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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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The Laurent said:
Though that's if you include Mages. I mean, the whole of nWoD is modular, for just the reason that if you start saying, "Time Mages exist in all settings" you stab a lot of different splats in the eye. You could as easily have some sort of Mages for a Super: The Heroing setting. To go along with the Vampires, Changelings, and etc. Not as de-powered as in a Hunter game, but not at full power.
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Well, if it's a Hunter-only setting, then everyone's fucked. Most of the gribblies Hunters are going to go up against are solidly cape-tier, and wouldn't have much hope of fighting off the unmitigated bullshit that is the Entities. Promethean and Vampire are pretty screwed as well, although the former might make it if the Principle flips its shit and starts spamming qashmallim.

Changeling? Everything has a sapient incarnation capable of outright dictating what can and cannot interact with it*: the Entities could get shut down just by pissing off Proud Earth or Father Time to the point where those beings say "You, you're banned from interacting with me" (and considering their goal is "murder everyone, then blow up the planet for good measure", that's not a hard thing for them to accomplish). Fuck knows what happens when the True Fae decide to play with the shiny silver/gold matched set of new toys flying around their backyard.

Werewolf? The Incarnae will absolutely shit a brick at their arrival, and very few factions in the splat - Forsaken, Pure, or Bale Hound - will be terribly well-disposed toward a sudden explosion of idigam-sponsored duguthim**. Expect lots of capes to die suddenly and under strange circumstances, and for all sorts of kooky shit to go down as local spirit hierarchies rebel against these freakish invaders. Then you get the Entities firing back, and it all becomes an even higher-stakes version of the nigh-apocalyptic incursion of idigam that wrecked global werewolf society back in the 80s. Also, Maeljin almost definitely take advantage of the chaos to spread their influence, while also seeking to destroy or subvert any parahumans they can get their hands on.


*As in, humans can eat things because the food has agreed that humans are allowed to do so; if you were somehow removed from the list of approved parties, you'd suddenly be unable to derive nourishment from food and starve to death, no matter how much stuff you crammed down your throat. Changelings become Changelings partially because they gain awareness of the web of Contracts that define the world. It's all very Exalted-esque.

** Duguthim, also called the 'Spirit-Claimed', are people who have fused together with a spirit - sometimes through deliberate action on one side's part, but generally by the mortal already having many traits in common with the spirit and accidentally walking through its incorporeal body while one or the other is in a vulnerable spiritual state, causing the spirit to become swept up and absorbed. They can be anything from a grumpy Treebeard telling you to get off his lawn to cannibalistic serial killers, depending on the nature of the entities that combined to make them.
 
The Laurent said:
I don't think they'd be completely outclassed. Now, they'd clearly not be far and away all-but-invincible, but they're not chumps. It would depend on whether Eden survived or not. She's supposed to be something of a planner, so she could probably scheme in such a way that didn't instantly turn everyone against them. Such a plan would likely involve handing out shards and trying to set up a situation where 'mere mortals' (with superpowers) managed to push back the darkness, challenge the various supernatural beings, and otherwise weaken them.
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Hilariously enough Magic and Paranormal break entropy darn enough. . .
. . . not seeing any entities wanting to destroy New World of Darkness.
Could potentially stumble into +dozen exciting shiny new paths to bypass entropy.
It's literally what Space Whales had been looking for!
 
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GardenerBriareus said:
Well, if it's a Hunter-only setting, then everyone's fucked. Most of the gribblies Hunters are going to go up against are solidly cape-tier, and wouldn't have much hope of fighting off the unmitigated bullshit that is the Entities. Promethean and Vampire are pretty screwed as well, although the former might make it if the Principle flips its shit and starts spamming qashmallim.

Changeling? Everything has a sapient incarnation capable of outright dictating what can and cannot interact with it*: the Entities could get shut down just by pissing off Proud Earth or Father Time to the point where those beings say "You, you're banned from interacting with me" (and considering their goal is "murder everyone, then blow up the planet for good measure", that's not a hard thing for them to accomplish). Fuck knows what happens when the True Fae decide to play with the shiny silver/gold matched set of new toys flying around their backyard.

