MCWOD and Amber d20

[James McMurray]

If it helps any, you're not reacting to me at all, much less overreacting.

I've not read MCWOD, nor have I already decided that d20 can't handle Amber.

[Cab]

Am I just overly sensitive here?

Yes, a little. My own input here was about whether or not you'd err towards a simpler system than d20 to best get the feel of Amber; I haven't criticised d20 here, I've merely put forward some alternative game ideas that would fit well for Amber.

[finarvyn]

It's not really that the comments are good or bad, only that they don't really pertain to the discussion of this thread. Basically, my whole complaint is that we're up to 4 pages of discussion about a system that apparently no one but me has even seen.

[James McMurray]

How well has MCWoD sold? It seems to me that people who play WoD will play WoD, and people who play d20 will already have a ton of different games available to them. I can see how the Monte Cooke name can bring in some buyers, but that alone hasn't been enough for our group (we fall in the "already play WoD" category).

[finarvyn]

I'd love to see a full review on Monte Cook's WoD.  I mostly just want it for the mechanics, but if it's a cool thing, I'll get it.  I just want a review

Just a few comments, some of which partially duplicate my original post.

If you totally hate 3E, don't bother. My own plan would be to take the rules and import certain parts into my OD&D game. I would likely take the magic system along with some sort of limited feats. Many other parts of the rules would probably not find their way into my own campaign.

The MCWOD system is set up so that different types of creatures represent the various classes. In other words a player could play the role of a Vampire (or Demon, or Werewolf, or Mage) and start as a weak one, then progress to eventuallly become a strong one. It looks like a 1st level Vampire (or whatever) is similar to a 3rd or 4th level character in traditional 3E.

Skills and feats look to be tradtional 3E (which is unfortunate) although each class has a special list of feats specific to that class. In other words, any special powers or abilities of that class seem to be handled as feats.

Parts of the book on equipment, combat, seeing in low light (and so on) appear to be pretty much straight out of the SRD and aren't terribly interesting or innovative.

The magic system is really neat. There are 5 different "paths" (Enchanter, Warlock, Shaman, Theugust, --?--) and each has a spell list particular to that branch of magic, plus mages can construct spells "on the fly" as needed. Each mage gets a certain number of magic points per day and has to keep track of current exhaustion level. Casting a spell isn't automatic, but is based on a die roll modified by character level, spell point cost, and current exhaustion of the mage. Each time you cast, your exhaustion goes up and it gets harder to cast the next time unless you rest. That's how they avoid the "number of spells per level" issue. I'm not sure if you need the magic points per day because exhaustion appears to be a nice limit, but I haven't had a chance to run the numbers yet to see if it's needed or not to preserve some sort of game balance.

From an Amber perspective, I can see each major power to represent a class. Therefore, a player might be a "3rd level Pattern Walker" or some such. I would likely assign certain level numbers to "regular", "advanced", "exalted" or other levels of ADRP powers and then come up with a list of abilities for each level (or a list of feats if a person likes that concept better). The class levels which match ADRP power levels would likely compare somehow to ADRP point values, so that a "level" of power words wouldn't be the same as a "level" of Logrus Mastery.

From an attribute standpoint, supernaturals in WOD are better than regular humans and substance characters in ADRP are better than shadow humans, so the MCWOD scale would probably correspond fairly welll. I know that the whole "how good is Amber compared to Chaos" argument is hot on various message boards, but I would be inclined to add a simple plus to Chaos level attributes and a slightly higher plus for Amber level. I haven't worked out a chart yet.

Again, I'm not suggesting that MCWOD would be an improvement over ADRP, but it certainly could provide an interesting version of Amber which is more number-crunchy for those who are concerned with GM fiat.

[finarvyn]

How well has MCWoD sold?

Honestly, I don't know. The first I ever heard of the MCWOD version was when I happened to see a copy in a bookstore. I can see where WOD players won't want to convert and d20 players won't want to associate with WOD. I think it's a new product, and may not have sold many copies yet. If you're right in your assessment of the gamer demographic, it's possible that it won't sell well. (Sort of like d20 Call of Cthulhu, which wasn't well liked by either the d20 or CoC crowds.)

What I found most interesting was the fact that supernaturals might be handled side-by-side with normals, in much the same way that Amberites might be side-by-side with shadow folk.

[Trevelyan]

I don't know how well McWoD has sold so far, but Finarvyn is right that it's a very new game (only released at Gencon) so it may take a while before we know.

I have a copy myself, but it only arrived on Monday and I've not had a chance to read it yet.

[rabindranath72]

New around here, I saw finarvyn's post on DF.
So, regarding MCWOD...I bought the book since I liked d20 Call of Cthulhu (one of the few, apparently!) although I utterly despise d20fantasy. Well, I liked some of the ideas to make classes out of the "core" WoD characters, but I did not like the magic system nor feats. Nevertheless, I think it could work, if properly "trimmed", as a system for an Amber setting.
The trimming should reduce the amount of crunch, which in MCWOD is really, really massive (from feats, to combat, to the skill mechanics etc.)
But as has already been said, OD&D might perhaps be an even better fit.
The various Ranks could be assimilated to levels (human rank would be 0 to 3rd level characters). And the various Strength, Warfare etc. might be translated into classes with particular special skills. An Amberite could easily be an OD&D character of 4th level or more (from "hero" level onward), and hit points would describe well their "resilience" (be it due to physque, skill, luck, power etc.)
Such a system would be the "bare bones" as in MCWOD, but without the needless and cumbersome mechanics.

Cheers,
Antonio