Quote from: trechriron;1130015If 8 different supernatural types have "multiple actions and unnatural speed", I would want that to work one way, not 8 different ways.

I wouldn't mind seeing 8 different ways, as long as they work smoothly together and represent fundamentally different things, and have distinctly different mechanics. For instance, vampires become invisible by clouding the mind, fey can't be seen except by the innocent, mages warp light, and werewolves can become one with nature.

Quote from: trechriron;1130015It's a fine goal. But frankly, I would want to see a core system that is used to tie all the supernatural types together. Trying to memorize 100 different power lists is tedious. There should be a core system with powers, then supplements detailing the supernaturals. You could do it like a) basic system with basic powers for normals then b) the supernatural powers supplement for more powerful types then c) a series of books detailing each supernatural type with suggestions on how to put them in as foes or play them. If 8 different supernatural types have "multiple actions and unnatural speed", I would want that to work one way, not 8 different ways.

Oh yeah, I feel the exact same way. Always have. That's why I liked The Everlasting and WitchCraft: they used the same superpowers mechanics for all splats.

Right now I think that Godbound's word and gift mechanic might be a great way to represent superpowers.

How familiar are you with that mechanic?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1129990You can't expect an equivalent competitor to just pop into existence.

The two key ways to SWIFTLY steal market share from the dominant player are Innovation and Marketing.

There have been plenty of RPGs over the decades which could have stolen a chunk of WoD's thunder, but they lacked money to market their game and provide an infrastructure to draw in new players and GMs. Disruption on an industry is very expensive and high risk. It's not something worth doing in RPGs because the ROI isn't there. Paizo was in a unique place to use WotC's own marketing against them. We all know every edition loses chunks of fans, so Paizo marketed to them. "Here is 3.5 again with new artwork" was all they needed to rally their fanbase.  

That leaves Innovation. The problem with RPGs is plenty of them "innovate", but not in ways that matter. AKA, all the new chargen methods, dice resolution methods and settings don't fundamentally change how people play RPGs. AKA, the "innovations" aren't enough for people to abandon the dominant company. White Wolf DID innovate in the 90s - especially by taking RPGs off the table into LARPs - and the gameplay of WoD settings IS different from how most people played D&D.

HOWEVER...fuck all of that.

If you are passionate about creating an Urban Horror RPG, do it because you're passionate about the project.

Then gather a pile of disposable income you're cool with risking and target your potential audience. Instagram marketing - done smartly and tactically - has an excellent ROI. A good ad campaign should garner a 5:1 ROI short term and an 8:1 ROI long term IF you sell supplements and ancillaries to your developed audience.

Guys I been busy, but I do have things to show off for later.  Lets just say you play as some Ashwood Abbey hunter with the files off who is going to get his just deserts.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130017Oh yeah, I feel the exact same way. ...
How familiar are you with that mechanic?

I have not picked that up.

Quote from: trechriron;1130029I have not picked that up.

It's essentially a syntactic magic system. A word is an aspect of reality that the character may manipulate to perform miracles. A character may buy a miracle as a gift, which makes it much easier to perform. A character may buy gifts for words they don't have, too.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1129960Does anybody want to discuss more world building?

For example, if we wanted to make a "animate" splat, there's a bunch of public domain inspirations you could use instead of copying Promethean.

The homunculus of medieval alchemy, made of flesh grown in an alchemical laboratory.

The golem of Jewish folklore, animated from clay by Kabbalah lore.

The galatea of Greek myth, animated from stone by a desire for companionship.

The automaton of Greek myth, animated from metal by the divine forge.

The pinocchio of Italian fairytale, animated from wood by a father's love.

The nephele of Greek myth, animated from cloud by divine trickery.

The moowis of Algonquin folklore, animated from snow by a suitor spurned.

The scarecrow, animated from cloth and straw.

Etc.

I always like discussing world building. WoD style world building is particularly interesting to me. My husband and I have created a number of new WoD style creature types - cambions (part demon, part human), djinn, and hobgoblins. They all need a bit more fleshing out.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1129688...maybe mnemophagy? It's from Ancient Greek mnemo- meaning memory and -phagy meaning eating. Thus, "eating memory".

That's it, exactly. I had "consuming the soul" in mind, but I haven't decided if the soul exists as an actual thing in this game. I think yes, mostly because I need a tie to the Underworld.

