Stupid Question, but... (WoD)

[Otogi]

I was looking over the new World of Darkness, and I was wondering something: since all the supplements fallow the basic core formula for making characters, and since every character is basically a normal person with a template, is it possible to play the game using mixed races.

I'm not sure if normals get the shaft on this or not, but theoretically, you can play vampires, werewolfs, changelings and maybe even geniuses together, right? Or is this just really bad flawed logic? Has anyone ever tried this?

[NPCMook]

You mean like play a Vampire-Werewolf? or a Werewolf-Changling?

[Otogi]

No, I've heard of those, though. Bad results, but what's new? Except the world, of course.

What I meant was a group of different races, like if a mage and a vampire met, at a bar preferably.

[NPCMook]

Depends on the Storyteller I suppose...

[Otogi]

Fair enough considering the game, but are the power levels drastic between the races when at the same status?

[golentan]

I was looking over the new World of Darkness, and I was wondering something: since all the supplements fallow the basic core formula for making characters, and since every character is basically a normal person with a template, is it possible to play the game using mixed races.

I'm not sure if normals get the shaft on this or not, but theoretically, you can play vampires, werewolfs, changelings and maybe even geniuses together, right? Or is this just really bad flawed logic? Has anyone ever tried this?

Generally, in the games I've played there's been a rule against this, due largely to the conflicting "Humanity" equivalents. Still, the group would allow maybe a tiny bit of mage as "Anyone can learn a little magic" in the altered version of the world we used (think something like dresden files).

edit: Oops, misunderstood. Yeah, that's always workable. The mortals aren't particularly more screwed. The campaign book Chicago goes into that pretty heavily.

[Otogi]

Thanks, I'll tell my players the good news. When I tell them about the game (long story).

I keep hearing that they're in the good against the supernatural, but barring the Hunters, it seems that you need a whole gang to take down a supernatural. I haven't really delved into the game mechanics that much, so maybe I'm wrong (I hope so).

[Gaiyamato]

We tried this once and it works ok-ish for Werewolves and Vampires so long as they have reasons not to maul on another. Holding back the werewolves from slaying the "wyrm" tainted creates is hard. In fact eventually the vampires lost enough humanity to be detected as tainted (less than humanity 9 I think) and the werewolf characters descended on them and tore them to shreds.

Adding mages breaks it however. Mages mostly don't care and will work with anyone they need to and visa versa. We found a good mage works well to unit the werewolf/vampire group (for a while). But being able to bend reality meant that the others quickly became supporting characters, only one of the vampires could keep up (gotta love Dementate and chimistry).
So that is a bad idea.

[comicshorse]

We found Vampire players tend to get very bored as daybreak comes, they go to sleep and so get to do nothing for the rest of the session

[Otogi]

Okay, so find a way to make mages work with others and daylight on vampires are the big ones.

The first might not be possible, and it might require some good decision on what is bending and breaking reality to really work out. Gonna have to mental test that one.

The second one seems easy to solve though: just play at night, or set it at night.

[AngelSword]

I'm currently running a game with the following "freaks & ghouls©:"
One Vampire
One Werewolf
Two Mages
One Hunter


Thus far, it's worked pretty well. The mages have day jobs, and the hunter and werewolf are both nocturnally-inclined. From what I see, the vampire's good at the social scene, the werewolf is unmatched, combat-wise, the mages are the detectives, and the hunter is good all around (kinda like a bard, only without the pure awesome). It works in a bizarre way.

[Riffington]

I've found it works fine, you just have to have story reasons to hang out together. Each of the groups are good at different things. When it comes to ripping things apart, it is true that Werewolves typically have an advantage (though not overwhelmingly so). When it comes to social manipulation, Vampires have an advantage. Mages can do anything well - though that depends in large part what kind of DCs/#successes you assign to things. If you assume that "Transmute Vampire to Lawnchair" only requires Matter 3, then Mages are insanely powerful... unless you rule that such an insane Rote would require 5 successes at DC 10, thus limiting mages to more reasonable applications of Magick.

