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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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king208 said:
So quick question about the Exarchs, why do the they care about the fallen world at all? Like why are they even involved enough to send the Seers visions?

I'm looking to run my first M:Aw game and want to use a Seer pylon as a long term antagonist. But don't have the money to buy the Reign of the Exarchs book yet.
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To prevent the creation of new Mages and Archmagi and make sure that nobody ever even comes close to rebuilding the Ladder was my understanding. Once the Supernal is forever rendered inaccessible to the inhabitants of the Fallen World the Exarchs will be able to reign forever and ever. Without question and without even the hope of contest. Mankind will be smothered by its own arrogance and nobody will ever Awaken ever again.

Well partly that and partly the fact that the Exarchs have evolved (devolved?) into these archetypes of tyranny and control and obsession. They crave people and things to rule and even while their positions are, in and of themselves, not certain. If an Exarch doesn't have enough worship in the Fallen World they can find their standing reduced in the Supernal. Which is how the Ministry of Mamnon got where it is iirc. So various Exarchs uses their ministries as pawns and proxies against each other.
 
hyzmarca said:
I thought that "unless they're a vampire" was pretty much automatically included in sins, otherwise a game in which you're expected to fight vampires at all is a rapid descent to morality 1-0.

Being a serial killer of serial killers does not make you any less of a serial killer.
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How many vampires do you think your average hunter cell is going to get if the ST doesn't softball them?
 
EarthScorpion said:
How many vampires do you think your average hunter cell is going to get if the ST doesn't softball them?
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Depends entirely on firepower, strategy, and power of the opposition.
My last vampire hunting game on level of cell hunted on average two bloodsuckers a year.
Rest was investigation, planning, and logistics.
More thrilling and exciting than it sounds.
We battled actual Requiem templates and fights were always rough.
 
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Could've sworn regular iron ignores Contracts completely and deals heavy damage to True Fae, while Cold Iron just ups the damage to True Fae and does Aggravated to Changelings.
 
Yeah, I'm going to say that there are a hell of a lot of very good thematic reasons to not make it just 'Iron' for Changelings.

LIke, besides the 'We want the game to actually be playable' part.
 
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Honestly, if you want to keep mythological consistency.... i would just remove iron as a blanket bane of all Fae.

Because, as said, the iron weakness comes from it's symbol as the dominance of man over nature, not from any chemical property.*

And the thing is, Changeling Faes aren't nature spirits. Sure, a horseshoe in your door will stop evil baby-stealing fairies, but really, there is no reason that would protect you against a bunch of sectoids.

*(Otherwise Fae would burn from inside. Or at the very least, their blood wouldn't be red).
 
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The Changelings are half-fae. They come back from Arcadia with all the madness and wonder that afflicted them in this realm muted, making them closer to human.

That means they are weaker, less magical than they might have once been. It also means that iron is not their bane. Its harmful property are too muted. By contrast the True Fae are much more vulnerable to it. This is intentional, and I don't think going back on it brings anything interesting to the table. Changelings don't need an exploitable weakness.
 
Omicron said:
The Changelings are half-fae. They come back from Arcadia with all the madness and wonder that afflicted them in this realm muted, making them closer to human.

That means they are weaker, less magical than they might have once been. It also means that iron is not their bane. Its harmful property are too muted. By contrast the True Fae are much more vulnerable to it. This is intentional, and I don't think going back on it brings anything interesting to the table. Changelings don't need an exploitable weakness.
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Their exploitable weakness is PTSD and lots and lots of trauma. :V
 
The Laurent said:
Yeah, I'm going to say that there are a hell of a lot of very good thematic reasons to not make it just 'Iron' for Changelings.

LIke, besides the 'We want the game to actually be playable' part.
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...How does that follow?

Sure there's a lot of iron stuff and iron composite stuff around but most of it's mixed in with other stuff and regardless isn't bashing damage just something equivalent to a bad bruise anyway? Doesn't it, like, clear up pretty quickly with some care?

It's not going to properly fuck up a Changeling if they handle it but it'll hurt them. And I kinda broadly agree: it makes Iron something different than reskinned silver in a thematic sense. It's a persistent worry that influences Changeling behavior and makes them act strangely. It means that they might wear gloves and get really cagey around unknown metal and makes them play "the floor is lava" around construction sites. It means that if you brandish a nail in a Changeling's face they'll flinch back and the clever mortal can go "aha!" and pressure them into making a Pledge.

I like that kind of shit.

Versus "oh you need to hurt another Changeling or a Fae or whatever go find super special iron no this is totally different from Wuffs".
 
You really deeply change the nature of Changeling as a game if you introduce a highly-common material that can be quickly and conveniently used to prove that someone is a Changeling.

