EVE Online is a game about the darkness in the hearts of man and how with the slightest provocation man can do the most horrible things to others much like him.
Also, about spaceships.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
EVE Online is a game about the darkness in the hearts of man and how with the slightest provocation man can do the most horrible things to others much like him.
Also, about spaceships.
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There should be some sort of thread for parody descriptions like that. In the 'And the other has hobbits' vein, you know? Talk about some underlying issue or theme or problem, and then mention at the last moment what it's theoretically "about."
Vindictus
XENO
- Location
- Texas
It's an mmo.
The in game economics are important.
Just out of curiosity have you ever heard of the south sea company?
Imagine an entire economy of sir blunts.
I'd go the exact opposite route; EVE is not a game about the horrors of man. It's about the horrors of unfeeling systems within which we must constantly sacrifice our own children, lest we fall behind those who sacrificed theirs. It's about the terror of having to constantly to defect despite wanting to cooperate. EVE is about living in the land of King Nozick and Queen Rand.
There is no evil in the hearts of man. People are inherently good. But the system, for all that it is made out of those people, does not care. You will do evil for the sake of good and you will justify it over and over to yourself until it sounds true.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Mummy, on the other hand, is a game that has way to many too big issues.
First, it steps on all the toes. There's simply a bunch of thematic overlap on every level with Mage, Geist, and Vampire, and including some outright thematic thief from both, but it plays well with none of them. That isn't a problem for a pure Mummy campaign, but you aren't going to be running a Mummy campaign. You're going to use it as a source of materials, mysteries, and antagonists for another game system, because of point the third.
Second, it's incomplete. There's big portions that get referenced, and then you try and look up that reference, and there's nothing there. Or the rules and the fluff directly contradict each other. You could patch around it, but it would add work and uncertainly, which is a problem because...
Three, isn't really playable. While it's whole concept of players as the failing undead slave-sorcerers of a ancient evil is interesting, mechanically it means that all the players are fundamentally out of sync with each other, and that will only get worse over the course of the game. Also, it has climax problems, in that you'll be losing players by design over the course of a campaign, and the players at the end will be very very limited. That thematically sounds interesting - weariness and desperation, but in practice is just going to be frustrating and forgettable.
It also has ALL THE PERVERSE INCENTIVES. That is, you want your cultist to summon you all the time for petty shit that you can easily do, so that you have the maximum time to pursue your own goals, but the setting is built with the assumption no one does this - the commonly active mummies instead do things like use a dangerous artifact that requires human sacrifice to stay active and other crap like that.
So missing material, problematic assumptions, and mechanics that don't really work all come together to make a game that I would like to like, but can't.
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- Location
- Italy
So, I've finally finished fleshing out my consilium and the mages of New York.
Now, onto preparing the first episode. For simplicity, I took a page out of Broken Diamond and had the local politics decide that the new kids have to form a new cabal, and I plan to have a Consilium official give them a job to do.
I'm trying to go through with something with next to no combat, an investigation whose purpose is to let them learn and get confortable with the magic system, with each other and settle in their character personality, as well as introducing them to a few important npcs and what will be the main antagonists of the chronicle, the Seers of the Throne. In particular, i like Dispater, one of the example antagonists from Seers of the Throne, and I think he would also feet extremely well with the Reign of the Exarchs plot, with his desire to see Mammon ascend to the position of Great Ministry.
Now, onto preparing the first episode. For simplicity, I took a page out of Broken Diamond and had the local politics decide that the new kids have to form a new cabal, and I plan to have a Consilium official give them a job to do.
I'm trying to go through with something with next to no combat, an investigation whose purpose is to let them learn and get confortable with the magic system, with each other and settle in their character personality, as well as introducing them to a few important npcs and what will be the main antagonists of the chronicle, the Seers of the Throne. In particular, i like Dispater, one of the example antagonists from Seers of the Throne, and I think he would also feet extremely well with the Reign of the Exarchs plot, with his desire to see Mammon ascend to the position of Great Ministry.
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Hrm, what's the cabal centered around, or is it a hodgepodge one?
- Location
- Italy
The characters were designed mostly indipendently from one anothe, if that is what you're asking.
Besides, I don't want to overwhelm them much. This is the totally first time with mage, for all of us.
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Makes sense. Maybe they'll come to find a purpose for their cabal as they play?
- Location
- Italy
I of course hope that one of the hooks I built into the setting catches enough their attention to become the focus of the cabals efforts and research, but for a first session, I was hoping for something a bit more structured, a frame in which to present those seeds, and see which one has their attention.
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Hrm, well I can't really give (good) advice without knowing the players and the hooks you want to drop down, but I do wish you good luck!
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As totally flawed as it is, there are a few fun things in Geist. And I can imagine as a 'character ideas' thing it'd be interesting. Like the idea I had for a pirate character for something I might or might not do. She had a deep occult knowledge as a mortal, well, she knew a lot of beliefs at least, and swindled people, got into schemes, and otherwise manipulated people on the back of "voodoo/witchcraft" that was all smoke, mirrors, and clever proto-psychology. Eventually she got sick, deathly sick, with some disease (I'll make that part up later) and she was left to die because it was the sort of disease where the best you could do is stay way from them so you don't die too.
So they leave her to die, a Geist finds her, and soon enough she's back in action, only this time she has actual powers to back up her manipulation and bullshit, and a new story.
"Hey, wait...weren't you dumped overboard to die?"
"The spirits don't give up on one of their own so fast do they, hun?"
