Quote from: Doc Sammy;946346I agree with this statement. As for zombies, I never cared for them, except for Resident Evil and High School of the Dead. I hate The Walking Dead with a burning passion.

The Walking Dead is okay.  It just annoys me how bad they are at fighting zombies.  They never use any of the two dozen ways (off the top of my head) which would work against zombies despite not working against people.

Quote from: kobayashi;946335I imagine you've looked at the Strain book series by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan (the books, not the TV series) ? It's very much along those lines (though the ending left me cold). Not great books by any stretch of the imagination but it puts the Vampire back in the role of a vicious predatory creature. 30 Days of Night had a cool vision of vampires as well. And concerning Zombies, the "updated" version of these monsters in Garth Ennis' Crossed is, imho, quite good (basically doing in 96 pages what The Walking Dead painfully tries to do across more than 2000 pages).

I read the first book of the Strain, but despite being a Del Toro fan I never felt any impetus to seek out the sequels. But 30 Days of Night is one of my favourite vampire films of all time. I've not yet gotten into the Walking Dead, comics or TV. Like Breaking Bad, I'll probably catch up long after its popularity has waned. I may seek out Garth Ennis' Crossed, big fan of his work on Preacher and The Punisher. He's like the comic book equivalent of John Wayne mixed with Robert Rodriquez.

By the way Doc - and this might seem a little out of left field - what is your favorite vampire anime/manga? I ask to see if it might have some impact on how you envision this genre of RPG.

WW allready tried a sorta anime-esque approach with the whole "East" line and and Demon Hunter X. Which for whatever reasons it never seemed to garner much of a fanbase.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;946402By the way Doc - and this might seem a little out of left field - what is your favorite vampire anime/manga? I ask to see if it might have some impact on how you envision this genre of RPG.

Probably Hellsing Ultimate, although Vampire Hunter D is also good too.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;946431Probably Hellsing Ultimate, although Vampire Hunter D is also good too.

That's what I figured. I presume something like Shiki would be the exact opposite you are trying to avoid?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;946432That's what I figured. I presume something like Shiki would be the exact opposite you are trying to avoid?

Pretty much

Quote from: Chris24601;945842...

So, the first and most important thing is that Gehenna/Apocalypse/Armageddon/End of the World was played out in the campaign about ten year ago and the PC's at the time kicked its ass. It was basically the worst version of every possible event with the Antidiluvians as the original Nephandi Lords (who commanded all the forces of the Wyrm) and the Nameless leading them all. But the PC's at the time were heavily Hermetic and hit upon an idea so universally cool it couldn't not work. See, per the story the Nameless had literally sacrificed its True Name to the Outer Darkness, which supposedly made it untouchable since you could not affect something without a name.

So the PC's did the opposite...

That is pure awesome sauce! Sounds like a long-running good time.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;946313...

The world has changed. ...

That is so spot on - what a fantastic suggestion!

Quote from: Tristram Evans;946313So, to return to the original stated purpose of the thread...

How I would Make World of Darkness "Great Again"

Step one: build a time machine and travel back to the 90s, when the zeitgeist was relevant.




OKay, that was sarcastic, but its meant to illustrate a point. The 90s WoD, just like The Xfiles, The Matrix, and other media of the 90s was focused on the notion of a secret war going on behind the doors of society.This was a product of the time. The economy was in good shape, the US was not by and large seen as having an external threat, and so fantasy turned inwards to create the threat. But theres a reason this notion isnt popular these days.

The world has changed. The threat people perceive is external, its the "Other". Its the reason that in every way the vampire was the posterchild monster of the 90s, the zombie now dominates the zeitgeist. It perfectly represents that external other: humans that are alien in thought, unreasonable, and unbelievably hostile. The don't want or aspire to any higher forms of civilization, they simply 'live' to devour and destroy society. They are the terrorists. The political extremists. The Othered human Threat of Orwellian nightmares.

So how does that translate into a World of Darkness setting? Well, for one I'd say ditch Anne Rice for Richard Matheson. The vampire apocalypse that inspired and started the zombie apocalypse genre. Ditch the notion of clans/tribes or supernatural social structures: monsters are numerous, violent, inhumanly aggressive, and incapable of reasoning. The supernaturals should be the foreign threat personified. The sudden explosions of barbaric violence in urban life.