This is, like, 2e CtL-level "we had this idea that sounded cool so we threw it in" -> "holy shit what happened to the game I knew and liked?"
 
TenfoldShields said:
...How does that follow?

Sure there's a lot of iron stuff and iron composite stuff around but most of it's mixed in with other stuff and regardless isn't bashing damage just something equivalent to a bad bruise anyway? Doesn't it, like, clear up pretty quickly with some care?

It's not going to properly fuck up a Changeling if they handle it but it'll hurt them. And I kinda broadly agree: it makes Iron something different than reskinned silver in a thematic sense. It's a persistent worry that influences Changeling behavior and makes them act strangely. It means that they might wear gloves and get really cagey around unknown metal and makes them play "the floor is lava" around construction sites. It means that if you brandish a nail in a Changeling's face they'll flinch back and the clever mortal can go "aha!" and pressure them into making a Pledge.

I like that kind of shit.

Versus "oh you need to hurt another Changeling or a Fae or whatever go find super special iron no this is totally different from Wuffs".
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Exactly. This replaces all the existing stuff. With this in place, there wouldn't really be any advantage to using an iron weapon against a changeling. Unless you get super-unlucky and get a fragment of iron breaking off in your body (in which case it does a point or two of bashing damage before your fae-flesh rejects it, forcing it out), it won't hurt you any more than it's already hurting you.

The threat exists on the pretending-to-be-human scale. Because iron is a reminder that the Mask is just that, a mask. And you're not human, and you need to take care because you burn yourself on pure iron like it's been heated and steel makes you break out in a rash. It's a threat when someone locks you inside an iron box because you can't touch the door without scalding yourself and it's a threat because you have to act weird and make sure you wear gloves when doing some home DIY or you might burn yourself on the iron nails.

Omicron said:
You really deeply change the nature of Changeling as a game if you introduce a highly-common material that can be quickly and conveniently used to prove that someone is a Changeling.

This is, like, 2e CtL-level "we had this idea that sounded cool so we threw it in" -> "holy shit what happened to the game I knew and liked?"
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I've never liked how un-mythologically-thick the Mask is. Fae in mythology give away their nature all the time in mirrors and through their shadow, etc etc. It's too thick for no good reason at all.

And I would strongly disagree that you deeply change the nature of Changeling. The game is lousy with ways for antagonists to get ensorcelled or just not have to care about the Mask (because they're fae already). It just makes Changelings a little more fae and have to take more care, rather than - as I have seen lamentably IRL - "We have sweet superpowers and no one mortal can even tell a thing until we bust them out".
 
EarthScorpion said:
Exactly. This replaces all the existing stuff. With this in place, there wouldn't really be any advantage to using an iron weapon against a changeling. Unless you get super-unlucky and get a fragment of iron breaking off in your body (in which case it does a point or two of bashing damage before your fae-flesh rejects it, forcing it out), it won't hurt you any more than it's already hurting you.

The threat exists on the pretending-to-be-human scale. Because iron is a reminder that the Mask is just that, a mask. And you're not human, and you need to take care because you burn yourself on pure iron like it's been heated and steel makes you break out in a rash. It's a threat when someone locks you inside an iron box because you can't touch the door without scalding yourself and it's a threat because you have to act weird and make sure you wear gloves when doing some home DIY or you might burn yourself on the iron nails.



I've never liked how un-mythologically-thick the Mask is. Fae in mythology give away their nature all the time in mirrors and through their shadow, etc etc. It's too thick for no good reason at all.

And I would strongly disagree that you deeply change the nature of Changeling. The game is lousy with ways for antagonists to get ensorcelled or just not have to care about the Mask (because they're fae already). It just makes Changelings a little more fae and have to take more care, rather than - as I have seen lamentably IRL - "We have sweet superpowers and no one mortal can even tell a thing until we bust them out".
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I loved how un-mythologically thick the mask is because it fit the damn themes which have to do with having gone through hidden trauma that you can't/won't talk with others about. It's thick to make it really, really easy to try to pretend it's not happening, and Ensorcelling is literally the act of actually bothering to trust someone enough to open up.

Plus, let me be honest: the avoiding the iron nails thing: A) Makes all Changelings too the damn same with the 'gloves and literally can't be a carpenter, oops we just ate a very good character concept because we thought it was cool' and B) Weren't YOU the one complaining about Eurofae in the Exalted thread, and yet here we are?
 
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If you want to tell stories of clever mortals threatening Changelings into making a Pledge... Use a gun. Just wave a gun in their face. The average Changeling is pretty close to human, and they're probably the splat with the most reason to avoid investing deeply in their powers, if they can.

