Vito Scaletta
Immoralist
- Location
- The City of Empire Bay
So, did anyone read my in-progress Vampire fanfic? If fanfiction is not your thing, I understand completely. I just do this for fun, that's all.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
Honestly, I'd rather play a game in which anthropomorphized countries are their own splat. It would be more Neil Gaiman than White Wolf, but there's certainly potential in the idea.
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Vito Scaletta
Immoralist
- Location
- The City of Empire Bay
I understand. And I have to agree, that would be an interesting game.
Maybe you would prefer Adventure!?
Vito Scaletta
Immoralist
- Location
- The City of Empire Bay
Maybe, but there are certain aspects of the early WoD setting I like a lot, so I usually Rule Zero my WoD games.
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Oh I could go on and on about what's wrong with pulp adventure but this isn't the place for that. But in this particular case oMage is not the game to use to play pulpy High Adventure! stories and doing so is a perversion of the entire point of oMage which reduces the while thing down to pretty much the worst writing in the entire line. There are plenty of other game systems that you can use to do the stuff you want to do, I don't understand why you need to take a game that is heavily rooted in the postmodern and punk traditions and strip that all away, turning a game about truth, belief, and power into capeshit with the Spheres. It neither mechanically nor thematically supports what you want to do.
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Vito Scaletta
Immoralist
- Location
- The City of Empire Bay
Meh, I don't take games so seriously and I am sick and tired of the "Some Other Game" fallacy that WOD purists throw at me. Themes are entirely optional and while I like the WoD's early setting, in my opinion I find the themes of personal horror and post-modernism to be pretentious and boring. Again, this is just my opinion and nothing more, so feel free to disagree with me.
Also, if someone is running WoD as a "Superheroes with Fangs/Spheres/etc.", so what?
It's not like anyone is forcing you to play in that game, so why does it infuriate you so much? Also, before Revised Edition, the WoD games supported multiple themes (usually with a punk element) and they were not dominated by "One True Way" in the text like they are now.
So instead of playing "Some Other Game" like the purists keep telling me to, I instead keep what I like and Rule Zero out the stuff I don't like. Eat the chicken and throw away the bone, so to speak.
Yes, the back cover of the First Edition corebook for Vampire: The Masquerade may have read "A Storytelling Game of Personal Horror", but that was window dressing compared to what was actually in the book. Personal Horror was present, but other themes were supported as well and were treated as equally valid as personal horror in the 1e and 2e days.
So, why are you so upset by me running my Mage games as gonzo action-adventure? You don't have to play in them, and I won't throw a fit if you run your Mage game as a post-modernist work. To each their own.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
It's the same reason people don't like Trump putting ketchup on steak. It takes something good and makes it lesser, no matter how little it impacts them.
Lealope
Not yet invincible
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But I don't particularly understand this? Playing a specific game generally means you want the experience the game is focused on providing. Sure, you can use it for other things but the game wasn't built with that kind of play in mind and it might not work all that well. It's not what the game focuses on and requires significant homebrew to fit.
Thus, when you present this as a normal and natural interpretation of the game, people naturally discuss this.
Surprisingly enough, people like to debate opinions on a debate forum.
Either meaningfully address @MJ12 Commando's mechanical concerns and @ChineseDrone's thematic arguments or concede the point.
Retreating into "but that's just like, your opinion, man" and acting as though people are being butthurt by wanting you to actually defend your position and substantiate your claims instead of meaningless burbling is kind of... really dumb.
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Though in my experience, Mage, perhaps both Mages, is pretty gonzo/bizarre. It's just not action-adventure.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Also, when you try to push your way of doing things on others (like above, when you advised 2nd edition) it annoys people. When you denigrate other ways of doing things (you haven't this time around, but have in the past) it annoys people.
Yes you do. We've been over this before, Paulie. Every once in a while you show up, and whine that most of the people here like to play their World of Darkness games in roughly the genre they're written in. Then you complain about Sisters of Mercy (for some reason, I have no idea why), retreat to "I play it the way I want to", try to get people to read whatever you've written or sign people up for a game, and then leave after a while.
