Quote from: TrippyHippy;872150On the other hand, the 20th Anniversary lines also made some changes to the base system of the originals too - just a bit more subtle.

Was it enough in your opinion?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;872161Was it enough in your opinion?

Well, it didn't stop us making house rules anyway in the campaign we are running, but that always happens.

The main issue for me, in the original rules, largely lies in the combat rules. Using dice pools for general play was never a problem, and certain aspects like character generation or the tie-in between personality traits and Willpower were cool. The updated rules maintains the strengths, but tidies up certain things that got in the way - like removing the unnecessary Dodge Talent for example.

In terms of the combat, we decided to eschew the wargame-derived, three-tier system (Initiative, Attack, Resolution) for a more organic, storytelling approach. The upshot is that there is no Initiative rolls - characters simply react to the situation they are in with opposed rolls as necessary. Whoever wins an opposed roll has the option to apply damage (which can be soaked as another opposed roll depending on the damage type). It's a system that largely copies games like Pendragon or Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.

Otherwise, we use the system as is - noting that we don't tend to be especially fixated on it.

Quote from: Omega;872156So Onyx has been selling the WOD stuff only through sites like DriveTru?
Though I was referring to just physical on the shelf product - which most publishes are tight lipped about.

Thanks for the enlightenment though. That does make things alot more visible then.

Yep, along with Kickstarter. They have suggested that deals with retailers could be struck via POD, but refused to build up stock in warehouses.

Of course, the new WW ownership has plans to return WW product back to retail, so lets see how it pans out.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;872150I do think that the various system-based drive of the early mid 2000s in game design did inform some of the changes made to the nWoD line, however. It was clearer and more defined in gameplay, and helped a lot of groups get into play better, while having less background and metaplot to digest.

It was more clearer and defined in gameplay. The background was always the problem for me with the nWoD lines. There are games which are light on background and there are games which are very dense and detailed. And there is the nWoD. It is very dense, yet still very undefined. It has the nasty habit of saying "on the other hand" too much. Making a lot of the fluff meaningless. "On one hand" there was an Invictus emperor who spread their ideas across the world, but "on the other hand" it could be all bullshit. If nothing is certain then why take the effort of reading all those pompous books? At least the oWoD provided some clarity and had iconic lore.

Back to the topic. I think there is a surprising number of nWoD players. The forum activity was always bigger for nWoD than oWoD on the WW forum and later on the Onyx Path forum. Most people on this forum are pretty oldschool. They hate the old wod and couldn't care less about the new one. The new games are under the radar to a lot of oldschool gamers. It's not that they hate it like the old setting with their metaplot. They are simply indifferent towards the new settings. But it gets played. More streamlined and more flexibel. Personally I like new Hunter, but I think SW Rippers does everything better and is way more practical in setup than that game and that's my favorite of the new line, so go figure.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;872306It was more clearer and defined in gameplay. The background was always the problem for me with the nWoD lines. There are games which are light on background and there are games which are very dense and detailed. And there is the nWoD. It is very dense, yet still very undefined. It has the nasty habit of saying "on the other hand" too much. Making a lot of the fluff meaningless. "On one hand" there was an Invictus emperor who spread their ideas across the world, but "on the other hand" it could be all bullshit. If nothing is certain then why take the effort of reading all those pompous books? At least the oWoD provided some clarity and had iconic lore.

On a personal, critical level, I just felt that the classic lines had more brio. They made more direct reference to global culture and generally had more vibrant and poetic commentary on the world around us. The NWoD games were more professionally designed toolkits to make modern supernatural games, which is fine, but it just lacked that edge in passion and engagement.  

QuoteBack to the topic. I think there is a surprising number of nWoD players. The forum activity was always bigger for nWoD than oWoD on the WW forum and later on the Onyx Path forum. Most people on this forum are pretty oldschool. They hate the old wod and couldn't care less about the new one. The new games are under the radar to a lot of oldschool gamers. It's not that they hate it like the old setting with their metaplot. They are simply indifferent towards the new settings. But it gets played. More streamlined and more flexibel. Personally I like new Hunter, but I think SW Rippers does everything better and is way more practical in setup than that game and that's my favorite of the new line, so go figure.

The old White Wolf forums, it was stated by several game developers, only accounted for less than a percent of the total gaming WW community. I think the Onyx Path forums probably account for less than that.

I do get the old school vibe of hating the OWoD, but couldn't care less about that attitude myself these days. It's old news. I just think the economic worth of both these respective brands is the most compelling evidence of their underlying popularity. Some current gamers look at the nWoD stuff as being the most recent and accordingly follow it, but on a global scale the classic stuff has more ingrained loyalty.

The Anniversary titles made no attempt to attract new audiences - the sheer fatness of the books is offputting to say the least - but they sold huge amounts through kickstarter and the like. However, as soon as nWW puts their plans into releasing 'One World of Darkness' (based on classic), it'll be more clear about just how much bigger that brand is than the Chronicles of Darkness titles that exist now.

Quote from: Kiero;872149Who gives a toss about the fluff in RPGs? I never read any of that shit.

GMC-updated nWoD isn't overcomplicated at all, and gets rid of most of the stupid stuff, like lumping everything together into a single dice pool that makes the biggest weapon the most "accurate".

GMC changes the fundamental gameplay of NWOD. The style of the mechanics -- and use thereof -- transform closer to that of a storygame. It stops being NWOD and becomes GMC thus paving the way for post-Geist proto-Chronicles of Darkness.

The gun power/accuracy as a problem showed a lack of understanding of the system. Accuracy is defined by Dexterity plus secondary knowledge of how to "wield" the gun from Firearms and the DMG stat represents the viciousness (calibre) and potency (type) of the weapon. If you want a "to-hit" effect, you can simply roll twice (w/ or w/o penalties based on species factor possibly, per GM discretion) but it creates the same problem the GMC combat sub-system caused although not as bad as GMC by a mile.

I'm currently in a Vampire: the Requiem campaign, partly because the GM wanted to present a long term centuries-spanning saga and the Requiem rules support that much better than Masquerade (in particular, Requiem scraps Generation so you aren't stuck forever sucking in comparison to higher-Generation vampires - instead you have a Blood Potency level which rises and falls over time).

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;872342GMC changes the fundamental gameplay of NWOD. The style of the mechanics -- and use thereof -- transform closer to that of a storygame. It stops being NWOD and becomes GMC thus paving the way for post-Geist proto-Chronicles of Darkness.

Not really, not in the basic mechanics it doesn't. You still build pools in the same way (just with one less additive source in combat), successes still work the same with the same target numbers. Nope, not seeing "fundamental" changes here, except in the way experience and the mental mechanics work.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;872342The gun power/accuracy as a problem showed a lack of understanding of the system. Accuracy is defined by Dexterity plus secondary knowledge of how to "wield" the gun from Firearms and the DMG stat represents the viciousness (calibre) and potency (type) of the weapon. If you want a "to-hit" effect, you can simply roll twice (w/ or w/o penalties based on species factor possibly, per GM discretion) but it creates the same problem the GMC combat sub-system caused although not as bad as GMC by a mile.

Handwavy nonsense that isn't reflected in the mechanics themselves. Why would I want to waste everyone's time rolling twice, when the GMC method is better? I roll once to hit, then auto-calculate what happens with armour and damage if it's been established to be a hit. That's neater and less cumbersome than trying to shoehorn everything into one roll as the original nWoD does.

GMC can go to hell with conditions, tilts, and xp system.  Conditions and tilts are just additional rules system that is already over burden with merits.  The xp system is made more complicated due to beats that require conditions to work.

Quote from: Snowman0147;872405GMC can go to hell with conditions, tilts, and xp system.  Conditions and tilts are just additional rules system that is already over burden with merits.  The xp system is made more complicated due to beats that require conditions to work.

The nWoD system was fine, except for a few things. I always found the combat a bit flat with that one roll (hit and damage) and I never liked morality. Didn't like virtue/vice either.

The GMC rules are definitely very crunchy and kinda odd the hardcore WW crowd actually chose a system like this as their weapon of choice. It's a bit like Fate with the bookkeeping and the conditions remind of D&D and not in a positive way.

To me they could have kept the rules and should have made the settings more clear. I don't see the point in writing an origin story and then debunking it all the time in future books and vaguely present other halfbaked origin myths. If the point is to leave it open for GM interpretation then simply don't write anything at all about that subject matter. But the things they do write have to be clear or else it doesn't warrant the effort reading the parts. *

I really like the way a lot of Savage Worlds settings handle this. Games like 50 Fathoms, Day After Ragnarok and Hellfrost have an origin story of two or three whopping pages which explain the history of the setting, why the things are the way they are, what the players are supposed to do and still leave enough room to the imagination by simply not writing about other things.

* What could have been an interesting option for the nwod is some sort of campaign settings. Vampire core just are rules and within the book are a few campaign settings (vampirism as a virus/vampire-werewolf warfare/cold warfare vs hunters etc.) just like the All Flesh campaign settings. A bit like the shards, but with a little more info.

Speaking anectdotally, classic WoD is definitely played more, and has the stronger brand presence online from what I have seen, but locally, NWoD is played more. I can only speak for my local scene.

Quote from: Warthur;872344I'm currently in a Vampire: the Requiem campaign, partly because the GM wanted to present a long term centuries-spanning saga and the Requiem rules support that much better than Masquerade (in particular, Requiem scraps Generation so you aren't stuck forever sucking in comparison to higher-Generation vampires - instead you have a Blood Potency level which rises and falls over time).

Supernatural Potency is a BEAST! Hands-down one of the best core design decisions they made. I heard about the Generation stuff from my players who player OWOD. Not a fan.

Quote from: Kiero;872347Not really, not in the basic mechanics it doesn't. You still build pools in the same way (just with one less additive source in combat), successes still work the same with the same target numbers. Nope, not seeing "fundamental" changes here, except in the way experience and the mental mechanics work.



Handwavy nonsense that isn't reflected in the mechanics themselves. Why would I want to waste everyone's time rolling twice, when the GMC method is better? I roll once to hit, then auto-calculate what happens with armour and damage if it's been established to be a hit. That's neater and less cumbersome than trying to shoehorn everything into one roll as the original nWoD does.

But that's what you do in D&D: you roll twice. And your attacks are always based on the same Attribute, even accounting for Classes.

Definitely not handwavey. In fact, the example I gave demonstrates the power and flexibility of Storytelling System in helping me as a GM explain the mechanics of the narrative action and also enables a player to explain their intent by a simple addition of two or three stats.

GMC turns combat into an all-or-nothing affair. It completely strips away the combat beat archetype and derivatives of combat-focused characters thereof. It's incredibly flighty, too. Abysmal in PvP also -- really that bad.

Defense is particularly appalling with the lowest of wits/dexterity PLUS Athletics (so already a huge number of characters are royally fucked). But what's REALLY bad though is the automatic successes bullshit. And I'm not even saying this in an emotional way, that is objectively bad game design through and through. When my players who go for combat-focused characters saw that for themselves (they didn't believe me when I let another player know we weren't using GMC), they were pissed. I cannot stress that enough.

There are a lot of bad design decisions in GMC but the worst part is that they're completely deliberate. And we're just focusing on combat here, we're not even getting into the Conditions stuff and all that. From the aforementioned Defense and automatic successes, to damage dealing and thrown weapons and... too much for a forum post. Anyway, it's still a one-roll with GMC, dude -- it's just a complete mess with it.

Quote from: Snowman0147;872405GMC can go to hell with conditions, tilts, and xp system.  Conditions and tilts are just additional rules system that is already over burden with merits.  The xp system is made more complicated due to beats that require conditions to work.

Totally, 100% agree (apart from the Merit overburdening, of course).

One of the worst bits was the change to linear expenditure instead of exponential, cumulative expenditure. Really cheapens the meaning of advancement both mechanically and stylistically.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;872420The nWoD system was fine, except for a few things. I always found the combat a bit flat with that one roll (hit and damage) and I never liked morality. Didn't like virtue/vice either.

The GMC rules are definitely very crunchy and kinda odd the hardcore WW crowd actually chose a system like this as their weapon of choice. It's a bit like Fate with the bookkeeping and the conditions remind of D&D and not in a positive way.