Quote from: trechriron;1130015It's a fine goal. But frankly, I would want to see a core system that is used to tie all the supernatural types together. Trying to memorize 100 different power lists is tedious. There should be a core system with powers, then supplements detailing the supernaturals. You could do it like a) basic system with basic powers for normals then b) the supernatural powers supplement for more powerful types then c) a series of books detailing each supernatural type with suggestions on how to put them in as foes or play them. If 8 different supernatural types have "multiple actions and unnatural speed", I would want that to work one way, not 8 different ways.

You are correct, of course. OWOD must have had 27 different versions of Mind Control scattered throughout the books, all with different quirks and a different cost. The Vampire version required eye contact and was level 2. The Changeling version required you to wear a funny hat while reciting poetry and you needed some other thing called a Realm and was level X. The Mage version was awesome and was level 3. The Wraith version... actually, I think they could only make you sad.

The problem with this is you end up recreating Hero. Or Gurps. Or Mutants and Masterminds. And you spend all of your time trying to create The Perfect Generic System, when what you really want to do is make cool vampire (or changeling) groups.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1130128I always like discussing world building. WoD style world building is particularly interesting to me. My husband and I have created a number of new WoD style creature types - cambions (part demon, part human), djinn, and hobgoblins. They all need a bit more fleshing out.

I'm always open to new splats, but like others have said I prefer universal guidelines for superpowers that do the same thing. Each splat can have unique rules for weaknesses, learning powers, etc, but if every splat has a unique subsystem for powers it becomes unwieldy.

You should check out The Everlasting. It has a variety of character options like angels, genies, grail questers, and even elves. It was written by Steve C. Brown of Player's Guide to the Sabbat fame, presumably because he thought the dissociated settings and mechanics of World of Darkness were unwieldy. It's interesting because it tries to do a lot of what Chronicle of Darkness did, but IMO the implementation was better in a lot of ways. It has "torments" that serve a similar role to the morality meters but aren't linked to morality: e.g. the vampire torment is "damnation" which reflects how angsty they are rather than how humane. It even uses "blood-potency" (spelled with a dash) several years before VTR did, and allows vampires to steal other vampires' potency without killing them!

Quote from: Aglondir;1130137That's it, exactly. I had "consuming the soul" in mind, but I haven't decided if the soul exists as an actual thing in this game. I think yes, mostly because I need a tie to the Underworld.

Is the Underworld the actual afterlife or a limbo/purgatory realm?

One of the things I never liked about X of Darkness was their vague wishy-washy attitude to the afterlife that couldn't commit to any specific belief system. If it's not the afterlife, then don't call it the Underworld. IMO don't be afraid to let the PCs visit the actual heaven and hell, or summon the dead from them, either.

Quote from: Aglondir;1130138You are correct, of course. OWOD must have had 27 different versions of Mind Control scattered throughout the books, all with different quirks and a different cost. The Vampire version required eye contact and was level 2. The Changeling version required you to wear a funny hat while reciting poetry and you needed some other thing called a Realm and was level X. The Mage version was awesome and was level 3. The Wraith version... actually, I think they could only make you sad.

The problem with this is you end up recreating Hero. Or Gurps. Or Mutants and Masterminds. And you spend all of your time trying to create The Perfect Generic System, when what you really want to do is make cool vampire (or changeling) groups.

I'm confused. Are you saying don't invent a generic system from scratch and just use one that already exists?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130181I'm always open to new splats, but like others have said I prefer universal guidelines for superpowers that do the same thing. Each splat can have unique rules for weaknesses, learning powers, etc, but if every splat has a unique subsystem for powers it becomes unwieldy.

You should check out The Everlasting. It has a variety of character options like angels, genies, grail questers, and even elves. It was written by Steve C. Brown of Player's Guide to the Sabbat fame, presumably because he thought the dissociated settings and mechanics of World of Darkness were unwieldy. It's interesting because it tries to do a lot of what Chronicle of Darkness did, but IMO the implementation was better in a lot of ways. It has "torments" that serve a similar role to the morality meters but aren't linked to morality: e.g. the vampire torment is "damnation" which reflects how angsty they are rather than how humane. It even uses "blood-potency" (spelled with a dash) several years before VTR did, and allows vampires to steal other vampires' potency without killing them!

