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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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Brother Mouse said:
Yeah, what vidya game settings do you guys think is perfect for an owod or nwod game?
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"When the darkness fell, New York City became something else, any old Sinatra song notwithstanding.
Bad things happened in the night, on the streets of that other city. Noir York City."

Bullet dodging cop with equivalent of plenty celerity or time.
Uncommon encounters against opponents with unexplained superhuman ability.
Shadow conspiracy and medical experiments.
Gangster cultists and trippy journeys to center of the mind.
Even random philosophising and leather coats.
Obvious answer is Max Payne. (ignoring nonsense of 3)
 
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Since I'm in a bit of Abyssal mood today...

The Deluge: Obrimos' who has undergone the Joining call upon symbols and beings of fallen glories, such as Satan the Fallen Angel whose pride reduced him to less than a bug or Jason who was crushed by the rotting ship that carried heroes and, of course, Atlantis itself. Some fallen Thaumaturge pilgrimage to Chernobyl, where men were unable to control the power that now damn the land for centuries to come or baptise themselves in the cold winds of the poles where they warm themselves to freeze themselves again. Others carry broken crosses, pray for despair, and invoke the faceless saints who said false truths to the holy that tortured them. Scelestus Theurgist gain power from objects that warps truth, such as dirty mirrors, rusted steel, and glitching computers, all turn light meaningless.
 
Brother Mouse said:
Say wha?
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Abandonment of the stylistic underpinnings of the series, such as the histrionic, pseudo-poetic monologuing, interactive environmental elements and the all important mythological/religious/pop-cultural symbolic subtext which gave the original games their richness. That and I really enjoyed the comic book cutscenes of earlier installments.
 
The Laurent said:
Okay, here's a question. What *are* the sins of the west?

Sins of the West. I mean, the almost-should-be-capitalized phrase, since it's said a lot in relation to the Technocracy.

And no, that's not an argument that the west doesn't have sins or something, I'm just trying to figure out what specific sins/types of sins are actually included in that, and which ones aren't.
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To think of some more:
The making of the whole Twilight Struggle / MAD / Nuclear Dominance bandwagon.
A slow and subtle but persistent push towards eliminating various cultures, dialects and languages (the melting pot approach). (To be fair, this happens to some extent in other factions, but the one self-identifying as West seems the fastest on this path.)
 
Random question just for fun: what's the most surprising 'Changeling' story you have? Hrm, let me explain. When you're reading media you sometimes can say, "Huh, that character could easily be a Changeling, their story specifically explores the themes of Changeling, despite not being C:TL." So what's the most unlikely place you've found a Changeling story, as it were?

I mean, finding one in fantasy or a story based on fairy-tales is pretty obvious, but has there been any work you've picked up and you're like, "Wow, that could be a Changeling story if you just altered some of the metaphysics a bit."

(Thought I'd introduce a lighter topic that would allow people to, I dunno, argue that their favorite media would totally make a great Changeling story.)
 
bigblack said:
Can someone explain to me what a 'plastic shaman' is and how it relates to the Nasnasi?
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A plastic shaman is a member of a Native American group, or at least someone who claims to be from a Native American group, who packages and presents Native American mythology, spiritual practices, etc. in a way that's supposed to appeal to non-Native Americans (read: white people), while presenting themselves as an authority (a shaman) on the subject. They are motivated primarily by commercial gain and the factual accuracy of the Native American culture they're presenting can often be rather lackluster. For example, a Native American who gets paid to help non-Native Americans go on "spiritual journeys" to find their "spirit animal" would be a "plastic shaman".

e: Walker of the Yellow Path, I am not Native American, there's no need to hug me over cultural appropriation that doesn't actually affect me in a meaningful manner,
 
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The Laurent said:
Okay, here's a question. What *are* the sins of the west?

Sins of the West. I mean, the almost-should-be-capitalized phrase, since it's said a lot in relation to the Technocracy.

And no, that's not an argument that the west doesn't have sins or something, I'm just trying to figure out what specific sins/types of sins are actually included in that, and which ones aren't.
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Others have covered the more material aspects, but to me one of the primary sins of the Technocracy ought to be one that paticularily gets associated with western scientific and profressive circles--eliminativism and hegemonic epistemology.

The Technocracy has a paticular fondness for objective truths and grand unifying narratives. Every group, to some extent, tries to force its own understanding of the world on others, but the Technocracy distinguishes itself by the scale and success of their attempts to do so and, moreover, the fact that they are not aware that they're doing it.