You take things way more seriously than most people here, because most of us don't brave places full of people who play things a different way than we like and evangelically assert the supremacy of the way we play.
Vito Scaletta
Immoralist
- Location
- The City of Empire Bay
But I haven't asserted the supremacy of any play style. Not this time. I have in the past and I admit that was a mistake. And for that I am sorry. Every play style is different and no style is more valid than another. As long as you and your group are having fun, what's the problem?
But I'm not whining about people playing the games "as written", all I did was recommend Mage 2e because it has a wider variety of player options than Revised, at least in my opinion (and from a mechanical standpoint, supports higher level games better than Revised). If anyone is whining about the games being played a certain way, it's the people on here throwing a fit that I run my games a little differently than the supposed "One True Way" that purists like to go on about.
I really don't see what the issue is. And I really don't want to cause any trouble. I didn't think that recommending 2e over Revised would upset people this much. I'm sorry if I caused any issues this time, it was not my intent. I wasn't trying to aggressively push my playstyle on anyone, I just figured 2e would support a wider variety of options, including the post-modernist take Revised had. So I offered my two cents and recommended 2e over Revised.
Without throwing up dumb shit I did in the past, what was so wrong about me recommending 2e over Revised?
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Look guys; I can't say I agree with @Paulie Romanov in any way, in fact I wouldn't be happier if he just stopped mentioning his WoD game (sorry Paulie, but the truth is what I have resolved to speak). But at this point, Paulie literally just mentioned what he wanted for his game, didn't even mention the Sisters of Mercy and just threw ideas around; I understand that some people would be tired, but I don't think the fault lies with him when @ChineseDrone is literally telling him that he is playing the game wrong.
I agree with you, for the record @ChineseDrone; but I am driven to point out how condescending you look, lecturing someone about how the game they like is a "perversion". Perhaps, you are okay with being seen as that condescending teacher-figure, perhaps you didn't intention it, I wouldn't know and I am not interested, but my point is that I think you can reach a limit of criticizing Paulie's WoD, and at this point he literally just said "I prefer this," so do please consider that he is literally just behaving like a normal user, stating his opinion, and swiftly the thread turns into a dogpile.
I didn't expect to say this (again, sorry in advance if you feel that this is a personal attack Paulie, but I decided that the unfiltered truth would have greater effect), but in the context of this argument; I am entirely on Paulie's side.
I agree with you, for the record @ChineseDrone; but I am driven to point out how condescending you look, lecturing someone about how the game they like is a "perversion". Perhaps, you are okay with being seen as that condescending teacher-figure, perhaps you didn't intention it, I wouldn't know and I am not interested, but my point is that I think you can reach a limit of criticizing Paulie's WoD, and at this point he literally just said "I prefer this," so do please consider that he is literally just behaving like a normal user, stating his opinion, and swiftly the thread turns into a dogpile.
I didn't expect to say this (again, sorry in advance if you feel that this is a personal attack Paulie, but I decided that the unfiltered truth would have greater effect), but in the context of this argument; I am entirely on Paulie's side.
Vito Scaletta
Immoralist
- Location
- The City of Empire Bay
Nah, it's okay. I'm not offended at all. If you don't like my style, that is perfectly reasonable.
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Fair point, I was being a bit of an ass and I apologize for that
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Mage, at least, up until revised, was most of all a game about having found the system is bad and wants to kill you, and trying to defeat it and build a better world, both globally (defeat the technocracy) and personally (gain ascension). Because it was the 1990s and white wolf, it often did this quite poorly and problematically, but pulpy adventurers in endless wonder are a completely valid thing to do in a mage game. They're the parts where you contact what the world could be, and what the system has denied to you, out past the horizon. The fact of realms of magic out there is an essential part of mage because it shows that your quest is not utterly hopeless, and it shows the benefits that the technocracy is keeping from you in the name of "safety".
Also, on the other side of things, stuff beyond the horizon can absolutely be about dealing with the negative consequences of your own tradition. The important part of the existence of the horizon realms is that they provide areas in which their own faction and rules of reality are in control, and thus let your players interact with that. Like, you're never going to end up joining the fairyland international brigade to fight off etherite colonialism if everything outside the horizon is ruin and threat null.
