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Reverent-One
2009-06-17, 05:10 PM
As the title says, I'm going to be playing in a World of Darkness campaign soon and I'd like general advice on the system. The game is set in the Chicago supplement or whatever you call it, and is going to include werewolves, vampires, and mages. Personally, I'm going to playing a mage. I've read over the mage book and have played in a session or two before, but given how different it is from my standard RPG (D&D, 3.5e or 4e) I would appreciate some general advice on playing in the system.

Gnaeus
2009-06-17, 05:20 PM
1. if you expect the campaign to last more than a few games, pay attention to the differences in point costs at character creation versus advancement with experience. In other words, it is to your advantage to maximize strengths in stats, skills and powers by getting lots of 4s and 5s at character creation, then fill in holes later as buying the first and second ranks with experience.

2. Max the dice pools for the powers you plan to use often. Give yourself a couple of different combat options for different situations.

3. Mages tend to start weaker than Vamps and Weres, then advance to being stronger as their magic advances. (Weres are the opposite, they start stronger but advance more slowly).

4. WoD tends to be more RP based than D&D. Backgrounds and social stats and skills are more important in many games. This is partially for setting reasons and partially because WoD combat is clunky.

Selrahc
2009-06-17, 05:28 PM
Well the system is pretty rules light. Combat is likely to be a lot less important than in DnD. In fact it's perfectly viable to play characters without any noticeable combat ability whatsoever. Especially for Mage. However, there probably will be a bit of combat going on whatever type of game you play, so a few ranks of something so you can contribute is always a help.

What type of character do you want to play? What is the focus of the game? It's a pretty lethal system, so even if you do build for combat, you can still be taken down quickly.

For the mage aspect specifically it's an improvisation based system. Just be inventive and you should be able to come up with all sorts of neat tricks. Pick some arcana you like the sound of, pick some rotes for spells you think you'll be using a lot, then improvise the rest.

Blah. This is all sounding far too obvious, Hopefully it was helpful.

graymachine
2009-06-17, 05:38 PM
Well, the best advice is to gather up all of the nWoD books in a big pile, pour gas on them, and burn them. Then go out, pick up the "oWoD" books, and play that instead.

Sir Homeslice
2009-06-17, 06:50 PM
Well, the best advice is to gather up all of the nWoD books in a big pile, pour gas on them, and burn them. Then go out, pick up the "oWoD" books, and play that instead.

OP was asking for good advice.

OP, Resolve and Composure are godly stats, Firearms are incredibly good (PS: If you can grab an M1 Garand, do so. Best weapon ever.), and multiattacks are just retarded. Don't skimp your social stats, especially Composure. That's about all about the advice I can give you, unless you hand me your Path/Arcanum, in which case I can offer more Mage related help.

Oh, and nMage Paradon is a joke. ABSORB EVERYTHING AS BASHING.

Quietus
2009-06-17, 06:54 PM
1. if you expect the campaign to last more than a few games, pay attention to the differences in point costs at character creation versus advancement with experience. In other words, it is to your advantage to maximize strengths in stats, skills and powers by getting lots of 4s and 5s at character creation, then fill in holes later as buying the first and second ranks with experience.

Get 4's. 5's cost double the points, they aren't worth it. Better IMO to have strength 4 and stamina 3 than have strength 5 and stamina 1.

As for the nWoD-hater; That's not very constructive. There's been some fairly significant improvements, and the combats actually run quite a bit more quickly now, since they've streamlined things nicely. Give the books an honest read-through, they're actually quite good. Not having your mathematical odds of a botch going up as you get more dice is good. Not having to potentially split actions, then roll attack, then roll damage all separately from one another is good. Being able to have a simple two-action turn where an attack is a single roll opposed by a flat defense, instead of attacking with two weapons, each requiring an attack roll (at varying difficulties), a defense roll (possibly also at varying difficulties), and a damage roll (you get the idea) for each weapon.. Determining the outcome of an attack with a single roll is nice.