The Union believes that the paticular worldview that they present is special and universal because they're derived from reason and Enlightenment thought, not really thinking about how said thought almost always seems to reinforce their own assumptions and parts of the European cultural understandings that comprise their origins--it's not a special univeral truth, just another manner of understanding. Many factions try to quash pluralism, but the Technocracy is unique in that it does not acknowledge pluralism even exists. Science and technolgy in the consensus are a metaphor for this--in real life the issues the Technocracy corresponds to are mostly found in philosophy/social science problems, and it's really hard to make a game out of that, so "belief that spirits cause storms" replaces "belief that property ownership is an inevitable result of advanced society"

Now, to what extent this is a problem is up to your own opinions.
 
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ChineseDrone said:
Others have covered the more material aspects, but to me one of the primary sins of the Technocracy ought to be one that paticularily gets associated with western scientific and profressive circles--eliminativism and hegemonic epistemology.

The Technocracy has a paticular fondness for objective truths and grand unifying narratives. Every group, to some extent, tries to force its own understanding of the world on others, but the Technocracy distinguishes itself by the scale and success of their attempts to do so and, moreover, the fact that they are not aware that they're doing it.

The Union believes that the paticular worldview that they present is special and universal because they're derived from reason and Enlightenment thought, not really thinking about how said thought almost always seems to reinforce their own assumptions and parts of the European cultural understandings that comprise their origins--it's not a special univeral truth, just another manner of understanding. Many factions try to quash pluralism, but the Technocracy is unique in that it does not acknowledge pluralism even exists. Science and technolgy in the consensus are a metaphor for this--in real life the issues the Technocracy corresponds to are mostly found in philosophy/social science problems, and it's really hard to make a game out of that.

Now, to what extent this is a problem is up to your own opinions.
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Though honestly, if they were winning, none of the Superstitionists would aknowledge plurialism either. They only do because they have to work together not to get horribly slaughtered by HITmarks and so on.
 
Eukie said:
A plastic shaman is a member of a Native American group, or at least someone who claims to be from a Native American group, who packages and presents Native American mythology, spiritual practices, etc. in a way that's supposed to appeal to non-Native Americans (read: white people), while presenting themselves as an authority (a shaman) on the subject. They are motivated primarily by commercial gain and the factual accuracy of the Native American culture they're presenting can often be rather lackluster. For example, a Native American who gets paid to help non-Native Americans go on "spiritual journeys" to find their "spirit animal" would be a "plastic shaman".
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IIRC it's also a nickname for Thyrsus that have "Awakened" to an Abyssal Watchtower.
 
Renu said:
Though honestly, if they were winning, none of the Superstitionists would aknowledge plurialism either. They only do because they have to work together not to get horribly slaughtered by HITmarks and so on.
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Disparate Alliance only exists mostly because Traditions are crappy about lumping anyone vaguely similar all together.
(That and Traditions are generally ineffective at leading resistance facing Technocratic anything)
Ahl-i-Batin, despite Traditions saying otherwise, don't share a paradigm with Celestial Chorus.
Attempts of mashing together Bata'a, Kopa Loei, and Balamob into Dreamspeakers were presumptuous and fairly ill conceived.
Council seems to prefer bolstering Order membership over leading a wider general resistance.
 
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That's because "a wider general resistance" doesn't get anything done, and you need organization, discipline and infrastructure to sway the hearts and minds of the Sleepers.

You know, the actual important targets in the Ascension War.
 
bigblack said:
Left-Hand Path and, like anything involving the Abyss, nein

To sign your name on it you must kill your god, accept and demand your abuse, and break your mother. You must betray what you are in everyway.
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ManusDomine said:
Left-Hand Path.

It's detailed in the non-Tremere part of the book, which means that it's a great idea.
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Yeah, I was asking in a 'writing' sense, as Manus noticed. Since I might soon begin that potentially-Mage Quest, and I'm going to try playing with some stuff/doing stuff with it.

Kansas City Shuffle is actually, potentially near its end. And not because I'm getting bored and wandering off, either!
 
bigblack said:
Left-Hand Path and, like anything involving the Abyss, nein

To sign your name on it you must kill your god, accept and demand your abuse, and break your mother. You must betray what you are in everyway.
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Better to achieve enlightenment. That which we cling to holds us back and deceives us. The annihilation of the self is the first step on the path of truth.
 
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