Quote from: CRKrueger;929719Yeah, yeah, go diddle your Ranma doll.

I really can't tell if he's trolling or just weeaboo.  I mean, if he's trolling he picked the wrong board to dis emo personal horror on, for sure.

I assure you I am not trolling, I legitimately hate personal horror as a theme in games. World of Darkness is a good setting that is hobbled by its themes and metaplot. Remove both of these elements and you have a setting that is fucking awesome.

And you've made that point in nearly every post on this thread.  Everybody here gets it.  Whatever reaction you're looking for, you're clearly not going to get it here.  So rather than being a tedious bore about it, maybe move on to a different topic?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;929750Katana trench coats are very easy to pull off. It is ubiquitous in action movies and superhero rpgs. Personal horror is very difficult to pull off since it requires player investment in drama, so when it does go well it shines all the brighter.

I don't think Vampire in any iteration pulls off personal horror well if at all within its own rules. The conscience and integrity mechanics are broken so that having high ranks makes it easier to shrug off monstrous acts. Losing humanity has little effect other than inflicting derangements or banes. There's no conflict between maintaining high humanity and gaining a laundry list of supernatural powers (from a transhumanist perspective this is nonsensical). Paths of enlightenment and touchstones exist to let players do whatever they were going to do anyway without dinging humanity.

Personal horror only works in spite of the rules because of player investment. Imagine how much better it would be if the rules didn't actively conflict with fostering personal horror. Insert yet another reminder about that indie vampire heartbreaker I keep mentioning because you clearly haven't read it yet.

What?

What are you talking about, man?

Quote from: daniel_ream;929814And you've made that point in nearly every post on this thread.  Everybody here gets it.  Whatever reaction you're looking for, you're clearly not going to get it here.  So rather than being a tedious bore about it, maybe move on to a different topic?

Let's be real: he's here to stay.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;929777I assure you I am not trolling, I legitimately hate personal horror as a theme in games. World of Darkness is a good setting that is hobbled by its themes and metaplot. Remove both of these elements and you have a setting that is fucking awesome.

Done well, personal horror can be engaging but its easy to take it past the line into overly angst laden masturbatory crap.

Quote from: daniel_ream;929433Around here?  Deeply confused.  It had a real culture shock problem, 1E really didn't give enough information to play the day-to-day life of a Garou, and it's enough of a departure from traditional werewolf stories that people really had no idea how to play a PC.  We had people playing the militant Indian stereotypes, the Viking warriors, and the generic hippy college grunge eco-chick.  It was all over the place.

Same here. With emphasis on combatting Pentex. Then combatting the humans. Then combatting eachother. Then combatting themselves...

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;929820What?

What are you talking about, man?

Please be more specific.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;929750Katana trench coats are very easy to pull off. It is ubiquitous in action movies and superhero rpgs. Personal horror is very difficult to pull off since it requires player investment in drama, so when it does go well it shines all the brighter.

I don't think Vampire in any iteration pulls off personal horror well if at all within its own rules. The conscience and integrity mechanics are broken so that having high ranks makes it easier to shrug off monstrous acts. Losing humanity has little effect other than inflicting derangements or banes. There's no conflict between maintaining high humanity and gaining a laundry list of supernatural powers (from a transhumanist perspective this is nonsensical). Paths of enlightenment and touchstones exist to let players do whatever they were going to do anyway without dinging humanity.

Personal horror only works in spite of the rules because of player investment. Imagine how much better it would be if the rules didn't actively conflict with fostering personal horror. Insert yet another reminder about that indie vampire heartbreaker I keep mentioning because you clearly haven't read it yet.

I think an adaption of the Unknown Armies rules to the World of Darkness would be quite effective.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;930504Please be more specific.

Just... everything. Apart from your first paragraph.

I'll lead-in: Vampire is fucking brilliant for personal horror. Dude, like, have your players *actually* sound out feeding. Like, that is powerful stuff. I've never had a player feed just like *that* without thinking about it once they've been forced to sound it out and really go at it while I describe all the gory, lurid, intoxicating (to the character, of course!) detail. One of the best ones I did was a dude who ended losing his hunger frenzy roll and just straight devoured a pregnant woman's neck on a NYC subway train in full view of a handful of other passengers. She was fucked: just straight dead, gored open, white-pupils dead. Player freaked the hell out during and afterwards -- man, did he play differently after that (and he was trying to play a half-decent dude so that was even worse)! And I'm talking sounds man: my favorite descriptor is a juicy watermelon 'n' when you're tryin' 'ta getcha' mouth in there and chew it all up, that soft watery-crunch sound and dribbling sucking sound of the melon juice (it was so wrong, on so many levels, but that's why its so effective time and time again).

Anyway, that's just ONE example of Vampire's system and atmosphere coming together nicely for personal horror.

Fuck Personal Horror. I said it once and I will say it again!

Ain't no room for pretentious whiny bullshit in my WoD games, I can tell you that! That's why I am still working on my Big Eyes Small Mouth rules conversion of Vampire. I'll show those stuck-up Goths and Punks who's boss!