Reverent-One
2009-06-17, 08:30 PM
Thank you for the advice folks, I don't have the book in hand, so I don't know exactly what sort of character I'm going to build, else I would share that as well.

Malicte
2009-06-17, 08:39 PM
Personally, I agree that while nWoD does run smoother, faster, and easier, it just doesn't feel the same. It feels like they took the game I loved in oWoD, cut it apart, stitched it back together like some grotesque homunculus. Ideally, I'd love to play a game with oWoD fluff and nWoD crunch. Best of both worlds.

As far as the OP's post... stats are good to start with. Don't worry about skills unless you were wanting to start with a 4 or 5 in something. As a mage, the standard starting arcana is 2/2/1 with 1 extra point, I believe? You're almost certainly better off taking it in your primary arcana, going to 3/2/1. Without knowing your path, it's hard to give more specific advice. Resolve+Composure comes up a LOT, and as mentioned above, they are excellent stats to start with. What is your path, what stats are you after, and most importantly... what is your character concept?

Reverent-One
2009-06-17, 08:53 PM
What is your path, what stats are you after, and most importantly... what is your character concept?

Like I said, I don't have the book with me so I can't decide on the stat specifics, and I don't know much about the campaign itself until I get there other than it's based on their Chicago setting.

Set
2009-06-17, 11:57 PM
The game is set in the Chicago supplement or whatever you call it, and is going to include werewolves, vampires, and mages. Personally, I'm going to playing a mage.

A mixed game is generally a nightmare. I've only played vampires in the nWoD, and at the WW-run demo at GenCon, the sample character I had was a computer expert (six dice to roll at that) and he didn't get enough successes to ever use his primary skill, out of three attempts. He also failed the one attempt at rolling a combat action as well. Later, five vampires were routed by a german shephard. Not a Ghoul. Not a Werewolf in disguise. Not Cujo. Just a freaking guard dog. Vampires weren't exactly powerhouses in oWoD (especially not compared to what a halfway decent Willworker or even the saddest example of Garou could accomplish!), and they are significantly less functional in nWoD. In a mixed game, even if Mages and Werewolves have been similarly toned done, the requirement to skip 50% of the game because of the pesky burning daystar what burns in the sky, is going to make the game look kinda like this;

Mage - "Okay, we've got 18 hours left to stop the Mad Bomber What Bombs at Mightnight!"

Vampire - "Ooh, 6 AM. Sun comes up in a half-hour. I gotta skeedaddle! Good luck with that terribly important mission thing! I'll see y'all in about 13 hours or so, depending on how long it takes me to feed after I wake up."

Werewolf - "If I set him on fire, we can throw his ashes in someone's face to distract them. It'll be the most use he's been all week..."

Rosc Man
2009-06-18, 03:22 AM
Like I said, I don't have the book with me so I can't decide on the stat specifics, and I don't know much about the campaign itself until I get there other than it's based on their Chicago setting.

Alright. I've played plenty of nWoD, but only as Changelings or Vampires, so most of my Mage knowledge is from the outside looking in. However, there are many simple things to look out for. Here is my general 4 step process to make sure your character is okay to go.

1) Find a way to fight. Guns? Brawling? Cheap and easy magics? Make sure to explore the side books Armory and Armory II as well, they have awesome merits.

2) This is nWoD. There are bigger, badder, meaner things that you. As a rule, you will run into them from time to time. Make sure your character has some means of escape, be it magic, vehicles, or even a high Athletics score with a specialty in running.

3) Recycle, Refuel, Reuse. Each supernatural in nWoD has a form of expendable energy to fuel their amazing powers. Make sure that you have at least a somewhat reliable means of doing this. Especially important for Vampires. If you don't have a Herd/Hedge Garden/etc, then at least make sure you're good at whatever skills/talents that are often used for getting that fix you need.

