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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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NonSequtur said:
Or Willpower/2 - a rule I'd completely forgotten until I reread Revised recently is that your Arete is capped by your Willpower. In an Avatar-less Mage hack, maybe Gilgul is a procedure that reduces WP to 0/NA, tying into, well, 'willworkers'.
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In an Avatarless world you wouldn't have Gilgul, generally. You would just kill them. Gilgul is somewhat about have an ultimately hideous punishment to inflict, but mainly is about stopping the proliferation of Widderslainte.
 
TheLastOne said:
In an Avatarless world you wouldn't have Gilgul, generally. You would just kill them. Gilgul is somewhat about have an ultimately hideous punishment to inflict, but mainly is about stopping the proliferation of Widderslainte.
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You don't need the Avatar background for reincarnation/whatever the in-paradigm explanation is for widderslainte, though.
 
TheLastOne said:
Eh, I read it more as you were saying the rules were missing, rather then that it isn't something you're intended to be able to do. The rules for raising backgrounds in general are missing, but Avatar is a somewhat different story then the rest.
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Hmm, the rules for raising backgrounds are on the same page as the rules for raising other stuff, and the cost is New_Rating×3. Page 131.
 
What about a gamer/dungeon crawler fic where you are using white wolf character template with maybe D&D style XP (better for the crazy fast paced power grinding ride) with about 300 or high end 100 XP equaling a experience point and they throwing the guy into 1984/Starcraft/dead space aka the kind of messed up setting where our hero will get XP fast at the cost of being over his head. I think her start as a Mage but can buy other templates for 20 points. I also think combat rolls will not be made but stats will be used fluffy. the idea of 1984 dealing with a murderhobo/ BS king hybrid is a intresting one. A man with no identity is going to get into trouble but white wolfs template is not combat ordanted enough that one will surive with out using social, combat, stealth together.
 
BrendenHawley said:
What about a gamer/dungeon crawler fic where you are using white wolf character template with maybe D&D style XP (better for the crazy fast paced power grinding ride) with about 300 or high end 100 XP equaling a experience point and they throwing the guy into 1984/Starcraft/dead space aka the kind of messed up setting where our hero will get XP fast at the cost of being over his head. I think her start as a Mage but can buy other templates for 20 points. I also think combat rolls will not be made but stats will be used fluffy. the idea of 1984 dealing with a murderhobo/ BS king hybrid is a intresting one. A man with no identity is going to get into trouble but white wolfs template is not combat ordanted enough that one will surive with out using social, combat, stealth together.
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This wouldn't be a very interesting or compelling idea in the long term because dungeon-crawling curbstomps are the C-rations of entertainment, but I can vaguely amuse myself with the fact that Vampire-Mages can spend Vitae like Quintessence and the Thaumaturgy: Path of Blood Discipline lets you steal blood from targets at range, turning vampire-mages into hillarious spell-reactors.
 
Eukie said:
This wouldn't be a very interesting or compelling idea in the long term because dungeon-crawling curbstomps are the C-rations of entertainment, but I can vaguely amuse myself with the fact that Vampire-Mages can spend Vitae like Quintessence and the Thaumaturgy: Path of Blood Discipline lets you steal blood from targets at range, turning vampire-mages into hillarious spell-reactors.
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Actually I was not thinking it would be curb stomp at all, I would start the protag with one point in arcana and thirty XP part of which given by the flaw no Identity, Bad thing in a owlleran distopia. Than things get crazy as he frantically tries to stay alive long enough to get the XP to curb stomp. Untell than it is "yes I got a gun wait no fire arm skills. how much XP do I have 5 not very helpful run!
 
BrendenHawley said:
What about a gamer/dungeon crawler fic
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My alarm bells went off there.

The Gamer is unadulterated shit that is narrative poison to any form of well-told story or compelling narrative. By making game mechanics in-character, you've basically deliberately put a hole in the HMS Good Story. Sure, if you're really good you can do something from that, but 99.99% of people aren't.

In all the strongest words, I would recommend against your proposed idea.
 
EarthScorpion said:
My alarm bells went off there.

The Gamer is unadulterated shit that is narrative poison to any form of well-told story or compelling narrative. By making game mechanics in-character, you've basically deliberately put a hole in the HMS Good Story. Sure, if you're really good you can do something from that, but 99.99% of people aren't.

In all the strongest words, I would recommend against your proposed idea.
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Depends on what you mean by in-character, I planed on no dice rolling or hit point bars. But a stat template, leveling up stamina does not give you more hit points, It makes you into a tough guy who is good at resisting shock but in trouble if his vital organs take damage.
 
