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

I'll check that out.

More general question, but still pertaining to my goals. What gameplay roles roles do the Hunter factions and other gamelines' analogues serve? are they supposed to be splats or are they a different aspect of character creation or just flavor entirely?

In MtAw, at the very least, the Orders (Mage social splats) are, well, splats. I think they toned down the mechanical differences between them when they moved from 1e to 2e but there are still some - for example, there are Order-specific Merits (e.g. Masque for the Guardians of the Veil, Adamant Hand for the Adamantine Arrow, etc). More to the point, though, is that there's a big fluff difference between (say) a Mystagogue and a Guardian - they have pretty different outlooks on magic, moduses operandi and social interactions.

Unpopular opinion, but I prefer the setting and the mechanics of Chronicles of Darkness 1st Edition (AKA The New World of Darkness) over that of the second edition.

Same. Though to be fair, when I moved and lost my gaming group I stopped checking up on the changes from v1 to v2.

I'm mostly familiar with MtAw, and as far as I can tell MtAw 1e's crunch is even less digestible than 2e's. The little I've seen of Geist, though, suggests that Geist 1e isn't worse, crunchwise, than Geist 2e.

I never got too big into Mage, I was always more into Vampire and Changeling

I got introduced to CofD via Mage, and, well, "Plato was right!" tickles the philosophy student in me pink. (Even if I think IRL that Plato wrote a lot of nonsense.)

I discovered that the 5th edition of Werewolf the Apocalypse has been released recently. Does anybody know what changes were brought to the system and setting compared to the 20th Anniversary edition?

Unfortunately, W5 is going over like a ton of bricks due to the fact that they've tried to address a lot of the issues of previous editing but have unwittingly caused a bunch more in the process.

• A lot of renaming like Metis, Wendigo, and Fianna are out the door. Nothing of value was lost.
• Kinfolk no longer are a concept as while families of werewolves exist, no one can really say what causes someone to change.
• The Apocalypse is over, Gaia is dead and they're kind of left wondering what the hell to do as no one expected that one.
• The Get of Fenris have all been consumed by fascism and become the Pure substitutes.
• The Black Spiral Dancers are now playable but only if you break your bond with Bat.
• The whole history of the Garou is now much more mysterious with the Imperium, Delerium, War of Rage, and other things mostly forgotten.
• No contact with the other Fera

Sadly, the game has been Overshadowed by Controversy due to the extensive racism that some of the writers encountered and objections to the changes being made.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/werewolf-5th-and-86463964

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 16th 2023 at 10:57:52 AM

After reading that article, damn development is a total clusterfuck and it also puts Paradox in a very negative light.

Ethan Skemp notably came out in support of the author saying that as a white guy they made mistakes but the "spirit" of Werewolf has always been to support indigenous peoples and their struggles.

Funny get of fenrir become facist while wendigo are two step of saying "yes, all white men" and red talons "thanos did not get far enought"

The Wendigo aka Ghost Clan now aren't Native anymore.

They're all races.

Which the writers thought was incredibly disrespectful.

Red Talons also take Homids.

I wonder if we should do a 5th Edition Werewolf page like we did the Vampire: The Masquerade one.

(I wonder if the VTM and V5 pages should be merged with different folders)

I could support that. I'm not that big into the werewolf side of the WOD, is there enough material and sufficient difference to warrant a split? That is to say, is there enough that the new V5 page is more than a dozen tropes? If not a folder or section might be enough.

Yeah, there's a lot of V:TM 5E stuff on its page so it'd be a thing.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/VampireTheMasqueradeFifthEdition

It might be premature for a 5th Edition Werewolf but I can definitely do a folder for it.

I have to said I find this hilariously skew because like, wendigo always have this barely hiding content about everyone who he isnt a native at time look they have dreams of vioent retribution, red talons were eve worst but is the get of fenrir who get the shaft?

I mean, it's all OOC reasoning. The Get of Fenris have been anti-Nazi always with their white supremacist element being a fringe camp they massacred in-universe. Also, they've always included large numbers of Slavs and other people the Nazis massacred.

The OOC reasoning is they wanted to include a "Pure" (Forsaken) group to have the game comment on the rise of the Far Right and white supremacy.

Obviously making the Gale Chasers (Wendigo) being the Nazis/fascists is kind of tone deaf being pro-indigenous activists.

Couldn't they have just added the fascist commentary on the Black Spiral Dancers? In W20's Book of the Wyrm they didn't shy away from portraying the forces of the Wyrm as alt-right coded.

Edited by KRider on Dec 18th 2023 at 10:58:20 AM

I mean that's more or less what Sambrano says but the pushback internally said that the line developer for the WOD, Karim Muammar, constantly met any criticism of the idea with extreme hostility.

He seemed to think turning the Get into A Nazi by Any Other Name was important as an artistic statement.

According to less verified scuttlebutt, it's just a general hatred of Nordic culture by Nazis (he's Swiss) and a refusal to engage with the idea the Get aren't that.

Weirdly, in 5E, you can play a Black Spiral Dancer who has broken with the Wyrm but not a Get now.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 19th 2023 at 6:47:30 AM

My inner punster is crying, because the original Black Spiral Dancers were the White Howlers. So, we could have had neo White Howlers who are whites, and howl over race relations.

Wait how does a Black Spiral Dancer get redeemed in 5E? Isn't it spiritually impossible? Or is there some huge lore change in 5E that made it possible?

There's now a rite that can break a BSD's connection with the Wyrm. Then you can play them as a character.

It is thus MASSIVELY easier.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 19th 2023 at 12:37:40 PM

I know it is tone deaf but I cant avoid thinking "the wyrm change you" "how" "before the spiral? I was white".

With the get....I kinda get it, like get of fenrir is very much this apocalyptical cult of death who goal was to take the wrym with them, more close to ISIS and those "end of the world" than nazis.

If anything the closer would be the red talon who were pretty damn upfront that humanity was the problem and a final solution needed to be implemented, the shadow lords werent thar far behind with "killing all isnt necesary just 90% of them" and again, wendigo is prety much "white genocide let gooooooo!"

So the Get of Fenris are all flanderized to neonazis but all it takes for Black Spiral Dancers to become White Howlers again is just a rite. After nearly 2000 years in-universe and 4 editions out-of-universe of being in the Wyrm's thrall and going on massacres and running rape camps the whole duration. What in the blue hell.

Is it at least mechanically a high level rite or is it as simple as the rite of pants?

Edited by KRider on Dec 19th 2023 at 3:37:58 AM