But when I said it works fine, there's one rule I always kept: pick one game. It's not a "general WoD" game, because that doesn't work. It's a Vampire game, and there's a specific reason each Mage and each Werewolf is there in that Vampire game. Or it's a Mage game, and the Vampire/Werewolf has a reason to be in that. Etc.

And, as previously mentioned, don't be mean and make the action all take place during the day.

[Friv]

Thanks, I'll tell my players the good news. When I tell them about the game (long story).

I keep hearing that they're in the good against the supernatural, but barring the Hunters, it seems that you need a whole gang to take down a supernatural. I haven't really delved into the game mechanics that much, so maybe I'm wrong (I hope so).

It really depends on things like experience levels and preparedness - the difference between a starting vampire and a starting mortal is:
* +1 Attribute Dot, which is not automatically useful in a fight
* Three super-powers of a fairly low tier
* The ability to spend some of your ten blood to heal or be stronger or faster or tougher
* Being bullet-resistant and fire-vunerable.

Depending on what powers the vampire has, a single trained mortal of equal skill armed with a torch and a sword could possibly win a fight. On the flip side, if the mortal comes into the fight with a pistol and no idea that he's fighting a walking corpse, and the vampire shows up with Celerity and Potence, the mortal's going to die fast.

[Grynning]

A lot of people seem to be referencing Old WoD rules here. The NWoD is kind of designed for mixed groups, at least more so than the old one. All the different supernaturals have defenses against the others (adding their gnosis/primal whosit/Blood potency to rolls to resist the others' mojo) and are more balanced with each other. Mages are also significantly reduced in power, having a much more difficult time telling physics to sit down and shut up, with all of their magic being codified in a manner similar to D&D spells. In fact, I would say that Mages are significantly weaker than the WW's/Vamps until they hit about 4 dots in at least one arcanum (which requires a LOT of xp investment).

I've played both New Mage and a mixed group, and the mixed group worked ok, but I think the ST had a harder time justifying the plot hooks in the mixed group since WoD groups have few compelling reasons to work together in most cases (it's much more believable to turn to your own kind for help with a threat than to the other supernaturals). That game only lasted a few sessions, while the Mage only game went strong for quite a while.

[grautry]

In fact, I would say that Mages are significantly weaker than the WW's/Vamps until they hit about 4 dots in at least one arcanum (which requires a LOT of xp investment).

Well, no, not really.

In straight up situations where the mages are unprepared, maybe...

In a situation where a mage has the time to use a potent ritual? A Death 3 mage can rather easily raise a cemetery of zombies. Or maybe a whole city if he feels so inclined(and has a proper rote). A Mind 3 mage could potentially mind control an entire zoo of animals. Or enthrall a stadium of people.

The thing is - the Target factors of NWoD mages scale geometrically, meaning that you get 32 targets with a spell at 5 successes... and 1024 at 10. I think you know where that leads.

Meaning that if your players can actually think creatively and aren't too worried about bending the rules then they can punch Pun-Pun sized holes through the system fairly early in their careers. Once you get to Adept levels it only gets worse. Masters? Pun-Pun. Literally in some cases as Fate Arcanum allows for limitless dice bonuses by RAW.

So I guess, this sorta depends. Are your players the type that won't really think creatively and won't push the system? Are your campaigns the type where the players absolutely will not have the time to prepare? Or can you simply count on them not to abuse their power? Then sure, mages will be fairly balanced until Master levels.

Except for information gathering that is. Mages are god-kings of gathering information and detective work, no matter what you do.

[Grynning]

Well, no, not really.

In straight up situations where the mages are unprepared, maybe...

In a situation where a mage has the time to use a potent ritual? A Death 3 mage can rather easily raise a cemetery of zombies. Or maybe a whole city if he feels so inclined(and has a proper rote). A Mind 3 mage could potentially mind control an entire zoo of animals. Or enthrall a stadium of people.

