Knights Templar, the Assassins, the Rosicrucians, and the New World Order. The premise is that the various loony conspiracy theories being shared online are all true, albeit inaccurate. For example, the USA political system is heavily infiltrated by multiple ancient conspiracies and alien races operating at cross-purposes, explaining why the government has become so ineffectual and self-destructive.

Quote from: Opaopajr on October 29, 2024, 08:27:39 AMBut Vampions is far more lowest common denominator alluring to the broader populace.

I want to address this directly.

The games as written are supposed to be tortured angst fests. At least according to the people I talked to here, most groups seem to play it as dark superheroes. Not because the game rules and setting are remotely suited for that (they're not), but because they don't have any other options.

I think a game that deliberately caters to the dark superheroes crowd could work. That's something that I'd like to do with my urban fantasy settings, in addition to light superheroes like angels and so forth.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 29, 2024, 02:33:51 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on October 29, 2024, 08:27:39 AMBut Vampions is far more lowest common denominator alluring to the broader populace.

I want to address this directly.

The games as written are supposed to be tortured angst fests. At least according to the people I talked to here, most groups seem to play it as dark superheroes. Not because the game rules and setting are remotely suited for that (they're not), but because they don't have any other options.

I think a game that deliberately caters to the dark superheroes crowd could work. That's something that I'd like to do with my urban fantasy settings, in addition to light superheroes like angels and so forth.

You can overlap to some degree. At many points, the X-Men comics could be considered tortured angst fests featuring superheroes. I've seen supers RPGs run like X-Men, so...

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 29, 2024, 11:49:04 AMSo, I've been brainstorming out Hunter and opposing organizations to fill in my setting.

First, we have the Catholic Order of St. Joseph. Seems fairly innocuous with a symbol of a stylized hammer and three oversized nails. But, if you're not Catholic you might not know that one of St. Joseph's titles is "The Terror of Demons" and those "nails" are actually stakes. They're your classic secret Vatican-backed monster hunter organization.

Next up, we have Project Ultraviolet; a secret agency within the Deep State dedicated to eliminating "Malicious Entity Influence" (as close as the hyper-secular security state can get to admitting there are literal demons without inducing terminal levels of cognitive dissonance). They get all the superspy, cybernetic and biomod toys to play with as they basically play MiB to stop evil spirits from preying on the citizens. A huge portion of their job is inter-institutional operations against other silos of the Deep State since evil spirits seem especially drawn to those with power and authority.

The opposite number for them is GASLIGHT, a Deep State silo whose leaders are servants of Hell tasked with cleaning up signs of the supernatural world by any means necessary. All the same toys but with a focus on wetworks, blackmail and destruction of evidence.

In a similar vein we have the Covenant for Global Cooperation; an NGO/think tank that recruits members from "the brightest minds" in business and government to push their agenda of breaking down barriers in society. Their inner circle doesn't have a name, but is called The Coven by outsiders who've learned of it; a group of 13 powerful witches and warlocks who want to break down barriers alright; the very gates of Hell so that demonic influence can run rampant upon the Earth believing they will be rewarded with power over the Earth for a millennia.

One of its major contributors is Blackguard, a megacorp international hedge fund with its fingers in nearly every publicly held corporation and whose founder is the embodiment of greed* among the Damned.

Not all business is evil though. On the flipside is Sophia Enterprises, a private R&D company behind a number of next generation computer and biomedical systems (source of some of the Cyberpunk tech) whose founder started noticing the "Malicious Entity Influence" in several fields they were exploring (specifically the existence of noncorporeal entities... i.e. spirits) and started up a division devoted to investigating potential instances and "managing" them accordingly. Basically an upscale Ghostbusters.

On a more local level there's Stakeout; the unofficial name for a group of police who've "seen stuff" and are coordinating as best they're able among themselves and locals who've also seen the supernatural to fight off the monstrous influence in their city. The name derived from the double entrandre they covered their actions with... "going on a stakeout" for putting a stake into the heart of a vampire.

Contrasting them is Familia de Sangre, a criminal cartel devoted to crime (particularly drugs and human trafficking - the latter for supplying victims for the Damned who won't be missed). The spreading of human misery is the ultimate goal of their Damned masters and they reward the most devoted with their "Blessing" (ie. The Curse).

Also on the side of the wicked that I don't have names for yet are a false non-denominational church preaching a combo of the prosperity gospel and tolerance is the highest good, some version of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (working name based on an old joke from my Mage campaign is the New World Order of Hermes) and an expy for the Freemasons with a secret inner circle with a direct line to Hell via ritual demon summoning.

I figure I need a few more Hunter organizations as well; since there's currently only the Catholic, a government op, a private business, and an unofficial band of police as examples.

* Greed being the vice that grants the Damned control over the material world... i.e. classic sorcery.

I like it. It has Hunter: The Vigil vibes.

I think the Kindred TV series actually did a rather good job of depicting a vampire society as something at least half-assed functional. Rather than the usual depictions that would never have lasted as long as they show due to all the vampires or whatevers being raging idiots.

Quote from: Omega on October 30, 2024, 02:11:07 AMI think the Kindred TV series actually did a rather good job of depicting a vampire society as something at least half-assed functional. Rather than the usual depictions that would never have lasted as long as they show due to all the vampires or whatevers being raging idiots.

