- Pronouns
- They/Them
This is the internet, and so I cannot tell whether this is sarcasm or not. Enlighten me?
White Wolf's World of Darkness
This is the internet, and so I cannot tell whether this is sarcasm or not. Enlighten me?
- Location
- Canada
See, this is exactly the ambiguity that I'm talking about. According to some passages "yes, yes you are". According to other passages "No, and you're a horrible person for thinking that". They need to pick one side or the other, and stick with it.
Personally I would prefer if they went with the misunderstood outsiders angle rather than the complete monsters angle, as I couldn't really get into an evil character. At least not if it was played seriously. On the other hand, Beasts would make great antagonists for everything else in nWoD if they're unambiguously evil, so it wouldn't be a total loss. Then again, maybe that's just me.
Um, I think the beast needs to use a power to get people into/out of the lair, and it explicitly states that they can leave at any time through the same entrance they entered form. Now, if they were chained up they would have a rather hard time escaping, but the portal itself poses no difficulties.
The Anakim are specifically called out as having Lairs with Sealed Exits.
Others have Lairs that are almost completely flooded, or Lairs with no light.
Last edited:
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Sarcasm. It's kind of sad how badly the devs failed at making Beasts a metaphor for persecuted minorities. I would have liked a game in which you play monsters that do incredibly evil things, and I would have been okay with playing as a metaphor for a persecuted minority. Trying to do both was one of the several things that made Beast so bad.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
But it's, like, how some of the people who are getting shot by police have rap-sheets for, like, selling drugs or theft or stuff! So it totally fits.
Okay, no it doesn't.
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
It seems to me that monsters with supernatural powers and unpleasant appetites as metaphors for persecuted minorities don't really work.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Besides if I wanted to play a metaphor for a persecuted minority why would I not play a Promethean?
Acatalepsy
Firewall Proxy
- Location
- The Diamond Age
Pretty much the same, at least as far as outright Vulgar spellslinging goes. I think it's easier to do coincidental effects in Ascension if you want to (since you have a paradigm to fall back on and aren't chanting in Atlantean to do stuff) but throwing a fireball around sleepers is still going to result in 'dox.
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
Unless you're enhancing an actual incendiary round shot from an actual gun, at least.
Technocrat fireballs best fireballs.
- Location
- Canada
I think they made heroes have over-the-top dickishness because if they didn't, it would end up as a traditional monster/hero narrative, just from the monster's perspective. I mean, you have to have the antagonists be irrational dicks, because otherwise their attempting to kill you seems even more justified than if probably already is.
It's basically the same reason they fight Nazi Vampires in Hellsing. Anything less cartoonishly evil, and Alucard's clearly the bad guy. They have to make someone even worse than him, so that he looks good in comparison.
Doctor Mod
PRT Squaddie
- Location
- PRT Department ENE
Started a Geist Sin Eater game on Roll20.
Fighting ghosts sucks ass.
Got punched in the face by some bitch who wanted her necklace back.
Fighting ghosts sucks ass.
Got punched in the face by some bitch who wanted her necklace back.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Clearly you, sir, you know nothing of the GAY AGENDA!
(tl;dr Pat Robertson was right and we're all a bunch of weather controlling lizardmonsters but shhhhh)
Also I've been oh so slowly working my way through Beast with a friend (mostly we just read funny shit from it to each other) and while it's not, like, the very worst thing I've ever seen by dint of a. not being written by Brucato, b. not being written one-handed, and c. not being Changing Breeds it's very...disappointing I guess. And feels like it's trying to be smarter than it is.
"So do you transform?"
"Yes except you don't and when you do you don't really."
"Wow. Lame. So what about legendary weaknesses and stuff? Is this the kind of thing where legends matter? I mean it seems like a lot of the emphasis is on the story the character themselves are crafting for...well themselves. That has some neat implications."
"Yes except no because only Heroes can create an Anathema which will wound a Beast even in its Lair. Which is basically just the legendary weakness that now works because reasons."
"...Why are you capitalizing so much shit?"
"Because Beast is Deep. Too Deep for You."
Dunno. I like the idea of Lairs and I love stories about monsters working hard at not being monsters. Which is why I was kind of hyped for this but just going off of what I've seen so far in the examples Beasts just...kind of seem like petty, vindictive assholes. One dude literally just drops black people off in white suburbs and laughs at them from his taxi like c'mon. That's basically a Key and Peele sketch.
But who knows, maybe'll redeem itself in the next four hundred fucking pages.
