Quote from: Spike;851793Regarding Shadowrun and White Wolf...

some of the reasons for the similarities is that there was some sharing of design personnel at the top.  The name escapes me at the moment, but I seem to recall he has since died.  Now, I've always chalked up this guy to the use of the dice pool mechanic and other rule similarities, but based on what you guys have pointed out, it may be more pervasive than that.

Damnit... now I'm gonna be trying to think of the dude's name all damn day, and I don't have the time to simply research it via the interwebs

Tom Dowd? He worked on 2nd ed Shadowrun and Vampire? Dowd is listed as the one who carried over the dice pool system from Shadowrun over to Vampire. Still alive though I think?

Quote from: Ronin;851834I didn't know that was out already, very cool.

Only the player's guide and a map of Detroit. The gm's guide will be out in september (pdf) and october (print). The Detroit setting is very detailed. They really crammed a lot of info in 40 pages. It's from the same developer as The Accursed.

Quote from: RPGPundit;848761WW had tons of competitors, back when it was relevant. Its just they didn't choose to rip off the 'creatures of the night' theme, but rather the storytelling/metaplot/pretentious vibes. Even TSR got on that bandwagon for a while.

Yes, but the creature of the night theme packaged things together rather nicely and embedded a decent set of goals into the setting.  It wasn't perfect, but it was "political RPGs" with training wheels matched with a hot sector of the book market.  

Not that it was perfect, but at the time there were a lot of positive features to it.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;851997Only the player's guide and a map of Detroit. The gm's guide will be out in september (pdf) and october (print). The Detroit setting is very detailed. They really crammed a lot of info in 40 pages. It's from the same developer as The Accursed.

Being Jasons a Detroiter, I would hope the setting is detailed. Thats also one of the reasons I'm interested in this project. Being Detroit is practically in my backyard.

Quote from: trechriron;851736I've gone back over the God Machine Chronicle and I actually like many of the changes. I also liked nWOD when it came out. I ran a 1+ year VtM chronicle many moons ago. I always ignored the meta-plot. I appreciated the more "generic" approach of nWOD.

So, what are people's beefs with the nWOD2? It seems like a better tuned, better explained version of what they were trying to accomplish with nWOD1.

So anyone playing GMC nWODv2?

What are your problems with it vs oWOD or nWODv1?

For me it was style. None of the other companies could match WW/OP's sense of style. Eden came CLOSE, but not close enough.

Quote from: trechriron;852073So anyone playing GMC nWODv2?

What are your problems with it vs oWOD or nWODv1?

It's really a matter of taste and what I'm planning on running. GMC nwod is perfect for Mortal games, it really is. Far better than cWod ever was for it. Hell if I want to run Call of Cthulu I'll use GMC as the rules set...

As for Vampire, it's really a matter of personal preference. Neither system is superior for Masquerade vs Requiem. Both are excellent and both offer a different style of play. My group prefers Masquerade's setting so we play that more.

Again, Werewolf is about preference as well. Only this time, my group prefers Forsaken 2nd edition vs Apocalypse. I love Apocalypse, but the Wyrm is a somewhat narrow villain compared to everything you can do in Forsaken.

For Mage? It's not a question. I prefer Ascension's setting and rules to Awakening...Now, what I've seen from Awakening 2nd edition looks cool, but it's still not as cool as Ascension is... Also. Rotes.

Awakening requires you to purchase Rotes, it's like slapping all kinds of boundaries on the pure freedom and creativity of Ascension. I've ran Awakening Chronicles for the Camarilla and every game saw the same thing... Players hunt through all the rule books to find the very best Rotes they could, and just learned those... Anytime they wanted to do something, they would hunt through the rule book to find a rote that did it..

It encouraged this weird tool fixation.... You also have the fact Whitewolf broke all of their own rules they laid down for awakening magic when it came to rotes. Some rotes were just clearly better in everyway than others.

This compared to Ascension which simply had a chart of effects you could buy with success and asked "What do you want to do?" Yes, it meant it was slightly more difficult for players to figure out everything they were capable of...but it also encouraged far more creativity and less time of players looking up the rule book to decide which rote would work best in their situation...

Outside of that, well I'll need to see Wraith 20 and Changeling 20....and the 2nd edition versions of the other Nwod books... Conceptually I thought Geists were Lame and Wraith was awesome, so I'll probably prefer that....where as 2nd ed Lost sounds like it's combining the best aspects of Both Changelings into one.

Edit: I forgot to add... the thing I dislike most about Nwod is "Conditions". It's something very Fateish that's bolted onto the system and doesn't really work well in my experience... that and "Beats" for getting XP. Conditions and Tilts have the problem of every new book adding more and more, so you end up having to memorize or look up 50 different mini-things that can affect someone rather than just saying what a specific power does... or having a simple set of rules for advantages and disadvantages... I really don't like them so I don't use them..