You could retain the monster social structures while modifying them for modern politics. For example, one faction for xenophobes that want to maintain a status quo that privileges them, a progressive faction that wants to move forward, and a faction of the poor and foreign influx that wants to move up in the world.

Or we could take the approach from Monsterhearts, where each monster or "skin" is a thinly-veiled metaphor for some aspect of the human condition, and mash it up with the political angles in Urban Shadows. Both are PbtA and should be easy enough to merge. The end result would be closer to Nightlife than to WoD, I suppose.

WoD has so much baggage. Ignoring all the silliness in the games themselves (CoD tried to fix this before getting bogged down in its own issues)... Onyx Path went full SJW a while ago and Paradox is milking the IP on the cheap. Just recently the new WW released a pair of interactive fiction games for iphones and announced a Werewolf: The Apocalypse video game. They aren't going to be remastering Bloodlines because they don't want to invest the money in licensing it from Activision.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;946313The world has changed. The threat people perceive is external, its the "Other". Its the reason that in every way the vampire was the posterchild monster of the 90s, the zombie now dominates the zeitgeist. It perfectly represents that external other: humans that are alien in thought, unreasonable, and unbelievably hostile. The don't want or aspire to any higher forms of civilization, they simply 'live' to devour and destroy society. They are the terrorists. The political extremists. The Othered human Threat of Orwellian nightmares.

Some good ideas, but I think it ignores the key draw of the WoD in the 90's: you play a super-powered monster beating up puny mortals, because you feel inadequate in your (real) life.

So, to make the WoD work again, you need to figure out who the audience is (is it young adults with weak income or established adults with jobs and responsibilities) and then extrapolate from there.  And my advice, go with focusing on established adults (because if you just want a WoD where you break things, the cWoD exists for that).  Then, since this is a -horror- game, make sure the Other really is something horrific.  But since we want this to be a game of personal horror, we explore how the PCs do terrible things to stop the Other.

Vampire: The Dominion - You are a Kindred.  You rule a Dominion, one of the last bastions of civilization left to mankind.  It's towering walls and policies are yours to enforce as you see fit, and if you fail your Dominion will fail and you will surely die.  But you don't rule alone; other rule it with you, with their own views on how best to protect the Kine upon which you feed.  And each of you twists Caine's curse to suit your needs and sins, which you will eventually pass on to those beneath you.  (gameplay - troupe style play, with vampires making up their own Disciplines, passing them on to their Childer (as played by other players).  Lots of "big picture" plotting and resources to draw upon.  This is the game for people who want to play about politicians manipulating and protecting and exploiting the masses.)

Werewolf: The Plague - You are a werewolf.  You know how to enter and leave Dominions, hunting humans and the Horde alike.  You decide who lives and dies, smuggling people across the world as needed, and into the Dominions at times.  Alone, it's hard, but with a pack it becomes easier.  But packs bicker and feud; who is Alpha and for how long?  And then of course there's the plague you carry; the madness and pain and rage that you can infect others with.  And you -will- infect others, because if you don't feed the plague it will eat you up.  But it's this plague that lets you have the strength to get past the Hordes, and it's your ability to move past the Hordes that motivates the Vampires to let you live.  (gameplay - Standard RPG fair, except Werewolves are serious combat monsters when it comes to the Hordes, to the point that -most- creatures among the Hordes offer little to no threat.  The real challenge comes from interacting with humans, who you have to infect on a regular basis, and the humans both know this and prove more difficult to fight than the Hordes.)

