TheRPGSite

So there's an OSR for lots of things now. Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Exalted... why not World of Darkness?

EDIT: For example, Opening the Dark (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRF8OzdA1D1rC_PaJwr3OzfqqSMgqAVRhBHm9A5LsmaMqaMB4JlwLb8-Jd9PkAlMyDRI2ZLBd7lzFOI/pub) is an OGL retroclone of the Storyteller rules.

Even more angsty than before?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1129565So there's an OSR for lots of things now. Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Exalted... why not World of Darkness?

I'd say it has to do with the specific setting itself.

WoD has been fucked over hard by radical setting changes since Revised Edition in 1999 at least, but the early setting of 1st Edition and the first few years of 2nd Edition were very good.

The problem is that a successful OSR take on WoD would have to be at least partly reliant on the WoD IP, at least the early material for it.

The original OSR with D&D is largely dependent on mechanics as opposed to a specific setting, which is where a lot of the initial nostalgia for WoD is for, even the pre-metaplot and pre-Revised materials from the early 90's.

Call of Cthulhu was able to develop its own OSR setting because the Mythos is partially in the public domain.

Just going "hurr durr make your own setting" is a half-ass "Some Other Game" cop out that the Goths and Punks who run White Wolf/Onyx Path have relied on to suppress any and all wrongthink

The initial drive for the OSR in D&D was largely mechanical. People didn't like the newer rules of D&D or WOTC's narrow focus on Forgotten Realms, and this came to a head with the release of the infamous 4th Edition in 2008.

The earliest OSR games were mostly generic clones of TSR-era D&D, mostly OD&D or Basic, although the first major one was OSRIC, a clone of AD&D 1E. It was assumed you used the clones since older versions of the rules were hard to find back then, and were often very rare and expensive in the case of early stuff like OD&D, Holmes Basic, or certain early 1E AD&D books.

The earliest OSR games were really meant to be used with either pre-existing modules and supplements from the TSR era or for a GM's homebrew setting.

The idea of the OSR games having distinct settings and lore of their own happened a bit later.

White Wolf's later iterations have been about enforcing a thematic and ideological purity and punishing any attempt at deviating from the metaplot and the pretentious themes of "personal horror", to the point of intentionally conflating the entire genre of horror with the specific theme of "personal horror"

Onyx Path's dreadful output and the god-awful V5 metaplot changes are merely that purism taken to its most extreme, to say nothing of garbage like Monsterhearts or iHunt.

Unless you can somehow get the rights for World of Darkness, or be able to negotiate the ability to pay for a licensed fork of the setting, you can't do a successful old-school take on the game and be able to publish it.

So all you have is shitty "Some Other Game" titles that are even more disgraceful to the urban fantasy and modern horror genres as World of Darkness is nowadays, with none of the success or past glory of the early White Wolf years.

Given the animosity between Onyx Path and Paradox, I'm surprised nobody has tried to raise the money to license Chronicles of Darkness/New World of Darkness from Paradox and get it out of Onyx Path's hands. But that is neither here nor there.

Quote from: BronzeDragon;1129577Even more angsty than before?

I was thinking that we could introduce a sliding scale so that everybody could select an amount that worked for them.

But seriously, I was thinking that the OGL would promote more creativity than we otherwise see. People could invent their own cosmologies, organizations, powers, blah blah, share them, and see others use and promote them. For example, Opening the Dark (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRF8OzdA1D1rC_PaJwr3OzfqqSMgqAVRhBHm9A5LsmaMqaMB4JlwLb8-Jd9PkAlMyDRI2ZLBd7lzFOI/pub) is an OGL retroclone of the Storyteller rules.

I find myself in almost total agreement with everything Doc Sammy said.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1129583I'd say it has to do with the specific setting itself.
...The problem is that a successful OSR take on WoD would have to be at least partly reliant on the WoD IP, at least the early material for it. .

I would say that it would at the very least have to have some very common tropes with the early Vampire/WoD IP. (Serious serial numbers filed off and renamed stuff, but still recognizable to the fan-base).

Close enough to sway the nostalgia brigade to give your brand of Vampire a chance.

And make no mistake; you would have to set yourself up as the 'new' Vampire RPG. You would have to go straight for the WW base in order to make a run at actually being successful.

(Also have your LARP rules ready to go when your RPG is released...)

But then you get into a potential 'underwold' situation; where if the WW ip holders think you are too close, you get sued...

Doesn't matter if you could win in court, what would matter is do you have the $$ to ride it out.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1129583...Given the animosity between Onyx Path and Paradox, I'm surprised nobody has tried to raise the money to license Chronicles of Darkness/New World of Darkness from Paradox and get it out of Onyx Path's hands. But that is neither here nor there.

Personally if it was me...

I would want to control all the WW IP or nothing.

And although all things WW are basically on life support, the IP holders probably still want a good chunk of change beyond what most are willing to pay for what is functionally a dead game line, except among the hardcore faithful.

In the spirit of an OSR clone, you should not need WW IP. Instead, I would suggest you create a similar setting that pushes all those same buttons without directly copying the original WoD metaplot.

So, you would might have Bloodlines (used in several vampire games, so likely not copyrighted...) and say Cults (again, ubiquitous term...) for vampires. Tribes is another general term. Bloodlines is general enough to apply to most supernatural types; even sorcerers or wizards. You could setup the same "race + class" detail as found in the oWoD.

There were also problems with the original system's math. The idea of changing TN AND dice pools was over-complicated. So was the original critical failure mechanic. If someone is going to clone oWoD, they would want to touch it up vs. adhering to some rabid perfect recreation cult.

I picked up a system recently that WAS basically a clone of oWoD, including varying TN on die + varying die pools + 1's cancel out successes. Can't remember the name of it...

Quote from: Jaeger;1129598I find myself in almost total agreement with everything Doc Sammy said.



I would say that it would at the very least have to have some very common tropes with the early Vampire/WoD IP. (Serious serial numbers filed off and renamed stuff, but still recognizable to the fan-base).

Close enough to sway the nostalgia brigade to give your brand of Vampire a chance.

And make no mistake; you would have to set yourself up as the 'new' Vampire RPG. You would have to go straight for the WW base in order to make a run at actually being successful.

(Also have your LARP rules ready to go when your RPG is released...)

But then you get into a potential 'underwold' situation; where if the WW ip holders think you are too close, you get sued...

Doesn't matter if you could win in court, what would matter is do you have the $$ to ride it out.





Personally if it was me...

I would want to control all the WW IP or nothing.

And although all things WW are basically on life support, the IP holders probably still want a good chunk of change beyond what most are willing to pay for what is functionally a dead game line, except among the hardcore faithful.

True.

At the same time, if any option was even close to being feasible, it would be buying out or at least paying the license fees for New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness.

Crowdfunding could be a potential avenue for this option, at least initially.

After all, Paradox Interactive has outright stated they have no interest in Requiem or anything like that and they only bought WW for the Classic World of Darkness.

That's the main reason why Onyx Path was able to keep the licensing agreement to publish New World of Darkness they got from CCP largely unchanged, with the only stipulations being that the name had to be changed to Chronicles of Darkness to avoid brand confusion and that Paradox would not allow any video game adaptations of Requiem or the other New WoD lines.

Even after Nu-White Wolf was officially disbanded, that policy remained in effect.

Of course, I'm really curious about how this whole thing has affected the LARP scene.

As far as I know, nobody has heard so much as a whimper from By Night Studios after the Paradox buyout in 2015. They were still kind of quiet even then, but they did get full LARP adaptations of Vampire and Werewolf with an updated metaplot that wasn't as drastic in its alterations as V5 was, but wasn't metaplot-neutral like V20 and W20 were.

They were working on a LARP adaptation of Changeling The Dreaming last time they said anything, but I don't think anything has come of that.

Also, By Night Studios also refused to adapt New World of Darkness for LARP, but they also emerged from the era of the 20th Anniversary Editions where Onyx Path was meant as the successor to White Wolf's tabletop division and By Night was to do the LARP stuff while CCP got the royalty checks and licensing fee payments.

I'm not sure how the Paradox buyout affected them, or even if they still exist anymore.

Because WoD is horror+politics setting while the OSR is based on combat+adventure?

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1129603...That's the main reason why Onyx Path was able to keep the licensing agreement to publish New World of Darkness they got from CCP largely unchanged, with the only stipulations being that the name had to be changed to Chronicles of Darkness to avoid brand confusion and that Paradox would not allow any video game adaptations of Requiem or the other New WoD lines..

Yeah, this whole mess...

It's done nothing but create brand confusion.

This is the #1 reason to me that if your going to go IP hunting for Vampire/WoD it is all or nothing.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1129603...
Of course, I'm really curious about how this whole thing has affected the LARP scene. ...

As I've been told by a friend: (So I could be really talking out of my ass here...)

The crossover between Vampire LARPer's and Vampire RPG players was actually pretty big.

So when the big edition change/metaplot fuckups came down and knifed their player base, it had a big knock-on effect on the LARP side.

Too many players of both just said "fuck it".

Quote from: Itachi;1129604Because WoD is horror+politics setting while the OSR is based on combat+adventure?

For me, and one of the reasons I really liked Vampire the masquerade in spite of its warts, was that "horror+politics" Is a really entertaining game when done right.

Especially when interactions with the "mortal" world are not just glossed over so that you can keep having your Werewolf vs. Vampire super-fight of the week.

The real secret to the game is that the "big bad" that all the supernaturals are really afraid of are humans who realize that the world they've been sold is just a 'sugar coated topping'...

Vampires enforce the Masquerade for a reason. And a group of 'hunters' operating in a city should be #1 on a Vampire Lord's "Need to deal with this shit right fucking now" agenda.

Quote from: trechriron;1129600In the spirit of an OSR clone, you should not need WW IP. Instead, I would suggest you create a similar setting that pushes all those same buttons without directly copying the original WoD metaplot.

So, you would might have Bloodlines (used in several vampire games, so likely not copyrighted...) and say Cults (again, ubiquitous term...) for vampires. Tribes is another general term. Bloodlines is general enough to apply to most supernatural types; even sorcerers or wizards. You could setup the same "race + class" detail as found in the oWoD.

There were also problems with the original system's math. The idea of changing TN AND dice pools was over-complicated. So was the original critical failure mechanic. If someone is going to clone oWoD, they would want to touch it up vs. adhering to some rabid perfect recreation cult.

I picked up a system recently that WAS basically a clone of oWoD, including varying TN on die + varying die pools + 1's cancel out successes. Can't remember the name of it...

That's basically what I was thinking. The online successes of other recent urban fantasy titles like Night Shift, Urban Shadows, and Liminal shows that there is a market out there for more creative settings. What I wanted to do was harness the OGL in order to make the creative community stronger and more integrated.

I'm not married to a particular rule system. I want to avoid slaving myself to a single setting. I wanted to do a modular multiverse to give myself more freedom. Recreate the good old days of B.J. Zanzibar's archives.

For example, with vampires I have no shortage of possibilities for splats drawn from world folklore: succubi, wamphyri, vrykolakas, lamia, adze, obayifo, nekomata, jorogumo, etc.

In terms of settings, again I'm not married to a particular one. I like having many possible campaign settings, including ones that aren't modern Earth. Maybe a fantasy world like Warhammer World or Nosgoth, I don't know?

I never played World of Darkness seriously, but I do think playing monsters struggling to maintain their humanity, while engaging in political maneuvering against other even more powerful monsters, all in the modern world, makes for a compelling setting. But I'd be more interested in a version adapted to old school D&D, than a retroclone of the Storyteller system. The level system would probably have to change significantly, but you could still have infinite progression by peeling back layers after layers of secrets; as you get more powerful, you learn of another group that's behind the group you just mastered, and then you start moving in those circles.

Quote from: Pat;1129618I never played World of Darkness seriously, but I do think playing monsters struggling to maintain their humanity, while engaging in political maneuvering against other even more powerful monsters, all in the modern world, makes for a compelling setting.

Also, that's basically the premise of Nightlife. It's basically like Vampire except that it's not limited to blood-sucking vampires but includes demons, ghosts, werewolves, wights, and more.

Quote from: Pat;1129618But I'd be more interested in a version adapted to old school D&D, than a retroclone of the Storyteller system. The level system would probably have to change significantly, but you could still have infinite progression by peeling back layers after layers of secrets; as you get more powerful, you learn of another group that's behind the group you just mastered, and then you start moving in those circles.

Fair enough. That's why I'm personally going for systemless settings. Different people have different tastes.

Night Shift seems to use OD&D. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/290972/Night-Shift-Veterans-of-the-Supernatural-Wars-Quick-Start-Kit

I can't tell you the number of times Wod LARP got me laid. I used to go to Vampire LARPs specifically because it was THE scene to meet girls who were actually interested in roleplaying games. More than a few of my girlfriends in the past came from that scene. WoD was actually considered "Cool" among women as opposed to D&D which was largely considered not.

WoD is largely responsible for bringing women and minorities into Gaming. That is a FACT, it cannot be disputed. There were women and minorities playing before WoD, but WoD is the setting that brought them in with much greater numbers. Particularly the LGBT scene, since they were embracing it from the beginning while D&D was in it's Disney state.

The WoD setting is that glue, that mass appeal that brings people together. A fucking Mage: The Ascension supplement, currently has almost 2K backers on Kickstarter right now. Wod is not "On lifeline".

The setting and the ease of the system is what draws people in. The system makes "Sense" and is easy to grasp for people who are completely new to RPGs, more so than even D&D... Attribute+Skill, rated up to 5 dots each. But the setting with all of it's lore is what draws people in. The different Clans, Tribes, and what have you inspire people and give them something to identify with. No knock off game has ever approached it, ever gotten close to it.

Suffice to say, there has been no "Pathfinder" version of WoD. There's no other Supernatural Urban Fantasy Horror setting out there that has the same draw, mass appeal, and ease of learning. Dresden Files was maybe the closest setting wise one could get, and it still doesn't come close.

On the LARP scene, it's dying. By Night Studios is ran by the same people who own Mind's Eye Society as well. Mind's Eye Society used to be the official White Wolf Larp known as "The Camarilla" it's been incestuous and driving out new members for years based on cronyism and favoritism among it's longtime members. It's biggest competitor "One World by Night" is the only one with a stable population, and doesn't use anything created from "By Night Studios". One World by Night is STILL using the 90's "Laws of the Night" book.

