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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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ManusDomine said:
...No?

Demons work by...

Oh Jesus Christ why am I even doing this when I could copy from the book?

Demons have two kinds of powers: Embeds and Exploits, and now I'll detail them by copying them straight from the book.



And Exploits:



Does this help?
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Uh, not really, but that's probably because I incorrectly formulated my question. Your answer is quite informative in terms of what Demons can do from a paradigmatic PoV. But I'm trying to figure out what makes them powerful from an effects PoV. E.g., does their sammich-dropping scy-and-die trick do more terrible, terrible damage than the mages Corr equivalents? Or do their tricks work much more sideways, such that a mage would need decent ratings in a half-dozen spheres to replicate it? Or do they have some options that require outrageous scores (e.g. Time 7+ retroactive assassinations)?
 
vicky_molokh said:
Uh, not really, but that's probably because I incorrectly formulated my question. Your answer is quite informative in terms of what Demons can do from a paradigmatic PoV. But I'm trying to figure out what makes them powerful from an effects PoV. E.g., does their sammich-dropping scy-and-die trick do more terrible, terrible damage than the mages Corr equivalents? Or do their tricks work much more sideways, such that a mage would need decent ratings in a half-dozen spheres to replicate it? Or do they have some options that require outrageous scores (e.g. Time 7+ retroactive assassinations)?
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Demons are really, really weird.

Let's take an example of a perfectly valid Embed, you can start with this thing so it can't be too broke-

Demon: The Descent said:
KNOCKOUT PUNCH
Despite what popular media would have people believe, getting "knocked out" usually indicates a serious injury, often with accompanying brain damage. If it doesn't cause such damage, a sharp blow to the head is usually just painful. A demon operates under different constraints. With this Embed, a demon can knock a target unconscious and specify when the target will revive.

Dice Pool: Dexterity + Brawl – Defense
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The punch misses. If the target makes an unarmed attack on the demon, the demon falls victim to this Embed. The Storyteller determines when the demon wakes up.

Failure: The punch misses. Any further attempts to use this Embed in the same scene suffer a cumulative –1 penalty, to a maximum of –5.

Success: The demon makes an unarmed attack on the target (despite the name, kicks work just as well as punches). The demon does not inflict any Health damage, but the victim is knocked unconscious until a specified amount of time or a specified condition come to pass. That is, the demon might stipulate that the target remains unconscious "for an hour" or "until I leave this building." The victim can be brought around early, however, if anyone finds his body and makes even a cursory attempt to revive him.The demon can, of course, choose to murder the target while he is unconscious. Doing so is always a risk to Cover (breaking point with a –3 modifier).

Exceptional Success: As above, except that reviving the victim requires a roll of Presence + Medicine.
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Oh.
 
Vindictus said:
Basically turned completely around- I want a mage that thinks they're a vampire, not a vampire that thinks they're a mage.

Although the idea of running a 'House Tremere' game that uses Mage rules in the Vampire setting sounds hilariously broken and spacebattler-ish
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Vindictus said:
Basically turned completely around- I want a mage that thinks they're a vampire, not a vampire that thinks they're a mage.

Although the idea of running a 'House Tremere' game that uses Mage rules in the Vampire setting sounds hilariously broken and spacebattler-ish
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No, I know. That's my point.

An Awakened Mage who's part of House Tremere, the vampire House, who's using blood-Hermetic rituals and using donated vampire blood as a source of Tass and who's casting the Tremere's modern Vampire-Hermetic rituals as a true Hermetic.
 
EarthScorpion said:
No, I know. That's my point.

An Awakened Mage who's part of House Tremere, the vampire House, who's using blood-Hermetic rituals and using donated vampire blood as a source of Tass and who's casting the Tremere's modern Vampire-Hermetic rituals as a true Hermetic.
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Tremere know plenty of Mage stuff already so wouldn't recruiting occasional Awakened be completely reasonable?
Don't ghoul or embrace as not interfere with power but actually recruit!
Teach everything from a Hermetic non-traditions-angle with aim of Tremere paradigm.
 