4) Lifestyle is important too. Not every moment will be Energy burning, pulse pounding action and groovy mysteries. Make sure your character can maintain a decent standard of living. This goes far beyond the Resources merit; Depending on your supernatural type, keeping things stable can be crucial to maintaining or recovering your Morality.

Totally Guy
2009-06-18, 06:08 AM
Think selfishly. There is a big difference in mentality between raiding the dungeon with your buddies and playing the politics amongst the cast.

In my first session of our Vampire Requiem game I was thinking in D&D mentality and I got royally screwed over by a party member that wasn't.

Now I've learnt to think about moving the plot in the direction I want it to go and manipulating the other characters into following.

Right now we're meant to be planning how to get rid of the BBEG for a big finale. But instead of doing that my guy planning on how he'll come out on top once we've won, it won't work unless my team mates think of an actual plan but if they do I'll try to find a way to enact my plan along with theirs.

It makes the game really interesting.

potatocubed
2009-06-18, 07:20 AM
Come up with a character you will find interesting to play.

Stat them.

Go.

In all seriousness, 'building' nWoD characters like you build D&D characters - or even Exalted characters - is pretty much a waste of time. Take the powers that seem like the ones your character would have.

More generally:

Avoid combat. You will die. (See the example above of five vampires losing to a dog. This is common in nWoD.)

If combat finds you, run away.

If you can't run away, switch sides. Stabbing your new ally in the back at a later date is optional.

Set up situations that will maximise the effect of your skills and powers, and minimise the effects of your enemies' skills and powers.

Smart enemies will have done the same thing. Only enter into conflict on your terms.

Comet
2009-06-18, 07:28 AM
The combat in nWoD is nowhere near as dangerous as, say, Cyberpunk. Especially if you're playing supernatural creatures.

Common household animals, however, are. For some odd reason.
Dogs, cats...you name it, it kills everything.

Cats, especially. You can't even hit the damn things.
We had a story revolving around angry feline spirits going around town causing havoc. I didn't have to modify the basic cat at all, they were such killing machines to begin with.

Dunno what the writers were thinking or if it has been errata'd since. But our gaming group fears cats like nothing else.

Project_Mayhem
2009-06-18, 07:37 AM
Play an Obrimos, because its just too funny how easily you can slaughter vampires with the force arcarnum. Blowtorch + two dot fire manipulation = win

edit:

More generally:

Avoid combat. You will die. (See the example above of five vampires losing to a dog. This is common in nWoD.)

If combat finds you, run away.

If you can't run away, switch sides. Stabbing your new ally in the back at a later date is optional.

Set up situations that will maximise the effect of your skills and powers, and minimise the effects of your enemies' skills and powers.

Smart enemies will have done the same thing. Only enter into conflict on your terms.

Heh. As much as I agree, we had an epic session last saturday with a 9 hour (irl) combat we were supposed to run away from. 5 of us mages and a vampire (I think. Maybe a Ghoul), with no more than 3 dots in any one arcarnum, against, in the end, 10 intelligently played enemies of mostly equal of greater power and 16 zombies, and we won. No shennanigans. No DM punches pulled. Just epic heroicness from my religious fanatical warrior, excellent crowd control fropm our usually bumbling Moros, and a lethal surprise attack fom our paramilitary Guardian of the veil 'cleaner'

Revlid
2009-06-18, 07:57 AM
Ideally, I'd love to play a game with oWoD fluff and nWoD crunch. Best of both worlds.

Counterpoints:
Changeling the Lost compared to the Dreaming.
Promethean compared to Mummy.
Fair chunks of the Vigil compared to the Reckoning.
A lot of the Forsaken compared to the Apocalypse.

I will, however, happily concede that most of OldMage is better than NewMage, and a majority of the Masquerade is better than the Requiem.

As long as there's something the Vampire player can be doing during the day (underground sections? Something?) the crossover might not be too bad. But really, mixed games are best left limited.