Really though, while WoD isn't dying or on lifesupport... it's nowhere near the phenomena it once was. This is of course Whitewolf's own fault. They screwed the pooch killing off the Classic World of Darkness and introducing a New world of Darkness that was less unique. It's original intention was to allow for customization and building of your own setting like this very thread is talking about... but just came off as a lesser version of the original. There are things I like about Nwod, some real gems in there like "Hunter: The Vigil" but the rest pales in comparison.

The 20th Anniversary Books were a massive success, and brought new life back to WoD. They were supposed to just be one offs, but were so successful they relaunched entire lines. Enough, Onxy path was going to make an official "4th edition" of Masquerade. But as I've stated in other threads.. that got fucked up. Paradox bought them, declared 20th anniversary was the "4th edition" and hired outsiders with no experience writing WoD to create the new "5th edition". 5th edition has really split the fanbase, it's basically wod's D&D 4th edition, you either love it or hate it.

All of this is to say though... at the end of the day, capturing that "Zeitgeist" that Wod created is probably impossible at this point. Urban Shadows, Dresden Files, Bleed, Monster Hearts, Buffy the Vampire Slayer... none of them are as good as WoD, none of them are as interesting as the classic setting. Mark*Rein-Hagen, the original creator of WoD is a fucking genius when it comes to setting creation.. no one has been able to match his creations since.

Quote from: Jaeger;1129609For me, and one of the reasons I really liked Vampire the masquerade in spite of its warts, was that "horror+politics" Is a really entertaining game when done right.

Especially when interactions with the "mortal" world are not just glossed over so that you can keep having your Werewolf vs. Vampire super-fight of the week.

The real secret to the game is that the "big bad" that all the supernaturals are really afraid of are humans who realize that the world they've been sold is just a 'sugar coated topping'...

Vampires enforce the Masquerade for a reason. And a group of 'hunters' operating in a city should be #1 on a Vampire Lord's "Need to deal with this shit right fucking now" agenda.

Totally agreed.

Which goes back to the original question: how to pull it out with a D&D based engine? I like OSR but it's too tied to medievalesque combat to fit a modern, personal horror+politics game IMHO. Things like Thaco or AC stop making sense in a setting there is no armor to begin with.

Except if the OP is using "OSR" here to mean any old system and not only D&D.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129621I can't tell you the number of times Wod LARP got me laid. I used to go to Vampire LARPs specifically because it was THE scene to meet girls who were actually interested in roleplaying games. More than a few of my girlfriends in the past came from that scene. WoD was actually considered "Cool" among women as opposed to D&D which was largely considered not.

WoD is largely responsible for bringing women and minorities into Gaming. That is a FACT, it cannot be disputed. There were women and minorities playing before WoD, but WoD is the setting that brought them in with much greater numbers. Particularly the LGBT scene, since they were embracing it from the beginning while D&D was in it's Disney state.

The WoD setting is that glue, that mass appeal that brings people together. A fucking Mage: The Ascension supplement, currently has almost 2K backers on Kickstarter right now. Wod is not "On lifeline".

The setting and the ease of the system is what draws people in. The system makes "Sense" and is easy to grasp for people who are completely new to RPGs, more so than even D&D... Attribute+Skill, rated up to 5 dots each. But the setting with all of it's lore is what draws people in. The different Clans, Tribes, and what have you inspire people and give them something to identify with. No knock off game has ever approached it, ever gotten close to it.

Suffice to say, there has been no "Pathfinder" version of WoD. There's no other Supernatural Urban Fantasy Horror setting out there that has the same draw, mass appeal, and ease of learning. Dresden Files was maybe the closest setting wise one could get, and it still doesn't come close.

On the LARP scene, it's dying. By Night Studios is ran by the same people who own Mind's Eye Society as well. Mind's Eye Society used to be the official White Wolf Larp known as "The Camarilla" it's been incestuous and driving out new members for years based on cronyism and favoritism among it's longtime members. It's biggest competitor "One World by Night" is the only one with a stable population, and doesn't use anything created from "By Night Studios". One World by Night is STILL using the 90's "Laws of the Night" book.

Really though, while WoD isn't dying or on lifesupport... it's nowhere near the phenomena it once was. This is of course Whitewolf's own fault. They screwed the pooch killing off the Classic World of Darkness and introducing a New world of Darkness that was less unique. It's original intention was to allow for customization and building of your own setting like this very thread is talking about... but just came off as a lesser version of the original. There are things I like about Nwod, some real gems in there like "Hunter: The Vigil" but the rest pales in comparison.

The 20th Anniversary Books were a massive success, and brought new life back to WoD. They were supposed to just be one offs, but were so successful they relaunched entire lines. Enough, Onxy path was going to make an official "4th edition" of Masquerade. But as I've stated in other threads.. that got fucked up. Paradox bought them, declared 20th anniversary was the "4th edition" and hired outsiders with no experience writing WoD to create the new "5th edition". 5th edition has really split the fanbase, it's basically wod's D&D 4th edition, you either love it or hate it.

All of this is to say though... at the end of the day, capturing that "Zeitgeist" that Wod created is probably impossible at this point. Urban Shadows, Dresden Files, Bleed, Monster Hearts, Buffy the Vampire Slayer... none of them are as good as WoD, none of them are as interesting as the classic setting. Mark*Rein-Hagen, the original creator of WoD is a fucking genius when it comes to setting creation.. no one has been able to match his creations since.

That's because no one has ever tried, not because it's impossible or that WoD has some kind of unique magic behind it. What other setting can you name that ever tried to approach the sheer volume of Rein-Hagen's work? It's millions of words across hundreds of books. That's a hugely unfair comparison.

I don't like the setting or the mechanics because it's somebody's particular vision and I don't agree with that vision. I don't like people telling me incessantly that my desires aren't worth having and that I should fall in line like a good little consumer.

Quote from: Itachi;1129622Totally agreed.

Which goes back to the original question: how to pull it out with a D&D based engine? I like OSR but it's too tied to medievalesque combat to fit a modern, personal horror+politics game IMHO. Things like Thaco or AC stop making sense in a setting there is no armor to begin with.

Except if the OP is using "OSR" here to mean any old system and not only D&D.

It doesn't have to be D&D-based. Yes, I'm using OSR in a more generic sense.

The WoD OSR was the 20th anniversary editions. They went back to the OWoD after years of CoD, which is a revival in and of itself, and the 20th anniversary editions brought back the more open ended flexibility and optional feel of 1st and 2nd editions; it had a pre-revised feel to it even if it included some optional revised fluff.

V5, in some regards, reversed that. It took up the heavy handed canon, metaplot, and one wayism of revised VtM and turned it up to 11.

Quote from: Pat;1129618I never played World of Darkness seriously, but I do think playing monsters struggling to maintain their humanity, while engaging in political maneuvering against other even more powerful monsters, all in the modern world, makes for a compelling setting. But I'd be more interested in a version adapted to old school D&D, than a retroclone of the Storyteller system. The level system would probably have to change significantly, but you could still have infinite progression by peeling back layers after layers of secrets; as you get more powerful, you learn of another group that's behind the group you just mastered, and then you start moving in those circles.

I've been thinking about a project lately which is exactly that (save the humanity part.) It's basically the campaign I wanted to run decades ago, but my group could never leave behind the White Wolf elements, and I got tired of pounding my head against a wall. But I've always wanted to necro it, but with an entirely different system to make sure the White Wolf baggage doesn't get in the way.  I'm looking at using a modified B/X core, much like Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing) does for his games. He's hands-down the king of using the B/X chassis for modern genres, if not one of the best OSR publishers around, and if I can manage to produce something with 1/10th of that quality I will consider it a success. The goal is not to create a "Vampire: the Masquerade with the serial numbers filed off" but to riff off the World of Darkness and a few other influences. If V:TM is an elaborately decorated, multi-layered wedding cake, this project is more like a stack of pancakes.


What's Out

• This won't be an urban fantasy game, but a vampire game. Mainly because designing all of those splats is too much work. My goal is to limit the focus on one thing. If it works, I can expand into different areas in subsequent products.
• No White Wolf lingo. I'm going to assume it's all under copyright, so you won't find Camirilla, Sabbat, Brujah, Nosferatu, Embrace, Kindred, Diablerie, Rotshreck, etc.
  
• Not too many of the V:TM concepts will survive. Some are unavoidable, for example, there's got to be a way to create new vampires. But I'm not going call it the Embrace. And there will be diablerie, but I need a new word for it.
  
• There are no vampire clans. But like any B/X game, there are classes, which are a mix of what you do and what you are. But these will not resemble the WW clans.
• There's no war between the badass violent sect and the corrupt but cultured sect, nor a war between the vampires and the werewolves, nor a war between the ruling class and the anarchists.
• There's no metaplot. There are setting elements, but they provide a structure, not a straight-jacket. The game is about your campaign and your players, not some grandiose preordained story.
• The game is not about "personal horror" or "losing your humanity" or wallowing in guilt and angst about the monster you've become. It is unabashedly what some critics call "superheroes with fangs." Because let's be honest: living forever and getting super powers is fucking awesome.

What's In

• System-wise, it will be a modified B/X chassis, with classes, levels, hit points, (ascending) armor class, saving throws, and a skill system with about 30 skills.
• The skills will blur the line between the mundane and the supernatural. For example, climb doesn't mean you climb a wall with hand holds and gear. it means you climb up a sheer vertical surface like a spider. Intimidate doesn't mean you threaten a guy with a gun and he backs down, it means he runs away in terror.
• Magic will be much like you're used to. Some spells will be familiar, while others will be new. Clerical magic is slightly different. Instead of spells, you learn Secrets and Rituals. Since all vampires can self-heal, the cleric isn't a heal-bot, but focuses on defense, information, and esoteric vampire lore.

So, what's the setting like?

• The World: The world is violent and corrupt. I love the the general feel of the WOD, where the game world is a darker reflection of our own.
• The City: It's not a real city in our world, but an amalgamation of many different cities. It has the skyscrapers of NYC and Chicago, the subway tunnels of London, the catacombs and sewers of Paris, and the ancient underground cisterns of Istanbul. Where is the City? Wherever you want it to be.
• The Houses: Vampire society is centered around the Houses. Think Game of Thrones or Dune and you've got it. Each House is ruled by a very powerful Lord/Lady, who controls a section of the city known as a demense. Each demense is a feeding ground, and vampires are very territorial by nature. You can't hunt on another house's territory. Conflict over territory is one of the main drivers of the game.
• The Duke: Someone has to be in charge. Again, think of GOT or Dune and you've got the general idea. The main job of the Duke is to ensure that (1) the territorial disputes don't get out of hand, (2) the mortal herds don't get too thin, and (3) the vampire population doesn't get too large. These three things tend to exist in a delicate balance--when one gets out of hand, it threatens the other two. And when all three get out of control, it becomes an existential threat.

Ok, but what do the players do?

• Dungeoncrawls: It's an OSR game, so killing monsters and taking their stuff is a thing. You can probably guess from the paragraph above what the "dungeons" are going to be. The "monsters" will usually be other vampires (or their minions) and "stuff" will be a little different than a classic D&D game. But the spirit is the same.
• Politics: Another component of the game deals with diplomatic relations between the houses. Making and breaking deals, backstabbing, treachery, seduction, assassination, etc. Every Lord curries favor with the Duke to gain an advantage over his rivals, while scheming on how to kill him and take his place.
• Mystery: No one knows who the first vampire was, or why vampires were created in the first place. There are several theories, which over the centuries have become mystery cults and in some cases, religions. But any concrete evidence has been lost to the sands of time. Finding lost texts and ancient artifacts provides power, both in the abstract and literal sense.

So that's basically where I'm at. It's not much, but let me know what you think.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1129634The WoD OSR was the 20th anniversary editions. They went back to the OWoD after years of CoD, which is a revival in and of itself, and the 20th anniversary editions brought back the more open ended flexibility and optional feel of 1st and 2nd editions; it had a pre-revised feel to it even if it included some optional revised fluff.

V5, in some regards, reversed that. It took up the heavy handed canon, metaplot, and one wayism of revised VtM and turned it up to 11.

This woman gets it.

Personally, I'd love to revive the WoD LARP scene but do so in a way that rejects the metaplot outright and basically resets the setting back to the 1e and 2e days. Sort of like V20 initially set out to do in 2011-2012.

It'd have to be done outside the networks of By Night Studios/Mind's Eye Society and One World by Night, though.

You should check out Monte Cook's World Of Darkness. It has a good basis for doing what you apparently want to do.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1129634The WoD OSR was the 20th anniversary editions. They went back to the OWoD after years of CoD, which is a revival in and of itself, and the 20th anniversary editions brought back the more open ended flexibility and optional feel of 1st and 2nd editions; it had a pre-revised feel to it even if it included some optional revised fluff.

V5, in some regards, reversed that. It took up the heavy handed canon, metaplot, and one wayism of revised VtM and turned it up to 11.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1129672This woman gets it.

Personally, I'd love to revive the WoD LARP scene but do so in a way that rejects the metaplot outright and basically resets the setting back to the 1e and 2e days. Sort of like V20 initially set out to do in 2011-2012.

It'd have to be done outside the networks of By Night Studios/Mind's Eye Society and One World by Night, though.

I don't like the setting. I want to be able to play and discuss other campaign settings, just like Dungeons & Dragons or All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

I want the freedom to create vampire characters who are not restricted by Rein-Hagen's specific setting idiosyncrasies. I want to be able to emulate any vampire fiction or invent my own original settings and share them without fear of being shunned for heresy.

Quote from: Aglondir;1129641I've been thinking about a project lately which is exactly that (save the humanity part.) It's basically the campaign I wanted to run decades ago, but my group could never leave behind the White Wolf elements, and I got tired of pounding my head against a wall. But I've always wanted to necro it, but with an entirely different system to make sure the White Wolf baggage doesn't get in the way.  I'm looking at using a modified B/X core, much like Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing) does for his games. He's hands-down the king of using the B/X chassis for modern genres, if not one of the best OSR publishers around, and if I can manage to produce something with 1/10th of that quality I will consider it a success. The goal is not to create a "Vampire: the Masquerade with the serial numbers filed off" but to riff off the World of Darkness and a few other influences. If V:TM is an elaborately decorated, multi-layered wedding cake, this project is more like a stack of pancakes.


What's Out

• This won't be an urban fantasy game, but a vampire game. Mainly because designing all of those splats is too much work. My goal is to limit the focus on one thing. If it works, I can expand into different areas in subsequent products.
• No White Wolf lingo. I'm going to assume it's all under copyright, so you won't find Camirilla, Sabbat, Brujah, Nosferatu, Embrace, Kindred, Diablerie, Rotshreck, etc.
  
