Quote from: tenbones;862314So let's pretend Paradox pulls the license for World of Darkness from Onyx Path... for kicks and giggles tell me:

World of Darkness: Reloaded -

- Who gets the license?
- What is the system?
- How would you change it?

GO!

-Palladium
-Palladium
-Palladium!

It's by far the funnest result because of how many WoD swine would want to kill themselves on hearing the news.

Quote from: RPGPundit;863332-Palladium
-Palladium
-Palladium!

It's by far the funnest result because of how many WoD swine would want to kill themselves on hearing the news.

The real joke is that Palladium is more coherent.

JG

Well, I love Palladium (Nightbane even though I've never had a chance to play it, and Rifts which I've played a ton) and have played a ton of WoD as well.

Palladium has massive flaws (granted most of them are more editing issues and organization than problems with the system itself), but I'd much rather see WoD done with that system than with Savage Worlds.  

My dislike for Savage Worlds isn't so strong I'll turn a game down even if it's ran by a solid GM with a good group, but it's pretty low on the totem pole as far as systems I'd want to play.

This is almost certainly never going to happen in any case, though not too long ago I thought the same thing of Rifts and it ever having anything to do with any other system, and now Savage Worlds Rifts is going to be a thing (a thing I have absolutely 0 interest in, but a thing all the same).

Quote from: James Gillen;863342The real joke is that Palladium is more coherent.

JG

It is.... though maybe the most recent iteration of WoD has been made more so?  I stopped playing it beyond oWoD, and only have a small number of the first edition of the new WoD books, so my knowledge of the current game world is, well, lacking.

I think one thing that needs to be done in a new version of WoD is to make it much more coherent than any version I'm familiar with has been, and to not make it so strongly about one-creature-type games.  

In every Vampire or Werewolf game I've ever been in there's people wanting to play other things, and the game I had the most fun in was the one that said "oh what the hell, let's make this a big ridiculous kitchen sink and throw everything together". It was totally absurd, because the game wasn't intended to be played like that, but so much more fun.  If the game were actually made to work that way though, it would be much less absurd, work better mechanically, and maybe, just maybe, even more fun.

Now that it's been some years since I've played any WoD games, I can look back and see, there's a ton of other things I'd do differently, and yeah, that mostly comes down to my personal taste (and probably wouldn't make the game any better in most people's eyes), but making the different creatures less their own lines, and making things more coherent in the world would be a good step.

Quote from: Snowman0147;862499Damn, you too?  I usually go camp, or Rob Zombie.  Had you seen lords of salem music video?  I imagine that art style when I play nWoD.

Though I am trying to create a scary rpg setting.  Code name is perception effect.  I am trying to get that Jacob's Ladder feel.  As in you think your seeing things, but your not sure.  It uses a lot of pseudoscience, but that is only because that is the closest way to explain it.  Mainly because people don't know what they are dealing with.

Though I got some ideas.

- Vampires = Murderous Ghosts
- Werewolves = Infectious blood link to alien eldritch gods
- Mages = Obsession can be a dangerous thing
- Frankenstein = Transhumanism gone horrible wrong

I have similar ideas based on the indie game Feed. Feed is built around two things: the vampire as metaphor a la Monster Hearts (in this case addiction) and rules designed to support that metaphor, rather than promoting the writer's homebrew campaign setting. The backbone of the rules are two commandments: vampires must feed (not necessarily on blood) and the vampiric nature must oppose some other nature (in this case humanity). Other than that the actual metaphysical rules for vampirism are up to the group, which provides far greater flexibility. The second commandment is the basis for character traits: human traits are described in narrative terms rather than specific attributes and skills, and as the vampire's addiction worsens they replace human traits with vampiric ones.

This design paradigm sounds pretty good to me. The two commandments may be abstracted as "what do they DO?" and "what is the main conflict?" These two questions provide a starting point for other monster games. For example, lycanthropes "change" and "struggle between two worlds," whereas ghosts "haunt" and "struggle to move on with their lives." As for magic-users a good theme would be "power corrupts," but at this point I am running out of good metaphors.

Pundit did say magic users suffer from obsession while on the road to enlightenment.  So you can use struggle as obsession vs enlightenment.

Quote from: Snowman0147;863849Pundit did say magic users suffer from obsession while on the road to enlightenment.  So you can use struggle as obsession vs enlightenment.