Last edited:
Vindictus
XENO
- Location
- Texas
You know, one of the things that bugs me about Beast is that they want to make a game about people who's souls model the ancient myths and legends of certain monsters.
Which, yeah, that's cool.
It's also something you can do already- Or could do, anyway- In Mage.
And, as a plus, you don't have to limit your potential, er, can't-remember-what-it's-called, but you don't have to limit your potential mythic background to rough archetypes of monsters- You can literally say "I want to be the Gorgon" during chargen, and bam, you have the Gorgon for your soul.
Or you could say 'I wanna be Odin" and you could be Odin, or "I wanna be Rambo" and have Rambo as your archetype.
It was a pretty versatile mechanic.
Which, yeah, that's cool.
It's also something you can do already- Or could do, anyway- In Mage.
And, as a plus, you don't have to limit your potential, er, can't-remember-what-it's-called, but you don't have to limit your potential mythic background to rough archetypes of monsters- You can literally say "I want to be the Gorgon" during chargen, and bam, you have the Gorgon for your soul.
Or you could say 'I wanna be Odin" and you could be Odin, or "I wanna be Rambo" and have Rambo as your archetype.
It was a pretty versatile mechanic.
- Location
- Canada
But who knows, maybe'll redeem itself in the next four hundred fucking pages.
It doesn't.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Update:
"Reynold is a health inspector for the city. When his Soul hungers, he dons rubber gloves and tests everything. He quizzes employees, he looks for the slightest bit of mold or dirt, and he happily provides miles of appeals forms to the owner. He refuses bribes and dutifully reports any attempt. He isn't after money, after all. He's after the frustration and defeat in their eyes."
This is an actual example. From an actual page. In an actual book about playing an eldritch monster formed from the basal fears of humanity.
I just.
I thought it was "oh you have to eat people or sow nightmares or something equally unsettling" and that it would go off the grim end in that direction but no you can get by by just being an enormously anal retentive bureaucrat and a general asshole.
Setting my creative loins on fire this is not. I'm about as wet as the fucking Sahara.
"Reynold is a health inspector for the city. When his Soul hungers, he dons rubber gloves and tests everything. He quizzes employees, he looks for the slightest bit of mold or dirt, and he happily provides miles of appeals forms to the owner. He refuses bribes and dutifully reports any attempt. He isn't after money, after all. He's after the frustration and defeat in their eyes."
This is an actual example. From an actual page. In an actual book about playing an eldritch monster formed from the basal fears of humanity.
I just.
I thought it was "oh you have to eat people or sow nightmares or something equally unsettling" and that it would go off the grim end in that direction but no you can get by by just being an enormously anal retentive bureaucrat and a general asshole.
Setting my creative loins on fire this is not. I'm about as wet as the fucking Sahara.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Wait...humanity fears health inspectors? Basally?
Anybody feel up to rewriting Beast as Bloodborne-in-the-present-and-on-Earth?
In other word; "Beast" and "Hero" basically refer to the same thing.
In other word; "Beast" and "Hero" basically refer to the same thing.
Last edited:
All joking aside the idea of a faceless bureaucrat having the power to come into your home or place of working and utterly destroy your life could easily become the idea for some legitimate nightmare fuel. A health inspector with supernatural powers and a desire to do harm could quite easily ruin the restaurants and put them out of business. That seems like it would be a very legitimate fear to someone whose livelihood is connected to the running of a restaurant.
It looks as if the theme that they were going for in this example was fear of the Tyranny of the faceless machine. It is actually surprisingly well thought out if you follow it to the logical end. The Tyrannical beasts of ancient times were marked by their physical strength and overwhelming physical stature but the Tyrannical beasts of the contemporary era are marked by their status as unreachable cog in the unrelenting bureaucratic machine.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Did you run into the Beast that attacks people who don't tip?
(Or the Child Abuser?)
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
More then that, if you've ever worked around food, you know people cut corners. A lot of corners. Enough that a sufficiently motivated inspector could put pretty much any businesses out of business. It's simply that it isn't worth the time or effort, usually.
That's frankly a great example of a subtle monster. Something that rolls into you life and destroys you. It even has the right mythical feel. You have transgressed, and thereby given it permission to destroy you.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Or the feminist caricature who argues with men until they become angry enough to punch her, then beats them up? I really wish I was making that one up...
Last edited:
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Nightmare Inspector Reynolds would work a lot better for me if there was any particular indication he targeted small businesses. As it is I I can't help but imagine what happens when he goes after a chain. Probably not a fair assumption, but it does rather ruin the effect.
Last edited: