So they wrote the game within a Western paradigm?  I don't see that as a big deal.  The concepts of those specific sins and virtues extends well beyond just Christian sects and into everyday Western society.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;387778Well, let's suppose you're right (I've never so much as cracked a WoD book, new or old).

What does it matter? If someone is a Christian, It is there right to write a Christianity-centric book. The same as a Buddhist is perfectly within their rights to write a Buddhism-centric book; a Muslim to write an Islam-centric book; a Shintoist to write a Shintoism-centric book and so on.

Your claim, if true (Again, I have no personal factual evidence either way), comes down to a complaint that "They wrote the books according to their religion!".


Or, let's look at the worst claim you could have here: That they are not writing the books according to their religion, but simply "going mainstream". That makes them hypocrits, but has nothing to do with the religion they chose, insofar as, to give an analogy, if Shintoism was the perceived mainstream, they would have written (Presuming the charge of hypocracy is true) a shintoism-centric book.


They are forcing no-one to do anything. It is impossible for them to do so by writing a role-playing game book.

I genuinely don't know what you're accusing me of saying. I'm saying that Justin Achilli went out of his way to put more Christian themes into a more central part of the game. And I think that's understandable, given that I assume he is a Christian.

But understandable or not, I also think it was a mistake, considering that the vampire fanbase traditionally ran around wearing ankhs and talking to each other about their blood drinking rape fantasies. College pagans or not, a very large chunk of the fandom are pagans, and it is unnecessarily divisive to side with one real-world religion.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;387765First off, the characters have Christian virtues and vices on their character sheet. Even mortals. Even non-Christian characters are required to define themselves within an explicitly Christian moral framework. Why can't a Buddhist character's virtue be Upekkha (Acceptance of Pride and Shame)? Why can't a Confucian character's virtue be Xin Yong (Trust)? Why do we have to accept Lust or Sloth as a vice?

Do you?

WoD Innocents for instance presents alternatives to the basic Sins and Virtues of the WoD book. There, instead of these, the players get to choose Assets (Calm, Creative, Dependable etc) and Faults (Brash, Cowardly, Cruel etc) that basically fulfill the same function mechanically (see WoD:I p. 87+). Guidelines are also provided to build your own Assets and Faults aside of the ones provided by the rulebook (p. 93).

So, sure, the default in the WoD book is the virtues and sins of Christian traditions (which can indeed apply from a Christian mindset to any individual, Christian or non-Christian), but there are variations of the system in print in other WoD books, like Innocents, here. I don't think that'd be much of a problem to just plug it into another game, or make up your own virtues and vices from there.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;387765Secondly, the vampire line (which let's face it: is the World of Darkness) has had its entire backstory replaced with one that is Jesus-centric. Half the sorcery has been replaced with Christ-themed prayer magic. And of the five available factions to be a member of, one of them is a Christian cult and another is a Christian order of knights from Romania.

You're speaking of the Lancea Sanctum, which has a specific discipline, Theban Sorcery, associated to it. Sure, that's a faction that is based off Christianity, and has a set of beliefs that are closely associated to that religion as well. This is the "Christian cult" faction you're talking about next, so that's redundant. By the same token, the Circle of the Crone is a collection of different Mother-associated beliefs as they relate to vampires. It has an associated ritualistic discipline, Cruac. Am I to assume following your logic that the game has been de-Christianized as well?

As for the Ordo Dracul being Christian, I got to ask: have you read the actual supplement about the Ordo Dracul? Implying it's Christian in the game is like saying that all Freemasons are Christian, which is nonsensical. It's a secret society with precise aims in terms of transcendence of the Vampire condition (via Coils of the Dragon, which doesn't strike me as a particularly Christian discipline ... ), and that's certainly not Christian in nature.

So really, what you're saying is that there's one covenant out of Five that is based off Christianity, and one discipline associated to it that is too Christian for your tastes. Okay. No. I'm not really seeing it, sorry.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;387782I genuinely don't know what you're accusing me of saying. I'm saying that Justin Achilli went out of his way to put more Christian themes into a more central part of the game. And I think that's understandable, given that I assume he is a Christian.

But understandable or not, I also think it was a mistake, considering that the vampire fanbase traditionally ran around wearing ankhs and talking to each other about their blood drinking rape fantasies. College pagans or not, a very large chunk of the fandom are pagans, and it is unnecessarily divisive to side with one real-world religion.

-Frank

Perhaps I was over-reacting to the perceived tone of phrases like "Forcing people to interact mechanically with a Christian moral framework is about as in-your-face as the religious proselytizing could possibly get short of putting "There is no god but Allah" or something equivalent on every page."

Quote from: FrankTrollman;387782But understandable or not, I also think it was a mistake, considering that the vampire fanbase traditionally ran around wearing ankhs and talking to each other about their blood drinking rape fantasies. College pagans or not, a very large chunk of the fandom are pagans, and it is unnecessarily divisive to side with one real-world religion.

-Frank

What stops College Pagans wearing Ankhs from playing Mekhets that belong to the Circle of the Crone, performing rituals of Cruac? Color me dense if you want, but I just don't see what you're seeing.

Accusing a company who in previous works made every religious figure who appeared within either a pedophiliac Catholic priest or a complete psychopath of "Christian proselytizing" may be just about the funniest thing I've seen written about WW since Justin Achilli tried to claim that "books can't be pretentious".

But... but... Christians!

Amirite?

Yeah, I don't know if Achilli tried to make it more Christian, but what astounds me is the fact that he actually intentionally tried to make it LAMER.

RPGPundit

Quote from: BenoistDo you?

WoD Innocents for instance presents alternatives to the basic Sins and Virtues of the WoD book. There, instead of these, the players get to choose Assets (Calm, Creative, Dependable etc) and Faults (Brash, Cowardly, Cruel etc) that basically fulfill the same function mechanically (see WoD:I p. 87+). Guidelines are also provided to build your own Assets and Faults aside of the ones provided by the rulebook (p. 93).

You know, I was about to launch into a whole spiel about how in Requiem for Rome they write up Jupiterists with Christian moral compasses as dictated by the core rules... but then I realized that was a stupid argument to have. There are more than one hundred books written for the New World of Darkness. The number of books I haven't read in that series substantially outnumbers the ones I have. I'm not going to read the entirety of a one hundred volume set to play quote / counter quote with you.

Quote from: RPG PunditYeah, I don't know if Achilli tried to make it more Christian, but what astounds me is the fact that he actually intentionally tried to make it LAMER.

There is some truth to that. The Old World of Darkness is well known for its excesses. And a lot of them were stupid in a SenZarrish way that ran counter to what the game was actually about: hitting on black clad women with relationship issues.

In a lot of ways, the New World of Darkness revolves around things to take out of the World of Darkness, rather than things to hold it together. Amazing when you consider the over ten million words of text they have spent describing the place. I was legitimately relieved when New Werewolf came around and they had taken out the mandatory dog rape. That was always a part of Old Werewolf that made me really uncomfortable. But they took out a bunch of other stuff too, and the result is that I can't actually think of a reason why I would engage with the Forsaken plotline at all.

Seriously. The Rage means that I can't stay in any one place for long or maintain human relationships. So why would I fight spirits or The Pure? They don't have anything I want except territory, and I can't hold any of that anyway. So if the Pure show up to fight me for territory, why wouldn't I just leave? The fact that we don't have secret nodes of Gaia power that we have to defend means that there's nothing left to fight over at all.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;387945The Rage means that I can't stay in any one place for long or maintain human relationships. So why would I fight spirits or The Pure? They don't have anything I want except territory, and I can't hold any of that anyway. So if the Pure show up to fight me for territory, why wouldn't I just leave? The fact that we don't have secret nodes of Gaia power that we have to defend means that there's nothing left to fight over at all.

As a huge fan o Forsaken, I'd like to tackle this, if you please.

I don't recall "I can't stay in any one place for long". In fact, IIRC, werewolves have to stand their ground, holding territory against malicious spirits, the Pure, other supernatural threats, and even other Forsaken. And some NPCs have held their territories for a long, long time (e.g. the Pickering household from Manitou Springs, or whatever the Denver book is called).

As for "I can't maintain human relationships", well, ain't that the truth. This happenbs because werewolves are preternaturally irascible, possessive and violent, and everything they hold dear turns to shite because, psychologically speaking, they're just wired wrong. They may still feel love for their spouses, or children, or friends, or other relations, but their bestial half-spirit natures, coupled with their dangerous lives and myriad enemies, makes it incredibly difficult to manage these relationships in a sane, reasonable and safe manner.

This, I feel, is part and parcel to the tragedy of being a werewolf. Why do you take up your ancestor's timeless war against the hungry spirit hordes? Maybe you do it because of duty, or tradition, or ambition. But maybe you do it because you have dim memories of loving and being loved by your human relations, and while you may loathe the curse that tore you from them, you may still feel that using the gifts that came with this curse to protect the human race is the Right Thing To Do. Or maybe you were a reticent warrior until one of the Forsaken's countless foes took your loved ones from you, and now you're out for some old-fashioned payback.

Don't get me wrong, I like Apocalypse, but Forsaken I love. In Apocalypse, the enemy threatened to destroy the world. But in Forsaken, to borrow the cliché... this time, it's personal.

Egads, look at what you made me do. Now I want to run me some Forsaken. One man's trash, etc.

In fact, "this time, it's personal" might as well be the motto of the new WoD. Mage is no longer about reality-defining metaphysical wars, but about people hoarding knowledge and power, and the consequences of its use. Vampire is still about being a murderous predator in a shadow society of Darwinian nocturnal politics, only minus the globe-spanning secret gun-fu lesbian stripper ninja conspiracies (you can still be a gun-fu lesbian stripper ninja witrh dreams of world conquest, though. Think global, act local). And so forth.

nWoD was just dull, dull, dull, deadly dull. The system was more dull, the graphic design more dull, the concepts and the lines more dull. It was much more rigidly defined than the oWoD (at least up to 2nd Edition) and made so much smaller and less interesting.

Mage in particular suffered in this transit, from a wide-ranging, all-encompassing, philosophically interesting game to a small-minded, dull, dumbed down pile of Theosophy-wank.

Quote from: GRIM;387967Mage in particular suffered in this transit, from a wide-ranging, all-encompassing, philosophically interesting game to a small-minded, dull, dumbed down pile of Theosophy-wank.

Now that I agree with. Mage: the Ascension on a background standpoint is infinitely better than Mage: the Awakening, IMO.

The only thing I hate about oMage is how restrictive some of the traditions feel, and how they do everything in their power within the implied setting to make playing an Orphan suck.

Atlantis sucks, but I feel like there's a little more wiggle room since they separate Paths from political organizations.

Me, I just blended Ars Magica and Nephilim with The Awakening, as far as Mages in my Paris by Night are concerned.

Quote from: GRIM;387967Mage in particular suffered in this transit, from a wide-ranging, all-encompassing, philosophically interesting game to a small-minded, dull, dumbed down pile of Theosophy-wank.

I'll take exception to this, too, and once more ride out in the defense of the nWoD.

I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of Ascension, it's still one of my favorite games. But at several gaming tables (mine included) it seldom if ever got played, as there was a widespread (in my corner of the Earth) perception that it was "too difficult" a game. I disagree, but it's still a hard sell with my players, who deem it too "philosophical" or "metaphysical" or whatever difficult word they feel like using today.

It's also a bit too gonzo for my tastes, and this coming from a man who loves Rifts. It's one thing to have ninjas, cyborgs and wizards in pointy hats duking it out in a war-blasted, demon-ravaged future. It's another for them to do so in the alleyways of a modern metropolis...

Quote from: Benoist;387981Now that I agree with. Mage: the Ascension on a background standpoint is infinitely better than Mage: the Awakening, IMO.

I'm fairly fond of the Awakening background. I feel the monomyth and the cosmology are flexible enough that it can fit anything from the Abrahamic "fall of Man", to Norse myth, to Buddhism, and of course Theosophy.

I also like how Awakening is such a subtler game. The Seers of the Throne are such a subtler take on the "freedom vs. control" theme, compared to the heavy-handed antagonism of the Technocracy (especially in Ascension 1e). Several Left-Handed Legacies (such as the Echo Walkers and the Logophages) are much, much subtler than the apocalyptic, ireedemable evil of the Nephandi.

The game really suffers on account of comparisons to Ascension. It's not, by any stretch, an acceptable substitute to that game. Awakening's premise is closer to Witchcraft, or GURPS Cabal, than to its oWoD counterpart. I liked that choice, as I feel it jives better with the rest of the WoD.

But I can see how the many fans who expected a new game in the same vein as Ascension, were in for a great deal of disappointment.

Since I do not have the slaes figures for either game, I cannot comment on Awakening's commerical success. But I feel WW was successful, at least, in making Awakening a game that stands apart from its forerunner.

Quote from: Benoist;387991Me, I just blended Ars Magica and Nephilim with The Awakening, as far as Mages in my Paris by Night are concerned.

Now there's something I'd like to see. However, I suspect your end-result is probably a lot closer to Awakening than you might realize.