Werewolf? The Incarnae will absolutely shit a brick at their arrival, and very few factions in the splat - Forsaken, Pure, or Bale Hound - will be terribly well-disposed toward a sudden explosion of idigam-sponsored duguthim**. Expect lots of capes to die suddenly and under strange circumstances, and for all sorts of kooky shit to go down as local spirit hierarchies rebel against these freakish invaders. Then you get the Entities firing back, and it all becomes an even higher-stakes version of the nigh-apocalyptic incursion of idigam that wrecked global werewolf society back in the 80s. Also, Maeljin almost definitely take advantage of the chaos to spread their influence, while also seeking to destroy or subvert any parahumans they can get their hands on.


*As in, humans can eat things because the food has agreed that humans are allowed to do so; if you were somehow removed from the list of approved parties, you'd suddenly be unable to derive nourishment from food and starve to death, no matter how much stuff you crammed down your throat. Changelings become Changelings partially because they gain awareness of the web of Contracts that define the world. It's all very Exalted-esque.

** Duguthim, also called the 'Spirit-Claimed', are people who have fused together with a spirit - sometimes through deliberate action on one side's part, but generally by the mortal already having many traits in common with the spirit and accidentally walking through its incorporeal body while one or the other is in a vulnerable spiritual state, causing the spirit to become swept up and absorbed. They can be anything from a grumpy Treebeard telling you to get off his lawn to cannibalistic serial killers, depending on the nature of the entities that combined to make them.
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You'd instead create a custom setting based on nWod and using the other settings only in a limited way as makes sense for their themes. Those being 'With great power comes great responsibility' and 'Changing the world' and 'No matter how well you use your powers, you're secretly working for the enemy...who you might even think is the good guy.'
 
The Laurent said:
Again, I don't find this a very sympathetic perspective. Or rather, taking the highest level things that the highest level splat, that doesn't even exist except in their own gameline, and using that as an example of everything seems...nitpicky.

And not very useful. Like, we get it. Mages are OP, please nerf.

...so, you know, in such a game we'd probably, you know, nerf them?
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Whining that people pull out the Mage big guns when people are going straight for high end Entity stuff is pretty hypocritical.

If you want to put the Entities into a nWoD setting, you have to face up to the fact that the nWoD has plenty of powers that be that mean the Entities aren't the biggest fish around. And systematically removing all the big fish so the Entities can be the biggest fish around is... well, it's something. And stepping down a level to the Endbringers Simurgh does not work in the nWoD, because there are a good number of other beings that play at its level and it'll find very quickly, as Yoda put it, "Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future."

Of course, removing the Entities bluntly improves Worm too, which was strongest when it was street level and got weaker the more and more the scale escalated
 
The Laurent said:
Again, I don't find this a very sympathetic perspective. Or rather, taking the highest level things that the highest level splat, that doesn't even exist except in their own gameline, and using that as an example of everything seems...nitpicky.

And not very useful. Like, we get it. Mages are OP, please nerf.

...so, you know, in such a game we'd probably, you know, nerf them?
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And I find it pretty disingenuous to go "oh but only if we use Mages", when the question was:

"But what if the worms from wormverse entered the world of darkness?"
​
Because guess what? The default WoD includes Mages as well as Archmasters.

I mean, all this started because I mentioned "they'd better have to contend with the Pax Arcanum" like everything else of crazy world-shaping power and scope.

Sure we can have a world where Mages, Mummies and Demons aren't part of it and a Demon can't murder Scion by throwing a hamburger at the floor in his house and wait, but the World of Darkness has those, just like the Wormverse is full of ill-considered bullshit that I wouldn't dream of including in nWoD such as "haha path to victory, more like path to plot enforcement".

We can have a cool street-level setting where werewolves contend with these new mass-scale duguthim from the shadows as well as the spirits created by the devastation of an Endbringer attack, but that's not the proposed scenario.
 
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The Laurent said:
You'd instead create a custom setting based on nWod and using the other settings only in a limited way as makes sense for their themes. Those being 'With great power comes great responsibility' and 'Changing the world' and 'No matter how well you use your powers, you're secretly working for the enemy...who you might even think is the good guy.'
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I think the issue is that the Wormverse's overarching setting is shit. You've got omniscient hypergods actively removing any hope of the PCs making any difference, except as favored tools of said hypergods*. You've got the S9 shitting all over the place, with Jack Slash's shard (by Word of Wildbow) instantly fucking over anyone who even thinks about opposing him, to the point of directly hacking peoples' brains and nerve impulses to make them lose if they fight him. You've got the Endbringers, who are deliberately designed to be bullshit invincible and capable of obliterating any cape that manages to piss them off. Finally, you've got Scion, who's even more bullshit invincible and can only be defeated by one specific means that the players will probably already know about, so he's either an impossible endboss or one that everyone already knows how to beat.