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Generalissimo said:
Tremere know plenty of Mage stuff already so wouldn't recruiting occasional Awakened be completely reasonable?
Don't ghoul or embrace as not interfere with power but actually recruit!
Teach everything from Hermetic non-traditions-angle with aim of Tremere paradigm.
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Yes, but there's one fundamental downside there.

It's called "Tremere are control freaks whose magic is substantially inferior to an Awakened mage, and Tremere are very, very flammable. So they're not going to be able to stop themselves from blood-bonding them at the very least".

...

Honestly, if you're not sensible and just give the Tremere the Tzimisce clan flaw, then you should probably replace the weaksauce Tremere clan flaw with some kind of control-freakery clan flaw. Since it totally defines them and cripples them.
 
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ManusDomine said:
Demons are really, really weird.

Let's take an example of a perfectly valid Embed, you can start with this thing so it can't be too broke-

Oh.
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Hmm. Doesn't look particularly weird to me. A Life effect with perhaps an auxiliary condition attached. When you said they're very weird, I was expecting something that's at least as weird as Lunar Cat's Eye, or Werewolf's "scare the knife-spirit to make the knife stop cutting things no matter how hard you try", or perhaps that thing where a certain brand of In Nomine angels goes "try to deceive to me, and I'll tell whether you believe what you say, whether it's actually true, and if not, then what the truth really is", or something that enforces a FATE-style Concede, or a GURPS-RPM-Daath ability to make an abstract concept incapable of existing (e.g. making long division stop producing results, forever, without harming other methods of division).
 
vicky_molokh said:
Hmm. Doesn't look particularly weird to me. A Life effect with perhaps an auxiliary condition attached. When you said they're very weird, I was expecting something that's at least as weird as Lunar Cat's Eye, or Werewolf's "scare the knife-spirit to make the knife stop cutting things no matter how hard you try", or perhaps that thing where a certain brand of In Nomine angels goes "try to deceive to me, and I'll tell whether you believe what you say, whether it's actually true, and if not, then what the truth really is", or something that enforces a FATE-style Concede, or a GURPS-RPM-Daath ability to make an abstract concept incapable of existing (e.g. making long division stop producing results, forever, without harming other methods of division).
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An attack that if it hits basically instantly wins any one-on-one fight? And has pretty decent odds to hit and doesn't require *any* prep work at all?

He said broken. And that is broken as shit.
 
vicky_molokh said:
Hmm. Doesn't look particularly weird to me. A Life effect with perhaps an auxiliary condition attached. When you said they're very weird, I was expecting something that's at least as weird as Lunar Cat's Eye, or Werewolf's "scare the knife-spirit to make the knife stop cutting things no matter how hard you try", or perhaps that thing where a certain brand of In Nomine angels goes "try to deceive to me, and I'll tell whether you believe what you say, whether it's actually true, and if not, then what the truth really is", or something that enforces a FATE-style Concede, or a GURPS-RPM-Daath ability to make an abstract concept incapable of existing (e.g. making long division stop producing results, forever, without harming other methods of division).
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Oh no, I mentioned that one because it's hilariously broken.

If you want weird, I'll give you weird:


Demon: The Descent said:
ALLIES INTO GOLD
What is the measure of a friend? What worth can be placed, not on a human being generally, but on human contact, of the ability to people to interact on a social level? A demon with this Exploit can shift what that human contact represents, changing a relationship that exists purely on the "exchange of information" level (Contacts) to one that brings in revenue (Resources), or one that induces the other party to level physical aid to the demon (Allies or even Retainer). This Exploit is riskier to a demon's Cover than most. The compromise roll for Allies Into Gold suffers a negative modifier equal to the number of dots in Merits the demon is shifting.

Example Prerequisites: Fungible Knowledge, Trust No One
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Socialize + Primum
Action: Extended (target number = number of dots being shifted; one roll/hour)
Cost: 1 Aether
Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The demon loses access to the Merit dots she intended to shift for the rest of the day. If the demon approaches the people these dots represent, in any Cover, the people have no idea who she is.

