Quote from: Opaopajr;947613For the record, neither am I. We've all been on this forum long enough to have what the Koreans call "chong," longevity in a relationship that can survive ruffled feathers. It's part of the charm of this place's free speech.

Correct. For the record I like you as a person. I don't like your DM style or your preference in power level in most games. Then again I think the very premise of VtM, WtA, and MTA is ridiculous. At least the CroD makes some level of actual sense regardless of the writer's real life politics especially since I prefer an integrated world.

Something I forgot to add in my last post is how superpowers are handled. WoD is all over the place with this, but I have an idea for simplicity.

Superpowers come in form of magical skills. You could cast freeform spells on the fly at a penalty or as time consuming rituals. You could buy a fixed spell to cast at will without the improv penalty. This what, say, Godbound uses.

You could further divide these along an Ars Magica techniques/forms or Changeling arts/realms system where you have separate skills for the effect and the target, or a Geist key/manifestation or Inferno malapraxis system where you have to combine more esoteric skills like "wrath in the night" or whatever.

Effects usually have difficulties scaling with complexity. Optionally each new rank in a skill unlocks new uses of that skill a la Mage practices. Skills may be more or less expensive based on the frequency of their purviews (e.g. "mental" costs a lot, "dominate" and "charm" a lot less).

Typical game design stuff like that.

Actually if you fuckwits insist on straight crossover... understand this,... Demons, Mages, and Mummies are stronger then the rest intentionally. The developer said so and the games aren't meant for true crossover like Witchcraft. Understand that, and know that have my interest. This isn't 4e you nerd boys. Mages are supposed to kick ass because the baseline mage is supposed to be an asshole that can erase any stupid non Jedi without a thought, a Jedi would be interesting to eliminate in MtAsc,
and fun in MtAw, a Super Jedi takes planning. Think about it. Paradox or not. It's not about if/why/what..it's about how. Mage's kill anything/everything easily. The question is how much Wisdom they willing to risk? Better to just downgrade to irrelevant if/wherever possible given it's much less effort and quite effective. Thing is magic isn't visible unless the Mage chooses it is.... think on it and get back to me.

MtAsc is all about HAP/HOP and whatever the GM decides and me thinking he's an asshole and ignorant. MtAw means all magic is unseen until it's OBVIOUS. This means you can be Firestarter, Jedi Knight, Scanners or whatever unless you show off (yantras, maybe some rote mundras)just to end the bullshit..

Yes, gals and guys that move the goalposts from the beginning work on a different and higher playing field. Really pretty simple if arrogant but deal. They don't use the elements to change the rules. They change the actual rules every time they wish.

OWoD was much worse given Mages could make vampire lawnchairs regardless of Sat..Sara Brucatto's wishes.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;947696Something I forgot to add in my last post is how superpowers are handled. WoD is all over the place with this, but I have an idea for simplicity.

Superpowers come in form of magical skills. You could cast freeform spells on the fly at a penalty or as time consuming rituals. You could buy a fixed spell to cast at will without the improv penalty. This what, say, Godbound uses.

You could further divide these along an Ars Magica techniques/forms or Changeling arts/realms system where you have separate skills for the effect and the target, or a Geist key/manifestation or Inferno malapraxis system where you have to combine more esoteric skills like "wrath in the night" or whatever.

Effects usually have difficulties scaling with complexity. Optionally each new rank in a skill unlocks new uses of that skill a la Mage practices. Skills may be more or less expensive based on the frequency of their purviews (e.g. "mental" costs a lot, "dominate" and "charm" a lot less).

Typical game design stuff like that.

Or you could be really simple and use REACH like Mage the Awakening. Just a thought.

Quote from: Marleycat;947855Or you could be really simple and use REACH like Mage the Awakening. Just a thought.

I stopped following Onyx years ago. I don't know what that is.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;947867I stopped following Onyx years ago. I don't know what that is.

I stopped following OWoD years ago, many years ago so I think we're even. I hated on that game pretty quickly beyond Mage the Ascension if that helps? And NuWW confirms my decision wasn't wrong. So you better hope NuWW doesn't pull OP's licenses for your beloved glorious mess of a game. Vampire 5e and it's ilk sounds like quite the trainwreck but whatever.

