Quote from: DrewSo you've never played a Chaotic Evil character?

Seriously, though, it's like I said earlier. In the default OWoD Vampire you'd quickly find your humanity and sanity evaporating if you acted like a ravening predator all the time. Once your Humanity trait hits zero you're removed from play. The in-game benfits for not giving in to the more beast are pretty significant, too.

The one short-campaign of Vampire I remember best was the one where I played a devout Catholic who just could NOT accept what he had become. Ate animals instead of people wherever possible. Took the damage and paid the cost to attend Mass whenever he could. Eventually became a double-agent for the Vatican and died along with the rest of his group in an ambush/fire he helped set up with the Vatican special forces.

How's THAT for role-playing?

Then I went all crazy and had one that was, essentially, the director of NASA working to develop spaceflight using vampires as crew.

Quote from: WerekoalaEventually became a double-agent for the Vatican and died along with the rest of his group in an ambush/fire he helped set up with the Vatican special forces.

Theres always one bastard who is determined to derail the campaign.

:-)

Hey, they didn't HAVE to accept me into the coven.

I can hear the poor GM now - 'I told you guys to bring Brooding Predators, and what do I get? Mother Teresa, Tim Nice but Dim and Flopsy the Snuggle Bunny! At least Fred's character is a Ninja! Some time I wonder why I bother turning up! Why don't you guys just piss off and play Care Bears Go Shopping! I put in all this effort and you just don't care!

I brought BLACK CANDLES! And I bled my cat to make the coctails! Poor thing hasn't been the same since! And you didn't even try them!'

:-)

Quote from: DrewSimilar things could be said about Vampire, given that a sire will usually select someone to embrace on the basis of their aptitude and abilities intersecting with with his long term goals. It's nowhere near as pronounced as in Exalted, though.

The thing with Vampire or Exalted, which separates them from D&D, is that they require the intervention of a third party. In D&D, you become powerful because you happened to follow a particularly dangerous (yet rewarding) career path with great success. Yes, there's a distinction between people who go into non-adventuring careers and those who go and adventure, but it's a matter of personal inclination, skill, and luck, and perhaps a little destiny, that puts you on the adventuring path.

On the other hand, in Vampire or Exalted you're not just someone who is important because of their personal qualities and achievements - you're special because someone IC power within the setting has Chosen you. "Adventure!" goes even further than this - in that, you're special because you got zapped by a ray.

If you like, Vampire or Exalted is an oligarchy, D&D is a meritocracy. In D&D, you get power if you work for it, and we as gamers choose to focus on those characters who do have the skill and gumption to go and work for it. In Vampire or Exalted, you're part of a special self-selected elite.

Quote from: HinterWeltAs to Vampire, yeah, I never understood how you could have a happy ending with Hinters. I am talking plain jane humans who decide they have a death wish and go after the Vampire with half a dozen ghouls. Ow.

And then they gave us the answer in Hunter: the Reckoning - the Hunters aren't just normal humans, they're people who are Chosen by the voices in their head and get special powers to go hunt vampires. Yet again, the White Wolf "You Are Special" motif rears its head.

Quote from: WarthurNow, Exalted isn't a modern-day occult game, but you can definitely view it as an anti-humanistic game: in the setting, the various Exalted are the important people in society, and mundane human beings are nigh-irrelevant.

This is true, ditto the part about all WoD games sharing this set-up, and Zachary also explained the reasons as to why.

I'd add though that that doesn't make these games "anti-humanistic." It makes them anti-"rabble." As in, some people are infinitely more special (deeper, more complex, clued in) than The Masses.

So, contra Pundy, WoD games aren't Foucauldean, they're Ayn Randean.

Quote from: Pierce InveraritySo, contra Pundy, WoD games aren't Foucauldean, they're Ayn Randean.

Leaving aside the Foucaldean, which I'm a tad unclear on, I will say that Ayn Rand's heroes were always 'self made'... in fact that seems to be the entire point, that they were SELF motivated to be something other than bleating sheep.

The rightness or wrongness of her worldview is not the point, mind you. Though I should point out that in Atlas Shrugged at least several of her 'heroic people'... those who were 'worth saving' were things like ordinary housewives and the like.  Not that I blame anyone for missing that, I think it appears after the 86 page repetitive radio rant by the Hero.  And I say Jimbob is long winded...:raise:

Quote from: SpikeLeaving aside the Foucaldean, which I'm a tad unclear on, I will say that Ayn Rand's heroes were always 'self made'... in fact that seems to be the entire point, that they were SELF motivated to be something other than bleating sheep.

Exactly.

Although you know that if White Wolf made a "Randroids: the Objectivism" RPG all the PCs would have an awakening experience where John Galt shows up and gives them superpowers...

Ho-no.

You're not going to make me read Ayn Rand just so I can quote chapter &  verse on how her "philosophy" works both on the individual snowflake level and the group level of Teh Few.

Not happening. My eyes bled, and I don't want them to bleed again.

Quote from: WarthurIgnoring the Pundit's assumptions about the motivations of the Exalted designers, why does this sort of thing appear so often in RPGs? I get the impression that it happens far more often in games than it does in, say, books or movies: why is that? Is it the nastier side of the wish-fulfilment element of roleplaying?

It appears in every single White Wolf game.  And yes, its wish-fulfillment for outcast goth teenagers who never learned how to be human, and thus try to pretend that they're a special elite above normal humanity who should deserve to rule the "proles", instead of being so-rightfully wedgied by them.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditIt appears in every single White Wolf game.  And yes, its wish-fulfillment for outcast goth teenagers who never learned how to be human, and thus try to pretend that they're a special elite above normal humanity who should deserve to rule the "proles", instead of being so-rightfully wedgied by them.

That's pretty much the whole Goth subculture, 'innit? And a large portion of the Gamer one as well, I'm afraid. That way leads to Dragonkin and the like.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityHo-no.

You're not going to make me read Ayn Rand just so I can quote chapter &  verse on how her "philosophy" works both on the individual snowflake level and the group level of Teh Few.

Not happening. My eyes bled, and I don't want them to bleed again.

I think you can get a cliff-note take on her actual 'philosophy'... I can't recall what it was called (objectivism? Rationalism? I'm pretty sure it isn't Randism...) which should surely beat wading through 900+ page novels.

Me? I don't really care much.  I vaguely enjoyed Atlas Shrugged but thought it was too long. I gave up on teh Fountainhead as it was too boring and I can't, for the life of me, remember which book I read before Atlas... but since we're going back a decade I suppose that is to be expected.   I didn't know who she was before Atlas Shrugged, and I didn't care much who she was after.  Books is books, you want to tell me what you think about philosophy, just fakkin' tell me plain.

Quote from: GrimGentIn Nobilis, all of humanity was originally meant to be special, except that the plan went horribly wrong. They started out as miraculous beings, briefly hovered at the brink of divinity, and then regressed into animals. Restoring the species to its former glory would be a worthy personal project for any PC.

Oh please. :rolleyes:

Yes, and in Vampire someone could theoretically want to help with human-empowerment too.. only they don't, they play a "superior-in-every-way-being" that gets to pose around and act beautiful and powerful and feels like it deserves to rule even though its done nothing to earn it, because the players are a gang of neurotic little fuckwits. And that's exactly what people do with Nobilis.

RPGPundit

Quote from: SpikeI think you can get a cliff-note take on her actual 'philosophy'...

Objectivism on one foot