The Avatar Storm really did cripple a lot of what was fun about mage in order to make it fit in with the WoD metaplot, because in Rev, the idea was that no, you couldn't change the system, there's never going to be anything better than this on a global scale all you could do is personally ascend, which removed like, half of the drama of old mage. It also, despite what you're saying, makes it much harder to talk about how the old stories are lies, because you never get to interact with areas where those older stories still have their power.
Edit: I'm not trying to talk down panopticon quest here, but given the most popular MtA thing on this board is like, a huge technocracy game, I think the door to perversion of the game's themes has long been opened, and you know what, that's fine. People should play games they enjoy.
You guys are actively, and rightly, contemptuous of a way a lot of World of Darkness is written. Given there's actually a lot of give in the very idea of genre, why would that not extend to genre too?
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So first of all, I am obligated to be angry at you for restarting the argument I had just ended.
Second of all, I don't think you can call "technocracy game" a breach of theme when Guide to the Technocracy is literally right there.
EDIT: Regardless, I will implore you and everyone else to please not have a Revised vs 2e argument; for the sake of everyone, literally nothing will come of it.
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Well, at least in theory, it's a side-theme, and I do admit that reading this thread, you might well think the game was about the Technocracy, and the Traditions were the badly written and hated antagonists that I guess you could play as well, if you wanted to be a loser.
Edit: Obviously that's more vibes than anything, and there is talk about the Traditions, but it's pretty noticeable?
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Naturally; this thread does indeed prefer the Technocracy, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Likewise, we also like the Traditions, indeed I am setting a game up with @EarthScorpion, @Omicron, @Gargulec and @NonSequtur where we do in fact play Traditions (a heavily modified version that has been modified to be more open to certain concepts and less, y'know racist, but my point stands). But yes, this thread does indeed focus on the Technocracy; I know I do because I think their internal politics are more interesting and the character conflicts that they create are fascinating.Well, at least in theory, it's a side-theme, and I do admit that reading this thread, you might well think the game was about the Technocracy, and the Traditions were the badly written and hated antagonists that I guess you could play as well, if you wanted to be a loser.
Edit: Obviously that's more vibes than anything, and there is talk about the Traditions, but it's pretty noticeable?
EDIT: Honestly, a constructive discussion about the merits and failings of the Traditions as written, would be rather interesting IMO, because I think this thread does indeed put too much focus on the Union sometimes (and also because it's more productive than Yet Another 2e VS Revised argument, because they never reach anything lol).
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TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
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...but a huge facet of the Avatar Storm is "yo everything Off world is super fucked. And guess what 90% of you old masters and high end shit was off world. And is now super fucked."
Like the status quo being radically upset and the Ascension war about to kick into high gear as the Union and Coucil experience internal upheaval and reorganization is one of the main points.
'Cause the entrenched upper crust who have been enforcing "the way things are" is just fucking gone and/or a psychotic space ghost.
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Well, then why not post about that version? I mean, you have people coming in here all the time to explain the Technocracy away, and how X, Y, and Z are actually the fault of the Traditions, and so none of this work on modifying them is actually visible? Which is weird because it seems pretty clear that people are modifying the Technocracy to make them somewhat more sympathetic overall, and yet at least in this thread not doing the same for the Traditions, even if they're apparently doing so off-screen. *shrugs*
Edit: And your edit manages to actually make the point I was talking about. If you say, "Oh, this part doesn't work and is kinda shit and doesn't make sense" the reaction shouldn't be, "Lol, the Traditions suck" it should be, "Hmm, let's think about this."
Because that's what this thread's reaction is to Technocracy problems/etc.
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grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
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The problem is that the quest to be able to put on your robe and wizard hat in peace is also the quest to let the river-goblins kidnap badly-behaved children for dinner.
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And that's all that different than the Technocracy?
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This reply is about as useful as "the quest to put on your labcoat and microscope in peace is also the quest to oppress countless minorities every day".
Like come on, I don't even agree with @FBH here but like, you can do better than this.