To me they could have kept the rules and should have made the settings more clear. I don't see the point in writing an origin story and then debunking it all the time in future books and vaguely present other halfbaked origin myths. If the point is to leave it open for GM interpretation then simply don't write anything at all about that subject matter. But the things they do write have to be clear or else it doesn't warrant the effort reading the parts. *

I really like the way a lot of Savage Worlds settings handle this. Games like 50 Fathoms, Day After Ragnarok and Hellfrost have an origin story of two or three whopping pages which explain the history of the setting, why the things are the way they are, what the players are supposed to do and still leave enough room to the imagination by simply not writing about other things.

* What could have been an interesting option for the nwod is some sort of campaign settings. Vampire core just are rules and within the book are a few campaign settings (vampirism as a virus/vampire-werewolf warfare/cold warfare vs hunters etc.) just like the All Flesh campaign settings. A bit like the shards, but with a little more info.

Virtue/Vice is AWESOME for getting players to roleplay accurately. I'm very in favour of its use. To make it more usable and balanced at club-level, I have my players roll Intelligence + Resolve for Virtue resist and Resolve + Composure for Vice resist. Really good roleplay moments out of it.

Morality is really good. It again has players roleplaying not just more accurately but properly, too. Murder and GBH is not ok and players will try it. You know how it is. I had a player just two days ago asking to switch out 2nd dot sin for another more specifically worded sin (and at an implicitly higher dot level) for their custom Hunter PC (an assassin archetype) so it just goes to show how bad it can get.

Without repeating what I posted above, GMC is really bad. It's an attempt to storygame, no, FATE-terize NWOD and there's a lot politicking going on too (Integrity instead of Morality? Breaking Points instead of "Sins"? I don't know 'bout that...). Very OPP and very not WW.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;872432Speaking anectdotally, classic WoD is definitely played more, and has the stronger brand presence online from what I have seen, but locally, NWoD is played more. I can only speak for my local scene.

Yeah, I heard there's a huge NWOD scene in NYC (according to your profile location). LA also has a big one. We're not far behind in London, either!

Has GMC's rules superseded the old nWoD rules at this point and going forward? Does that mean that the old nWoD rules that people are praising are likely to be no more? Sorry if these are dumb questions, but this is all very confusing.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;872541Supernatural Potency is a BEAST! Hands-down one of the best core design decisions they made. I heard about the Generation stuff from my players who player OWOD. Not a fan.

I see it as a different-tools-for-different-jobs thing. Generation is just fine for classic Vampire: the Masquerade stuff where the following assumptions are followed:
- The gameplay is going to happen within a tightly-defined span of time - "the modern day", for instance, or "Elizabeth I's reign", or whatever.
- The PCs are going to slot in at a particular level of the generational pecking order, and will in general stay there unless something dramatic happens - they may eventually develop their own networks of underlings, but they won't end up outranking their former sires unless something very bad happens to their sires or something very good happens to them.
- Vampires will only ever get more powerful as they age, so the only way to advance up the pecking order or outperform older vampires is to exterminate them and/or indulge in diablerie.

Masquerade's Generation stuff works fine for enforcing that setup. Requiem's Blood Potency system is much better if you want a game which departs from any of those core assumptions; in the case of the game we're playing, we're departing from more or less all of them (centuries of play time, PCs rising and falling in the pecking order as a matter of course, elder vampires ending up losing power and potency as and when they have to go into torpor for a while).

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;872544Has GMC's rules superseded the old nWoD rules at this point and going forward? Does that mean that the old nWoD rules that people are praising are likely to be no more? Sorry if these are dumb questions, but this is all very confusing.

GMC has indeed superseded the old nWoD rules.

That said, in my experience most people who are invested in nWoD/Chronicles of Darkness at all quite like the GMC update - a lot of the bits where the 1st edition nWoD stuff is a bit wonky tends to be parts where it's trying to be a bit like oWoD so that the old-timers don't feel left out, and now that oWoD is its own active product line that consideration is no longer an issue and nWoD is freed up to evolve in its own direction.