Beats are the other thing, it's hard to keep track and remember when Beats are suppose to be handed out for each player, so I just award XP after games.

If you wanted to copy off FATE, then copy the thing that made it cool.  What I mean are the aspects that are unique to the character.  That would had taken care of the merit bulk problem.  Hell all they needed to do was fix xp cost, add some interesting setting, and then get some hard copies to market.

Instead they wasted space with tilts and conditions that only adds to bulk issue.  They change merits, but never fix the real issue which was again merit bulk.  While they did fix xp cost they brought in a new issue known as beats.  Now the issue with beats is that for ever five beats you get it becomes one xp.  So you got this illusion that xp is cheaper when in reality it takes a long time to enhance your character.  Not to mention you have two xp types to track which it is stupid.

Quote from: Snowman0147;852105If you wanted to copy off FATE, then copy the thing that made it cool.  What I mean are the aspects that are unique to the character.  That would had taken care of the merit bulk problem.  Hell all they needed to do was fix xp cost, add some interesting setting, and then get some hard copies to market.

Instead they wasted space with tilts and conditions that only adds to bulk issue.  They change merits, but never fix the real issue which was again merit bulk.  While they did fix xp cost they brought in a new issue known as beats.  Now the issue with beats is that for ever five beats you get it becomes one xp.  So you got this illusion that xp is cheaper when in reality it takes a long time to enhance your character.  Not to mention you have two xp types to track which it is stupid.

The Beat thing was to try and encourage "Roleplay", since you only get Beats for excepting dramatic failures and fulfilling your Virtue and Vices and Aspirations... But it leads to this sort of artificial play for exactly the reason you stated. You need at least 5 Beats a session to get your 1xp you end up with players trying to force themselves into situations to get those beats..

I'd much rather Players act naturally as they want their PC's to act and get XP for good roleplaying and accomplishing goals, not artificially forcing their characters into bad situations so they can try and get xp.

Also like I said... condition bloat. There's way to fucking many, there's like 10 alone for spirits and the various states they can be in. When really it's as simple as "Manifested", "In twilight", "Urging", "Possessing" that's four states and not very hard to keep track of.... The Flow Chart they made for spirit states is just damn confusing.

This is without even getting into things like Werewolf where each Auspice can inflict a different condition on a mortal as well as a different condition based on the great hunt ritual.

Yeah when you need a flow chart for spirits you got a problem.  Seriously they are making it more complicated than it should be.  Which by the is what I honestly didn't expect.  I thought they would streamlined the system to be run better.  

To add more I despise the FATE point economy because by default rules it is anti-role playing.  Name me one person that wants to fail?  No think of your character.  Do your character say, "Oh if I fail now I would lock up in the orc torture chamber, but I get a shiny fate point."  I would answer hell no to that.  Your character is going to try to avoid that horrible fate.  The fact that we have a system that not only encourages to make your character fail, but forces your character to fail is not role playing.

What the hell did they do with werewolf anyway?

Quote from: Mostlyjoe;852091For me it was style. None of the other companies could match WW/OP's sense of style. Eden came CLOSE, but not close enough.

Bleak nhilistic party at ground zero style. Combined with the whole "Play as monsters" aspect. Which Palladium also beat them to.

Quote from: Omega;852146Bleak nhilistic party at ground zero style. Combined with the whole "Play as monsters" aspect. Which Palladium also beat them to.

Whitewolf beat the pants off of Palladium however by being infinitely more accessible and actively attracting women to the game..

Shadowrun and Palladium may have had similar themes in some of their games, Chill as well.... but their some of the most complicated systems to master and don't have an easy concept like "Vampires" that attracts a female audience who had enjoyed Anne Rice novels and Vampire movies...

Throw in the LARP scene as well, an excuse to dress up in interesting clothes and you can see why Whitewolf cornered the market.

Quote from: Orphan81;852167Whitewolf beat the pants off of Palladium however by being infinitely more accessible and actively attracting women to the game..

Shadowrun and Palladium may have had similar themes in some of their games, Chill as well.... but their some of the most complicated systems to master and don't have an easy concept like "Vampires" that attracts a female audience who had enjoyed Anne Rice novels and Vampire movies...

Throw in the LARP scene as well, an excuse to dress up in interesting clothes and you can see why Whitewolf cornered the market.

Vampire was so absurdly easy to LARP. That was another boon for it. I was one of the early playtesters for it.

Nephilim seemed like a pretty good take on the formula. I think basically it's tough to get much traction copying a formula when there's already a clear leading brand.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;851814And sometimes, their politics bleed through their writing and makes for an uncomfortable read.

I'm looking at you Dark Ages 20.