• Not too many of the V:TM concepts will survive. Some are unavoidable, for example, there's got to be a way to create new vampires. But I'm not going call it the Embrace. And there will be diablerie, but I need a new word for it.
  
• There are no vampire clans. But like any B/X game, there are classes, which are a mix of what you do and what you are. But these will not resemble the WW clans.
• There's no war between the badass violent sect and the corrupt but cultured sect, nor a war between the vampires and the werewolves, nor a war between the ruling class and the anarchists.
• There's no metaplot. There are setting elements, but they provide a structure, not a straight-jacket. The game is about your campaign and your players, not some grandiose preordained story.
• The game is not about "personal horror" or "losing your humanity" or wallowing in guilt and angst about the monster you've become. It is unabashedly what some critics call "superheroes with fangs." Because let's be honest: living forever and getting super powers is fucking awesome.

What's In

• System-wise, it will be a modified B/X chassis, with classes, levels, hit points, (ascending) armor class, saving throws, and a skill system with about 30 skills.
• The skills will blur the line between the mundane and the supernatural. For example, climb doesn't mean you climb a wall with hand holds and gear. it means you climb up a sheer vertical surface like a spider. Intimidate doesn't mean you threaten a guy with a gun and he backs down, it means he runs away in terror.
• Magic will be much like you're used to. Some spells will be familiar, while others will be new. Clerical magic is slightly different. Instead of spells, you learn Secrets and Rituals. Since all vampires can self-heal, the cleric isn't a heal-bot, but focuses on defense, information, and esoteric vampire lore.

So, what's the setting like?

• The World: The world is violent and corrupt. I love the the general feel of the WOD, where the game world is a darker reflection of our own.
• The City: It's not a real city in our world, but an amalgamation of many different cities. It has the skyscrapers of NYC and Chicago, the subway tunnels of London, the catacombs and sewers of Paris, and the ancient underground cisterns of Istanbul. Where is the City? Wherever you want it to be.
• The Houses: Vampire society is centered around the Houses. Think Game of Thrones or Dune and you've got it. Each House is ruled by a very powerful Lord/Lady, who controls a section of the city known as a demense. Each demense is a feeding ground, and vampires are very territorial by nature. You can't hunt on another house's territory. Conflict over territory is one of the main drivers of the game.
• The Duke: Someone has to be in charge. Again, think of GOT or Dune and you've got the general idea. The main job of the Duke is to ensure that (1) the territorial disputes don't get out of hand, (2) the mortal herds don't get too thin, and (3) the vampire population doesn't get too large. These three things tend to exist in a delicate balance--when one gets out of hand, it threatens the other two. And when all three get out of control, it becomes an existential threat.

Ok, but what do the players do?

• Dungeoncrawls: It's an OSR game, so killing monsters and taking their stuff is a thing. You can probably guess from the paragraph above what the "dungeons" are going to be. The "monsters" will usually be other vampires (or their minions) and "stuff" will be a little different than a classic D&D game. But the spirit is the same.
• Politics: Another component of the game deals with diplomatic relations between the houses. Making and breaking deals, backstabbing, treachery, seduction, assassination, etc. Every Lord curries favor with the Duke to gain an advantage over his rivals, while scheming on how to kill him and take his place.
• Mystery: No one knows who the first vampire was, or why vampires were created in the first place. There are several theories, which over the centuries have become mystery cults and in some cases, religions. But any concrete evidence has been lost to the sands of time. Finding lost texts and ancient artifacts provides power, both in the abstract and literal sense.

So that's basically where I'm at. It's not much, but let me know what you think.

It sounds like a tabletop version of Bloodlust: Shadowhunter (https://store.steampowered.com/app/280600/BloodLust_Shadowhunter/). The premise is clear, concise, and well thought. You should go for it.

Just to let you know, a lot of the VtM clans are just copied from vampire fiction or non-vampire fiction. Ventrue are based on Lord Ruthven, Toreadors on Lestat, Nosferatus on Graf Orlock, Gangrels and Brujahs on the Lost Boys, Tremeres on an Ars Magica organization, Malkavians on that Nicholas Cage movie Vampire's Kiss, Tzimisces on Necroscope, Lasombra on Bram Stoker's Dracula's shadow SFX, Assamites on the historical assassins, Setites on Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, etc.

Furthermore, there's a wealth of folklore around the world one could draw upon for inspiration. I provided a list of research books (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41401-Hacking-the-Storyteller-System&p=1127577&viewfull=1#post1127577) in another thread.

Anyway, if you want more ideas for exploring vampires without being arbitrarily limited by WW's shadow, then I suggest reading other vampire fiction. Warhammer Fantasy (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Vampire), The Everlasting (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2945/Book-of-the-Unliving-Revised), American Vampire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Vampire), one of the several d20 books about variant vampires like Lords of the Night: Vampires (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/18261/The-Lords-of-the-Night-Vampires) or Out for Blood (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2102/Out-for-Blood), etc. Although Feed (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387/Feed) pretty much takes the cake with its first chapter explaining in depth that you can create your own vampire strains and providing copious examples of creative interpretations of vampires. For example, on page 15 it states that members of the Adze (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adze_(folklore)) strain only have a lifespan of about four months after infection. You'd never see that in a WW product.

Tangent: I despise diablerie. Aside from WW's typical inane tendency to take dictionary words and arbitrarily assign them new unrelated meanings (e.g. diablerie translates to and is cognate with devilry), it's just an excuse to be a munchkin. I know it's loosely based on Anne Rice, but Anne wrote it cooler: to steal a vampire's power, you have to eat their brain and heart. How metal is that?

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129675You should check out Monte Cook's World Of Darkness. It has a good basis for doing what you apparently want to do.

Thanks for the suggestion, but sadly that's not OGL.

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Anyone interested in hearing more specific ideas for organizations and bloodlines?

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129675You should check out Monte Cook's World Of Darkness. It has a good basis for doing what you apparently want to do.

Thanks for the suggestion, but sadly that's not OGL.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I don't consider OSR anything other than old school dnd. At some point it became popular to use the OSR lable and that's it. That doesn't mean that there isn't value in other older games, Runequest in Glorantha for example is a great book (or so I have heard) but that doesn't make it OSR.
That said there is some value in maybe improving older rules than constantly making up new ones. I haven't seen the last edition of vampire but there is a limit to people learning new rules. In the big purple there were some interesting threads about the sandboxy nature of certain Vampire 1e supplements.
Also exalted OSR? 3e is very far removed from 1st, the only exalted osr I could see being called that is the exalted vs wod book.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1129678It sounds like a tabletop version of Bloodlust: Shadowhunter (https://store.steampowered.com/app/280600/BloodLust_Shadowhunter/). The premise is clear, concise, and well thought. You should go for it.

Thanks! I will add Bloodlust: Shadowhunter to my list.

QuoteAnyway, if you want more ideas for exploring vampires without being arbitrarily limited by WW's shadow, then I suggest reading other vampire fiction. Warhammer Fantasy (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Vampire), The Everlasting (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2945/Book-of-the-Unliving-Revised), American Vampire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Vampire), one of the several d20 books about variant vampires like Lords of the Night: Vampires (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/18261/The-Lords-of-the-Night-Vampires) or Out for Blood (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2102/Out-for-Blood), etc. Although Feed (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387/Feed) pretty much takes the cake with its first chapter explaining in depth that you can create your own vampire strains and providing copious examples of creative interpretations of vampires. For example, on page 15 it states that members of the Adze (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adze_(folklore)) strain only have a lifespan of about four months after infection. You'd never see that in a WW product.

True. Have you seen Gurps: Bloodlines? It looks like a primer of vampire myths from around the world. That's not really the direction I want to go, but something might inspire me. Ypu've mentioned Feed before, so I will add that to my list as well.

QuoteTangent: I despise diablerie. Aside from WW's typical inane tendency to take dictionary words and arbitrarily assign them new unrelated meanings (e.g. diablerie translates to and is cognate with devilry), it's just an excuse to be a munchkin. I know it's loosely based on Anne Rice, but Anne wrote it cooler: to steal a vampire's power, you have to eat their brain and heart. How metal is that?

That's great! I forgot that in Rice. Interview was a bit boring, Letstat was good, and Queen of the Damned... eh, mixed. Here's how I want to use diableire (for lack of a better word): Lost secrets are a big deal, since they give you forgotten knowledge and powers. Diabelrie is a way to consume the secrets locked inside a vampire's memory. It's got nothing to do with generation (not using that) or blood pool (which increases with age.)

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129675You should check out Monte Cook's World Of Darkness. It has a good basis for doing what you apparently want to do.

I have it. McWOD is a mixed bag, but in the end, I would not use it.  

The Premise

McWOD isn't really a D20 conversion of the World of Darkness. The world has been invaded by Big Bads called the Iconnu, which are not the Inconnu mentioned in Vampire. For one things, the first N is missing (not sure why) and for the second thing, they are more like archdemons or antediluvians. They created an Intrusion Point, sort of like a hell gate, near Milwaukee. A Nightmare Wave spread across the earth, converting some people into vampires, werewolves, demons, mages, and awakened mortals (think hunters.) It doesn't quite work as a generic urban fantasy game due to the focus.


The Good

I like the premise, and I wish Monte had left out the WOD parts. McWOD is really Monte's horror post-apocalypse game with WOD stuff tacked on. You can have adventures in Chicago, which is still a functioning city but under the influence of shadow creatures; or in the ruins of Milwaukee, which is a war zone where reality starts to break down. Or if you are brave enough, you can enter Intrusion Point which might lead to another dimension. That's a great idea, especially when used as a horror sandbox. It sort of has a Resident Evil feel, if you substitute the Nightmare Wave for the Virus.


The Bad

The writing is a bit too "in your face" at times, with the NPCs reminding you how bad-ass they are.  The WOD elements occupy that uncomfortable zone where they are familiar enough to be recognized, but changed to the point where it's annoying. Vampires have nothing to do with Caine. Instead, they are souls of evil dead people fused with mortals. Werewolves are spirits of rage fused with mortals. Demons are nothing like the demons in Demon: The Fallen, but are simply minor demons who don't want to be controlled by the Iconnu. Mages always existed, but the Nightmare Wave has amplified their powers. They use a complex free-form magic system which is nothing like Ascension or Awakening. The Awakened probably get the short end of the stick power-wise, with only a few feats. Actually, all of that stuff could be in the "Good" section, if the World of Darkness lingo was taken out. The irony is that the ideas are solid enough that they could have stood on their own. It would have been better if the players were all Hunters, and Monte had ditched the WOD elements and called it "D20 Nightmare Wave."

Quote from: Aglondir;1129683Thanks! I will add Bloodlust: Shadowhunter to my list.

Sorry, just to be clear the comment was aimed at your efforts, not the video game.

Quote from: Aglondir;1129683True. Have you seen Gurps: Bloodlines? It looks like a primer of vampire myths from around the world. That's not really the direction I want to go, but something might inspire me. Ypu've mentioned Feed before, so I will add that to my list as well.

Fair enough.

GURPS: Blood Types. I've read it. It's hardly exhaustive, but it's a good start.

Quote from: Aglondir;1129683That's great! I forgot that in Rice. Interview was a bit boring, Letstat was good, and Queen of the Damned... eh, mixed. Here's how I want to use diableire (for lack of a better word): Lost secrets are a big deal, since they give you forgotten knowledge and powers. Diabelrie is a way to consume the secrets locked inside a vampire's memory. It's got nothing to do with generation (not using that) or blood pool (which increases with age.)

Yeah, that sounds so much less munchkiny. If you want a fancy word for it, then maybe mnemophagy? It's from Ancient Greek mnemo- meaning memory and -phagy meaning eating. Thus, "eating memory". Or maybe mnemomancy (memory divination) if its ritual where no actual cannibalism is involved. Or haruspicy if you're dismembering the target and reading the memories from the brain surface or whatever.

Greek and Latin loanwords are always good sources for fancy-sounding gibberish.

Quote from: Aglondir;1129685I have it. McWOD is a mixed bag, but in the end, I would not use it.  

The Premise

McWOD isn't really a D20 conversion of the World of Darkness. The world has been invaded by Big Bads called the Iconnu, which are not the Inconnu mentioned in Vampire. For one things, the first N is missing (not sure why) and for the second thing, they are more like archdemons or antediluvians. They created an Intrusion Point, sort of like a hell gate, near Milwaukee. A Nightmare Wave spread across the earth, converting some people into vampires, werewolves, demons, mages, and awakened mortals (think hunters.) It doesn't quite work as a generic urban fantasy game due to the focus.


The Good

I like the premise, and I wish Monte had left out the WOD parts. McWOD is really Monte's horror post-apocalypse game with WOD stuff tacked on. You can have adventures in Chicago, which is still a functioning city but under the influence of shadow creatures; or in the ruins of Milwaukee, which is a war zone where reality starts to break down. Or if you are brave enough, you can enter Intrusion Point which might lead to another dimension. That's a great idea, especially when used as a horror sandbox. It sort of has a Resident Evil feel, if you substitute the Nightmare Wave for the Virus.


The Bad

The writing is a bit too "in your face" at times, with the NPCs reminding you how bad-ass they are.  The WOD elements occupy that uncomfortable zone where they are familiar enough to be recognized, but changed to the point where it's annoying. Vampires have nothing to do with Caine. Instead, they are souls of evil dead people fused with mortals. Werewolves are spirits of rage fused with mortals. Demons are nothing like the demons in Demon: The Fallen, but are simply minor demons who don't want to be controlled by the Iconnu. Mages always existed, but the Nightmare Wave has amplified their powers. They use a complex free-form magic system which is nothing like Ascension or Awakening. The Awakened probably get the short end of the stick power-wise, with only a few feats. Actually, all of that stuff could be in the "Good" section, if the World of Darkness lingo was taken out. The irony is that the ideas are solid enough that they could have stood on their own. It would have been better if the players were all Hunters, and Monte had ditched the WOD elements and called it "D20 Nightmare Wave."

Monte seems to have recycled some of the ideas for his urban fantasy game The Strange. It involves traveling to other worlds created from human imagination, not all of which are functional worlds in their own right. Some are inhabited by dangerous things that want to invade Earth.

It's amazing ideas like that which prevent me from committing to a single setting. I can't do any of my miscellaneous interests justice without creating a multiverse.

That reminds me: back in the mid 90s some guy made a multiverse setting for Mage: The Ascension. It's called The Continuum (http://evildrganymede.net/wp/rpgs/continuum/). It suffers from the same problem that you say McWoD does, in that the bits of WoD are more of a crutch than anything else.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1129565So there's an OSR for lots of things now. Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Exalted... why not World of Darkness?

