Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
Clearly darker forces are behind it!
Investigate odd spiritual activity in a Mansion outside Raccoon City. . .
Anyone running WoD games ought be considering it.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
no go play exalted 1e
wait what are you doing with that knife
wait what are you doing with that knife
- Pronouns
- They/Them
If I remember the memes right, the good news is that combat will never end. Therefore, you're effectively immortal.
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
Err. . . not enchanting it for specifically killing ManusDomine?
Play BESM, I guess. Though I would suggest you check out some other games first. It's not really going to work for WoD but if you have a few friends who like it too, more power to you.
Though if nobody wants to play your BESM game that steals aesthetics and nothing else fromm WoD... you might start questioning why that is.
They literally branded the Darkstalkers arcade cabinet with the World of Darkness logo.
Umbrella and Pentex are basically the same company, anyway. Just replaces "viruses" with "banes" and everything works the same (and even makes more sense, seriously, have you seen what the T-Virus can do...)
For a while, Capcom and White Wolf were planning to put out a line of World of Darkness arcade games, starting with a Werewolf:The Apocolypse fighting game. But it never got off the ground. That Vampire Savior cabinet is the only remnant of the deal.
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
Finding this out is already depressing me.
- Location
- Mausheim, USA
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
me too!
There are lots of cool things white wolf was a part of that fell through. The MMO, darkstalkers, GURPS ports (although the big three owod games did make it). So much shit that makes me wonder what things would be like if they hadn't gone sour.
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
So Nmage ST and players here. Am I alone in not getting the Free Council? I mean their philosophy is not so different than the other orders and their whole difference seems to be their democratic mode of governance which can be adapted by any other orders.
They seem to be there only to be the obligatory "Anarchs" splat and are vastly less interesting than the four other mystery religions. Plus their order book doesn't exactly do them any favour.
They seem to be there only to be the obligatory "Anarchs" splat and are vastly less interesting than the four other mystery religions. Plus their order book doesn't exactly do them any favour.
- Location
- Spain
Really, I just make them some kind of 'feature' in most consilium. A group of modernist and cultural minded Mages from across the Diamond and local Nameless Orders talking about the truth inherent in humanity's
This also means Techne would become availabe for all the Orders, even the Seers. Because nothing says Mage like a Panopticon Prelate teacher using the fear of students doing a test as a Yantra to kill someone across the world with Mind Flay.
- Location
- Quezon City, Philippines
I did get the Free Council, but then again, I was young and ignorant, running off on the high due discovering this awesome thing called Mage the Awakening. Now, being more mature and learned, consider the FC to be terribad. These days, I go for the Arrows. Just go do what @bigblack recommends; everything becomes neater that way.
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
It's apparently contagious because now I'be pulled out my old copy of Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game.
Give in to your desire!
Speaking of the Free Council and how disappointing they are. @EarthScorpion mentioned that thay were his favourite Order when he first red the corebook, So I ask you people what were your 'first impressions' of the gamelines just after reading the corebooks for the gamelines(Old and New)?
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There are three major differences.
- The Free Council of Assemblies is a hodgepodge of different magical ideologies that are generally seen as heresy by the Diamond.
- They prefer democracy over the Diamond's meritocracy.
- They believe that the relationship between the Supernal and Fallen is reciprocal rather than top down.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm just not sure how 'hodgepodge of different ideologies' somehow leads to democracy. I mean, we've seen what happens in some states where everyone has wildly different beliefs. And it's not always the formation of a fully functional and friendly democracy.
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
Legend of Ruina
Growing eyes on the inside
My assumption on why the Free Council is a democracy is less high ideals and more political maneuvering by its constituents back in the day. Because remember, it's a loose coalition of cults to start, so democracy gets implemented as a way of assuring individual groups that they matter. When the whole snafu with the Seers attempting to recruit them occurs they form into a pseudo faction of their own instead of just an association of minor ones but nobody is going to try to rock the boat by removing one of the major balances that kept the group going in its early years. Give it a generation or two and it becomes distorted to "we're a democracy because democracy is awesome" instead of "we're a democracy because otherwise a lot of minor groups would pitch a fit".
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
I consider the dysfunctional terrible democracy a feature not a bug!
World of Darkness hasn't played around enough with darker side of democracy.
Politics for many splats are just oligarchy/aristocratic variants.
What really would be *fun* would be democratic vampires.
All of the pettiness, conspiring, and power mongering but with dynamic spin of electoral shenanigans.
Immortals with ability and willingness to keeps\ grudges eternally sharing a legislative body
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My assumption on why the Free Council is written as democratic is that the entire organisation is essentially an Ascensionalist blight on the nMage setting and has a substantial "written as the good guys" pox upon it. And a substantial number of things past the Free Council orderbook try desperately to patch it (because their orderbook was shiiiiiiiiit compared to the other Orderbooks, and whoever did the magic felt "retcon the past few months of IRL play" was an acceptable effect with the Save Point spell), but this just means their contradictions and incoherency becomes more and more pressing.
