Non-Political NWoD Thread

[tenbones]

You know its really pathetic and sad that in this day and age of game design failure. The best a fan can hope for is that their favourite game is NOT remade.

QFT.

[BoxCrayonTales]

On a more constructive note, I wanted to share some ideas I had for my vampire setting.

In addition to the bazillion bloodlines, vampires can be either the romantic self-loathing stereotype a la Anne Rice or the amoral demon-possessed stereotype a la Buffy and b-movies, or start as one and transition into the other. You're totally allowed to play evil vamps and even try to gain humanity in reverse of White Wolf's standard (like how Jerry Dandrige apparently tried)... or you can play as a party of psychopaths competing for atrocity points. That's fine too. I won't tell you you're playing the wrong way, even if I personally have difficulty understanding the appeal unless it's a comedy.

I also got ideas for three types of "fledglings" after reading a Buffy fanfic: suicide bombers, minions, and vampire sons/daughters. Suicide bombers are created as disposable and retain none of their human intelligence and memories besides being able to relay a simple message to their target before getting killed. Minions are smart enough to follow orders and perform complex tasks, but not enough to think for themselves and form a union. Vampire sons/daughters retain all their human intelligence and memories, and are basically the royalty of the vampire world. All of them lack impulse control, although the third type can relearn that behavior.

[HappyDaze]

I also got ideas for three types of "fledglings" after reading a Buffy fanfic: suicide bombers, minions, and vampire sons/daughters. Suicide bombers are created as disposable and retain none of their human intelligence and memories besides being able to relay a simple message to their target before getting killed. Minions are smart enough to follow orders and perform complex tasks, but not enough to think for themselves and form a union. Vampire sons/daughters retain all their human intelligence and memories, and are basically the royalty of the vampire world. All of them lack impulse control, although the third type can relearn that behavior.

That seems a weird angle for a Buffy-based fanfic. I can see it with some other vampire-based takes, but the Buffy "It's not you, it's a demon wearing your corpse" seems like a poor fit for that. I know the original idea (and the link to Buffy) wasn't yours, but I just found it odd. OK, tangent over.

[BoxCrayonTales]

That seems a weird angle for a Buffy-based fanfic. I can see it with some other vampire-based takes, but the Buffy "It's not you, it's a demon wearing your corpse" seems like a poor fit for that. I know the original idea (and the link to Buffy) wasn't yours, but I just found it odd. OK, tangent over.

They were still vampire demons devoid of conscience. It was just meant as a simple explanation for why vampires in the Buffyverse display such a variety in general competence.

[BoxCrayonTales]

I never got the appeal of Geist. I always though the concept was too niche to justify its own books. I would have preferred a game about PCs who could be ghosts, projectors, mediums, reapers, etc. Instead we got that weird underworld cosmology loosely imported from Wraith: The Oblivion. Geist was never as popular as Wraith, and Wraith got cancelled due to low sales.

[GeekEclectic]

I never got the appeal of Geist. I always though the concept was too niche to justify its own books. I would have preferred a game about PCs who could be ghosts, projectors, mediums, reapers, etc. Instead we got that weird underworld cosmology loosely imported from Wraith: The Oblivion. Geist was never as popular as Wraith, and Wraith got cancelled due to low sales.

That's how 1e sounded to me. It was one of those things I was surprised to see get its own full-sized corebook instead of just being a regular (new) World of Darkness antagonist book. Reading the 2e kickstarter material turned things around. They added a lot and really fleshed things out. Tons of focus on what you, as a Geist, actually do. I ended up backing it at the digital level after being totally uninterested in 1e. (It also doesn't hurt that I kind of like the rules changes that accompanied the 2e name change from World to Chronicles.)

[BoxCrayonTales]

That's how 1e sounded to me. It was one of those things I was surprised to see get its own full-sized corebook instead of just being a regular (new) World of Darkness antagonist book. Reading the 2e kickstarter material turned things around. They added a lot and really fleshed things out. Tons of focus on what you, as a Geist, actually do. I ended up backing it at the digital level after being totally uninterested in 1e. (It also doesn't hurt that I kind of like the rules changes that accompanied the 2e name change from World to Chronicles.)

To be entirely honest, you could say all the corebooks could have been antagonist books or, conversely, that all antagonist books could be expanded into corebooks.