BrendenHawley said:
Depends on what you mean by in-character, I planed on no dice rolling or hit point bars. But a stat template, leveling up stamina does not give you more hit points, It makes you into a tough guy who is good at resisting shock but in trouble if his vital organs take damage.
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It has nothing to do with dice rolling. It's just that Gamer protagonists tend to be detached from the setting, and rather bland and boring. I've seen Gamer only pulled off semi-well once, and that was a Zero no Tsukaima fic that highlighted the Gamer's dissasociation and the incredible shift in how she acted once she got the Gamer powers.

Shoving a random gamer into a new setting is just going to give people even less reason to care about the character other than 'biggatons'.
 
WoD characters don't get experience by killing things, they get experience at the end of the session with roleplaying bonuses. This opens up the hilarious idea of a character trying to game their own life by deliberately creating drama for themselves so as to become more powerful. Also, by never having any period of their life in which nothing interesting happens - in WoD terms if you disappear a week to hit a mannequin with a sword twelve hours a day it's off-screen downtime and gives you jack shit (on a mechanical level; a good ST will generally require training to justify skill gains), so the Gamer would have to be constantly making their own life Interesting(TM) in order to get that sweet power.

I mean it would probably still end up terrible, but I am considerably amused by the idea of a protagonist sabotaging all their relationships and jobs and putting themselves in horrible situations that almost have them killed as a deliberate ploy to have parts of their life count as a session and for their character to be using "good roleplaying."

Hm, possibly make that character attempt to read up on storytelling and film directing and (badly) trying to apply them to real life like a terrible first year student's creative writing.
 
Omicron said:
WoD characters don't get experience by killing things, they get experience at the end of the session with roleplaying bonuses. This opens up the hilarious idea of a character trying to game their own life by deliberately creating drama for themselves so as to become more powerful. Also, by never having any period of their life in which nothing interesting happens - in WoD terms if you disappear a week to hit a mannequin with a sword twelve hours a day it's off-screen downtime and gives you jack shit (on a mechanical level; a good ST will generally require training to justify skill gains), so the Gamer would have to be constantly making their own life Interesting(TM) in order to get that sweet power.

I mean it would probably still end up terrible, but I am considerably amused by the idea of a protagonist sabotaging all their relationships and jobs and putting themselves in horrible situations that almost have them killed as a deliberate ploy to have parts of their life count as a session and for their character to be using "good roleplaying."

Hm, possibly make that character attempt to read up on storytelling and film directing and (badly) trying to apply them to real life like a terrible first year student's creative writing.
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This is still a terrible idea, but the best way to implement that would be to have 'Beats' be a thing. Because those are meant to encourage taking consequences.

So you have the Gamer literally *accepting* fucking something up or getting high as shit or other bad things in exchange for power.

...note, I really dislike the concept of the Gamer, and have never read anything involving it, but that's just a random idea that popped into my head.
 
Like, you can take Beats for accepting a dramatic failure once per scene, so you end up with that character deliberately channeling bad luck into their actions for the sake of long-term power

And then the moral of the story is that how many dots are on your sheet doesn't matter when you've ruined or pushed away everything that mattered to you

It's basically a giant rant about "roleplayer not rollplayer"

It's terrible but it's the best kind of terrible!
 
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Omicron said:
WoD characters don't get experience by killing things, they get experience at the end of the session with roleplaying bonuses. This opens up the hilarious idea of a character trying to game their own life by deliberately creating drama for themselves so as to become more powerful. Also, by never having any period of their life in which nothing interesting happens - in WoD terms if you disappear a week to hit a mannequin with a sword twelve hours a day it's off-screen downtime and gives you jack shit (on a mechanical level; a good ST will generally require training to justify skill gains), so the Gamer would have to be constantly making their own life Interesting(TM) in order to get that sweet power.

I mean it would probably still end up terrible, but I am considerably amused by the idea of a protagonist sabotaging all their relationships and jobs and putting themselves in horrible situations that almost have them killed as a deliberate ploy to have parts of their life count as a session and for their character to be using "good roleplaying."

Hm, possibly make that character attempt to read up on storytelling and film directing and (badly) trying to apply them to real life like a terrible first year student's creative writing.
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This is starting to sound like a terribly fucked up Paradigm more than anything else.
 
Omicron said:
I mean it would probably still end up terrible, but I am considerably amused by the idea of a protagonist sabotaging all their relationships and jobs and putting themselves in horrible situations that almost have them killed as a deliberate ploy to have parts of their life count as a session and for their character to be using "good roleplaying."
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This sounds like Spider-Man. Except, you know, on purpose.
 