Failure: The demon must either abandon the attempt or accept a Condition, as described onp. 115.

Success: The demon can shift some of her Social Merits. The player decides how many dots to shift when the Exploit is activated; even if the player winds up with more successes than required, she can only shift that many dots. The player chooses what Merit those dots now represent. Allies Into Gold can only turn Social Merits into other Social Merits, so it is possible to turn a True Friend into Resources (that True Friend comes into some money, which he then imparts to the character), Allies into Contacts (the organization suffers a blow to its personnel and is unable to help the character with anything but research), Staff into Retainer (most of the Staff goes on strike, leaving behind only a dedicated employee) and so forth. These alterations are permanent — if the character wants to shift her Merits back, she must use this power again.

Exceptional Success: The player may select one of the options from p. 313, or can choose to sacrifice a dot of Social Merits for one Experience.
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Or would you rather kill people retroactively? Perhaps pull a railgun out behind your ear? Casually decide that society hates a dude perhaps?
 
The Laurent said:
An attack that if it hits basically instantly wins any one-on-one fight? And has pretty decent odds to hit and doesn't require *any* prep work at all?

He said broken. And that is broken as shit.
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It does look extremely overpowered, broken and unbalanced in a face-to-face fight, I agree on that. I'm not sure how that's superior HUMINT, though, nor how it's better than some scry-die. And I didn't find it weird.

ManusDomine said:
Oh no, I mentioned that one because it's hilariously broken.

If you want weird, I'll give you weird:
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Okay, that is suitably weird and cool. But probably broken in terms of XP spent. Yeah, I'm quite stumped about which Spheres even would be used to emulate such an effect (maybe I'll get some ideas later). And it demonstrates why it's more human intelligence than signal intelligence.

Thanks!

ManusDomine said:
Or would you rather kill people retroactively? Perhaps pull a railgun out behind your ear? Casually decide that society hates a dude perhaps?
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That actually sounds less original than the Gold example. But the Allies Into Gold example is, well, pure gold.
 
vicky_molokh said:
That actually sounds less original than the Gold example. But the Allies Into Gold example is, well, pure gold.
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@MJ12 Commando once described Demon as a cross between Michael Thorton, Lucifer and the T-800.

We also have Exploits such as Sermon that allows you to change people's Breaking Points, Stalking Horse that allows you to make certain personality facets of people so glaringly obvious that everyone can see them (I could use it on you and say "lustful", and even if this was false, for the next [My Primum] hours, everyone would believe that about you), Open-And-Shut Case that allows you to arbitrarily declare that someone is a sex offender and now they are totally on the police's watch list, Two Places at Once that allows you to make anything that happens to one location, also happen to the other and vice versa.

Demons are fucking hilarious.
 
ManusDomine said:
@MJ12 Commando once described Demon as a cross between Michael Thorton, Lucifer and the T-800.

We also have Exploits such as Sermon that allows you to change people's Breaking Points, Stalking Horse that allows you to make certain personality facets of people so glaringly obvious that everyone can see them (I could use it on you and say "lustful", and even if this was false, for the next [My Primum] hours, everyone would believe that about you), Open-And-Shut Case that allows you to arbitrarily declare that someone is a sex offender and now they are totally on the police's watch list, Two Places at Once that allows you to make anything that happens to one location, also happen to the other and vice versa.

Demons are fucking hilarious.
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Oh, there's also the one, though it's more tame, that lets you find a specific person in a group. Like, you ask, "Which of these people in a gang hostile to me is most likely to sell out their fellows" and the ST has to tell you. I think it's something something weak link, but it basically allows you to identify and take apart groups pretty easily.
 
The Laurent said:
Oh, there's also the one, though it's more tame, that lets you find a specific person in a group. Like, you ask, "Which of these people in a gang hostile to me is most likely to sell out their fellows" and the ST has to tell you. I think it's something something weak link, but it basically allows you to identify and take apart groups pretty easily.
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Yeah, I was only going through Exploits there.

There's also Cool Heads Prevail that allows you to go "no gize fite is bad" and then they won't fight.
 