That's not something you would reasonably expect a fairly normal person to experience or understand. Addiction, bereavement and so forth are things that most people have either gone through or know someone who has. This metaphor for a real world issue gives the game an extra layer of appeal. Esoteric subjects like "enlightenment" generally appeal to the more eccentric tastes. It is not something most writers write well, if at all. (Remember the flood of death threats when Mage: Revised was released? I do not want to attract those sorts of people.) The "dark magic versus light magic" theme, on the other hand, has greater cultural pull.

Quote from: tenbones;862314So let's pretend Paradox pulls the license for World of Darkness from Onyx Path... for kicks and giggles tell me:

World of Darkness: Reloaded -

- Who gets the license?
- What is the system?
- How would you change it?

GO!

Oh, it would certainly go to either Steve Hickey Games, the guys who made "Undying", or Andrew Medeiros' "Urban Shadows" - two WoD remakes under the Apocalypse World system. I haven't had a chance to play Undying yet, though it's basically all the political conflict of VtM with none of the cruft. Urban Shadows is in a similar vein, though it covers basically all of the splats.

These are both games that have done WoD better than WoD does, I think.

I'll check'em out!

Quote from: miedvied;863903Oh, it would certainly go to either Steve Hickey Games, the guys who made "Undying", or Andrew Medeiros' "Urban Shadows" - two WoD remakes under the Apocalypse World system. I haven't had a chance to play Undying yet, though it's basically all the political conflict of VtM with none of the cruft. Urban Shadows is in a similar vein, though it covers basically all of the splats.

These are both games that have done WoD better than WoD does, I think.

I think I once posted a list of urban fantasy games that were antecedents, contemporaries, heartbreakers, and reactions to World of Darkness. Basically, the antecedents and contemporaries came out shortly before or after but were not directly influenced by WoD (e.g. Nightlife, Nephilim, Immortal: Invisible War, Nightbane, In Nomine, Kult). The heartbreakers were directly influenced by it and range from suspiciously similar substitutes (e.g. C.J. Carella's Witchcraft, Armageddon), to parodies (e.g. Everlasting, Cold Hard World, Rapture: The Second Coming, Fireborn), to early retroclones (e.g. Opening the Dark), to rules lite (e.g. Jared Sorenson's Vampire, Blood Beast Man), to bad ripoffs (e.g. Vampire: Undeath). The newest games, the reactionaries, are loosely similar and generally better designed from a mechanical and thematic standpoint (e.g. Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows, Undying, Feed).

Ignoring for a moment all the detritus that has accumulated over the years, what statement encapsulates the essence of each World of Darkness title?

Vampire is, in both incarnations, about "A beast I am, lest a beast I become." They steadily lose their humanity and become monsters. IMO the rules did not support this well.

Werewolf is, in both incarnations, about dualism and balance. Werewolves are creatures of multiple conflicting natures (man vs beast, spirit vs flesh, rage vs harmony) that fight to preserve balance (stop the weaver and wyrm, police the boundaries).

Mage is, in both incarnations, about freedom versus control. The technocracy stifles and shepherds the masses while the traditions fight to give everyone the right to chose, the seers of the throne keep the masses ignorant of their potential while the diamond orders seek to unlock that same potential. There is moral ambiguity to both sides so YMMV.

Wraith is a metaphor for surviving great trauma, resolving your problems, coming to terms your grief and moving on with your life. Unfortunately, the writers and their metaplot obsession ended up making the game absurdly bleak above and beyond the basic premise. The sequel Orpheus takes a more proactive approach by expecting the characters to help ghosts crossover as a profession, at least until the metaplot took over.

The two incarnations of Changeling are too different to be directly compared. Dreaming is supposed to be about never giving up on your dreams even when life gets you down. Lost is about surviving and escaping human trafficking and building or rebuilding a new life without losing hope.

Mummy (but not Resurrection), I suppose, is about staying the same while the world moves on without you. I think it would be better to focus on Immortals in general rather than mummies specifically while trying carefully not to step on the toes of Vampire.

Hunter, in both incarnations, is about vigilantism and "he who fight monsters." Hunters fight monsters but may themselves exhibit metaphorically or even physically monstrous behavior. Monsters may not always be what they seem to be.

Like Changeling, the two incarnations of Demon are too different to compare. Fallen has demons waking up in the modern day, forced to adapt and driven to find a new purpose. Descent is about espionage against your former corporate employer while he sends bounty hunters after you.

Kindred of the East, Resurrection, Geist, and Inferno all deal with varying forms of bodily possession. Cathayans, Amenti, and sin-eaters were resurrected and now share their body with a passenger. The possessed sold their bodies for power. Cathayans and possessed deal with a rapacious selfish passenger, while Amenti and sin-eaters do not get much helping or hindering from their passenger aside from the resurrection and nifty powers. I do not find these games very interesting.

