World of Darkness (New & Old) - General Discussion Thread

People really should start to learn to make general discussion threads first instead of making very specifically goal-oriented ones.

Anyway... The Power stats - whether Generation or Psyche, or whichever else. What tropes apply to them? I can't find anything clear on either of the WoD articles, and Google-searching the site only gave me Character Level and Power Levels, and yet from what I could understand from online searching *

, it has traits of both but is not either one. Any help?

PS: It may be just me, but I think the WoD franchise's articles are a bit deficient in certain areas, like Vampire The Requiem having few if any tropes applying directly to the Blood Potency powerstat.

edited 21st Feb '12 5:59:40 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/, if you don't mind PD Fs, has copies of every old and new White Wolf book available. Most of the older ones are dirt cheap, too.

As for tropes, it honestly depends on the game and what its focus is. Stuff like Psyche tends to represent the balance between both halves of the character (the Geist and the Sin-Eater) and who is more powerful, while Generation is representative of the power level a vampire has among their peers. Some focus on good side/light side-type mechanics, others on power. It's pretty flexible, since each game has a different theme and goal, all said and done.

Legal means include online purchases, too. ^^; Let's just say that such things are far from reliable where I come from.

Is that so? I thought the Powerstat at least had the same core function/purpose across the various installments, even if the details of its mechanics/application differed.

edited 22nd Feb '12 3:06:27 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Gotcha, sorry. Wasn't sure if you knew about Drive Thru or not. For the record, I've never had an issue with the PDFs, other than the massive amounts of storage space they take up on your hard drive when you have so bloody many.

Hmmm...let's see. Part of the problem in understanding them is the difference in function between old and new White Wolf. Generation's an example of something taken as a Background rather than a standalone stat on its own, and therefore is entirely optional. Most of the potential power buffers in the old version were backgrounds in an attempt to balance the game, I suppose. You couldn't be rich and powerful, after all.

White Wolf did away with Backgrounds as such in the new version, and Merits replaced them to a point. That said, the new White Wolf games all do have a "stand alone" stat which measures potential power, such as Blood Potency, Psyche, Azoth, etc. Likewise, you'll find Legend in Scion. And yes, they are sort of a combination of Character Level and Power Level. Basically, the more dots you have in that stat, the more potential power you have; it mainly affects your "mana points" (for lack of a better term, what you spend to activate your supernatural abilities) and what levels your powers can go up to; using Scion as an example, if you have a Legend of 3, you can't take any special powers over level 2.

ETA: Psyche would appear to be a part of the power level set. Apologies, I was confusing it with the old Psyche from Wraith.

edited 23rd Feb '12 1:26:41 PM by Doryna

Then wouldn't Power Level apply to the character's energy/mana points rather than the Powerstat (which seems more of a Character Level), then?

Heh, that's why I potholed Geist The Sin Eaters in the OP. I wanted what I was taking about to be clear.

edited 23rd Feb '12 2:32:11 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Yup, pretty much. Basically, Character Level determines your Power Level.

Like I said, oWOD wasn't quite so well defined in that manner. Vampires kind of had levels (via Generation), but that was about it. Everyone else basically had to draw from the same pool of ten power in the beginning (Gnosis, Pathos, Arete, etc), unless they were a really high level character or a vampire, in which case you got a variable blood pool. And, of course, some abilities require you gain negative aspects instead of spending positive ones (Rage, Angst, Banality, and so on). Things were considered more "balanced" that way.

I did notice you had potholed Geist, but I still managed to get it confused. Go me! I mean, I've only got twenty-odd years of an RPG with two completely different lines that have overlapping technology to remember here.

So for Mage The Awakening, is there a limit on the range for Space magic? It strikes me that by using satellite or rover photos one could get a good enough connection to scry someplace on the moon or Mars, use the scrying or the New Threads spell to boost the sympathetic connection, and Teleport there. And in fact, a cabal could probably build a sanctum on Mars using just spells of Adept level or lower.

"Aw man, our home is under siege by vampires? Well, we'll have to regroup at our backup sanctum ON THE MOON, BITCHES!"

You've lost. You're the Bomb Squad after the bomb's gone off. I'm the blast ongoing.

The only limit for Space magic is the degree of sympathy.

As for a base on the moon, remember that a whole ton of weird not-spirits live there, so any mage with a lunar sanctum might want to play Doom for a bit to feel at home.

WOOF!

Insert obligatory Princess Luna joke here...

edited 27th Feb '12 2:06:09 PM by Doryna

Well it WAS Father Wolf, Luna's bf, who banished them there.

WOOF!

Yeah, the Moon's spirit world is probably pretty fucked up, but Mars shouldn't be so bad - oh god giant spirit of meteor impacts!

You've lost. You're the Bomb Squad after the bomb's gone off. I'm the blast ongoing.

I'm just wondering why people have to go to all the effort of making netbooks for mad scientists and magical girls instead of just writing them as spin-offs of Mage that also use rules from other sourcebooks, which would ease the workload considerably.

For example, a mad scientist game could use the rules from the Mage Chronicler's Guide to simulate mad science, the Promethean line for their various creations, and Book of Spirits for whatever else.

By that logic, you should base every RPG off D20, because not having to design your own system will ease the workload considerably, and set everything in Forgotten Realms, because coming up with your own setting is *hard*.

You are dazzled by my array of very legal documents.

I'm speaking from experience. I've been burnt out for a while after spending countless man-hours on trying to appease a niche and receiving no recognition.

Furthermore, my suggestion has practical reasons: it convinces people to actually buy the books.

I'm sorry to hear that you're burned out, but please don't use it as an excuse to say "you should never be creative or actually spend effort on doing something you want to do, because slapping together some bits and pieces and taking the rest of the day off is so much easier".