(still waiting on Shinigami: The Reapers, Arrancar: The Unmasking, and Quincy: The Archers)

Ashes
2009-06-18, 08:40 AM
Come up with a character you will find interesting to play.

Stat them.

Go.



This. This is the only advice you will need.

You need to make a person, not a character, and especially not some sort of warrior (as people seem to do way too often in nWoD :smallfrown:)

At least with my group, nWoD is mostly roleplaying. And roleplaying a combat monkey with not an ounce of personality to his name, among regular dudes, is pretty strange and annoying (for both parties)

We have a player in my group, that does this. I've lost count of how many times his back story amounted to nothing more than "Ex-SEAL/SAS/Commando/US Ranger/whatever. And he never has fun, and he always complains how there is nothing for him to do.
Where as my bookstore owner, my friend's high school teacher and this bum who lives in a horrible slum all have great fun. He should've learned by now.

Oh yeah, one thing, crossover games aren't great. I thoroughly dislike them.

Comet
2009-06-18, 09:01 AM
To be fair, not all combat characters are devoid of personality. Some of the best characters I've seen were pretty good at kicking ass.
Besides, supernatural fights are cool. Simple as that. Werevolves, vampires, mages, everyone can pull some awesome stunts in a violent situation.

It's sometimes fun to play Joe Ordinary, but it's equally fun, in my opinion, to play a bloodsucking superhero. Variety is the spice of life, yes?

And yeah, vampires are severely handicapped in a crossover game. Mages and Werewolves work great, especially if the Spirit World is a major theme of the game.

Oblivious
2009-06-18, 02:01 PM
It's not that the system is incredibly deadly, just that the early NPCs were over-statted. Seriously, figure out how much experience you would need to build a cop from the core book. It's more than they suggest using to build an elder vampire.

chiasaur11
2009-06-18, 02:39 PM
It's not that the system is incredibly deadly, just that the early NPCs were over-statted. Seriously, figure out how much experience you would need to build a cop from the core book. It's more than they suggest using to build an elder vampire.

Maybe the sample cop is based on Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the watch and Duke of Ankh Morpork?

NeoVid
2009-06-18, 03:45 PM
Why are people still calling it "new" after 5 years?

Anyway, several years of experience with Mage:tA here...

Most of the games I've been in have been mixed games. A skilled GM with players who are willing to cooperate is essential, but it can work.

Mage is by far the hardest of the games mechanically. It really rewards you for knowing exactly what each of your Arcana can do and how you can modify things on the fly. 95% of the spells you use will be improvised, so you need to have all these options in mind. This is a small price to pay for getting to play with that sweet, sweet magic system.

A prepared mage is the scariest supernatural in the setting. An unprepared mage is the weakest. You can easily keep yourself alive in a mixed game by being a defensive juggernaut, which is no problem for a mage.

Remember you can easily reduce Paradox to nothing.

Useful, but powergamey character building advice:

Decide which Arcanum interests you the most, and start with 3 dots in it. The Really Cool stuff usually starts at 3 dots.

Always trade in your starting Merit dots to get 3 Gnosis. Gnosis 3 is one of the biggest jumps in power you can get as a mage, gaining you the ability to cast combined spells, more mana spending and capacity, and the vitally important chance to enter a Legacy, which is both the coolest and most useful thing you will ever get.

Other than that, I would say Potatocubed is entirely right. Any concept can work. I've just learned designing your character well within your concept makes things much more fun.

If you have specific questions, there's a good chance I can answer them. I'm just not online much, so you might have to wait for answers.


Well, the best advice is to gather up all of the nWoD books in a big pile, pour gas on them, and burn them. Then go out, pick up the "oWoD" books, and play that instead.

Or, even better, do the opposite. :smallamused:

Reverent-One
2009-06-18, 05:52 PM
Thanks to everyone else as well. There's one thing I wouldn't mind some expansion on though, this...