Promethean is about becoming a real boy. Of course there are tons of obstacles tacked on by the writers, but that is basically it.

Beast is about being a pretentious jerk. I am not joking, they are written to all be enormous jerks. Think all the worst parts of Dreaming with an extra helping of SJW agenda.

Deviant is about being a freak of nature. No, that's it. All the other miscellaneous monster concepts that involve a formerly normal person being mutated into a superhero go in here. Doctor Jekyll, the Invisible Man, Brundlefly, whatever.

At this point, I cannot write a heartbreaker or retroclone without relying heavily on something that has already been written. If I wanted to do "World of Darkness but better" then the best I can think of would be a mashup of Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows and Feed. Monsterhearts has the "monster as metaphor" formula refined to an art, Urban Shadows has politics and corruption supported by mechanics, and Feed all but redefines the relationship between mechanics and themes (it is the vampire equivalent of All Flesh Must Be Eaten).

Quote from: tenbones;862314So let's pretend Paradox pulls the license for World of Darkness from Onyx Path... for kicks and giggles tell me:

World of Darkness: Reloaded -

- Who gets the license?
- What is the system?
- How would you change it?

GO!

- Have no idea
- I'm fine with The Storyteller system but if Onyx Path retains it will go with their system that will be for Scion and Trinity
- Make it unified like Witchcraft, I'd be fine with going hidden as usual given NWoD 2e actually has the "why" make sense and be totally workable. Open is definitely doable but it'd be more like other existing games that are damn good, like Dresden Files, Shadowrun, Witchcraft etc.

None of which have the horror aspect. So I'd keep it a hidden world game like now.

Quote from: Simlasa;862493I'd definitely want to play Hunter like Supernatural... or at least aspects of that show that I like... the early series where they were hunted by the law as well as the demons and things were looking bleak.

Isn't this what Hunter the Vigil is (at least on Tier 1)? I mean single cell Hunter is like this, except without much of the lore. Hunter's setting is more conceptual. Monsters exist and hunters kill them. There is no origin story or history unless you import it.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;864118Ignoring for a moment all the detritus that has accumulated over the years, what statement encapsulates the essence of each World of Darkness title?

Vampire is, in both incarnations, about "A beast I am, lest a beast I become." They steadily lose their humanity and become monsters. IMO the rules did not support this well.

......entire post

Deviant is about being a freak of nature. No, that's it. All the other miscellaneous monster concepts that involve a formerly normal person being mutated into a superhero go in here. Doctor Jekyll, the Invisible Man, Brundlefly, whatever.

*Seriously? Deviant? Upcoming new game? They really don't know what they should come up with anymore, do they?

Anyway, all games have themes that rarely come up during play, get old hat pretty soon and are indeed (you are right) poorly supported mechanically.

I think most games focus on politics or conflicting views between factions. The summer court wants to fight danger, the autumn court wants to hide from it and the winter court wants to study danger and then fight it with magic. Mixed views creates internal conflict. I am usually more interested what's happening outside of these supernatural communities. Some games are more combat focused like Hunter and Werewolf, but the faction focus is always there. They should call it Mixed Views the Hassle.

Btw, aren't the so called "reactionaries" like Bleed and Urban Shadows just Storygames?

Ok here a list of five things I don't like about the WoD:

• Metaplot (oWoD)
• No rich backstory (nWoD)
• Flowerly language (both oWoD and nWoD)
• Bad layout (both editions)
• Not flexible enough (oWoD and nWoD*)

*NWoD has roughly the same setup as those Tropico games. You have different factions in those games like the capitalists, the socialists, the nationalists, the environmentalists etc. Those factions exist in every country around the world but are slightly different everywhere.
Well, that's the flexibility of the nWoD in a nutshell. Slightly adaptable factions. VtR Bombay is slightly different from VtR Moscow or VtR Buenos Aires. It's very limited and doesn't go beyond it's core concept.

So we need a company who can pull off either a very fleshed out rich background for modern horror/urban fantasy games or provide us with a real toolkit that can be used for whatever the GM wants. Preferably both.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;864528Ok here a list of five things I don't like about the WoD:

• Metaplot (oWoD)
• No rich backstory (nWoD)

What they need is a backstory that doesn't become a metaplot that you can't move out of.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;864596What they need is a backstory that doesn't become a metaplot that you can't move out of.

JG

Yessss!. It's really simple to make. Make a short history chapter with events that are relevant to the players and then don't expend on it in supplements.