See, I respect that Moochava put effort into Genius The Transgression. Could it have been done by hacking Mage? Yes, but then it'd be "Mage with toolkits". It wouldn't be Genius The Transgression, a portal into the gonzo side of the World of Darkness. It wouldn't have been the labour of love it is. When you get right down to it, it wouldn't have been as good.

Basically, it comes down to whether you want it done well, or if you want it done fast. And while you are free to do things fast if you so choose, please don't use that as grounds to denigrate those who try to do it well. And if you tried to do it well, and it didn't work out? Life's like that. But if you didn't enjoy it, well, don't do it, but don't rubbish people who clearly do enjoy doing it because you don't.

You are dazzled by my array of very legal documents.

I never said any of that. Please don't twist my words.

I said that I don't understand why people feel they must spend time cranking own dozens and dozens of new rules when the game company has already published dozens and dozens of books filled with options to choose from.

I'm not saying to take the easy path. I'm saying that prospective writers can save a great deal of time seeing if the published books already contain things they might find useful. For example, if I wanted to create a netbook based on Guyver, I can use the rules for Pandoran Transmutations to simulate Zoanoid mutations so that I can devote more time to writing other things like fiction or storytelling aides. If I wanted to give vampires more traditional weaknesses, I can look through Mythologies and Danse Macabre for ideas.

EDIT: An example of what I'm talking about is that many of the new splats on B.J. Zanzibar's site use vampire disciplines or werewolf gifts to simulate certain powers, devoting the rest of the space to the splat's unique powers, instead of continually re-inventing the wheel.

edited 8th Mar '12 5:41:31 PM by Zenoseiya

Genius The Transgression, Princess The Hopeful, and other such spin-off may be many things, but they are not reinventing the wheel by any respectable measure.

One word: Personality. Like Count Dorku said, had they gone the way you suggested (base Genius on Mage), it would've been basically a near carbon-copy of Mage with little personality to call its own. It would've been "fake mad science" instead of "Mad Science".

edited 8th Mar '12 5:54:36 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Must everything I say be continually taken out of context?

Ah, my apologies. I was reading a pointless flamewar on rpgnet and came out a bit ill-tempered.

At the same time, I will stand by my premise that "time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted time" - yes, you could kitbash together mad scientists from bits and pieces of Mage and Changeling and so forth, but if Moochava enjoys coming up with his own mechanics to better represent mad science than a kitbash, well, what's wrong with him doing so? Why is it 'better' to cobble together bits and pieces of something old, rather than create something new?

edited 8th Mar '12 5:54:32 PM by CountDorku

You are dazzled by my array of very legal documents.

In what way did I take what you said out of context?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

It's not better, it's efficient. Which is completely different. What prevents me from hacking Mage for running games of mad science? What if I simply disagree with the way Genius portrays mad science?

I didn't name any specific games (there are at least two mad scientist games I am aware of, and three magical girl games), and I did not say they reinvented the wheel. I said it is easier to reference powers from other books if and only if they fit the purpose, as opposed to writing from scratch.

edited 8th Mar '12 6:11:22 PM by Zenoseiya

"Efficiency is overrated, my friend." - Lando Calrissian, in the Star Wars Expanded Universe

Yes, you could do that, but then why not just play Mage? It's really hard to properly work Mage mechanics into a mad science system. How exactly would you convert the magic system to mad science? "I can snap my fingers and create fire" isn't on the usual list of mad science skills. You could replace the dedicated magical tool with a gadget that does things, but then you're not playing mad science, you're playing Green Lantern. You could use the spells as descriptions for possible gadgets...but the actual execution is going to involve dropping most of the things that make Mage, well, Mage in order to make it mad science. If you have to gut most of the system to make it fit, why bother using the system at all?

And if you don't like how Genius portrays mad science, well, don't use it. Problem solved.

Also, just for future reference, there's an implicit value judgment in statements like "why do people do X when Y requires so much less effort?" It's very hard to read that kind of thing as anything other than "these people are foolish for doing X, since Y is so much easier". Plus, y'know, you did say they reinvented the wheel:

You are dazzled by my array of very legal documents.

If you've every played a Son of Ether or a Virtual Adept, you'd understand what I'm explaining. Furthermore, the Chronicler's Guide already laid out rules for playing mad scientists with Mage rules, and even included guidelines for varying degrees of mad science.

No, I did not say they reinvented the wheel. I said if another book includes a power that works like you want a power to work, then it's easier to copy that power rather than write one from scratch. This does not apply to powers unique to the splat in question that have no counterparts elsewhere.

EDIT: I don't understand value judgments. When I'm posting, I expect people to take my words at face value. That's why I include qualifiers.

EDIT: You seem to have missed the phrase "devoting the rest of the space to the splat's unique powers."

edited 8th Mar '12 6:33:56 PM by Zenoseiya

Oh, you meant old Mage. That's really the kind of thing you should specify when discussing this sort of thing - I thought you meant new Mage. (To avoid this kind of confusion, I recommend referring to them as "Ascension" and "Awakening". Otherwise confusion is pretty much inevitable.)

You are dazzled by my array of very legal documents.

I'm still referring to Awakening. I'm using Ascension as an example of how you can use Mage, regardless of edition, to play mad scientists. One of the Legacies books even has a faction called the "Transhuman Adepts," who are all about technology.

EDIT: I'm not disparaging anyone's netbooks. I'm just concerned that people don't feel that the published games are flexible enough for more exotic uses, even though there are books written just to show how flexible they can be.

edited 8th Mar '12 6:38:45 PM by Zenoseiya