Quote from: Marleycat;947843Actually if you fuckwits insist on straight crossover... understand this,... Demons, Mages, and Mummies are stronger then the rest intentionally. The developer said so and the games aren't meant for true crossover like Witchcraft. Understand that, and know that have my interest. This isn't 4e you nerd boys. Mages are supposed to kick ass because the baseline mage is supposed to be an asshole that can erase any stupid non Jedi without a thought, a Jedi would be interesting to eliminate in MtAsc,
and fun in MtAw, a Super Jedi takes planning. Think about it. Paradox or not. It's not about if/why/what..it's about how. Mage's kill anything/everything easily. The question is how much Wisdom they willing to risk? Better to just downgrade to irrelevant if/wherever possible given it's much less effort and quite effective. Thing is magic isn't visible unless the Mage chooses it is.... think on it and get back to me.

MtAsc is all about HAP/HOP and whatever the GM decides and me thinking he's an asshole and ignorant. MtAw means all magic is unseen until it's OBVIOUS. This means you can be Firestarter, Jedi Knight, Scanners or whatever unless you show off (yantras, maybe some rote mundras)just to end the bullshit..

Yes, gals and guys that move the goalposts from the beginning work on a different and higher playing field. Really pretty simple if arrogant but deal. They don't use the elements to change the rules. They change the actual rules every time they wish.

OWoD was much worse given Mages could make vampire lawnchairs regardless of Sat..Sara Brucatto's wishes.

Can't the game balance be loosely addressed by a point buy system? I'm under the impression GURPS WoD works in this way.

Quote from: Marleycat;947868I stopped following OWoD years ago, many years ago so I think we're even. I hated on that game pretty quickly beyond Mage the Ascension if that helps? And NuWW confirms my decision wasn't wrong. So you better hope NuWW doesn't pull OP's licenses for your beloved glorious mess of a game. Vampire 5e and it's ilk sounds like quite the trainwreck but whatever.

What is "reach" supposed to be? How and why it is more elegant than what I proposed?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;947874Can't the game balance be loosely addressed by a point buy system? I'm under the impression GURPS WoD works in this way.


What is "reach" supposed to be? How and why it is more elegant than what I proposed?

It could be, just understand if you're regular guy is 100 points to start in whatever setting, Vampires are 150-250 and Werewolves are 200-250 and Mages/Mummies/Demons are 300-400 points in GURPS for example.

Reach is a MtAw mechanic. In that system mages can do anything safely but can do nasty stuff with risk. You get free reach to modify baseline effects and you can reach as much as you prefer with risk.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;947624just because fate hides the existence of vampires doesn't mean it hides their actions.

"Global Anemia has been a mystery plaguing mankind since the beginning of recorded history, but for just pennies a day, you can help contribute to the fight to stop G.A."  

To some extent, you have to just handwave it away.  Kinda' like accepting elves cast fireball spells in D&D, it's just a given in the setting.  But yeah, that's easier said than done when the WoD so desperately wants to mirror our world... except when it doesn't.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;947624Yeah, werewolf has a huge problem with tone deafness. the werewolves all have the same religion and empirical evidence of its truth. there are other shape changers for other animals but the writers arbitrarily excluded them with wars of rage, which don't make sense as religious wars if there isn't any possibility for heresy. if there was faith rather than knowledge then you could have more diverse views and religious strife that doesn't contradict its own premise.

It works if you run with the idea that the shapechangers have all the truth and evidence, but -chose- to ignore it.  I'm pretty sure that's canonical too.  

Still though, White Wolf had this great vehicle for exploring both the positive and negative aspects of religion and faith and chose to ignore it in favor of going the D&D Cleric route of "how much damage does my miraculous intervention from on high do?"

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;947624even the weaver and wyrm going crazy assumes that if they weren't crazy everything would be okay. you could just as easily argue they would arrive at the same result while sane. for example: weaver drives progress and dumps toxic waste due to simple incompetence (like real life), while the wyrm decides that going green is impossible and creates a new ecosystem dependent on toxic waste that must supplant the old or die.

"They weren't crazy.  They were never crazy.  All this time we fought them, thinking they were insane, because we couldn't admit the truth.  In the game of evolution, the fittest survive, and they were the most fit.  And all we were doing was trying to help the weakest link hold them back."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;947624as for the humanity conflict not making for long chronicles, I think that is handled fairly well in Feed. you can still play past humanity zero, but you have no real human connections and can barely interact with the world without using vampire powers.

Feed?

Heck with all this. I want to play Dino Crisis with Vampire:tm! Another one from Dragao Brazil.

Bemusingly enough they also did Blade and the Matrix conversions. Truly Trenchcoats and Katanas...
Among several others.

All this stuff about disparate power levels is why my ongoing campaign is Mage exclusive.