BrendenHawley said:
What about a gamer/dungeon crawler fic where you are using white wolf character template with maybe D&D style XP (better for the crazy fast paced power grinding ride) with about 300 or high end 100 XP equaling a experience point and they throwing the guy into 1984/Starcraft/dead space aka the kind of messed up setting where our hero will get XP fast at the cost of being over his head. I think her start as a Mage but can buy other templates for 20 points. I also think combat rolls will not be made but stats will be used fluffy. the idea of 1984 dealing with a murderhobo/ BS king hybrid is a intresting one. A man with no identity is going to get into trouble but white wolfs template is not combat ordanted enough that one will surive with out using social, combat, stealth together.
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Ignoring everything else why do you think a mage isn't "combat ordanted (sic) enough" or a werewolf? Or like, Samuel Haight, king shit of shit mountain? Like, the thing about werewolves is that just straight-up with basically no investment in combat ability they are still vicious, lethal furry commandos from hell. Mages who invest heavily in fighting are at least as good at beating ass as combat-oriented werewolves due to the sheer power of freeform magic and persistent buffs, and vampires have (omni)Potence. Of course you wouldn't want to be a vampire because being a vampire sucks, you'd probably prefer the weaker Revenant template because that way you get the actual things you want from being a vampire (Celerity and Potence) with none of the actual weaknesses.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Of course you wouldn't want to be a vampire because being a vampire sucks, you'd probably prefer the weaker Revenant template because that way you get the actual things you want from being a vampire (Celerity and Potence) with none of the actual weaknesses.
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Might I recommend the Danislav? They're Revenant Kinfolk, which gives them access to Gifts.
 
TheLastOne said:
A few aren't that bad, like... um... oooohhh... nope... um...

Give me a minute here.
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I got it. Cliomancers. They just need to hang out in historical spots. They don't even have a taboo, just a time limit. Granted, they will probably stab you in the face if you try to charge up on their spot, but as long as they're the only one around it's all good.

(The Order of St. Cecil also has some faithmancer types who charge up by praying and get tabooed if they break their vows, but they don't have the oomph to do random magic or generate significant charges, so fuck 'em.)
 
I've convinced my friends to play WoD. The result of multiple deliberations between Changeling, Hunter, Geist and Mage, is our group deciding to play Type-Moon. :facepalm:

I've already placed a disclaimer that we won't be running a Holy Grail War, and that the game would be more similar to Campione and Dresden Files than Fate Stay Night. As the one who proposed the idea, and is the most experienced person in the group, it falls on to me to GM this mess. I'll be planning some changes to fit our group. These are rough ideas which I've made for now. These may be stupid ideas, and if it is, feel free say so.

First, remove the Paths and Watchtowers. Instead, players can choose two arcana as their ruling, and choose one as their inferior. The Watchtowers are instead an Inner World, their Oneiros reforged in a way to comprehend the cosmic power beyond. This results in I think 720 possible combinations. The reason would be another way to facilitate oMage seekings where the players would literally do some soul searching in order to increase Gnosis. It also gives opportunities for the players to exercise their creativity by designing their Inner Worlds

The Astral Realms might need some tweaking due to changing the Oneiros, but as a whole, Astral Journeys remain the same.

The metaphysics, summoning, and various supernal realms would need some changing. Removing the Watchtowers results in me removing the Abyss as well, thus altering how Paradox works. I'll probably rip off more things from Type-Moon in order to patch up this mess.

The removal of the Paths do not change the mechanics of Awakening. Mystery Plays and Supernal Journeys still happen. However, there's a third method, in which an Awakened Mage forcibly awakens a sleeper. The mechanics are something I'll have to think about, but I'm leaning on using Soul Stone mechanics, where the Mage shoves a fragment of his Soul into another. The results is a permanent reduction to potential Gnosis, certain loss of Wisdom, and the possibility of horrible failure due to certain factors.

Speaking of Wisdom, I'll probably change the stat all together, removing any connotations of morality and ethics. I'll probably make it into something like Geist's Synergy stat where it becomes a representation of their Inner World's stability and connection with magic.

I'll probably remove the Five Orders and the Seers and replace them with multiple supranational groups of different styles and traditions. It would probably be me copying from other media, like Mage Ascension, Type-Moon, and Campione.

Thoughts? Comments? Vitriolic Rants?
 
Dark Eras has some decent alternative theories of how Paradox and the Abyss work in To The Strongest. The Greek's interpretation seems especially useful to your proposed setup. For the Imbued Mages, probably limit them to Gnosis equal to the amount of Soulstones imbued and have various horrific things happen when the Imbuer dies (favorites being possessed by Paradox or having to eat the souls of Mages to continue existing). The other thing is you may want to limit it to a Subtle and a Gross Arcana, doubling up on either could lead to issues, and an Inferior Arcanum of your choice is not likely to be much of a handicap or issue.
 
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