Remember you can easily reduce Paradox to nothing.

What methods do I have to reduce paradox?

Josh the Aspie
2009-06-18, 06:21 PM
My biggest piece of advice works for any system, but is especially delicious for storytelling systems like WW and Exalted.

Work with the DM.

No, really.

I cannot tell you how many times I have helped a DM who was just creating a campaign flesh things out by asking to tie my character into the story.

In one case, my recently minted vampire had the highest level blood rank you could buy in normal play (I might have even bought a special advantage for a bit higher). And yet, at the same time, she was a Catiff. No one knew her parentage, and at the same time, she had several strong powers from multiple different domains... and her first blood frenzy was so traumatizing, that she had amnesia... so no one, including her, knew her origins. She also already had more raw power than several vampires alive for over a century.

What's more, when it came to her attitudes, and her natural (non-bloodline / skill) abilities, she could fit easily into multiple clans. Our local Malkavian and I had a conversation that confused EVERYONE (including the players involved), and yet also made huge amounts of sense in that 'listening to the wisdom of the mad' way, and yet the first time she spoke like that, was in response to a malkavian. "... She speaks MALKIE!" was the Malkie's responce when he realized what was going on.

She also had several powers (claws, night vision, fortitude) typical of a Gangrel, and preferred being close to nature, and having time outside.

She came inside, every morning, burned, from staring at the sun rise.

And, most special and most strange and most haunting to the Toreodors... was that she could still create. Not a hollow imitation of the art that had escaped those artists turned by the Toreodors in an effort to 'preserve' their power, which had also, somehow, broken it. No, she created beautiful, inspirational, original works. For example, she took scrap metal from -her- junkyard (territorial, a bit) and twisted and scoured and scraped and changed them into strange shapes, compelling to a Malkavian, that would reflect, refract, and play off the auras of those around her (she had aura sight).

By all rights, she would likely have been dead very quickly due to all of the chaos and social upheaval her very existence engendered in the local Camarillan sect... were it not for the fact that the prince of the city adopted her personally, and that the most powerful ghoul in the city fell deeply in love with her.

It turns out, she looked exactly like the long lost love of the Prince, from centuries ago, who had been distroyed by an Anti-diluvian.

Also, it turns out my character unknowingly, somehow, had an addiction to the blood of humans who had sampled black tar, and that part of the reason for her Amnesia was due to the Prince having mind-wiped her repeatedly, due to this addiction having destroyed her over and over again before his eyes.

:P I broke the limit on disadvantages, and would have taken them even if the DM hadn't let me take the extra points. I wanted the disadvantages more than I wanted the advantages, in some cases.

I found out later that the DM originally had wanted to run VtM, but had been wracking her brain for a plot, when I started discussing my character with her. The DM made my character the plot. :P

I have, in many games, wound up having my character's personal background, flaws, goals, etc, help to define the nature and tone of the game, because I built the character so strongly around a concept and around being goal oriented, that other characters with no goals wound up swept up in some of that momentum. What gets really fun is when you have -several- characters who get wound into the story of the game.

NeoVid
2009-06-18, 07:04 PM
What methods do I have to reduce paradox?

Easiest: Magical tools. You have one main one, your Path or Order tool, and can have one for every Arcanum you know, if you want to. The rules haven't specified- EVER- if you can use more than one at a time to remove more than one Paradox die. Ask your ST.

Less reliable: Rotes. Using a rote instead of an improvised casting cuts Dox by one. If your most used spells get you a lot of Paradox, get the rotes for them.

Costly: Spending Mana. Mana shouldn't be easy to get, especially in a mixed game where the mages will have to have more restrictions (another good reason to get a Legacy right away). Use this option when you can't afford for a spell to fizzle.

Painful: Taking damage. After the Dox roll, you can take as many of the Dox successes as you choose as resistant (impossible to heal magically) damage. This is the only one that happens after the roll instead of before. Dangerous as hell, but often needed.

