Quote from: Warthur;789163

Quote from: RPGPundit;789158Alternatives to World of Darkness?

Well, I guess there's radical lobotomy...

According to Ron Edwards there's no real difference.

Forgites can now emulate Edwards' concept of "trad RPG-induced brain damage" by playing Dungeon World.

Quote from: James Gillen;789477I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

JG

Hey, Tom Waits.

God, I had to do some research. You are all way deeper into this than I am. Didn't the Ron E. dude say something against the WW railroading? And is the Forge method absolutely not railroading and not similar to WW storytelling? Despite being called narrativism?

Btw, I think more WoD players play D&D than the Forge or Storygames. I never heard form those games untill I came to this site.

Edit:
I found an article from Ron Edwards while he was talking about GNS theory. While not the most complete classification of games I still got what he said about the WoD. It is a simulationist game (the rules simulate being a vampire for example) but it has narrativist game master advice. Put on top of that the sandbox like setup with a lot of NPC's, locations and factions and that all make it even worse to play scene by scene.

Quote from: 3rik;789543But Forgites can now emulate Edwards' trad RPG-induced brain damage by playing Dungeon World.

So Dungeon World is indie, but it doesn't get the Forge approval stamp? I am clueless here.

Actually I get way more worked up by bad music than with bad games. I hate you, Nickelback. :mad:

So maybe I should just step out of this discussion. :confused:

Dungeon World is apparently Forge-approved emulation of old school gaming, though I'm not sure this was on purpose. I believe a WoD kind of game using the Apocalypse World engine is in the making, so Forgies can then also emulate WoD without losing hipster cred.

Quote from: 3rik;789624Dungeon World is apparently Forge-approved emulation of old school gaming, though I'm not sure this was on purpose. I believe a WoD kind of game using the Apocalypse World engine is in the making, so Forgies can then also emulate WoD without losing hipster cred.

Its called Urban Shadows: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1287928832/urban-shadows-rpg. Arguably, Monster Hearts and Monster of the Week can do WoD too.

Quote from: Skywalker;789646Its called Urban Shadows: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1287928832/urban-shadows-rpg. Arguably, Monster Hearts and Monster of the Week can do WoD too.

What's that game called again?

Quote from: jan paparazzi;789710what's that game called again?

Urban Shadows

Quote from: jan paparazzi;789259Is it mostly the Metaplot you are against? Because the new games don't have that. If not the Metaplot, then what else?

The metaplot, sure, but mainly the pretentiousness and the totally undeserved claims of superiority over the "unwashed masses" who play D&D.

And no, in the case of WoD its not just the fans, it's very literally the game itself, its right there in the GM-advice of the nWoD book.

Quote from: RPGPundit;790063The metaplot, sure, but mainly the pretentiousness and the totally undeserved claims of superiority over the "unwashed masses" who play D&D.

And no, in the case of WoD its not just the fans, it's very literally the game itself, its right there in the GM-advice of the nWoD book.

Ah, yeah I know what you mean. It's the scene by scene way of GM'ing. Scenes, chapters, stories and finally chronicles. I felt that part very contrived. It was more in the way than helping me as a GM. My games are usually one long session with occasional downtime.

I hope they ditch that part in the 2nd edition. I like stories, but I think plot based doesn't work in an RPG, because you can't control the main characters. I think character based storytelling works the best. The weird thing is this all feels very tacked on. WoD could be perfectly sandboxed, especially with all those aspirations (if you apply them to the NPC's).

My biggest problem with the newer games is they got rid of all the interesting origins of all the factions. Those origins gave a good impression what those splats were all about. A show don't tell blueprint. Now all the origins are very obfuscated, usually having multiple explanations to "enhance the mystery". To me this is the dumbest thing ever. A game with ancient vampires, but without a sense of history? Because they can't remember it so well anymore?

The claims of superiority WoD games have been making right there in the books since the very beginning and the general pretentious tone are indeed rather off-putting.
There's plenty of players who never took to it, though, and just ran WoD like the sandbox game of occult supers it actually is.

Quote from: Skywalker;789748Urban Shadows

Powered by the Apocalypse Turd Engine.

I must have read WoD books from some parallel timeline because I don't recall a single line putting down non-WoD gamers.

I've certainly got the attitude from some individuals, maybe twice, back in the mid-1990s and all in the LARP scene. But most of the crew I LARPed with we're D&D fans and in fact we played a hell of a lot of AD&D 2e and GURPS.

Quote from: The Butcher;790229I must have read WoD books from some parallel timeline because I don't recall a single line putting down non-WoD gamers.

I've certainly got the attitude from some individuals, maybe twice, back in the mid-1990s and all in the LARP scene. But most of the crew I LARPed with we're D&D fans and in fact we played a hell of a lot of AD&D 2e and GURPS.

I never heard them talking about Fate, the Forge or Storygames either. The people who play it, play mainstream RPG's like D&D. Cthulhu is pretty rare either. But D&D, yeah, a lot play D&D.

The WoD core is pretty pretentious. For example this:

"And that brings us to Storytelling. Many roleplaying games are more concerned with rules and statistics than the drama created within the game. Some people call those roll-playing games, since they're more focused on dice rolling than role-playing. Storytelling certainly provides for a simple and consistent set of rules, but it seeks more than just dice rolls and character sheets. Storytelling is about drama, the wonder of a make-believe tale told by the players."

Or this:

"Unlike child's play or corporate roleplaying, Storytelling can strive to be an art form. This might sound pretentious, but anybody who's played roleplaying games long enough has experienced more than one epiphany, a moment when the game seems to become a living entity, a Muse dictating strange and wonderful things to the players. These moments are worth striving for."

You say pretentious, I say trying to encourage people to think of other ways of gaming.

I mean, yeah, sometimes people invent stuff themselves, but sometimes people experience nothing but 'clear room A3, clear room C1a, search for secret doors, random encounter, clear room A1' games and feel frustrated, and lack direction or guidance to help their friends give it a shot.

Now, mind you, the distance between the game rules and what they were tying to accomplish was... large. But I think they helped encourage a lot of development and design that would eventually foster things like Fate.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;790237"Unlike child's play or corporate roleplaying, Storytelling can strive to be an art form. This might sound pretentious, but anybody who's played roleplaying games long enough has experienced more than one epiphany, a moment when the game seems to become a living entity, a Muse dictating strange and wonderful things to the players. These moments are worth striving for."

Shame I have those moments when I was playing DnD far more than any storyteller/storytelling game.  Oh wait that maybe because you can use any system and just fucking role play it out instead of assuming the game system creates the role play.

Quote from: Snowman0147;790254Shame I have those moments when I was playing DnD far more than any storyteller/storytelling game.  Oh wait that maybe because you can use any system and just fucking role play it out instead of assuming the game system creates the role play.

Yeah, the best roleplaying moments I've experienced in RPGs have had pretty much nothing to do with the rules... and if anything happened in spite of them, having much more to do with who was sitting at the table.

Quote from: Will;790251You say pretentious, I say trying to encourage people to think of other ways of gaming.

The intent might be praiseworthy, but the language undermines it... and IS pretentious.
Back in that day it would have appealed to me though, because I had a hate on for what I saw as D&D/roll-playing/class-level/power fantasy gamers who wanked over character sheets full of large numbers.
Then I mellowed out, mostly.