Fundamentally, Changelings aren't the Fae. They aren't, and their game isn't, about playing the Kindly Ones of myth any more than... Than Mage is about playing blastomancers from D&D. Giving them a constant weakness to iron to make them more like the Fae and force them to be paranoid about maintaining the Mask is utterly wrong-headed to me, because it is deliberate that the Masquerade is not a thing Changeling society works to maintain, but something imposed upon them. It is thick and resilient, because in many ways, it is unwelcome.

So, iron tears up the Gentry something awful, and it cuts through Contracts like the smoke and dreams they really are, but when you get to the flesh, an iron knife cuts a Changeling no deeper than a steel one, or a titanium one, or a ceramic one. Because they're not faeries. They're human.
 
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The Laurent said:
I loved how un-mythologically thick the mask is because it fit the damn themes which have to do with having gone through hidden trauma that you can't/won't talk with others about. It's thick to make it really, really easy to try to pretend it's not happening, and Ensorcelling is literally the act of actually bothering to trust someone enough to open up.

Plus, let me be honest: the avoiding the iron nails thing: A) Makes all Changelings too the damn same with the 'gloves and literally can't be a carpenter, oops we just ate a very good character concept because we thought it was cool' and B) Weren't YOU the one complaining about Eurofae in the Exalted thread, and yet here we are?
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... are you going to be so deliberately obtuse as to try to pretend that the role of European mythology in Changeling is the same as the way Exalted rejects it? Because that's just wilful.

Read the goddamn "Sources and Inspirations" section of Changeling: the Lost. What's in it? Oh look it's all eurofae stuff, there's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, and the art and even the front cover deliberately invokes European fairytales. Changeling is fundamentally at its heart about being as fairytale as shit about things and I like it for that. Exalted is not.

And I bluntly care as much about "I can't work with iron nails without a lot of precautions because I'm a fairy" as I do about "I can't be a silversmith without a lot of precautions because I'm a werewolf" and "I can't be a pyrotechnician without all the precautions because I'm a vampire".
 
EarthScorpion said:
... are you going to be so deliberately obtuse as to try to pretend that the role of European mythology in Changeling is the same as the way Exalted rejects it? Because that's just wilful.

Read the goddamn "Sources and Inspirations" section of Changeling: the Lost. What's in it? Oh look it's all eurofae stuff, there's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, and the art and even the front cover deliberately invokes European fairytales. Changeling is fundamentally at its heart about being as fairytale as shit about things and I like it for that. Exalted is not.

And I bluntly care as much about "I can't work with iron nails without a lot of precautions because I'm a fairy" as I do about "I can't be a silversmith without a lot of precautions because I'm a werewolf" and "I can't be a pyrotechnician without all the precautions because I'm a vampire".
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They've also deliberately spent quite a bit of the gameline expanding it with, "No, seriously, any and all myths from around the world may apply."

I mean, I'm also just going to say that none of what you're saying sounds whatsoever interesting and engaging, and that's sorta my ultimate critique, personally, since, you know, I'm thinking about what interests me. It doesn't seem to create any implications for fun play that didn't already exist, and it's far too on the nose and simple a weakness to really be all that narratively interesting except in smallish doses.

Like, if you want an excuse to make Changelings act weird and different than other people: Contracts. That's literally the entire point of all of those silly Catches in Contracts.

To make it so that a Changeling pumps their fists in the air when they hear that barefoot jogging is in fashion because that way the fact that they jog barefoot in order to store up a Catch for Never Tread no longer looks quite as weird.

Most of the Catches are meant to encourage players, and thus characters, to be weird in far more varied and interesting ways than 'Oh, I don't touch nails.'

I mean, if you think they don't go far enough in doing so, that's something worthy of discussion, sure.

Example: The Catch for Primordial Voice, which lets you talk to elements, involves spending several minutes making an offering. Changing the lights just right so that the shadows are larger, singing into the open air, sweeping the flagstones...several minutes of it. And if they also *talk* to the element while they're doing it, but before they even have started the magic, that gets a +1 to the dice roll.

At which point you realize that you've had a Changeling spend three minutes talking to a tree and lovingly pruning a bush, and that people are probably staring at the Changeling like they're a goddamn freak.
 
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The Laurent said:
They've also deliberately spent quite a bit of the gameline expanding it with, "No, seriously, any and all myths from around the world may apply."
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Yes, but to be entirely and precisely blunt, that's post-facto welding on. Because no matter whether they dress up as grey aliens or oni, the mechanics are still telling you that they're Eurofae, not the passionate vice-driven demons of Indian myth @Havocfett likes to bring up or whatever.

And when the welding on is used as justification to get in the way of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, well, we have a problem.
 
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