Mage: the Catalyst - There are a few humans, a very small number, who can tap into the energy that drives the Horde.  From this energy these mages can work great feats, changing the reality of the world to various (tangible) degrees.  But doing so draws the attention of the Hordes outside the Dominion, and worse than that it can bleed over and transform other humans.  Some mages accept the changes into themselves, gaining power they control but marking themselves as touched by the Horde.  Others simply let it transform people into Horde beasts and rely on someone else to clean up their mess.  After all, the chances are soooo small as to be insignificant.  So why use the power if it's so risky?  When you can reshape the world to suit your -needs-, why wouldn't you?  (Game play - similar to Mage the Ascension, but with less emphasis on intangible effects and more on things you can touch.  Paradox is also -very- different)

Guardians: those at the Wall - You are one of the humans who defend the Dominions.  You work for the damned Vampires, turning the other way when their horrible Werewolf allies move, cleaning up the messes left by some protected sociopathic Mage.  You're not helpless, you have weapons and armor unlike any other, and you're trained to withstand sights that would traumatize other humans.  And you tell yourself that this is what it takes to keep your friends and family safe.  Eventually you might even believe it.  (Game play - you're a squishy human with some really neat gear and lots of skills, trying not to burn out or become a fanatic.)

Horde: the Dream - Thoughts, dreams, ideals, all swirling in a chaotic violent broken Hive Mind.  They hunger, they probe, they want what the Dominions have.  Always looking for a crack, a sympathetic ear (or throat), a loophole.  Anything that can get them in the Dominions, so they can absorb those inside and find peace in their shared focus of consumption.  The Horde takes on all forms at one time or another, using some supernatural energy to grow and change in a rapid (hours long) manner.  Sometimes they come in the form of peaceful humans, sometimes in the form of giant raging monsters.  No one can detect them however until it is too late.  (Game play - this would be one-part a "how to make monsters" book" and one-part "how to role-play a giant multi-cellular foe".  Little to no long-term crossover potential by design (too powerful and predatory), but a Horde working with others to destroy a Dominion they all hate could last for a while as part of a short-term campaign, since that's kinda' the basis for Hordes working together anyway.)



So yeah, I kinda' like this idea.  The main kicker I see holding it back is that it's really hard for me to do a horror game about "Trump and his supporters are right!" without it coming across as if I'm saying "Trump and his supporters are right!"  Can you separate the social metaphor from the horror?

Quote from: san dee jota;946844Can you separate the social metaphor from the horror?

To be honest, I'm not sure I see the social metaphor even when I'm looking for it. Raising walls and worrying about the people outside of them is a pretty inherent thing to humans, I think - Trump didn't invent it, he just got famous for being unusually fond of it.

Quote from: Baeraad;946847To be honest, I'm not sure I see the social metaphor even when I'm looking for it. Raising walls and worrying about the people outside of them is a pretty inherent thing to humans, I think - Trump didn't invent it, he just got famous for being unusually fond of it.

True that.  The idea of building walls to keep the Other out is a pretty common one in history, and has some precedence in horror too (e.g. Attack on Titan, Priest).

I guess an analogy might be "I want to make a horror game where the white supremacists are -right-, but change African Americans to an army of orcs".  I don't want to make an RPG manifesto on xenophobia (any more than I want to do one on racism) is all.

Hmmm....

But I want to abolish personal horror from my World of Darkness games, not redefine it. I prefer action horror and political intrigue instead. Trenchcoats and Katanas with politics and NO metaplot or personal horror whatsoever.

Quote from: san dee jota;946849I guess an analogy might be "I want to make a horror game where the white supremacists are -right-, but change African Americans to an army of orcs".  I don't want to make an RPG manifesto on xenophobia (any more than I want to do one on racism) is all.

But what if that game casts the PCs in the role of the "orcs" (/insert monster of choice)? Not that I'm agreeing with that as the premise, but at the same time the ability to map fantasy concepts to uncomfortable attitudes in society and explore those from different pov is one of the great strengths of fantasy

Quote from: Tristram Evans;946872But what if that game casts the PCs in the role of the "orcs" (/insert monster of choice)? Not that I'm agreeing with that as the premise, but at the same time the ability to map fantasy concepts to uncomfortable attitudes in society and explore those from different pov is one of the great strengths of fantasy

But do people want that? I think that part of the appeal of the zombie apocalypse stuff is that here is a horde of monsters that can be killed without any repercussions or suspicions of bad intentions... they've got no families, children, relationships, culture. We can be as violent as we want towards them... and not feel guilty. We can't show the good guys casually killing populations of the people we are REALLY worried about... but no one is going to stand up for the undead (except for the occasional crazy/confused person, as shown on The Walking Dead).