EDIT: For example, Opening the Dark (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRF8OzdA1D1rC_PaJwr3OzfqqSMgqAVRhBHm9A5LsmaMqaMB4JlwLb8-Jd9PkAlMyDRI2ZLBd7lzFOI/pub) is an OGL retroclone of the Storyteller rules.

I'd rather have my horror themed game, Actual Fucking Monsters by our Grim, or something more generic. If I wanted to play good monsters I would go more for a Patricia Briggs kinda setting.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129707I'd rather have my horror themed game, Actual Fucking Monsters by our Grim, or something more generic. If I wanted to play good monsters I would go more for a Patricia Briggs kinda setting.

Fair enough.

AFM is intended to simulate 80s horror movies and thus adventures only last a short time before ending in a TPK as intended. It has a specific goal in mind and creates mechanics to support that. It isn't intended to be long running or involve politics.

Saying "Patricia Briggs" isn't that informative to me. What precisely do you intend?

On another note, my mood varies on whether I want bad monsters, good monsters, or somewhere between monsters. Sometimes I might want Liminal-style vampires that are mostly evil aside from a minority who retain their human hearts, other times I might prefer more vampire politics and thus less sociopathic vampires, or I might prefer a sliding humanity scale.

That's why I decided to go for a systemless setting so that I could tailor it to different systems like Urban Shadows or whatever.

Dungeon Crawling and D&D Stats are kind of the exact opposite of what I want when it comes to Urban Fantasy Horror.

I was actually working on my own homebrew World of Darkness style setting material a couple years back. I actually was quite proud of how I differentiated Vampires and Werewolves and Demons from the way they were presented in White Wolf, but still kept some of those thematic elements.

System wise though, I think one of the other big draws of it is how easy it is to learn and teach someone. The Discreet powers also make things feel interesting in WoD. My own way of approaching it though, was to make a master list of dot based powers, and then give different discounts on purchasing them for specific species, and variant abilities that could only be used by specific splats.

Vampire: The Masquerade honestly would make for a better Scooby-Doo setting than anything else. Those darned kids mucking up the elders' plans at every turn would actually be pretty entertaining.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1129723Fair enough.

AFM is intended to simulate 80s horror movies and thus adventures only last a short time before ending in a TPK as intended. It has a specific goal in mind and creates mechanics to support that. It isn't intended to be long running or involve politics.

Saying "Patricia Briggs" isn't that informative to me. What precisely do you intend?

On another note, my mood varies on whether I want bad monsters, good monsters, or somewhere between monsters. Sometimes I might want Liminal-style vampires that are mostly evil aside from a minority who retain their human hearts, other times I might prefer more vampire politics and thus less sociopathic vampires, or I might prefer a sliding humanity scale.

That's why I decided to go for a systemless setting so that I could tailor it to different systems like Urban Shadows or whatever.

Faerie are mostly evil with a few exceptions here and there, Vampires are wholly evil with one or two exeptions, Werewolves ARE monsters kept in check by the oldest, sacariest and more powerful wolf of all that forbade human flesh (and will make sure those transgressing get killed), witches of any power are evil and will kill the white witches to gain more power. The world is full of other monsters too, from lots of mythological sources.

The heroes are the Werewolfes but only thanks to their leader not wanting humans to hunt them down to extinction.

I like her novels, even if her market is more the female YA and pink novel consumer.

I hear you on playing what I feel like at a given time, and I agree 100%

It's just that beyond CoC and Monster Hunter (Hero System) there's not much to choose from as to hunt down monsters, or to play as Monsters. Heroic Monsters don't quite float my boat as a game (funny enough given some of my reading choices) mainly because most people can't play them as anything but humans in rubber suits.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129727Dungeon Crawling and D&D Stats are kind of the exact opposite of what I want when it comes to Urban Fantasy Horror.

I was actually working on my own homebrew World of Darkness style setting material a couple years back. I actually was quite proud of how I differentiated Vampires and Werewolves and Demons from the way they were presented in White Wolf, but still kept some of those thematic elements.

System wise though, I think one of the other big draws of it is how easy it is to learn and teach someone. The Discreet powers also make things feel interesting in WoD. My own way of approaching it though, was to make a master list of dot based powers, and then give different discounts on purchasing them for specific species, and variant abilities that could only be used by specific splats.

Wilderness is just a dungeon in disguise, cities are mega dungeons, I see no difference there, sure, the stats don't lend themselves to play monsters. BUT you could always eschew those stats and go for Species as Class. Then mix some from Hero (effects based "powers"), and make all of the species to have power X but make it tied to their age, will power, evilness, etc. So the older, etc the more powerful.

I'm a huge fan of the Urban Arcana setting for D20 Modern. They did Urban Fantasy almost to perfection in my opinion. And didn't tilt things in favor of the monsters.

That setting could be adapted to dozens of different sorts of campaigns. All with different points of view. And they would all still be awesome to me.

D20 Modern is a game line that truly didn't get enough credit for the awesome things that were produced for it. And it is one of the few game lines I own every core product for.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129733I'm a huge fan of the Urban Arcana setting for D20 Modern. They did Urban Fantasy almost to perfection in my opinion. And didn't tilt things in favor of the monsters.

That setting could be adapted to dozens of different sorts of campaigns. All with different points of view. And they would all still be awesome to me.

So you think it's worth some of my very limited money?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129731Wilderness is just a dungeon in disguise, cities are mega dungeons, I see no difference there, sure, the stats don't lend themselves to play monsters. BUT you could always eschew those stats and go for Species as Class. Then mix some from Hero (effects based "powers"), and make all of the species to have power X but make it tied to their age, will power, evilness, etc. So the older, etc the more powerful.

Maybe it's just my WoD games didn't revolve around going to places, killing things and then taking their stuff. Well, most of them didn't. The Sabbat campaign I ran was very much about going places, killing things, and taking their stuff...

But my Camarilla games were much more political and involved going to parties, researching dark secrets, and trying to keep the Masquerade in place while maintaining humanity.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129735So you think it's worth some of my very limited money?

Without a doubt. Absolutely without a doubt.

Urban Arcana can be truly made your own in ways the World Of Darkness never could. It is just a far more versatile setting.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129737Urban Arcana can be truly made your own in ways the World Of Darkness never could. It is just a far more versatile setting.

Didn't WotC add most of Urban Arcana to the SRD?

Quote from: Pat;1129741Didn't WotC add most of Urban Arcana to the SRD?

They very well could have. But I haven't kept up with the SRD in quite some time.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129737Without a doubt. Absolutely without a doubt.

Urban Arcana can be truly made your own in ways the World Of Darkness never could. It is just a far more versatile setting.

Thanks putting it on my to buy list near the top.

http://spellbooksoftware.com/d20mrsd/arcana.html

D20 Modern isn't a bad game at all; I prefer True20, though. Anyway, we got to play Urban Arcana exactly once and it was a TPK to some anthropomorphic cockroach straight out of MiB.

Quote from: Brad;1129746http://spellbooksoftware.com/d20mrsd/arcana.html

D20 Modern isn't a bad game at all; I prefer True20, though. Anyway, we got to play Urban Arcana exactly once and it was a TPK to some anthropomorphic cockroach straight out of MiB.

Then you throw Dark Matter into the mix. Which does nothing but enhance something that is already great.

Quote from: Aglondir;1129683True. Have you seen Gurps: Bloodlines? It looks like a primer of vampire myths from around the world. That's not really the direction I want to go, but something might inspire me.

Blood Types? It's fairly simplistic. If you've read about vampires from around the world, there won't be a ton of new stuff, and it's not particularly exhaustive. It's okay for a first vampire book.

Quote from: Pat;1129758Blood Types? It's fairly simplistic. If you've read about vampires from around the world, there won't be a ton of new stuff, and it's not particularly exhaustive. It's okay for a first vampire book.

Correct, Blood Types.

Repost from the other Wod Thread..

In the way I presented Vampires in my own homebrew Off-brand WoD setting, they were very family orientated to make them different from The white wolf version.

Being embraced brought you into a new family, the supernatural blood tie gave you a loyalty to those who also shared your blood.

Vampires had 4 stages of Life and how it allowed them to create other Vampires. Starting off as a fledgling, a recent embrace, you were unable to truly create other Vampires... except for the potential of feral, blood crazed, zombie like creatures made by accident.

When a Vampire eventually achieved "Adult Status" they would become known as a "Lord" or "Lady"... and would be able to sire one other Vampire as a sort of mate, child, or sibling to themselves. They shared part of their soul with this Vampire and were unable to create any others until they grew older and greater in power, or until their created one died.

Eventually, A Vampire would become a "Master". Master Vampires had no limit on the broods they could create, but were old enough and wise enough, surviving to that age and power.. not to over do it. Still, the Master would stand as a grand Patriarch or Matriarch of a family line.

Ancients were Vampires that evolved into something else entirely... As Vampires carried an embodiment of Death within them, they became Psychopomps that fed on the very essence of Death itself. They would cross over into the Underworld, and feed on restless spirits, becoming gods of death there.

There were clans of a sort, known as "Bloodlines" which were basically founded by very powerful Masters, most of which had passed on to become Ancients. Names like Dracula, Carmilla, Orlov, and the like... Anything a GM would want to invent and use that could give a particular bonus to certain powers, along with a certain inherited family flaw of sorts too. The potential being for GMs able to invent whatever families they wanted for their particular setting.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129736Maybe it's just my WoD games didn't revolve around going to places, killing things and then taking their stuff. Well, most of them didn't. The Sabbat campaign I ran was very much about going places, killing things, and taking their stuff...

But my Camarilla games were much more political and involved going to parties, researching dark secrets, and trying to keep the Masquerade in place while maintaining humanity.

I never played WoD, mostly because it doesn't tickle my fancy and secondly because here in México the RPG scene is very small and therefore niche games have even less ppl playing them.

Dungeonering isn't about killing things and taking their stuff, but about solving problems.

In a sense everything in an RPG IS a Dungeon: Going to parties (The party place is the dungeon, but also some of the attendants become part of it by being obstacles for you doing what you want), researching: Problem Solving, Political: More problem solving, Keeping the Masquerade in place while maintaining humanity: The Treasure.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129775Repost from the other Wod Thread..

In the way I presented Vampires in my own homebrew Off-brand WoD setting, they were very family orientated to make them different from The white wolf version.

Being embraced brought you into a new family, the supernatural blood tie gave you a loyalty to those who also shared your blood.

Vampires had 4 stages of Life and how it allowed them to create other Vampires. Starting off as a fledgling, a recent embrace, you were unable to truly create other Vampires... except for the potential of feral, blood crazed, zombie like creatures made by accident.

When a Vampire eventually achieved "Adult Status" they would become known as a "Lord" or "Lady"... and would be able to sire one other Vampire as a sort of mate, child, or sibling to themselves. They shared part of their soul with this Vampire and were unable to create any others until they grew older and greater in power, or until their created one died.

Eventually, A Vampire would become a "Master". Master Vampires had no limit on the broods they could create, but were old enough and wise enough, surviving to that age and power.. not to over do it. Still, the Master would stand as a grand Patriarch or Matriarch of a family line.

Ancients were Vampires that evolved into something else entirely... As Vampires carried an embodiment of Death within them, they became Psychopomps that fed on the very essence of Death itself. They would cross over into the Underworld, and feed on restless spirits, becoming gods of death there.

There were clans of a sort, known as "Bloodlines" which were basically founded by very powerful Masters, most of which had passed on to become Ancients. Names like Dracula, Carmilla, Orlov, and the like... Anything a GM would want to invent and use that could give a particular bonus to certain powers, along with a certain inherited family flaw of sorts too. The potential being for GMs able to invent whatever families they wanted for their particular setting.

Somewhere I read something very much like this, except all vampires rose at first as feral, blood crazed monsters, with almost no brain and needed to be "curated" for a period of time until they broke out of it. Some never did and their maker had to kill them.

Not sure if in the same place I also read about in order to turn someone a vampire had to keep it as livestock for long enough so the human didn't die but turn, and even then most never rose, and almost zero ever rose if killed in their first bite.

I just heard about Dark Streets & Darker Secrets. It's based off of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells. Sounds like a "Hunters" game:

QuoteIt's a game about modern adventures in the world we live today, only with a layer of supernatural weirdness and horror. Characters are people who have found out about the mysteries and horrors that exist in the world and have decided to do something about it, be it battle it, join it, or simply explore its possibilities in any way they see fit. They will battle evil cultists, corrupted ghosts, bloodsucking vampires, and frenzied werewolves, or maybe they will be the horrors of others. This edition of the game assumes the reader knows the principles of what role-playing games are and how they are played.

What will you get with this book? Not only you will get a complete game system for urban fantasy, action horror and street and sorcery stories, you will also find tools and generators to create cities, neighborhoods, organizations, factions, NPS, monsters, ancient and sinister artifacts, complete adventures, which can all be of great help to inspire Referees of all modern games!

Quote from: Aglondir;1129794I just heard about Dark Streets & Darker Secrets. It's based off of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells. Sounds like a "Hunters" game:

Yep, it sounds like that, not really a fan of their other game tho, might see if I can buy this one if it's not too expensive.

Not familiar with this myself but I've read good things about it:

Esoteric Enterprises - Complete - Dying Stylishly Games | DriveThruRPG.com (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/297833/Esoteric-Enterprises--Complete)

OSR for WoD?

From a design standpoint, I would highly recommend going down the GODBOUND and/or MUTANT FUTURE route. Why? WoD is about starting with a powerful character out of the gate, but still enjoy an advancement arc.

I see no reason a game about Vampires vs. Werewolves vs. Wizards vs. Fey vs. Hunters would not be cool.

Personally, the WoD system never added anything to gameplay. OSR at the core would be a more dangerous combat engine and TO ME, that would be an advantage for the game.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129731Wilderness is just a dungeon in disguise, cities are mega dungeons, I see no difference there

I can't see how the comparison is productive? I mean, D&D is centered on physical challenges and the dungeon is a framework to explore that. A game like Vampire is (in theory) a social-political one, so it changes everything.

A more coherent framework for it would be a relationship map tracking the group reputation with various factions or individuals or something, and the challenges/threats would come from there. Which is already what most urban  modern games do in some way (Kult, Vampire5, Urban Shadows, Undying, Blades in the Dark, etc).1

These are all very good ideas. Very nice discussions. Thanks guys!

See, this is why I decided to write a modular multiverse. I don't want to arbitrarily discount ideas just because they don't fit with setting XYZ.