All the other stuff that's playable in the OWoD exists because enough of mankind believes it exists on some level and the Technocracy does its damnedest MIB style to keep knowledge of it confined to conspiracy web sites. Cleaning up the messes left by supernaturals so the public doesn't find out about the monsters in their midst eats up the majority of their resources. Its something of an ongoing joke that most of Hollywood and D.C. are actually cloned replacements because the originals keep ending up targets of some supernatural with a grudge or an obsession (there's some degree of confusion over just which vampire has the original Sarah Michelle Gellar as his Childe/Ghouled Thrall).

It is also something of an joke that since belief creates reality its only a matter of time before vampires start to sparkle and there are several betting pools amongst various mages as to when that will occur. The few vampires aware of this via their contact with mages actively dread that this could happen to them.

Quote from: Marleycat;948021It could be, just understand if you're regular guy is 100 points to start in whatever setting, Vampires are 150-250 and Werewolves are 200-250 and Mages/Mummies/Demons are 300-400 points in GURPS for example.

Reach is a MtAw mechanic. In that system mages can do anything safely but can do nasty stuff with risk. You get free reach to modify baseline effects and you can reach as much as you prefer with risk.

I remember seeing a point buy netbook for WoD/CoD somewhere that used CoD 1e rules with adjustments for WoD specific elements. I will have to look it up again.

I assume "reach" is a 2e CoD thing. How is that different from 1e CoD rules?

Quote from: san dee jota;948038"Global Anemia has been a mystery plaguing mankind since the beginning of recorded history, but for just pennies a day, you can help contribute to the fight to stop G.A."  

To some extent, you have to just handwave it away.  Kinda' like accepting elves cast fireball spells in D&D, it's just a given in the setting.  But yeah, that's easier said than done when the WoD so desperately wants to mirror our world... except when it doesn't.



It works if you run with the idea that the shapechangers have all the truth and evidence, but -chose- to ignore it.  I'm pretty sure that's canonical too.  

Still though, White Wolf had this great vehicle for exploring both the positive and negative aspects of religion and faith and chose to ignore it in favor of going the D&D Cleric route of "how much damage does my miraculous intervention from on high do?"



"They weren't crazy.  They were never crazy.  All this time we fought them, thinking they were insane, because we couldn't admit the truth.  In the game of evolution, the fittest survive, and they were the most fit.  And all we were doing was trying to help the weakest link hold them back."



Feed?

Arcane Fate, Occultation, Veil, Lunacy, Mists, Fog, Mask whatever is one giant hand wave. The only distinction is the viewers' reaction (e.g. denial, forgetting, panic) and whether disbelief backlashes on you (e.g. damage, distortions). I could figure a unified mechanic later.

"Feed" is an indie vampire rpg on onebookshelf by "whistle punk" I think. It was created when the author found VtM chargen too restrictive, but it's not a heartbreaker since the rules are completely different and there's multiple settings a la AFMBE. It's a real toolkit and an overlooked gem IMO.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;948318Arcane Fate, Occultation, Veil, Lunacy, Mists, Fog, Mask whatever is one giant hand wave. The only distinction is the viewers' reaction (e.g. denial, forgetting, panic) and whether disbelief backlashes on you (e.g. damage, distortions). I could figure a unified mechanic later.

This hand wave is a very personal obstacle to my enjoyment of these games. I hate their inclusion, but I still have more trouble imagining monsters existing among humans in our actual world without it. Of course you could argue the entire premise is absurd from top to bottom anyway, but for whatever reason my suspension of disbelief crashes into my horror power fantasy at that exact point.

I always thought Changeling the Dreaming was more than "growing up" or "hating science." The Moon Walk opened the gates of Arcadia once again, briefly, for many sidhe to spill out -- and two Realms attached to Science, and one Realm to Technology, are used for resistance (as much as performance & music). In fact there's a whole kith obsessed with tinkering. Science and technology is very much a part of Changeling celebrating the dreams of mankind.

The tragedy was not so much growing up, but no longer being appreciative. Gratitude for the world's wonders & terrors was dying. It doesn't take adulthood to become bored with the world, it takes dying inside to become blind to its surrounding awe. The personal horror is finding yourself comfortable as you become numb, hollowed from the inside out.

Quote from: Omega;948091Heck with all this. I want to play Dino Crisis with Vampire:tm! Another one from Dragao Brazil.

Bemusingly enough they also did Blade and the Matrix conversions. Truly Trenchcoats and Katanas...
Among several others.

Dragão Brasil's conversions made me cringe even back in the day. They had cyborg vampires for V:tM in one of their first issues. They were also the kings of copyright-be-damned conversions varying from the somewhat stupid (Jedi knights for AD&D2) to the terminally stupid (Swat Kats for GURPS). Being a monthly magazine outside the Anglosphere meant they could get away with this stuff.

You Brazilian, Omega?