As a TTRPG setting, the Wormverse is a bloated, cancerous mass of fiat and railroading, and if you're going to try and modify it to the point where it's fun to play you'll have to rip out so much of its greasy, gangrenous guts that the end result will be distinctly different. At that point, you shouldn't even bother saying it's a "modified Worm setting" and just say you made something loosely based off of Worm.


* Sit down and tell me that, if their actions posed a clear and present danger to Cauldron's objectives, any party of PCs wouldn't immediately be exterminated via Contessa bullshit. Tell me that the Simurgh, as depicted in canon, can be effectively opposed or planned against. Say that and keep a straight face, I dare you.
 
GardenerBriareus said:
* Sit down and tell me that, if their actions posed a clear and present danger to Cauldron's objectives, any party of PCs wouldn't immediately be exterminated via Contessa bullshit. Tell me that the Simurgh, as depicted in canon, can be effectively opposed or planned against. Say that and keep a straight face, I dare you.
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"Empty Presence (Death•••••)
Practice: Unmaking
Primary Factor: Duration
Cost: One Mana
Withstand: Composure
Suggested Rote Skills: Subterfuge, Persuasion, Stealth

The mage destroys the subject's presence in the world, removing any evidence of her life or existence. Any attempts to see the subject through mundane means of detection or observation fail completely. Not only is she invisible to the naked eye, but evidence of her life is scrubbed. All Doors she may have opened during social interactions with others, either on herself or on the other person, are removed. All her Conditions, and all Conditions applying to her (except for Paradox Conditions), resolve without granting Beats. While invisible, the subject cannot make violent, overt actions without breaking the spell's illusion. Physically damaging or breaking objects, or attacking someone, causes the spell to end immediately. Mages using Active Mage Sight make a Clash of Wills test against the subject, and the use of Focused Mage Sight reveals her to the mage using it. Conditions do not return when the spell ends, but Doors return to their previous states. "

:V
 
Eh, fair enough. I'm also not in the mood to turn this into a Worm debate[1], so...

[1] As opposed to a debate that happens to include Worm, but rather one about Worm and what parts are good or bad or etc.

ManusDomine said:
And I find it pretty disingenuous to go "oh but only if we use Mages", when the question was:

"But what if the worms from wormverse entered the world of darkness?"
​
Because guess what? The default WoD includes Mages as well as Archmasters.

I mean, all this started because I mentioned "they'd better have to contend with the Pax Arcanum" like everything else of crazy world-shaping power and scope.

Sure we can have a world where Mages, Mummies and Demons aren't part of it and a Demon can't murder Scion by throwing a hamburger at the floor in his house and wait, but the World of Darkness has those, just like the Wormverse is full of ill-considered bullshit that I wouldn't dream of including in nWoD such as "haha path to victory, more like path to plot enforcement".

We can have a cool street-level setting where werewolves contend with these new mass-scale duguthim from the shadows as well as the spirits created by the devastation of an Endbringer attack, but that's not the proposed scenario.
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Though I will say that it doesn't necessarily have any of that. The Changeling setting works best by literally having nothing except Changelings. And that's just as nWoD as anything else. Because nWoD is a toolkit.

On the other hand, you do have points, so. Of all of the hills, this isn't one I'm willing to die on.
 
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Generalissimo said:
Hilariously enough Magic and Paranormal break entropy darn enough. . .
. . . not seeing any entities wanting to destroy New World of Darkness.
Could potentially stumble into +dozen exciting shiny new paths to bypass entropy.
It's literally what Space Whales had been looking for!
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Not quite. Entities are preparing for and looking to avert the inevitable end of the universe when it gets completely filled by entities. Entropy is just bad fanon from misreading the interlude. People read about inevitable end of the universe ages away from a lack of usable resources and jumped to entropy.
 
Joebobjoe said:
Not quite. Entities are preparing for and looking to avert the inevitable end of the universe when it gets completely filled by entities. Entropy is just bad fanon from misreading the interlude. People read about inevitable end of the universe ages away from a lack of usable resources and jumped to entropy.
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Let me slightly rephrase my previous statement while retaining my earlier point.
Plenty of things in New World of Darkness potentially averting end of universe.
It's potentially mother load of shiny new conceptual stabilising universe things!
 