ManusDomine said:
Yeah, I was only going through Exploits there.

There's also Cool Heads Prevail that allows you to go "no gize fite is bad" and then they won't fight.
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Here was the starting character list of Embeds/Exploit for my Record-Exec-who-wants-to-be-a-star Demon I ran a set of games with.

Embeds: Borrowed Expertise, Someone Special, Muse, Special Message

Exploit: Sermon

I think 'Someone Special' is the one I was thinking about. Special Message allows you to embed messages in media. Like, a painting where a certain person looks at it and knows what you're trying to tell them.
 
The Laurent said:
Here was the starting character list of Embeds/Exploit for my Record-Exec-who-wants-to-be-a-star Demon I ran a set of games with.

Embeds: Borrowed Expertise, Someone Special, Muse, Special Message

Exploit: Sermon

I think 'Someone Special' is the one I was thinking about. Special Message allows you to embed messages in media. Like, a painting where a certain person looks at it and knows what you're trying to tell them.
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Demons are great. You should join @notanautomaton's game.

It'll be great.
 
So, I am considering converting Vampire to Big Eyes Small Mouth, but I am unsure if I should convert Masquerade 1e or Requiem 1e. I know I probably talked about this before, but my plans never really got off the ground. This time I want to fix that.
 
ManusDomine said:
Demons are great. You should join @notanautomaton's game.

It'll be great.
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I don't really have the time I did when I ran that game. Which, by the way.

It was set in a city that for some reason the God Machine had decided would stay stuck in the 1980s forever. Like, new bands all the time...in the style of the 80s. There was a giant arcade ruled over by an iron-fisted tyrant where people who lost certain matches were exiled forever. It was incredibly weird in a fun way, and there was also an evil dog, an outcast angel (not a demon, though), and a bunch of other stuff.

My character had gone, "These humans I manage are hacks, I could do better, I...oh wait, I'm a Demon now."

Also, the finale of the first mission/the game was chasing a car trying to escape, and music weakened it and my character sang 'The Distance' to give a dice bonus to the driver of the souped-up car that was her teammate.

It was pretty fun, but also not all that conspiracy thriller-ish.
 
The Laurent said:
I don't really have the time I did when I ran that game. Which, by the way.

It was set in a city that for some reason the God Machine had decided would stay stuck in the 1980s forever. Like, new bands all the time...in the style of the 80s. There was a giant arcade ruled over by an iron-fisted tyrant where people who lost certain matches were exiled forever. It was incredibly weird in a fun way, and there was also an evil dog, an outcast angel (not a demon, though), and a bunch of other stuff.

My character had gone, "These humans I manage are hacks, I could do better, I...oh wait, I'm a Demon now."

Also, the finale of the first mission/the game was chasing a car trying to escape, and music weakened it and my character sang 'The Distance' to give a dice bonus to the driver of the souped-up car that was her teammate.

It was pretty fun, but also not all that conspiracy thriller-ish.
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That's a bit of a shame, the game sounds hilarious though.
 
vicky_molokh said:
Okay, that is suitably weird and cool. But probably broken in terms of XP spent. Yeah, I'm quite stumped about which Spheres even would be used to emulate such an effect (maybe I'll get some ideas later). And it demonstrates why it's more human intelligence than signal intelligence.
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Worth pointing out Demon is 2E, meaning that you don't get silliness with making boatloads of profit experience point wise by taking a bunch of one dot merits and turning them into a single 5 dot one.

And we haven't even gotten into Demonic Form powers, which can be quite ridiculous in their own right. They include stuff like traveling through the internet, a bite that deals loads of aggravated, or having a full suite of radio reception and jamming. Admittedly they're less useful than Embeds and Exploits because Embeds and Exploits don't give you a massive visible tell that you're doing something weird.
 
Talking about Demon, I actually have a question:

What the fuck does Fast Attack even do? Like, it allows me to set my Initiative to be higher than my target's after successfully attacking them but why would I want to do this? I mean, it's not like my Initiative's gonna change so what's the benefit?
 
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