So I want to ask you guys: what would YOU like to see in an urban fantasy multiverse that aims to compete with World of Darkness?

EDIT: For example, I like having magical traditions a la Opening the Dark's art/praxis mechanic, but the purple paradigm's inconsistent consensus reality is too much of a headache.

Quote from: Itachi;1129806I can't see how the comparison is productive? I mean, D&D is centered on physical challenges and the dungeon is a framework to explore that. A game like Vampire is (in theory) a social-political one, so it changes everything.

A more coherent framework for it would be a relationship map tracking the group reputation with various factions or individuals or something, and the challenges/threats would come from there. Which is already what most urban  modern games do in some way (Kult, Vampire5, Urban Shadows, Undying, Blades in the Dark, etc).1

I'm responding to a very different claim than that you're doing here, meaning that D&D/OSR is about dungeoneering, hence my argument.

D&D is centered around what you make it, and in WoD there's also physical combat, intrigue, diplomacy, mental problem solving, just like in D&D, it's up to the GM to decide the mixture of those elements.

I posted how I did Vampires for my own Knock off WoD style setting, so I'll talk about how I did Werewolves next as well.

I went with Lycanthropy being a Curse for the most part. There are two different types of Lycanthropes, cursed and "Natural". But the Natural are not some actual spiritual part of the world, or anything akin to that. It's just what happens when two Lycanthropes get together and have children, their children will carry the curse as well.

The curse itself can only be transferred on the night of the Full Moon, and of course, you have to survive being attacked by them as well. Other than that, Werewolves had 3 forms, wolf, giant killing machine wolfman, and human.

But the strange thing about Werewolves I wanted to do, to make them different from whitewolf werewolves is make them naturally hate one another. There's an instinctual aggression towards one another to them. An inherent feeling of territory being invaded when they see one another, hackles raising and a very uncomfortable feeling in one another's presence. So you don't see Werewolves going around and forming packs with one another.

There was an exception to this. Anyone the Werewolf infected themselves they wouldn't hate, and their own descendants they wouldn't hate either. Making werewolf Clans a thing, but also very rare.

I also had this strange phenomenon among Werewolves known as "Alphas". Werewolf Alphas didn't engender a feeling of hatred among other werewolves, and could even suppress that feeling among other Werewolves. Allowing an actual Werewolf community to form underneath them. The general Werewolf population was ignorant on how "Alphas" come about. But it was actually a terrible ritual that had to be conducted by the would-be Alpha in question.

The Alpha would have to knowingly cannibalize their immediate family members, or closest approximation of them. A ritual complete rejection of their former humanity. This would alter the curse within them, allowing them to overcome the natural aggression felt among other Werewolves and control a werewolf community.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129775Repost from the other Wod Thread..

In the way I presented Vampires in my own homebrew Off-brand WoD setting, they were very family orientated to make them different from The white wolf version.

Being embraced brought you into a new family, the supernatural blood tie gave you a loyalty to those who also shared your blood.

Vampires had 4 stages of Life and how it allowed them to create other Vampires. Starting off as a fledgling, a recent embrace, you were unable to truly create other Vampires... except for the potential of feral, blood crazed, zombie like creatures made by accident.

When a Vampire eventually achieved "Adult Status" they would become known as a "Lord" or "Lady"... and would be able to sire one other Vampire as a sort of mate, child, or sibling to themselves. They shared part of their soul with this Vampire and were unable to create any others until they grew older and greater in power, or until their created one died.

Eventually, A Vampire would become a "Master". Master Vampires had no limit on the broods they could create, but were old enough and wise enough, surviving to that age and power.. not to over do it. Still, the Master would stand as a grand Patriarch or Matriarch of a family line.

Ancients were Vampires that evolved into something else entirely... As Vampires carried an embodiment of Death within them, they became Psychopomps that fed on the very essence of Death itself. They would cross over into the Underworld, and feed on restless spirits, becoming gods of death there.

There were clans of a sort, known as "Bloodlines" which were basically founded by very powerful Masters, most of which had passed on to become Ancients. Names like Dracula, Carmilla, Orlov, and the like... Anything a GM would want to invent and use that could give a particular bonus to certain powers, along with a certain inherited family flaw of sorts too. The potential being for GMs able to invent whatever families they wanted for their particular setting.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129777Somewhere I read something very much like this, except all vampires rose at first as feral, blood crazed monsters, with almost no brain and needed to be "curated" for a period of time until they broke out of it. Some never did and their maker had to kill them.

Not sure if in the same place I also read about in order to turn someone a vampire had to keep it as livestock for long enough so the human didn't die but turn, and even then most never rose, and almost zero ever rose if killed in their first bite.

Quote from: Orphan81;1129881I posted how I did Vampires for my own Knock off WoD style setting, so I'll talk about how I did Werewolves next as well.

I went with Lycanthropy being a Curse for the most part. There are two different types of Lycanthropes, cursed and "Natural". But the Natural are not some actual spiritual part of the world, or anything akin to that. It's just what happens when two Lycanthropes get together and have children, their children will carry the curse as well.

The curse itself can only be transferred on the night of the Full Moon, and of course, you have to survive being attacked by them as well. Other than that, Werewolves had 3 forms, wolf, giant killing machine wolfman, and human.

But the strange thing about Werewolves I wanted to do, to make them different from whitewolf werewolves is make them naturally hate one another. There's an instinctual aggression towards one another to them. An inherent feeling of territory being invaded when they see one another, hackles raising and a very uncomfortable feeling in one another's presence. So you don't see Werewolves going around and forming packs with one another.

There was an exception to this. Anyone the Werewolf infected themselves they wouldn't hate, and their own descendants they wouldn't hate either. Making werewolf Clans a thing, but also very rare.

I also had this strange phenomenon among Werewolves known as "Alphas". Werewolf Alphas didn't engender a feeling of hatred among other werewolves, and could even suppress that feeling among other Werewolves. Allowing an actual Werewolf community to form underneath them. The general Werewolf population was ignorant on how "Alphas" come about. But it was actually a terrible ritual that had to be conducted by the would-be Alpha in question.

The Alpha would have to knowingly cannibalize their immediate family members, or closest approximation of them. A ritual complete rejection of their former humanity. This would alter the curse within them, allowing them to overcome the natural aggression felt among other Werewolves and control a werewolf community.

Yeah those, sound like pretty interesting campaign settings. One of the things I disliked about WoD was that sometimes books would have brief sections detailing alternate campaign settings, but then never did anything with those. I'd like to go the opposite route and have long dissertations on alternate campaign settings.

I wanted to do a modular multiverse similar to how OGL sometimes does, where I'd explore various conceptions of vampirism, lycanthropy, etc and provide pointers on how to fit it into various campaign settings.

Maybe something in the vein of the mini-settings that were released for Chronicles of Darkness in the last years of 1e?

For example, you know how many World of Darkness games have technophile or techgnostic fraternities or antagonists? The virtual adepts, the nosferatus, the god-machine, the glasswalkers, wraiths riding the electron highway, etc. Just today I had this idea for a mini-setting dealing with technophiles and techgnostics in that vein. (So a number of splats are technophiles and technopaths, and a few are full-blown techgnostics. Techno-vampires, techno-werewolves, techno-ghosts, techno-wizards, etc. You can visit Cyberspace as if it was a real place. You have an incursion by the Matrix's agents, viruses from beyond, etc.)

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129864I'm responding to a very different claim than that you're doing here, meaning that D&D/OSR is about dungeoneering, hence my argument.

D&D is centered around what you make it, and in WoD there's also physical combat, intrigue, diplomacy, mental problem solving, just like in D&D, it's up to the GM to decide the mixture of those elements.

No offense, but If you think D&D as a system is centered on whatever the GM wants, then there's no point in going further in this discussion as we see games in fundamentally different ways.

Quote from: Itachi;1129893No offense, but If you think D&D as a system is centered on whatever the GM wants, then there's no point in going further in this discussion as we see games in fundamentally different ways.

Well, guess you're the type of GM/Player that plays it R.A.W.

Yes, I agree, there's no point in going further.

Does 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.

To move a discussion from another thread:

Quote from: Orphan81;1129400It is a nightmare. However that being said, I own all of those other games you just mentioned, and none of them are as Good as the World of Darkness titles for me and other fans. It's a love of the setting, and many of the mechanics. 20th Anniversary editions basically gave us the best version of the Classic WoD system and the best version of the setting... So many of us are just sticking with that and ignoring most of 5th edition.

In another conversation in another forum, somebody told me something simple: World of Darkness started with one book. It grew over many years of accumulation by many contributors. You can't expect an equivalent competitor to just pop into existence.

A world of darkness alternative would need to build itself over years. Which would be pretty costly. I can understand why those indie games you tried and disliked weren't able to provide the same experience as a game with hundreds of books made over many years.

That's why I started this thread. Building a competitor with the same breadth of lore would take years, just like building World of Darkness did. If I want to build an alternative, then I have to do it piecemeal. Book by book, edition by edition, year after year.

What do you guys think?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1129990...

What do you guys think?

It'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.

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 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/46/Visionary-Entertainment-Studio), 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 (https://www.amazon.com/Magicians-Companion-Everlasting-Roleplaying-Game/dp/1887358056). 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 (//www.oocities.org/shadowsofhumanity/).

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.

Well, like I said it's open source. So anyone is welcome to steal the things they like.
Personally I like the snark. My problem is more with the layout (looking at char generation).

After Sundown was revised there?
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3758962
https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/
Not finding it in the list.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130209I recommend checking out the review from the SomethingAwful "FATAL & Friends" review thread.

Mind letting us know the link?

Quote from: Itachi;1130215Mind letting us know the link?

It starts on this page, sorry: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&pagenumber=980&perpage=40

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130181Is the Underworld the actual afterlife or a limbo/purgatory realm?

Probably a combination of In Nomine and Wraith, where there's a Heaven, a Hell, and an In-between. Limbo? Shadowlands? Underworld? Not sure what to call it yet.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130181I'm confused. Are you saying don't invent a generic system from scratch and just use one that already exists?

Sorry I was unclear. Not suggesting using an existing system. I would definitely recommend creating a generic power system as a base, customizing it for each splat.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130209I'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.

Understood, I would not use it either. But one thing I do appreciate about Trollman's work is he researches and identifies what is public domain.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130217It starts on this page, sorry: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&pagenumber=980&perpage=40

Well, first thanks for the link.

The main critique was, not original... ripped off WoD...

Shure that's right, that was the point of the exercise as far as I know. WoD with better rules.
Someone could argue if he hit this goal or not, but nobody tried it in that thread.

The other main critique where the typos and layout. While valid, it's still an self published work and not really surprising.

OK, some rules critique was there (the backround skill is to powerfull according to the thread), but mostly it was Frank bashing.
Frank bashing followed by how awesome 4e D&D is :rolleyes: ...

Quote from: Aglondir;1130221Probably a combination of In Nomine and Wraith, where there's a Heaven, a Hell, and an In-between. Limbo? Shadowlands? Underworld? Not sure what to call it yet.

If I'm making ghosts a thing, then I'm not adding any place called an Underworld unless it's the Greek/Mayan/Chinese/Hebrew/whatever afterlife. I dislike how Wraith and Geist messed that up by conflating the Underworld with Limbo/Purgatory.

In my settings, ghosts live on Earth. If they have no unfinished business, then they cross over and are basically permadead unless a necromancer calls them up for knowledge seeking or something.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130217It starts on this page, sorry: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&pagenumber=980&perpage=40

Looks like someone else's (very derivative) 90's WoD homebrew. Not really my thing, but thanks anyway.

Quote from: Aglondir;1129641I've been thinking about a project lately which is exactly that (save the humanity part.) It's basically the campaign I wanted to run decades ago, but my group could never leave behind the White Wolf elements, and I got tired of pounding my head against a wall. But I've always wanted to necro it, but with an entirely different system to make sure the White Wolf baggage doesn't get in the way.  I'm looking at using a modified B/X core, much like Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing) does for his games. He's hands-down the king of using the B/X chassis for modern genres, if not one of the best OSR publishers around, and if I can manage to produce something with 1/10th of that quality I will consider it a success. The goal is not to create a "Vampire: the Masquerade with the serial numbers filed off" but to riff off the World of Darkness and a few other influences. If V:TM is an elaborately decorated, multi-layered wedding cake, this project is more like a stack of pancakes.


What's Out

• This won't be an urban fantasy game, but a vampire game. Mainly because designing all of those splats is too much work. My goal is to limit the focus on one thing. If it works, I can expand into different areas in subsequent products.
• No White Wolf lingo. I'm going to assume it's all under copyright, so you won't find Camirilla, Sabbat, Brujah, Nosferatu, Embrace, Kindred, Diablerie, Rotshreck, etc.
  
• Not too many of the V:TM concepts will survive. Some are unavoidable, for example, there's got to be a way to create new vampires. But I'm not going call it the Embrace. And there will be diablerie, but I need a new word for it.
  
• There are no vampire clans. But like any B/X game, there are classes, which are a mix of what you do and what you are. But these will not resemble the WW clans.
• There's no war between the badass violent sect and the corrupt but cultured sect, nor a war between the vampires and the werewolves, nor a war between the ruling class and the anarchists.
• There's no metaplot. There are setting elements, but they provide a structure, not a straight-jacket. The game is about your campaign and your players, not some grandiose preordained story.
• The game is not about "personal horror" or "losing your humanity" or wallowing in guilt and angst about the monster you've become. It is unabashedly what some critics call "superheroes with fangs." Because let's be honest: living forever and getting super powers is fucking awesome.

What's In

• System-wise, it will be a modified B/X chassis, with classes, levels, hit points, (ascending) armor class, saving throws, and a skill system with about 30 skills.
• The skills will blur the line between the mundane and the supernatural. For example, climb doesn't mean you climb a wall with hand holds and gear. it means you climb up a sheer vertical surface like a spider. Intimidate doesn't mean you threaten a guy with a gun and he backs down, it means he runs away in terror.
• Magic will be much like you're used to. Some spells will be familiar, while others will be new. Clerical magic is slightly different. Instead of spells, you learn Secrets and Rituals. Since all vampires can self-heal, the cleric isn't a heal-bot, but focuses on defense, information, and esoteric vampire lore.

So, what's the setting like?

• The World: The world is violent and corrupt. I love the the general feel of the WOD, where the game world is a darker reflection of our own.
• The City: It's not a real city in our world, but an amalgamation of many different cities. It has the skyscrapers of NYC and Chicago, the subway tunnels of London, the catacombs and sewers of Paris, and the ancient underground cisterns of Istanbul. Where is the City? Wherever you want it to be.
• The Houses: Vampire society is centered around the Houses. Think Game of Thrones or Dune and you've got it. Each House is ruled by a very powerful Lord/Lady, who controls a section of the city known as a demense. Each demense is a feeding ground, and vampires are very territorial by nature. You can't hunt on another house's territory. Conflict over territory is one of the main drivers of the game.
• The Duke: Someone has to be in charge. Again, think of GOT or Dune and you've got the general idea. The main job of the Duke is to ensure that (1) the territorial disputes don't get out of hand, (2) the mortal herds don't get too thin, and (3) the vampire population doesn't get too large. These three things tend to exist in a delicate balance--when one gets out of hand, it threatens the other two. And when all three get out of control, it becomes an existential threat.

Ok, but what do the players do?

• Dungeoncrawls: It's an OSR game, so killing monsters and taking their stuff is a thing. You can probably guess from the paragraph above what the "dungeons" are going to be. The "monsters" will usually be other vampires (or their minions) and "stuff" will be a little different than a classic D&D game. But the spirit is the same.
• Politics: Another component of the game deals with diplomatic relations between the houses. Making and breaking deals, backstabbing, treachery, seduction, assassination, etc. Every Lord curries favor with the Duke to gain an advantage over his rivals, while scheming on how to kill him and take his place.
• Mystery: No one knows who the first vampire was, or why vampires were created in the first place. There are several theories, which over the centuries have become mystery cults and in some cases, religions. But any concrete evidence has been lost to the sands of time. Finding lost texts and ancient artifacts provides power, both in the abstract and literal sense.

So that's basically where I'm at. It's not much, but let me know what you think.

This sounds awesome to me? Are you going to release this? I need to run/play this now!

I had an interesting proposition...

What if you ran a long-term Classic WoD chronicle that starts off where the franchise began, with the default setting presented in Vampire: The Masquerade's first edition and maybe also the 1st Edition version of Chicago By Night...and then from there, diverge in a completely and entirely different direction on the setting and metaplot.

Instead of following the old canon and metaplot, the ST instead creates a deliberate and very explicit counter-canon and counter-metaplot. Events would happen differently and the other splats would appear differently and others might not appear at all, to say nothing of the possible fan splats the ST could include (Zombie, Immortal, Senshi, or some of the stuff that was on B.J. Zanzibar's old site)

Quote from: Aglondir;1129641I've been thinking about a project lately which is exactly that (save the humanity part.) It's basically the campaign I wanted to run decades ago, but my group could never leave behind the White Wolf elements, and I got tired of pounding my head against a wall. But I've always wanted to necro it, but with an entirely different system to make sure the White Wolf baggage doesn't get in the way.  I'm looking at using a modified B/X core, much like Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing) does for his games. He's hands-down the king of using the B/X chassis for modern genres, if not one of the best OSR publishers around, and if I can manage to produce something with 1/10th of that quality I will consider it a success. The goal is not to create a "Vampire: the Masquerade with the serial numbers filed off" but to riff off the World of Darkness and a few other influences. If V:TM is an elaborately decorated, multi-layered wedding cake, this project is more like a stack of pancakes.


What's Out

• This won't be an urban fantasy game, but a vampire game. Mainly because designing all of those splats is too much work. My goal is to limit the focus on one thing. If it works, I can expand into different areas in subsequent products.
• No White Wolf lingo. I'm going to assume it's all under copyright, so you won't find Camirilla, Sabbat, Brujah, Nosferatu, Embrace, Kindred, Diablerie, Rotshreck, etc.
  
• Not too many of the V:TM concepts will survive. Some are unavoidable, for example, there's got to be a way to create new vampires. But I'm not going call it the Embrace. And there will be diablerie, but I need a new word for it.
  
• There are no vampire clans. But like any B/X game, there are classes, which are a mix of what you do and what you are. But these will not resemble the WW clans.
• There's no war between the badass violent sect and the corrupt but cultured sect, nor a war between the vampires and the werewolves, nor a war between the ruling class and the anarchists.
• There's no metaplot. There are setting elements, but they provide a structure, not a straight-jacket. The game is about your campaign and your players, not some grandiose preordained story.
• The game is not about "personal horror" or "losing your humanity" or wallowing in guilt and angst about the monster you've become. It is unabashedly what some critics call "superheroes with fangs." Because let's be honest: living forever and getting super powers is fucking awesome.

What's In

• System-wise, it will be a modified B/X chassis, with classes, levels, hit points, (ascending) armor class, saving throws, and a skill system with about 30 skills.
• The skills will blur the line between the mundane and the supernatural. For example, climb doesn't mean you climb a wall with hand holds and gear. it means you climb up a sheer vertical surface like a spider. Intimidate doesn't mean you threaten a guy with a gun and he backs down, it means he runs away in terror.
• Magic will be much like you're used to. Some spells will be familiar, while others will be new. Clerical magic is slightly different. Instead of spells, you learn Secrets and Rituals. Since all vampires can self-heal, the cleric isn't a heal-bot, but focuses on defense, information, and esoteric vampire lore.

So, what's the setting like?

• The World: The world is violent and corrupt. I love the the general feel of the WOD, where the game world is a darker reflection of our own.
• The City: It's not a real city in our world, but an amalgamation of many different cities. It has the skyscrapers of NYC and Chicago, the subway tunnels of London, the catacombs and sewers of Paris, and the ancient underground cisterns of Istanbul. Where is the City? Wherever you want it to be.
• The Houses: Vampire society is centered around the Houses. Think Game of Thrones or Dune and you've got it. Each House is ruled by a very powerful Lord/Lady, who controls a section of the city known as a demense. Each demense is a feeding ground, and vampires are very territorial by nature. You can't hunt on another house's territory. Conflict over territory is one of the main drivers of the game.
• The Duke: Someone has to be in charge. Again, think of GOT or Dune and you've got the general idea. The main job of the Duke is to ensure that (1) the territorial disputes don't get out of hand, (2) the mortal herds don't get too thin, and (3) the vampire population doesn't get too large. These three things tend to exist in a delicate balance--when one gets out of hand, it threatens the other two. And when all three get out of control, it becomes an existential threat.

Ok, but what do the players do?

• Dungeoncrawls: It's an OSR game, so killing monsters and taking their stuff is a thing. You can probably guess from the paragraph above what the "dungeons" are going to be. The "monsters" will usually be other vampires (or their minions) and "stuff" will be a little different than a classic D&D game. But the spirit is the same.
• Politics: Another component of the game deals with diplomatic relations between the houses. Making and breaking deals, backstabbing, treachery, seduction, assassination, etc. Every Lord curries favor with the Duke to gain an advantage over his rivals, while scheming on how to kill him and take his place.
• Mystery: No one knows who the first vampire was, or why vampires were created in the first place. There are several theories, which over the centuries have become mystery cults and in some cases, religions. But any concrete evidence has been lost to the sands of time. Finding lost texts and ancient artifacts provides power, both in the abstract and literal sense.

So that's basically where I'm at. It's not much, but let me know what you think.

Shut up and take my money.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1130277I had an interesting proposition...

What if you ran a long-term Classic WoD chronicle that starts off where the franchise began, with the default setting presented in Vampire: The Masquerade's first edition and maybe also the 1st Edition version of Chicago By Night...and then from there, diverge in a completely and entirely different direction on the setting and metaplot.

Instead of following the old canon and metaplot, the ST instead creates a deliberate and very explicit counter-canon and counter-metaplot. Events would happen differently and the other splats would appear differently and others might not appear at all, to say nothing of the possible fan splats the ST could include (Zombie, Immortal, Senshi, or some of the stuff that was on B.J. Zanzibar's old site)

Sam, I couldn't disagree with you more. I don't like the World of Darkness setting. Individual pieces, probably, but not the whole.

It's going to take me years to get my urban fantasy multiverse off the ground. I think I'll start by writing prose fiction to establish how characters interact with the setting. I'll probably invent some POV character who is basically Penny Dreadful with a TARDIS, thus explaining how she can visit various worlds a la Sliders.

Actually the more I work on my Adventures of the Weird the less World of Darkness it feels.  It feels more like dark super hero game with the setting being more inline with Conan the Barbarian meets TARG while being the modern day.  I think I failed in making a nWoD killer and went off to its own path to something new.

Quote from: daddystabz;1130273This sounds awesome to me? Are you going to release this? I need to run/play this now!

Thanks! In terms of progress, I'm still juggling some concepts. I'll post updates as they trickle in.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1130535Actually the more I work on my Adventures of the Weird the less World of Darkness it feels.  It feels more like dark super hero game with the setting being more inline with Conan the Barbarian meets TARG while being the modern day.  I think I failed in making a nWoD killer and went off to its own path to something new.

Your description sounds like what Monte Cook tried to do with his take on WoD some years ago. Maybe take a look for ideas? It shouldnt be hard to find these days.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1130535Actually the more I work on my Adventures of the Weird the less World of Darkness it feels.  It feels more like dark super hero game with the setting being more inline with Conan the Barbarian meets TARG while being the modern day.  I think I failed in making a nWoD killer and went off to its own path to something new.

WoD/CoD doesn't seem like its ever going to be killed by any single competitor. More likely they're just going to decline as competitors keep popping up. WoD/CoD is already hanging by a thread since they were purchased by a game publisher in order to be mined for video games. Paradox may eventually discard Onyx because of creative differences. The changes to the setting and rules that Paradox wants for their video games don't match what fans of the tabletop seem to want. Since the video games will be far more popular, then the tabletop will get the boot.

As much as I might want to kill WoD/CoD, I know that's a pipe dream and I'm more interested in creating a setting that I enjoy (and that others might deign to enjoy if they aren't WW fanboys). At this point in time, I feel that I might be happier writing prose about scenarios that I enjoy rather than tormenting myself by trying to engage with toxic tabletop communities. Online roleplaying seems to be way more popular nowadays than tabletop. Has anyone ever written an RPG setting specifically for chats?

Anyway, here are a few ideas for possible settings because I feel like being constructive:

The Masquerade: The world resembles contemporary Earth, but there is a secret paranormal underground. (e.g. the X of Darkness games)

The Unmasked World: Previously identical to The Masquerade setting, this world has revealed the paranormal to the muggle public. (e.g. the works written by Patricia Briggs, Blades in the Dark)

The Magic Comes Back: The paranormal creatures left Earth sometime during the Renaissance or Age of Reason. In the contemporary period, they are slowly returning from their extraterrestrial and extraplanar realms. (e.g. the Dark-Matter game)

Ancient Conspiracy: A variant of The Masquerade world, this setting is full of ancient conspiracies that are constantly operating at cross-purposes. The pileup prevents any single conspiracy from effectively ruling the world. (e.g. the Nephilim game)

Weirdness Magnet: the party lives in a town that attracts paranormal activity to a much greater degree than the rest of the world. (e.g. Buffy, Spooksville, Gravity Falls)

The Dark City: The city that the party lives in is actually an artificial simulation (e.g. Dark City, The Matrix)

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130726Anyway, here are a few ideas for possible settings because I feel like being constructive:

The Masquerade: The world resembles contemporary Earth, but there is a secret paranormal underground. (e.g. the X of Darkness games)

The Unmasked World: Previously identical to The Masquerade setting, this world has revealed the paranormal to the muggle public. (e.g. the works written by Patricia Briggs, Blades in the Dark)

The Magic Comes Back: The paranormal creatures left Earth sometime during the Renaissance or Age of Reason. In the contemporary period, they are slowly returning from their extraterrestrial and extraplanar realms. (e.g. the Dark-Matter game)

Ancient Conspiracy: A variant of The Masquerade world, this setting is full of ancient conspiracies that are constantly operating at cross-purposes. The pileup prevents any single conspiracy from effectively ruling the world. (e.g. the Nephilim game)

Weirdness Magnet: the party lives in a town that attracts paranormal activity to a much greater degree than the rest of the world. (e.g. Buffy, Spooksville, Gravity Falls)

The Dark City: The city that the party lives in is actually an artificial simulation (e.g. Dark City, The Matrix)

Or a mix off 2 or more of those:

An Ancient Conspiracy that maintains The Masquerade because if the muggles knew the truth panic would ensue making more difficult the efforts of world domination/feeding and the ones by the secret organization that fights the monsters.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130726Anyway, here are a few ideas for possible settings because I feel like being constructive:

The Masquerade: The world resembles contemporary Earth, but there is a secret paranormal underground. (e.g. the X of Darkness games)

The Unmasked World: Previously identical to The Masquerade setting, this world has revealed the paranormal to the muggle public. (e.g. the works written by Patricia Briggs, Blades in the Dark)

The Magic Comes Back: The paranormal creatures left Earth sometime during the Renaissance or Age of Reason. In the contemporary period, they are slowly returning from their extraterrestrial and extraplanar realms. (e.g. the Dark-Matter game)

Ancient Conspiracy: A variant of The Masquerade world, this setting is full of ancient conspiracies that are constantly operating at cross-purposes. The pileup prevents any single conspiracy from effectively ruling the world. (e.g. the Nephilim game)

Weirdness Magnet: the party lives in a town that attracts paranormal activity to a much greater degree than the rest of the world. (e.g. Buffy, Spooksville, Gravity Falls)

The Dark City: The city that the party lives in is actually an artificial simulation (e.g. Dark City, The Matrix)

I like Ancient Conspiracies, which is the model I hope to use for my Vampire game. The Magic Comes Back would be great for an Urban Fantasy game. Another one for the list is The Shadow Wave, where the Earth periodically experiences some sort of dark energy wave that turns people into shadow creatures (Shadowrun?)

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1130785Or a mix off 2 or more of those:

An Ancient Conspiracy that maintains The Masquerade because if the muggles knew the truth panic would ensue making more difficult the efforts of world domination/feeding and the ones by the secret organization that fights the monsters.

Alternately, muggles generally either can't or won't notice the paranormal (at least not correctly). Any weird events in public are either dismissed or rationalized by spin doctors. That's the Weirdness Censor trope.

Aside, I don't think huge conspiracies make sense due to the logistics involved. If you have magic that lets you ignore logistics, then you might as well be playing Nobilis or a similar game. What I liked about Nephilim (the English adaptation) was that it didn't have a monolithic globe-spanning conspiracy: it had many conspiracies fighting each other. Aside from the nephilim, all of them were human.

Quote from: Aglondir;1130791I like Ancient Conspiracies, which is the model I hope to use for my Vampire game. The Magic Comes Back would be great for an Urban Fantasy game. Another one for the list is The Shadow Wave, where the Earth periodically experiences some sort of dark energy wave that turns people into shadow creatures (Shadowrun?)

As you can see, pretty much every idea I posted is a trope that was used before.

Quote from: korwin;1130213Well, like I said it's open source. So anyone is welcome to steal the things they like.
Personally I like the snark. My problem is more with the layout (looking at char generation).

After Sundown was revised there?
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3758962
https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/
Not finding it in the list.

For a guy who likes to brag about be a "game designer", Frank really that his sweet time to do anything. It's almost ten years and he only wrote worser background stuff and almost no rules.

Anyway, here's a link to Jared Sorensen's Vampires (https://web.archive.org/web/20010527225528/http://www.memento-mori.com/vampires/main.html) from two decades ago. It's basically an OSR alternative for the LARP. It introduces three new disciplines: Morpheus (powers related to sleep and dreams), Psychogenesis (psychic powers like telekinesis, telepathy, and astral projection), and Translocation (supernatural modes of movement well-established in vampire fiction like wall crawling, phase door, and levitation/flight).

Here are a few ideas for vampire settings specifically, given their special diets (and popularity):

Vampire Society: this setting is similar to Being Human, Kindred: The Embraced, Blade: The Series, etc. In this setting, vampires have secret societies that live within human society. Every major city has enough vampires to form a tribe with a hierarchy. On the other hand, you have a bunch of blood-crazed monsters living in close proximity to each other and many innocent human beings. (Vampires may or may not have a global hierarchy, but at that point you start running into a lot of logistical difficulties.)

Forever Alone: this setting is similar to Interview with the Vampire, Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, Forever Knight, and most vampire horror fiction. In this setting, vampires are relatively rare and don't really have any society to speak of beyond a few isolated covens in select areas around the world.

Vampires are monsters: this setting is similar to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sonja Blue, Liminal, 30 Days of Night, Blade, most vampire b-movies, and most vampire horror fiction. The majority of vampires are evil, with the transformation resulting in a demon taking over their body and possibly retaining their memories and aspects of their personality. A tiny minority of vampires retain their humanity, but are cursed to struggle eternally with their hunger for human blood. The latter are likely to become vampire hunters, as they are able to use vampire powers. Sometimes, they may be distinguished by other features like special names (e.g. half-vampire, daywalker, dhampir, devilman, etc) and reduced sensitivity to typical vampire weaknesses (which allows them to use these weaknesses against other vampires).

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130822Alternately, muggles generally either can't or won't notice the paranormal (at least not correctly). Any weird events in public are either dismissed or rationalized by spin doctors. That's the Weirdness Censor trope.

Aside, I don't think huge conspiracies make sense due to the logistics involved. If you have magic that lets you ignore logistics, then you might as well be playing Nobilis or a similar game. What I liked about Nephilim (the English adaptation) was that it didn't have a monolithic globe-spanning conspiracy: it had many conspiracies fighting each other. Aside from the nephilim, all of them were human.



As you can see, pretty much every idea I posted is a trope that was used before.

Thing is, you don't need a huge conspiracy, several groups that happen to have a common goal (even if they all want to kill each other) and are working independently to achieve that goal will give the appearance of a conspiracy anyway.

So, you have vampires fighting each other for power, werewolves fighting the vampires for the hunting ground, and so on each one has one common interest, the muggles don't finding out the legends are true. They don't need to work in unison towards that goal to give the appearance of a huge conspiracy to the uninitiated onlooker.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1130842Thing is, you don't need a huge conspiracy, several groups that happen to have a common goal (even if they all want to kill each other) and are working independently to achieve that goal will give the appearance of a conspiracy anyway.

So, you have vampires fighting each other for power, werewolves fighting the vampires for the hunting ground, and so on each one has one common interest, the muggles don't finding out the legends are true. They don't need to work in unison towards that goal to give the appearance of a huge conspiracy to the uninitiated onlooker.

Fair enough.

What kinds of campaign settings do you guys like building?

Somebody elsewhere suggested to me that I world build a variation of the "magic comes back" setting option (similar to McWoD, but without the obvious alien invasion). It's technically a multiverse as each splat originates from a particular other world, each of which may link to further other worlds.

What do you think?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130899What kinds of campaign settings do you guys like building?

Somebody elsewhere suggested to me that I world build a variation of the "magic comes back" setting option (similar to McWoD, but without the obvious alien invasion). It's technically a multiverse as each splat originates from a particular other world, each of which may link to further other worlds.

What do you think?

One of my possible takes for a Urban Fantasy game was just that, would be interested on reading your take since I discarded mine for a mix of:

The Masquerade + The Unmasked World + Ancient Conspiracy

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1130901One of my possible takes for a Urban Fantasy game was just that, would be interested on reading your take since I discarded mine for a mix of:

The Masquerade + The Unmasked World + Ancient Conspiracy

The utility of a setting where magical creatures are slowly entering/returning to earth is that you don't have to figure out overmuch how the paranormal entwines with real history or how the population dynamics work. You don't need to world build ancient conspiracy histories when the paranormal is only recently entering the criminal underworld. This also lends itself more easily to a monster of week format, with the party being able to scope out and deal with local incursions.

You can, of course, world build the histories of the other worlds. Those are not limited by the history of Earth. You could have a medieval fantasy world where vampires and wizards war openly. Maybe the Order of the Dragon and the House of Magnus are at war because Magnus conducted experiments on vampires of the Order to create an elixir of immortality. Maybe one world is post-apocalyptic, full of crumbling cities in archaic styles and infested with vampiric monsters and treasure-hunters.

As you can probably tell, I'm biased towards the adventure genre.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1130909The utility of a setting where magical creatures are slowly entering/returning to earth is that you don't have to figure out overmuch how the paranormal entwines with real history or how the population dynamics work. You don't need to world build ancient conspiracy histories when the paranormal is only recently entering the criminal underworld. This also lends itself more easily to a monster of week format, with the party being able to scope out and deal with local incursions.

You can, of course, world build the histories of the other worlds. Those are not limited by the history of Earth. You could have a medieval fantasy world where vampires and wizards war openly. Maybe the Order of the Dragon and the House of Magnus are at war because Magnus conducted experiments on vampires of the Order to create an elixir of immortality. Maybe one world is post-apocalyptic, full of crumbling cities in archaic styles and infested with vampiric monsters and treasure-hunters.

As you can probably tell, I'm biased towards the adventure genre.

It's my favorite genre too, not sure my game can work with magic returns tho. Will think about it but not sure how all I've done (not much at the moment) would work within that concept.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1130920It's my favorite genre too, not sure my game can work with magic returns tho. Will think about it but not sure how all I've done (not much at the moment) would work within that concept.

That's why I decided there would be multiple parallel Earths. Each can explore different setting options, but still draw from various setting-agnostic rules and fluff.

So, for example, the Kemetic Order of Seth-Ka would still exist across multiple Earths as Egyptian-descended demon hunters.

Design Notes: Classes

Here's the current lineup of classes so far. They are based on the B/X concept that a class is a combination of both What You Do and What You Are.  Comparisons to V:TM are inevitable, and that's fine; it should be fairly obvious where things are intersecting. However, the classes are not clans. If a Warrior turns a mortal into a vampire, the new vampire choose to be a warrior or any other class. Also, the goal with the classes is to capture general archetypes, not a one-to-one mapping with the V;TM clans.

Let me know what you think.


The Ruler

You are obsessed with control and power, either commanding from the throne or pulling the leader's strings from the shadows. You have vast resources, possibly amassed over centuries, as well as status in vampire society and influence over mortal institutions.


The Sorcerer

Many other classes have abilities that mortals would consider supernatural, but you command powers beyond comprehension. Magic is the mastery of otherworldly energy; the raw energy of shadow, dreams, and blood; unparalleled in both power and versatility.


The Warrior

You are skilled in all manner of physical combat, honed over lifetimes of training and conflict. You might focus on a single weapon or style, or prefer an arsenal of weapons. You might dedicate yourself to a code of honor, or prefer unrefined rage and fury. Regardless, when it comes to combat you have no equal.


The Hunter

You are the ultimate predator, either relentlessly stalking your prey, or waiting in the shadows for the moment to strike. Unlike the warrior, you prefer ambushing your prey rather than direct conflict. Hunters often feel a connection to the natural world and animal behavior, and are the least likely to follow the rules of vampire society.


The Deceiver

You see the hunt through the lens of social interactions, albeit the darker and more exploitative aspects. Deception, manipulation, and seduction are your weapons; secrets and favors are your armor. Of all the vampires, Seducers are the most likely to be a part of mortal society and develop personal relationships with mortals. Some even masquerade as mortals, holding down jobs or roles in mortal society.


The Mystic

No one knows where vampires came from or who the first vampire was. There are numerous myths, a questionable mix of oral history and fragments of scrolls, tomes, and artifacts. Over time, these myths have grown into mystery cults, each which claims a monopoly on the truth. Mystics have access to secrets and rituals that provide supernatural powers, usually focused on the nature of vampirism, death, and prophecy.


The Outcast

No one knows why, but on rare occasions a vampire is created with some sort of deformity that mars their appearance. Over time, things get worse. Their skin turns deathly pale, gray like stone, or black as obsidian. Their face and body hideously twist and morph into something inhuman. At the first sign of the process, these unfortunates are cast out of vampire society, finding refuge in the sewers, tunnels, and forgotten places beneath the city where they form a culture of their own.

Interesting. Your writing is both flavorful and concise. I like it. Much better than WoD/CoD taking forever to describe very simple concepts.

I've sometimes thought that d20 rules or something like it would match the themes and the fiction of WoD better than the actual rule set that they use. Some say that D&D with high level characters having lots of hit points is unrealistic, and I can see that in a way, but when we're talking about powerful supernatural creatures, that makes more sense than 7 health levels that can be gone in an instant. In the fiction, we had a werewolf pack take on the Methuselah Mithras and the fight took hours and left Mithras in a weakened state after he killed the pack. You can't simulate that fight with WoD combat rules, not even close. If you look at Mithras' stats, a typical werewolf could probably kill him in two hits. He wouldn't last a single round if he just fought them. Of course, maybe he could just have the pack kill each other with his Dominate and Presence, but that isn't what the fiction described. What the fiction described was way more like a PC party taking on a big boss or monster in D&D than anything possible with vampires in WoD. They same thing goes for a number of other epic fights described in the fluff and fiction.

To emulate this, you could use a d20 style system where supernatural creatures have hit dice and increasing levels while maybe humans have a maximum level or get far fewer hit points per level to represent relative human fragility.

Edit:
There is MCWoD, though that is made for CoD and I think that the original WoD would be a better match for such a game.

I skimmed this 11 page thread, so if someone has already mentioned my attempt at an OSR V:tM, thanks!  I never really came up with a setting for Blood Dark Thirst.  Every time I started, my motivation shrank from the sunlight.  If that kind of thing is your bag, feel free to contact me.

VS

Quote from: ShieldWife;1131300I've sometimes thought that d20 rules or something like it would match the themes and the fiction of WoD better than the actual rule set that they use. Some say that D&D with high level characters having lots of hit points is unrealistic, and I can see that in a way, but when we're talking about powerful supernatural creatures, that makes more sense than 7 health levels that can be gone in an instant. In the fiction, we had a werewolf pack take on the Methuselah Mithras and the fight took hours and left Mithras in a weakened state after he killed the pack. You can't simulate that fight with WoD combat rules, not even close. If you look at Mithras' stats, a typical werewolf could probably kill him in two hits. He wouldn't last a single round if he just fought them. Of course, maybe he could just have the pack kill each other with his Dominate and Presence, but that isn't what the fiction described. What the fiction described was way more like a PC party taking on a big boss or monster in D&D than anything possible with vampires in WoD. They same thing goes for a number of other epic fights described in the fluff and fiction.

To emulate this, you could use a d20 style system where supernatural creatures have hit dice and increasing levels while maybe humans have a maximum level or get far fewer hit points per level to represent relative human fragility.

Edit:
There is MCWoD, though that is made for CoD and I think that the original WoD would be a better match for such a game.

CoD eventually reintroduced "methuselah"-ranked vampires shortly prior to 2e. (I'm not really a fan of using that name, though, for the same reason I find most WW jargon eyebrow-raising and inorganic. It refers to a long-lived man in the Bible (although his age wasn't unusual among biblical figures) and it literally/roughly translates to "bringer of death" or something like that.)

I think you could simulate it by altering how WoD handles combat. The vampire lord would need to have lots of defense, health, and offense. You also need rules for dismemberment and throwing people like projectiles...

Quote from: VengerSatanis;1131318I skimmed this 11 page thread, so if someone has already mentioned my attempt at an OSR V:tM, thanks!  I never really came up with a setting for Blood Dark Thirst.  Every time I started, my motivation shrank from the sunlight.  If that kind of thing is your bag, feel free to contact me.

VS

What is "Blood Dark Thirst"?

I'm just happy to see Venger still stops by this forum sometimes.   Blood Dark Thirst: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/223788/Blood-Dark-Thirst (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/223788/Blood-Dark-Thirst)

Quote from: Kuroth;1131387I'm just happy to see Venger still stops by this forum sometimes.   Blood Dark Thirst: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/223788/Blood-Dark-Thirst (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/223788/Blood-Dark-Thirst)

Thanks for the link. Seems interesting enough, although I admit that I'm generally desperate for anything to distract me from WoD.

Here's a link of my own. I had to find the article the blurb mentions on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190113212859/http://draconicmagazine.com/articles/vampires-funny

EDIT: I'm skimming right now, and I really like what I see. The way it handles humanity and the demonic is a lot more evocative than WoD.

So to continue my ideas for the contemporary Earth being invaded by monsters from the otherworlds...

Earth-30H is a parallel Earth resembling our contemporary reality. It has smartphones! There are differences (to account for individual campaigns), but nothing major. Earth is currently being invaded by monsters from other worlds. These monsters previously had a greater presence on Earth, but most started leaving sometime during the Enlightenment and have only recently started revisiting. At the same time (either causation or correlation), magic in general started weakening for hotly-debated reasons and most magic-users lost their powers until a recent resurgence of magic. So the monsters and magicians don't have long-established power bases on Earth, so the PCs don't need to worry about ancient global monolithic conspiracies constantly breathing down their necks.

Ybervalt is another parallel Earth (specifically a country or collection of countries corresponding to Eastern Europe), although it's history is vastly difference due to much greater concentrations of magic. Namely, the nobility consist of vampires, wizards, werewolves, and other classic monsters. So it's a bit like the Sylvania of the Warhammer World, I guess. Ybervalt is currently experiencing a war between a cabal of wizards (the House of Magnus) and a vampire knightly order (the Order of the Dragon) due to the wizards harvesting vampires as ingredients for youth potions. There's currently a succession crisis since a vampire-werewolf Romeo/Juliet couple who are the heirs of the two most powerful werewolf and vampire houses (who are archnemeses) have eloped to Earth.

Jermyn-PC Partition 01 is a New^15 York that is a virtual reality running inside of an assumed Jupiter Brain. It's basically the Matrix meets the Reboot cartoon meets Digimon. Much like the Matrix and Digimon, they have programs mimicking mythical creatures like vampires and werewolves. Jermyn is currently under assault by a virus called Terabyte, whose goal is conquest. Plucky bands of heroes fight the various infected files. The network's safeguards have gone a bit haywire since apparently whoever was in charge of the mainframe has gone AWOL, so the safeguards have decided on a scorched earth policy whenever anybody tries to attempt network access. This world is intended to be a techgnostic's wet dream.

Castleworld is a post-apocalyptic world whose main notable feature aside from radioactive fallout is that its orbit is filled with gothic castles and spacecraft from a long-collapsed vampire civilization. Most of them have since become infested with monsters and demons and space pirates, but a possible plot hook is that one of the PCs inherits one from a deceased vampire lord relative they didn't know they had, have magically inherited vampirism through the contract if they didn't have it before, and must now unravel the castle's many mysteries. Yes, this is blatantly influenced by Vampire Hunter D.

The Wizarding Galaxy is an alternate Milky Way galaxy where wizards pilot spacecraft. I'm too tired to imagine more details.

Let me know what you guys think.

EDIT: I had an idea for a POV character: a time-traveling cyborg templar homunculus who lives in a laser katana squid starship.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131491The Wizarding Galaxy is an alternate Milky Way galaxy where wizards pilot spacecraft. I'm too tired to imagine more details.

The spaceships are shaped like brooms, and the pilots are all high on this melange of spices puked up by various worm-shaped alien creatures, so they frequently end up in the wrong quadrant and report seeing fanciful creatures like griffons, dragons, and giants. They're also racist elitists who think they're above the "diggles" (their term for non-pilots, a reference to dirt). There's a war between the deeply racist wizardlings who think playing horrific mind- and body-warping practical jokes on defenseless people is hilarious, and a mildly worse group with dreams of conquest.

Quote from: Pat;1131533The spaceships are shaped like brooms, and the pilots are all high on this melange of spices puked up by various worm-shaped alien creatures, so they frequently end up in the wrong quadrant and report seeing fanciful creatures like griffons, dragons, and giants. They're also racist elitists who think they're above the "diggles" (their term for non-pilots, a reference to dirt). There's a war between the deeply racist wizardlings who think playing horrific mind- and body-warping practical jokes on defenseless people is hilarious, and a mildly worse group with dreams of conquest.

You reminded me of this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4506[/ATTACH]

Quote from: Pat;1131533The spaceships are shaped like brooms, and the pilots are all high on this melange of spices puked up by various worm-shaped alien creatures, so they frequently end up in the wrong quadrant and report seeing fanciful creatures like griffons, dragons, and giants. They're also racist elitists who think they're above the "diggles" (their term for non-pilots, a reference to dirt). There's a war between the deeply racist wizardlings who think playing horrific mind- and body-warping practical jokes on defenseless people is hilarious, and a mildly worse group with dreams of conquest.

This is awesome! I love the satire of Harry Potter, too.

So something I liked about the Mage (any iteration) mechanics was that it used a syntactic magic system to cover both conventional magic as well as mad science, reality hacking, etc rather than having distinct subsystems for each like say Rifts or Shadowrun. (Although to be fair this is a result of having sufficiently heavy crunch. A light system like Risus uses the same rules for everything.)

Opening the Dark (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRF8OzdA1D1rC_PaJwr3OzfqqSMgqAVRhBHm9A5LsmaMqaMB4JlwLb8-Jd9PkAlMyDRI2ZLBd7lzFOI/pub) uses a syntactic magic system where magical traditions consist of an Art (e.g. Animism, Thaumaturgy, Faith, The Dark Art, Mysticism, Wicca, Dao) and each Art has several Praxes (sing. Praxis) representing specific areas of magical ability. As a matter of game balance, each Praxis also has an associated Nemesis (e.g. Air/Earth, Life/Death, War/Peace).

Rather than trying to provide some universal underpinning like consensus reality or gnosticism, I'm opting for the approach that "magic just works, don't think about it too hard." However, different worlds may affect the usage of magic. For example, a world with low amounts of ambient magic may result in magical workings being weaker overall (to the point that mages lose their power entirely). Conversely, a world may have an ambiance that makes magic more likely to go haywire.

There's a lot of leeway.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131600So something I liked about the Mage (any iteration) mechanics was that it used a syntactic magic system to cover both conventional magic as well as mad science, reality hacking, etc rather than having distinct subsystems for each like say Rifts or Shadowrun. (Although to be fair this is a result of having sufficiently heavy crunch. A light system like Risus uses the same rules for everything.)

Opening the Dark (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRF8OzdA1D1rC_PaJwr3OzfqqSMgqAVRhBHm9A5LsmaMqaMB4JlwLb8-Jd9PkAlMyDRI2ZLBd7lzFOI/pub) uses a syntactic magic system where magical traditions consist of an Art (e.g. Animism, Thaumaturgy, Faith, The Dark Art, Mysticism, Wicca, Dao) and each Art has several Praxes (sing. Praxis) representing specific areas of magical ability. As a matter of game balance, each Praxis also has an associated Nemesis (e.g. Air/Earth, Life/Death, War/Peace).

Rather than trying to provide some universal underpinning like consensus reality or gnosticism, I'm opting for the approach that "magic just works, don't think about it too hard." However, different worlds may affect the usage of magic. For example, a world with low amounts of ambient magic may result in magical workings being weaker overall (to the point that mages lose their power entirely). Conversely, a world may have an ambiance that makes magic more likely to go haywire.

There's a lot of leeway.

Personally, I think it'd be better if we stuck to fan games and gave Onyx Path/White Wolf the finger by ditching personal horror and all that Goth/Punk bullshit, and instead decided to grab a katana and unironically don a trenchcoat to trigger the whiny goths and punks, and then decided to go out and Make World of Darkness Great Again.

Any Cease & Desist letters will be openly defied and any attempts on Onyx Path and Paradox's part to promote the "One True Way" to play will be mocked, condemned, and rejected.

"Hurr durr make your original setting" is letting them win.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1131639Personally, I think it'd be better if we stuck to fan games and gave Onyx Path/White Wolf the finger by ditching personal horror and all that Goth/Punk bullshit, and instead decided to grab a katana and unironically don a trenchcoat to trigger the whiny goths and punks, and then decided to go out and Make World of Darkness Great Again.

Any Cease & Desist letters will be openly defied and any attempts on Onyx Path and Paradox's part to promote the "One True Way" to play will be mocked, condemned, and rejected.

"Hurr durr make your original setting" is letting them win.

Would you please go away? I just had diarrhea because talking with you and your ilk stresses me the fuck out.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131654Would you please go away? I just had diarrhea because talking with you and your ilk stresses me the fuck out.

I'm not going away.

I'm trying to illustrate that it's NOT a binary choice.

You can create your own setting AND you can make WoD great again if you want, it's not an "either/or" choice.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1131658I'm not going away.

I'm trying to illustrate that it's NOT a binary choice.

You can create your own setting AND you can make WoD great again if you want, it's not an "either/or" choice.

Discussing WoD/CoD is so stressful for me that it literally gives me diarrhea.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131662Discussing WoD/CoD is so stressful for me that it literally gives me diarrhea.

Well, then just don't post in threads about it

That should be a fairly simple solution.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1131666Well, then just don't post in threads about it

That should be a fairly simple solution.

Please stop trying to convince me to play it. I never ever want to play WoD/CoD.

That's a key reason why I started this thread. To find and create alternatives.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131667Please stop trying to convince me to play it. I never ever want to play WoD/CoD.

That's a key reason why I started this thread. To find and create alternatives.

It's a fucking open forum dude. Anyone can post and comment. Fuck I've even gave examples of my own vampires and Werewolves in this thread.

You're misanthropy is not an excuse to be an asshole. Fuck sake man, nobody is trying to convince you to play the games. But they're going to come up by the very nature of this topic.

Quote from: Orphan81;1131672It's a fucking open forum dude. Anyone can post and comment. Fuck I've even gave examples of my own vampires and Werewolves in this thread.

You're misanthropy is not an excuse to be an asshole. Fuck sake man, nobody is trying to convince you to play the games. But they're going to come up by the very nature of this topic.

 I wish I was fucking dead.

I have to admit, I've never gotten diarrhea from reading something on the internet, not even when I read about some real life horrible event, much less about fictional game settings.

For the most part, WoD and CoD are both good. I think that the WoD is my favorite, it might be nostalgia, but while the WoD has lower lows, it also has higher highs as well. It's more variable, and since I have the option of discarding things I don't like, I feel like WoD has the advantage for me. Though CoD has its good points too and sometimes certain good things are mutually exclusive or at least interfere with each other in a shared setting.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131667Please stop trying to convince me to play it. I never ever want to play WoD/CoD.

That's a key reason why I started this thread. To find and create alternatives.

I wasn't trying to convince you to play WoD/CoD.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131676I wish I was fucking dead.

[video=youtube;9Deg7VrpHbM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Deg7VrpHbM[/youtube]

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131491Ybervalt is another parallel Earth (specifically a country or collection of countries corresponding to Eastern Europe), although it's history is vastly difference due to much greater concentrations of magic. Namely, the nobility consist of vampires, wizards, werewolves, and other classic monsters. So it's a bit like the Sylvania of the Warhammer World, I guess. Ybervalt is currently experiencing a war between a cabal of wizards (the House of Magnus) and a vampire knightly order (the Order of the Dragon) due to the wizards harvesting vampires as ingredients for youth potions. There's currently a succession crisis since a vampire-werewolf Romeo/Juliet couple who are the heirs of the two most powerful werewolf and vampire houses (who are archnemeses) have eloped to Earth.

This is great! Especially the part about the wizards harvesting the vampires. What about extending it so that the wizards are harvesting all of the other species, which makes them the villains? The PCs would be vampires, werewolves, fae, created, etc. who normally are at odds, but they've reached an uneasy alliance due to a common enemy that is far more powerful than they are.

Do all of your alternate dimensions exist simultaneously? The premise could be something like Gurps Infinite Worlds, where the PCs are trying to stop a cross-dimensional nemesis. Part of the appeal could be seeing how each supernatural creature type fares in each alternate reality.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1131658You can create your own setting AND you can make WoD great again if you want, it's not an "either/or" choice.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4512[/ATTACH]

Game Design Note: Dungeons

Vampire: The OSR  is not set in a real city, but in a fictional city simply called The City. Of course, you can give it a real name, and place it anywhere you like. But for the official game, this is left deliberately undefined, to create an aura of mystery and ambiguity. The practical reason is that it provides more sources for "dungeons" since you can combine subterranean features from several different cities across the globe. Using a real world city (especially a US one) may be too limiting, unless you want to turn up the "WTF is going on" dial to 11.

If you've played the Fallout series of video games, you already know how what a modern-day "dungeon" can look like. But there are some real-world examples as well.

Sewers

The Paris sewers are a great inspiration. They were first constructed in 1370 and massively expanded in 1855. They extend about 1,300 miles. Featured in the novel/musical Les Miserables.
 
Catacombs

Again, Paris is a great example. Originally I was surprised to find out that the catacombs, started in 1774, are a more recent development than the sewers but the explanation makes sense (the cemeteries started to run out of room.) But the tunnels themselves are older, having been used to mine limestone. They extend about 200 miles.

Subways

The London Underground, which opened in 1863, is the oldest subway system in the world. It currently extends 248 miles, which makes it the worlds third largest. Of particular interest are the abandoned tunnels and stations. The most well-known is probably the British Museum station, featured in Neil Gaiaman's Neverwhere. The station is rumored to be haunted by the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh called Amen-ra (The real world is practically writing adventures for you.)

Paved-over City Blocks

In 1889, the city of Seattle decided to raise the streets by twelve feet. City merchants simply converted the second floor of their buildings into ground floors, and the previous ground floors became basements. The former basements became... ???  The "Seattle Underground" became a collection of illegal gambling halls, speakeasies, opium dens, and refuges for the homeless.

Ancient Cisterns

Several hundred ancient cisterns lie beneath Istanbul, built in the 6th century during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian. The largest of these, the Basillica Cistern, has been featured in the James Bond film From Russia With Love, the video game Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Inferno by Dan Brown.

Abandoned Shopping Malls

There's a surprising number of abandoned malls in the mid-western US, many of which were built in the 1970's. Photographer Seph Lawless has a great photo collection. Some of them look like they are straight out of Fallout.

Underground Cities

History is full of some amazing examples:

• Derinkuyu, in Turkey's Cappadocia region, 8th century BC, was a self-contained city that held 20,000 people.
• Naours, in northern France, dates back to the 3rd century AD. It has two miles of tunnels, 300 rooms, and could house 3,000.
• Wieliczka Salt Mine, outside Krakow, Poland, dates back to the 1200s.
• Lalibela, Ethiopia, built in the 12th century AD. It is series of underground churches, and now a sacred site for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
• Dixia Cheng, a massive fallout shelter built in the 60's underneath Beijing, which can hold one million people and has a skating rink and a 1,000-seat movie theater. Never used, it is now in decay.
• Petra, in southern Jordan. Location of The Holy Grail (at least it was in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.) Petra is more than 2,000 years old and may have housed 20,000 people at one time. New excavations are still being explored today.
  

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Exploring the subject in depth could be a book of its own. Actually it is, but I forget the name.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_sewers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_Cistern
https://sephlawless.com/inside-creepiest-abandoned-malls/ (https://sephlawless.com/inside-creepiest-abandoned-malls/)
https://www.history.com/news/8-mysterious-underground-cities

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1131443Thanks for the link. Seems interesting enough, although I admit that I'm generally desperate for anything to distract me from WoD.

Here's a link of my own. I had to find the article the blurb mentions on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190113212859/http://draconicmagazine.com/articles/vampires-funny

EDIT: I'm skimming right now, and I really like what I see. The way it handles humanity and the demonic is a lot more evocative than WoD.

Thanks, Kuroth and BoxCrayonTales!