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ManusDomine said:
Well, I mean Changing Breeds is pretty much a parody of itself.

But then again, Brucato is the lowest form of comedy. :V
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Seriously though, comedy isn't that hard if it's, like, a few moments or a scene in the overall picture. It's a lot harder to make it a parody without being way too broad with things.

Like, think of the Discworld. Part of how those books worked so well as comedy (as well as other things) was that they existed in a world where nobody knew they were in a comedy.

Mages, Vampires, etc, etc have to do ridiculous things to survive and live in a strange and sometimes arbitrary world. Dark comedy, or even straight up ridiculousness, is entirely possible.

In KCS, Talecrafting just recently led to a fake flat tire (it's a wagon it doesn't even have tires) that the heroes have to desperately 'fix' with Talecrafting while a bunch of locals (everyone knows that you get a flat tire and that's the start of the horror movie about how everyone who isn't from a city will cannibalize you) attack them.

...so, they're like miming changing tires and they're going to be lifting it up to 'replace' tires that don't exist all while being attacked by the children of the corn.

In-universe, this is treated seriously because their lives are on the line, but it is meant to be a little absurd.
 
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Joebobjoe said:
Not quite. Entities are preparing for and looking to avert the inevitable end of the universe when it gets completely filled by entities. Entropy is just bad fanon from misreading the interlude. People read about inevitable end of the universe ages away from a lack of usable resources and jumped to entropy.
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So the answer they were looking for was secretly birth control all along.
 
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Generalissimo said:
Let me slightly rephrase my previous statement while retaining my earlier point.
Plenty of things in New World of Darkness potentially averting end of universe.
It's potentially mother load of shiny new conceptual stabilising universe things!
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As opposed to the Old World of Darkness, which is full of of things that can certainly will destroy the universe and absolutely nothing that can save it.

Brother Mouse said:
Just for the cringe and the lulz, how would you stat Harambe as a Totem for W20?
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He would have to give leadership bonuses, considering that he's a a popular third-party Presidential candidate.
 
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Yo, if any of you remember I was asking about possibly using Genius' character sheet to kitbash Kim Possible villains as characters there. That portion is still in development right now, but the quest I'm using that for has been posted up on SV by my Co-GM.

It's KP/Hunter (CoD) based on the sole idea of Ron Stoppable: Vampire hunter (which can only go well :V).

If any of you guys are interested, here's the SV link:
Crossover - Down the Bad Road

Any ideas or suggestions about how I could improve things there would also be welcomed.
 
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(So I posted one of these questions earlier figured I'd expand and clean up.)
I have a few questions re: Werewolf The Apocalypse

  1. Anybody know what the rules for firing guns akimbo in Werewolf 20th?
  2. What kind of stuff should a Gun Fetish have?
  3. What do caerns and septs look like?
 
Brother Mouse said:
(So I posted one of these questions earlier figured I'd expand and clean up.)
I have a few questions re: Werewolf The Apocalypse

  1. Anybody know what the rules for firing guns akimbo in Werewolf 20th?
  2. What kind of stuff should a Gun Fetish have?
  3. What do caerns and septs look like?
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1) Spray-and-pray works poorly. Beyond that I do not think there are any in particular aside from increased difficulty and/or need to use additional actions when dealing with multiple targets.
2) Whatever works for ordinary fetishes should be good.
3) Rather open ended. Clean and to a degree peaceful is good for caerns, a place where the better parts of the spirit world is close.
 
Brother Mouse said:
(So I posted one of these questions earlier figured I'd expand and clean up.)
I have a few questions re: Werewolf The Apocalypse

  1. Anybody know what the rules for firing guns akimbo in Werewolf 20th?
  2. What kind of stuff should a Gun Fetish have?
  3. What do caerns and septs look like?
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Many guns, camo clothes, membership in a militia group, and a copy of the Constitution with every article torn out except the second. :V
 
Alright update on the game im going to be running; i now have

  • A Scottish Fianna, Ragabash, Homid. wears a kilt at all times and is a scrappet
  • A Wendigo (work in progress)
  • A Russian Shadow Lord (which is a maybe)
So far ive sent out invites to three other players and they have yet to get back to me.

If i only get these three then i shall give them a Metis GMPC designed to play support
 
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