Simply fleshing it out doesn't make Geist more interesting. The concept itself simply doesn't have the cultural cache or romanticism of, say, vampires or wizards or actual ghosts. It makes more sense as one character option out of several rather than its own. A game adapted from Dead Like Me sounds more interesting.

After the big five of Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Ghost and Fae, White Wolf started scrapping the barrel and there's really no way to hide that. Vampire: The Masquerade is still the big money maker, always has been, and everything else pretty much runs on the good will and nostalgia of long-time fans rather than merit. It's nowhere near as interesting after you get deprogrammed and start reading urban fantasy written by someone else. Now it comes across as arbitrary, restrictive, repetitive, self-derivative, and trapped in the worst parts of the 90s.

And to be entirely honest, the settings of the World of Darkness don't interest me. Geist in particular because of its focus on underworld adventures. Firstly, White Wolf's "underworld" is actually purgatory (and liberally lifted from Wraith: The Oblivion's labyrinth) and they're pointlessly butchering real mythology for no real benefit. Secondly, the PCs could go around dealing with ghosts and reaper-men on Earth instead rather than creating this pointlessly convoluted and contradictory cosmology where ghosts can still exist without anchors despite other books' mechanics suggesting that's impossible (which, again, is lifted from Wraith: The Oblivion's mechanics). Thirdly, if I wanted to go on underworld adventures then I would play Planescape or something because that's actually designed for that sort of thing whereas the White Wolf school of design leaves much to be desired. Fourthly, Geist is just a poor man's version of Wraith: The Oblivion/Orpheus; if you're going to be that derivative anyway, at least have the balls to just remake Wraith like that one unfinished fan-splat from way back in 2005.

I wouldn't be as annoyed by all that if I had other options. But World of Darkness holds a monopoly over urban fantasy (Shadowrun doesn't count because its cyberpunk too). There are no other options, or at least none with the literally hundreds of books that World of Darkness has. The Everlasting and WitchCraft each died after about five books each, despite having numerous mechanical innovations over World of Darkness like using universal guidelines for creating superpowers and making crossover easy to accomplish.

Brainwashed sycophants claim World of Darkness has top position and survived this long because it's simply better than its competitors and that trying to be creative or better emulate non-WoD urban fantasy is pointless. That's all obviously bullshit. World of Darkness got lucky... and that luck has run out. World of Darkness stopped making as much money after the 90s ended and despite launching the new world as a blatant marketing stunt, White Wolf kept declining (and despite what brainwashed revisionist historians would tell you, the new world didn't kill White Wolf, it was created vainly to stave off them already dying). World of Darkness, including their flagship Vampire, has continued declining into the present. That's why White Wolf got bought out by CCP, why they got dissolved into a holding company by CCP, and why they were later sold to Paradox. CCP couldn't figure out a way to make money and divested itself of White Wolf. It's pretty obvious that Paradox really only cares about the IP's potential for video games.

World of Darkness is destined to die out regardless of whether it gets woke or not. The bubble already burst back in the 90s/00s. So I'm just going to wait until the next big urban fantasy game comes out to take its place. I can't seem to find as much motivation these days to try making my own.

[DarcyDettmann]

Talking about alternatives to WoD, Night Shift: Veterans of The Supernatural War RPG is on kickstarter.

And i think the biggest problem of the Chronicle of Darkness/nWoD 2e is... They really need new freelancer who aren't shit and can't stopping injecting all kinda of useless cringe crap they put in the new books. I don't want to play my Werewolf Pack as a fucking Therapy Group-slash-Suicide Cult full of bare functional people, and a even more confusing mythology. I totally okay with playing Spiritual ICE agent and talking about Building a Wall or something to the Hisil.

[BoxCrayonTales]

Talking about alternatives to WoD, Night Shift: Veterans of The Supernatural War RPG is on kickstarter.

I'm sold. Not hard when the basic pitch is "you can emulate any of those urban fantasy TV shows you watched, and beyond!"

On a similar note, a few other urban fantasy games made in the last decade I remember include Dresden Files, Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows, and Liminal. For vamps specifically I remember Undying, Vampire City, and Feed. Blades in the Dark is a secondary world setting. I'm not including purely paranormal investigation games like Call of Cthulhu, Chill, Cryptworld, Monster of the Week, and so forth. Nor cyberpunk settings like Shadowrun.

[Simlasa]

As an alternative setting there's also After The Vampire Wars for Mythras.
Its vampires are now out in the open and conducting a tentative peace with humans... various other supernaturals feature in it as well.
I'd use its rules but not its setting... I'd rather aim it at something like the Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch series, where such things remain hidden.

[GIMME SOME SUGAR]

I never understood the thing/the greatness with WoD. What is it that you do within the confounds of that rpg? Are the vampires hideous like in Salem's Lot or are they shimmering? Are the werewolves like in The Howling?

[Simlasa]

I think the initial attraction was playing monsters... and there were different factions of vampires, so intrigue and politics went with it.
They're not sparkly vampires... and going by the TV movie of Salem's Lot, Mr. Barlow would be of the Nosferatu faction.

The werewolves could be like the ones from The Howling, yeah.

My interest in NWoD and Geist is mostly focused on the Hunter line... but I could see the Hunters having a Geist contact who they'd consult from time to time, or team up with when they had shared interests... thought to the Hunters the Geist might present as a 'medium' or 'shaman' and not reveal too many details about its true nature.

[Omega]

I never understood the thing/the greatness with WoD. What is it that you do within the confounds of that rpg? Are the vampires hideous like in Salem's Lot or are they shimmering? Are the werewolves like in The Howling?

They were all of the above and everything else. You had some that were like from the movie Nosferatu, you had some like they walked out of a goth club, some that looked relatively normal, some that were bio-mutants, some that could pass themselves off nearly as werewolves, and on and on.

What World of Darkness and others with a similar theme from that same time period tapped into were various popular books coming out a bit before that served as inspiration. Rice's Interview with a Vampire was a big influence on Vampire, Barker's Cabal/Nightbreed influenced others. The book and the movie The Howling probably served as a basis for Werewolf. And so on. Society of Monsters is not a new concept. But in the 80s and into the 90s it gained a resurgence with various horror authors.

The Howling came out in 77 and was made into a movie in 81.
Wolfen came out in 78 and was made into a movie in 81
Interview with the Vampire was written in 76 and did so-so. But Lestat in 85 did well and seems to have been the spark of interest in the series for some. And made into a movie in 96
Cabal/Nightbreed came out in 88 and was made into a movie in 1990.

TSR put out the Ravenloft campaign setting in 1990.
Nightlife came out in 1990.
White Wolf and their Vampire RPG comes in the scene in 91 (Formerly Lion Rampant from 87-90 and White Wolf Magazine from 86 on.)
Palladium comes out with Nightbane in 95.

[BoxCrayonTales]

I never understood the thing/the greatness with WoD. What is it that you do within the confounds of that rpg?

The vampires are essentially modeled after Anne Rice's rules for her romanticized vamps, with "clans" and "bloodlines" tacked on as character class equivalents that double as cliques. Each clique essentially determines the PC's personality, beliefs about other cliques, cost break for superpowers, and weaknesses. For example, the "gangrel" class gives a cost break for superpowers involving animal empathy, shape shifting, and super toughness, and their weakness is that they exhibit animal features mentally and/or physically (the exact mechanic varies dramatically by edition).

Are the vampires hideous like in Salem's Lot or are they shimmering?

The nosferatu class is all ugly, all the time. Although how so and how much varies dramatically by edition and supplement. In one edition, they can acquire physical mutations that give various benefits. In another edition, they can look so beautiful that their beauty becomes repugnant.

Are the werewolves like in The Howling?

Not at all. They are hereditary guardians of balance. Depending on edition, they are either civilization-hating eco-terrorists or paranormal vice cops. And that's all they are. There aren't any cursed unfortunates, infectious bites, pacts with Satan, hounds of God, magic wolf pelts, or any of the other dramatically different ideas about werewolves found in folklore and fiction.

White Wolf was/is somehow able to write dozens of books about that very niche-sounding idea.

[jan paparazzi]

Politics. The major appeal for players is internal politics between the factions of the setting. When players talked about their setting it was usually about faction X who formed an alliance with faction Y and faction Z who ruled the city for decades, but is now doing poorly and trying to get more influence.
Second appeal are the gothic themes of the games. It's not a horror game in the sense that you have to fear being eaten by something (which can happen too), but it's not a superhero game either. There is some nasty, gritty stuff your character does and that makes the games mood dark and bleak.