And I just noticed I misspoke... you can cut Paradox down to a chance die, but not to no roll at all. This does matter.

...I once saw a character get hit with 6 Paradox successes off a chance die. Paradox is usually weak, but don't think you never have to worry about it.

Reverent-One
2009-06-18, 07:28 PM
Thank you once more. Anyway, talked with the GM/ST/whatever you feeling like calling it, and the campaign is A) set in Chicago, B) the city is 'shared' by Mages, Werewolves, and Vampires, and C) it's going to be a more vampire centered campaign overall. Which should help the vampires being weaker issue.

As for my character, stats of any sort will have to wait till I can see the book, but I'm planning to be the owner of a little old pawn shop or antique store that looks to be nothing special, but also secretly sells some more 'unique' items (aka stuff magical/supernatural related). How does that sound?

Oblivious
2009-06-18, 07:54 PM
Strictly speaking, you would have to justify your possession of these items; a starting character would normally have to spend merit points to begin play with magic items. It may be more reasonable to say you can acquire unique items on demand. You could also cast spells on items and make sure people know the effect will fade in a few days, though you would have to be wary of your customers doing vulgar things with the items in this case.

Reverent-One
2009-06-18, 09:13 PM
Strictly speaking, you would have to justify your possession of these items; a starting character would normally have to spend merit points to begin play with magic items. It may be more reasonable to say you can acquire unique items on demand.

I agree, I was planning on anything "special" being only a small portion of actual business anyway, majority of day to day stuff would be the mundane stuff.

horus42
2009-06-18, 10:59 PM
Play an Obrimos, because its just too funny how easily you can slaughter vampires with the force arcarnum. Blowtorch + two dot fire manipulation = win

I wholeheartedly support this idea, especially if the campaign is more vampire-centric. The first time I played an Obrimos, I killed every member of the Circle of the Crone in Las Vegas. In one night. By myself. It was almost too easy, but still tons of fun.

Totally Guy
2009-06-19, 01:25 AM
The DM made my character the plot. :P

For our current Requiem campaign I wrote a backstory for my character which had a few links to a couple of hooks, mainly sire hatred stuff.

After the first session I wrote a backstory for my Haven. Now that story set up many a precedent and came back last session with the whole session devoted to in the context of being "near the end of the campaign".

It was good, although I tried to stay out of the bits I'd directly written to avoid using the spoilers to my advantage.

graymachine
2009-06-19, 12:20 PM
Well, in order to make a character that will have long-term survival potential you are going to have to take vampires and, more specifically, vampire politics into mind while building your character. I would recommend focusing on how his continued existence benefits one of the vampiric political parties, thus earning him protection from the rest. Based on what you've said I would recommend the Ordo or possibly the Crone, but they are a distant second as they are far more... religious... than your character seems to be. Ask your ST if you can purchase a Contacts/Allies/Status background for the Ordo. I would suggest putting this at 3, adjusting it down if you want to live more dangerously, or up if you want to be in the thick of vampire politics.

Don't go with something overtly threatening like the suggested Oboros (or however they spell that poor shadow of the Celestial Chorus) unless your goal is to kill all the bloodsuckers and call it a day, ending the campaign in a session or two.

NeoVid
2009-06-20, 03:48 PM
That's a pretty solid suggestion, and if you're going to get involved in vampiric polictics, I highly recommend getting something that will give you mental defenses. The most dangerous thing you have to worry about when dealing with vamps is being mentally manipulated, and they're better at it than anything in the setting except a Mind expert.

If you don't go that route, have a conditional spell set to trigger if someone tries to use supernatural powers to influence your mind. Automatically setting anyone who tries to mind-control you on fire is a good deterrent.

Also, if you still haven't been able to start working on a character, you should just print out a character sheet and see how much you can get done. The sheets handily have almost everything you need to make a character printed at the bottom.