Once you accept that vampire societies are just another type of organized crime it all falls into place.

They bribe those in power to cover up their crimes, leech off the population of their territory and engage in struggles with rival crime groups for control of their particular vice.

The smart ones make deals and alliances with their neighboring criminals and treat the population of their territory as a precious commodity (ie. poaching and killing the livestock by others isn't something you can tolerate without looking weak to your fellow criminals).

They even have an initiation ritual to become one of the "made men."

Quote from: Aglondir on October 30, 2024, 12:33:40 AMI like it. It has Hunter: The Vigil vibes.

It's Hunter: The Vigil with a singular Christian cosmology. Which is great, because it means I don't have to compete with Chris when writing my own kitchen sink thing. While my take is gonna have Christian elements like PC angels and antichrist candidates that have been baptized and use their powers for good a la Merlin, I'm also gonna have stuff like space aliens and reptoids that clearly don't fit into a Christian cosmology.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 30, 2024, 08:20:49 AMOnce you accept that vampire societies are just another type of organized crime it all falls into place.

I like to take inspiration from the Blade movies and have vampires involved in industries like pharma, private security and banking.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 30, 2024, 08:20:49 AMThey even have an initiation ritual to become one of the "made men."

Speaking of, something I like adding when I'm writing vampires is to make the turning into a literal magical ritual. It's not enough to inject someone with vampire venom, you need to perform a necromantic ritual that requires intent and sacrifice.

While I'm here Chris, I have this idea for dhampirs that I'd like to get your input.

Now usually dhampirs are written more or less identically to your typical rogue half-vampire. Michael Emerson, Adrian Tepes, Eric Brooks, and Rayne are more similar than they are different. Like a vampire version of Merlin, they have the powers of a vampire (to whatever degree) and use it to fight vampires. They're dark superheroes.

My idea is that a dhampir instead serves as the conveyor for a curse, a punishment for vampires. They appear completely human and ordinary to vampire senses, yet their aura irresistibly attracts vampires to obsess over them and taste their blood. This is a trap: the moment that blood touches the vampire's lips, then they are cursed and doomed. The exact curse varies by vampire, but it strips them of the emotional qualities they value most. They go mad and either destroy themselves or give others easy opportunity to do so. It's not a nice way to go.

Of course, the two can be combined.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 30, 2024, 03:52:11 PMWhile I'm here Chris, I have this idea for dhampirs that I'd like to get your input.

Now usually dhampirs are written more or less identically to your typical rogue half-vampire. Michael Emerson, Adrian Tepes, Eric Brooks, and Rayne are more similar than they are different. Like a vampire version of Merlin, they have the powers of a vampire (to whatever degree) and use it to fight vampires. They're dark superheroes.

My idea is that a dhampir instead serves as the conveyor for a curse, a punishment for vampires. They appear completely human and ordinary to vampire senses, yet their aura irresistibly attracts vampires to obsess over them and taste their blood. This is a trap: the moment that blood touches the vampire's lips, then they are cursed and doomed. The exact curse varies by vampire, but it strips them of the emotional qualities they value most. They go mad and either destroy themselves or give others easy opportunity to do so. It's not a nice way to go.

Of course, the two can be combined.

That sounds exactly, nearly word-for-word, like the Requiem version of dhampirs.

As an element in a story, particularly for a vampire protagonist, it's fine and even clever.

However, this is for a game and it's a very passive ability for something Hunter-focused. It would be a fairly disappointing character option if that's ALL they're able to do compared to say, the Angel PC that you mentioned.

Similarly, it's not exactly the best fit for a group focused game since for it to work presumably requires the dhampir to be in a position where it's reasonable for the vampire to bite them... which is unlikely to occur if there's also an angel and sorcerer present.

Now, I've done similar things with one of my WoD dhampir PCs, giving them the toxic blood, fist of God, and unbondable merits such that were basically a supernatural antibody against the vampires (in addition to dots of Potence and other disciplines) and their ability to take and recover from punishment like virtually nothing else in the WoD.

I'm thinking of something similar for my children; each getting particular resistances or counters to the powers their parent type is known for.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 30, 2024, 07:57:03 PMThat sounds exactly, nearly word-for-word, like the Requiem version of dhampirs.

It is. I was wondering if anyone would catch that.

You're right. It works better for passive fiction or a vampire protagonist campaign than a hunter campaign.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 31, 2024, 11:13:56 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 30, 2024, 07:57:03 PMThat sounds exactly, nearly word-for-word, like the Requiem version of dhampirs.

It is. I was wondering if anyone would catch that.

You're right. It works better for passive fiction or a vampire protagonist campaign than a hunter campaign.

I'd also consider that Michael Emerson, Adrian Tepes, Eric Brooks, and Rayne being more similar than different is actually a bit of a boon for game design as anything you can tag as a common element across multiple sources is both pervasive and generic enough you can apply to your setting with abandon as the public domain elements they are.

Also, thanks to the Rayne reference I realized I'd left the Thule Society out of my notes. Ariosophy is exactly the sort of satanic philosophy I could build a villain group around.