I feel a bit torn. WoD's main selling point is the setting, not the system. In theory you could have a completely generic system and run the WoD setting through that. There are a lot of specific mechanics in WW games that are pretty closely tied to the setting fluff and I think that fully capturing a setting is best done with some specialized rules. From most of the generic settings I've seen, they are better at emulating powers than they are drawbacks, and drawbacks are the bread and butter of most WW games.

I am curious though. I'll look into Everlasting.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1130186I am curious though. I'll look into Everlasting.

All of the big five books are available from drivethrurpg, but the magician's companion (which provides info on the reincarnating metamagician splat) is apparently only available on the used books market at exorbitant prices. Visionary Entertainment folded and the copyright owner Chip Dobbs has vanished off the face of the earth. The companion was the last book to be published in 2004, so the copyrights on the Everlasting IP will expire in ~2100. 80 years from now.

This is why I support copyright reform. Copyright should automatically expire after 14 years unless the owner buys extensions. Otherwise, it's not legal to archive orphaned works like The Everlasting books.

Spoiler

EDIT: There is an overview of the setting at this archived geocities page.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1130186I feel a bit torn. WoD's main selling point is the setting, not the system. In theory you could have a completely generic system and run the WoD setting through that. There are a lot of specific mechanics in WW games that are pretty closely tied to the setting fluff and I think that fully capturing a setting is best done with some specialized rules. From most of the generic settings I've seen, they are better at emulating powers than they are drawbacks, and drawbacks are the bread and butter of most WW games. .

I sympathize. For example, I feel the same way about humanity mechanics. Originally they were created by cyberpunk games in an attempt to keep players from turning themselves into superpowered robots. When they were ported to Nightlife and later Vampire, they seemed to become a lot more unwieldy. In Nightlife, for example, the humanity score could fluctuate wildly depending on the characters' actions.

The only game I ever saw get the humanity mechanic right was Feed. It only did so by adopting, and I'm not sure if I'm using this terminology correctly, a story game approach to describing character statistics. But it otherwise doesn't seem to fit the unpleasant stereotypes of story games that I've heard.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1130186I feel a bit torn. WoD's main selling point is the setting, not the system. In theory you could have a completely generic system and run the WoD setting through that. There are a lot of specific mechanics in WW games that are pretty closely tied to the setting fluff and I think that fully capturing a setting is best done with some specialized rules. From most of the generic settings I've seen, they are better at emulating powers than they are drawbacks, and drawbacks are the bread and butter of most WW games.

I think a lot of the setting crossed into the mechanics. Look at all the words they misappropriated for game use, like diablerie or amaranth, and how important they are to the setting, for instance. Or even the recently maligned different mechanics they had for marginally different super powers for every type of supernatural; those might have made mixed games difficult, but they also helped make each unique. HEROizing the World of Darkness would remove a lot of that flavor.

There's a lot of room for streamling or just wholesale swapping out mechanics -- I don't think the dice pool mechanic, for instance, is essential to the setting in any way. But making it too generic risks losing what made it compelling.

Quote from: trechriron;1130015It's a fine goal. But frankly, I would want to see a core system that is used to tie all the supernatural types together. Trying to memorize 100 different power lists is tedious. There should be a core system with powers, then supplements detailing the supernaturals. You could do it like a) basic system with basic powers for normals then b) the supernatural powers supplement for more powerful types then c) a series of books detailing each supernatural type with suggestions on how to put them in as foes or play them. If 8 different supernatural types have "multiple actions and unnatural speed", I would want that to work one way, not 8 different ways.

Throwing it out here: You could use 'After Sundown', either as starting point or as is.
It's open source and started the design process with more than vampires in mind as protagonist. There seems to be a an attempt of an second edition (https://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=57571), but seems stalling.

https://github.com/thegamingden/after-sundown
https://thegamingden.github.io/after-sundown/

Quote from: korwin;1130204Throwing it out here: You could use 'After Sundown', either as starting point or as is.
It's open source and started the design process with more than vampires in mind as protagonist. There seems to be a an attempt of an second edition (https://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=57571), but seems stalling.

https://github.com/thegamingden/after-sundown
https://thegamingden.github.io/after-sundown/

I'm familiar. I find the tone of the whole thing obnoxious and condescending. It's also really silly in parts, like listing "World Crime League" as a splat. I recommend checking out the review from the SomethingAwful "FATAL & Friends" review thread.