*Guy shivers and makes the sign of the cross.*
Or something! It's a fun idea to think of, though the rules are a mess.
I do like the general idea, of a con-person who fakes/plays-at magic who becomes the real thing and goes right back to doing the sorts of things they were doing before, only on a grander, more powerful scale. "Convince the rich fuck to pay me tons of money to curse his ex? Now I can do it for real, charge him ten times as much, then..."
And so on.
Not a good person, but a fun character idea.
Edit: Who knows? Maybe Mage can do the same thing but better in terms of ideas, but I haven't gotten a chance to check out Mage yet, and it's certainly not a 'Vampire' or 'Werewolf' or Demon, Mummy, and only *maybe* a Changeling idea if you squint and fudge things.
So they leave her to die, a Geist finds her, and soon enough she's back in action, only this time she has actual powers to back up her manipulation and bullshit, and a new story.
"Hey, wait...weren't you dumped overboard to die?"
"The spirits don't give up on one of their own so fast do they, hun?"
*Guy shivers and makes the sign of the cross.*
Or something! It's a fun idea to think of, though the rules are a mess.
I do like the general idea, of a con-person who fakes/plays-at magic who becomes the real thing and goes right back to doing the sorts of things they were doing before, only on a grander, more powerful scale. "Convince the rich fuck to pay me tons of money to curse his ex? Now I can do it for real, charge him ten times as much, then..."
And so on.
Not a good person, but a fun character idea.
Edit: Who knows? Maybe Mage can do the same thing but better in terms of ideas, but I haven't gotten a chance to check out Mage yet, and it's certainly not a 'Vampire' or 'Werewolf' or Demon, Mummy, and only *maybe* a Changeling idea if you squint and fudge things.
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TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
oWoD mage could do that, but you're a bit too liable to get into trouble in nMage - it's both a blatant sin against wisdom, and waving the mysteries in the faces of the mundanes. There is in fact a canonical nVampire with a very similar backstory. He's a Circe of the Crone Conjure Man. Werewolf... blah. A Demon could steal the life of a conman and carry on his legacy in such a way, but that isn't really the same thing (though demon's rock at subtle reordering of the world). Changelings can do that kind of thing right out the gate though.
AkatsukiL13
An Enlightened Mind
- Location
- New Copernicus Station
Yeah, it would work quite well in oMage, especially with an Orphan character. An Orphan is a mage that isn't with the Traditions, Technocracy, Crafts or Nephandi, nor are they Marauders. They tend to have unique and often hodgepodge Paradigms.
Alternatively a con-man could be right at home among the Syndicate of the Technocracy, provided of course they discarded such nonsense as Magic.
Alternatively a con-man could be right at home among the Syndicate of the Technocracy, provided of course they discarded such nonsense as Magic.
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Just finished a custom Contract line for something, at least, the first four dots, and the 5th and so on are meant to be vague so I might keep that undone, just wondering if I should share it here, or what?
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
If a second edition of Genius were made, what would you want to see in it? Aside from an update to GMC rules of course, that's a given.
I don't know Genius very well, but if they don't have anything for kid Geniuses, do something that includes them.
I was originally going to make a Dexter's Laboratory comment, but now my brain is percolating with images of the KND and Calvin.
All of a sudden, I'm seeing Hobbes as some sort of plush toy superscience wonder.
I was originally going to make a Dexter's Laboratory comment, but now my brain is percolating with images of the KND and Calvin.
All of a sudden, I'm seeing Hobbes as some sort of plush toy superscience wonder.
More balanced Axioms, and less silly-powerful 5-dot abilities? I mean, seriously, time travel at Skafoi 5? That's just . . . no.
Vindictus
XENO
- Location
- Texas
Calvin and Dexter meet at their elementary school science fair. A Genius the Transgression fic.
Come on, someone's got to write this.
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So they're everything everyone says Mages are?
Basically, Genius was written by someone who was very, very upset that nMage characters are... you know, actually recognisably wizards, rather than postmodern reality warpers who can be mad scientists. As a result, there's a lot of anti-mage spite in it, and Genius' poorly balanced mechanics are set up so they can beat mages. Who already sit at the top of the nWoD power scale, and have a lot of mechanics put in place to constrain them, up to and including the Pax Arcanum nuking mages who go too public.
Think of Genius as Etherite: the Oral Sexing, and you won't be too far off.
Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
Personally genius reminds me of fae, what is the basis of fae's powers? Stories, what is the basis of a genius' powers? Bulshit theories that only need to be internally consistant. Then theres all those realms formed by beliefs that turned out to be impossible and the fact that genius that lose it become reality warpers.
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What's the Pax Arcanum? I really should look into new Mage sometime, or maybe even old Mage, though I know they're wildly different beasts. But I keep on pushing it down in favor of other things and it keeps on not happening.
I know what the words themselves mean, of course, I mean in the context of nMage.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
The Archmages that can do serious damage to reality agree not to attack each other with Archmagic, and not to use Archmagic on the behalf of mage organizations that they control. However, they can use a kind of reality warping to change the world and Ascend, and can attack each other so long as they don't use Archmagic to do it. It basically just stops the world from being destroyed by an Archmage turning his enemies home into anti-matter.
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*winces*. Also, a call to anyone who knows new Mage well but isn't involved and doesn't find it likely they will be involved in my Quest. I really still do need help firming up the Mage-Politics in the city. I mean, odds are Rose (the viewpoint character of the Quest) won't EVER run into them at all, at least not anytime soon, but I really should be building that stuff now, since it's something I should have already done.