In fact, my next WoD character will carry a katana. Suck on that, pretentious Gothic-Punk emo edgelords!

(rant over)

But seriously, anyone else do rules conversions for VTM?

Quote from: Doc Sammy;930764Ain't no room for pretentious whiny bullshit in my WoD games, I can tell you that! That's why I am still working on my Big Eyes Small Mouth rules conversion of Vampire. I'll show those stuck-up Goths and Punks who's boss!

Quote from: Doc Sammy;930764But seriously, anyone else do rules conversions for VTM?

I ran my own World of Darkness! With blackjack! And hookers!

In all seriousness, I ran one campaign in GURPS shortly after the GURPS: VtM book came out, and out of a group of six players I had two vampires.  We went back to fantasy after about three sessions.

I did a conversion to Hero System but that group broke up before we got started.

Fuck it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWJThhvdI0M

Honestly, the personal horror, savage horror, occult horror (because absolutely FUCK "modern sorcery") and the rest all seem to be well, done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJuQaCOuPkA&t=4m24s

(no milliseconds for playhead hook!)

by more than a minority of GMs. But then, they're not forcing they're players to act out eating a watermelon full-gonzo. It's just *the best* guys, seriously try it. They all suddenly want Herd and LOTS of time to feed...

It's one of the best styles for RPG gaming out-and-out. Hell, even anti-goth boy over here would have loved that same player I references because his character had that highlander style thing going for a second ('cept substitute trenchcoat for a preppy waistcoat and a katana for boxing -- took out three thugs about to victimize an openly gay couple on the subway platform, two with knife and crowbar, by himself so that's pretty badass if I do say so myself!). It's funny because one of the other players was a playing a pre-Ghoul (he really wanted to, how can I say no to that?) and ended up being Ghoul'd by that same player (so now you a Ventrue PC with a Ghoul straight-out from the start, hah hah...).

I always get the best players, ahhhh....

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;930762Just... everything. Apart from your first paragraph.

I'll lead-in: Vampire is fucking brilliant for personal horror. Dude, like, have your players *actually* sound out feeding. Like, that is powerful stuff. I've never had a player feed just like *that* without thinking about it once they've been forced to sound it out and really go at it while I describe all the gory, lurid, intoxicating (to the character, of course!) detail. One of the best ones I did was a dude who ended losing his hunger frenzy roll and just straight devoured a pregnant woman's neck on a NYC subway train in full view of a handful of other passengers. She was fucked: just straight dead, gored open, white-pupils dead. Player freaked the hell out during and afterwards -- man, did he play differently after that (and he was trying to play a half-decent dude so that was even worse)! And I'm talking sounds man: my favorite descriptor is a juicy watermelon 'n' when you're tryin' 'ta getcha' mouth in there and chew it all up, that soft watery-crunch sound and dribbling sucking sound of the melon juice (it was so wrong, on so many levels, but that's why its so effective time and time again).

Anyway, that's just ONE example of Vampire's system and atmosphere coming together nicely for personal horror.

That doesn't rebut any of my criticisms. It's at a complete right angle. It supports my claim about player investment. You're talking about choreographing a violent, brutal murder in order to horrify and disgust your players. I was talking purely about the mechanics and where they didn't work.

To reiterate:

• The conscience and integrity mechanics are broken so that having high ranks makes it easier to shrug off monstrous acts.
  
• Losing humanity has little effect other than inflicting derangements or banes.
• There's no conflict between maintaining high humanity and gaining a laundry list of supernatural powers (from a transhumanist perspective this is nonsensical).
• Paths of enlightenment and touchstones exist to let players do whatever they were going to do anyway without dinging humanity.

Another vampire game (reviewed here) uses similar concepts but takes a distinctly different approach. It's humanity mechanic is streamlined in comparison and combines what VTX treats as separate but related mechanics. Humanity is a tug-of-war between human traits (equivalent to VTX's humanity, attributes, abilities, backgrounds, merits, touchstones, etc) and vampiric traits (equivalent to VTX's disciplines, devotions, requiems, masquerades, paths of enlightenment, etc). There's a few other things but that's the gist of it.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;930764Fuck Personal Horror. I said it once and I will say it again!

Ain't no room for pretentious whiny bullshit in my WoD games, I can tell you that! That's why I am still working on my Big Eyes Small Mouth rules conversion of Vampire. I'll show those stuck-up Goths and Punks who's boss!

In fact, my next WoD character will carry a katana. Suck on that, pretentious Gothic-Punk emo edgelords!

(rant over)

But seriously, anyone else do rules conversions for VTM?

As I mentioned a few pages ago I am currently converting VTX to that other vampire game I mentioned. I'm also drawing on other RPGs and homebrews for ideas. One strain is a mashup of VTM nagaraja, Everlasting ghouls, Wicked Dead ghouls, and Zombie The Coil. Another is a mashup of Hammer Horror, Slavic folklore, and VTX tzimisce, gangrel and nosferatu. Sub-strains thereof allow even more customization.