They're heretics and groups whose dogma was unacceptable to the Diamond, but they're also democratic and open (even though they're made up of radical ideologues). They're the most militant Seer-hunters despite the fact that they welcome people the Diamond shuns. They reject the paranoia and conspiring of the Guardians, while also apparently successfully opposing the Seers better than anyone else. They welcome Legacies that are totally shunned in mainstream Mage society - soul eaters among other, as long as they don't use it against Sleepers. Oh, and they're maintaining an entire parallel Mage social structure to the Consillia, run democratically in a conspiracy setting.
And in the end, nMage never needed Anarchs - and Nameless Orders added in Left Hand Path do everything that the Free Council does, but better and far less intrusively.
So. Scrap the idea that the Free Council is a thing as more than a regional Nameless Order made of hardcore Seer-hunters who are spiralling down the moral slope, and things work out much better. And you can fill their space in other regions with more fitting (and more interesting) Nameless Orders.
This is one of the big reasons I loathe the Free Council. To make themselves space, they have to restrict everyone else. They lock other Orders away from perfectly valid magical effects and styles, because nooooooooo, it's a Free Council thing. And they blight the Silver Ladder with the "we need these guys to be the stuffy authoritarians" when actually the Silver Ladder is a crazed apocalypse cult that would consider a Legacy that's basically SEELE to be a-OK among their ranks.
They're heretics and groups whose dogma was unacceptable to the Diamond, but they're also democratic and open (even though they're made up of radical ideologues). They're the most militant Seer-hunters despite the fact that they welcome people the Diamond shuns. They reject the paranoia and conspiring of the Guardians, while also apparently successfully opposing the Seers better than anyone else. They welcome Legacies that are totally shunned in mainstream Mage society - soul eaters among other, as long as they don't use it against Sleepers. Oh, and they're maintaining an entire parallel Mage social structure to the Consillia, run democratically in a conspiracy setting.
And in the end, nMage never needed Anarchs - and Nameless Orders added in Left Hand Path do everything that the Free Council does, but better and far less intrusively.
So. Scrap the idea that the Free Council is a thing as more than a regional Nameless Order made of hardcore Seer-hunters who are spiralling down the moral slope, and things work out much better. And you can fill their space in other regions with more fitting (and more interesting) Nameless Orders.
This is one of the big reasons I loathe the Free Council. To make themselves space, they have to restrict everyone else. They lock other Orders away from perfectly valid magical effects and styles, because nooooooooo, it's a Free Council thing. And they blight the Silver Ladder with the "we need these guys to be the stuffy authoritarians" when actually the Silver Ladder is a crazed apocalypse cult that would consider a Legacy that's basically SEELE to be a-OK among their ranks.
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- Location
- Minneapolis
When I first read Mage the Free Council was my favorite, but over time I've been converted to the truth of the Guardians. The Councils biggest problem is that they're three different elements that don't have a ton to do with each other mashed together, and so they come across as incoherent. They're one part "Fuck the Seers and the Diamond," which is shitty in that it only defines them by what they're not. Then they're one part "Yay democracy," which just feel's nonsensical when taken with their origin. Why would a ton of different factions and magical traditions all mutually agree that democracy is the bestest thing ever? Not to mention I still have no idea what Free Council Assemblies actually vote on, since Mage government exists largely as a court of law to deescalate conflicts, as well that the vast majority of Mages would prefer to do their own thing and are unlikely to go along with a decision just because the Assembly voted on it. While I can understand conceptually that they might support democracy to oppose the Seers ideals of tyranny, it still feels incongruous with their origin and often feels hamfisted. Their third point is that the Free Council is supposed to represent the order that most embraces Sleeper traditions and cultures, which is the only aspect of the I find interesting, but that idea seems to be forgotten 90% of the time in favor of "Yay democracy," and "fuck the Diamond." It's not helped at all that much of the fluff feels the need to prop up the Free Council as the scrappy new comer underdogs by denigrating the Diamond as stodgy conservative establishment. The other orders are defined by what they do and are, whereas half the time the Free Council is defined by what they aren't.
I would completely get rid of the first two elements, and instead define the Free Council as a very broad alliance between countless Nameless Orders and minor traditions, banding together for mutual protection. They come together in times of crisis but otherwise they have no unifying ideology, consisting of ten thousand different factions that occasionally work together.
I would completely get rid of the first two elements, and instead define the Free Council as a very broad alliance between countless Nameless Orders and minor traditions, banding together for mutual protection. They come together in times of crisis but otherwise they have no unifying ideology, consisting of ten thousand different factions that occasionally work together.
And even then, there's certainly Seers factions that argue that democracy is the Exarchs' will - since, after all, the Sleepers are base and profane and so they will appoint ignorant, unenlightened leaders and it's much harder for secret cabals of the enemies of the Iron Pyramid to assert control over things when another set of saps will be elected next time and undo much of what their predecessor did.
In a gnostic conspiracy setting, democracy is just another chain and part of the Lie, the bland entertainment given to the prisoners who think that they control their lives just because they have the choice of voting once every four to six years.
IIRC That's because it's a combat system with barely anything else tacked on to it.
White Umbrella is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pentex.
It has the most clichéd Werewolf Gary Stu plot ever.
Right down to "Last of the White Howlers".
Heart of Gaia is actually a different canceled werewolf game, made by Dreamforge, not Capcom.
Capcom's game didn't even get that far.