The thing is - the Target factors of NWoD mages scale geometrically, meaning that you get 32 targets with a spell at 5 successes... and 1024 at 10. I think you know where that leads.

Meaning that if your players can actually think creatively and aren't too worried about bending the rules then they can punch Pun-Pun sized holes through the system fairly early in their careers. Once you get to Adept levels it only gets worse. Masters? Pun-Pun. Literally in some cases as Fate Arcanum allows for limitless dice bonuses by RAW.

So I guess, this sorta depends. Are your players the type that won't really think creatively and won't push the system? Are your campaigns the type where the players absolutely will not have the time to prepare? Or can you simply count on them not to abuse their power? Then sure, mages will be fairly balanced until Master levels.

Except for information gathering that is. Mages are god-kings of gathering information and detective work, no matter what you do.

Unless your ST is very generous with circumstantial bonuses and hands out lots of XP, making the kinds of roles you're describing is fairly difficult. I've been playing in a bi-weekly game of mage for about 2 years. We started with 5 XP on top of character creation dots. On our best rotes most of us roll 10-11 dice, maybe with 1 or 2 for tools and merits and such tossed in. Usually we hit around 2-3 successes, with 4-5 being occasional and more than 5 being extremely rare. Remember too that expanding the number of targets actually imposes a penalty to your die pool, it doesn't just automatically go up the higher you role, AND you're subtracting each target's resistance stat in the cases of things like mind control.

In short, no, Mages in NWoD do not work that way.

Edit: That's not even taking into account Paradox, the double penalization for morality stats that mages get (having both the Human morality stat and Mage Wisdom), the absurd cost for raising Gnosis (new dots times NINE) and Arcanum (which requires more raising Gnosis to keep increasing), etc. etc. etc.

Werewolves, on the other hand, can just beef up their physical stats a little, grab a couple utility abilities, and then shapeshift and romp all over any melee battle with astounding ease. I don't know about Vampires...never played one, they're just not my style.

[grautry]

Unless your ST is very generous with circumstantial bonuses and hands out lots of XP, making the kinds of roles you're describing is fairly difficult. I've been playing in a bi-weekly game of mage for about 2 years. We started with 5 XP on top of character creation dots. On our best rotes most of us roll 10-11 dice, maybe with 1 or 2 for tools and merits and such tossed in. Usually we hit around 2-3 successes, with 4-5 being occasional and more than 5 being extremely rare. Remember too that expanding the number of targets actually imposes a penalty to your die pool, it doesn't just automatically go up the higher you role, AND you're subtracting each target's resistance stat in the cases of things like mind control.

In short, no, Mages in NWoD do not work that way.

Yes, they do.

You only get penalties on your dice pools if you're applying spell factors to normal, non-extended castings. When you're casting rituals, you don't get penalties. You simply need more successes instead. How could you have missed this after two years of playing?

Let's take a very weak Death 3 rote - dice pool of 7(Stat 2, Skill 2, Death 3). That's Quicken Corpse naturally. Let's add High Speech to that, for a +2 Bonus. This gives us a base dice pool of nine, for nine rolls of casting. 81 dice in total.

This gives us about 26 successes on average. Let's assign 4 to Duration, giving us an elegant 48-hour time to play around with our army. 10 goes to Targets, giving us 1024 Zombies. We've still got plenty of successes left as a cushion against Paradox and for potency.

Bam, you've just created one thousand zombies as a starting character. In normal play you'd probably need far less, since seriously, who needs a thousand zombies when, say, 32 will do just fine and use up the rest as a cushion against Disbelief and dispelling.

[NeoVid]

That starting character would need to take three (and a half, with the time to use High Speech in a ritual) hours per roll. That means over 30 continuous hours of ritual casting to use that to full effect.

Now, a starting character who started at Gnosis 3, like every veteran player I know does with every damn character, would be able to do that in one third the time, which is maybe possible without keeling over.

That said, I've been in several mixed games, and I can tell the OP that they work well if you can keep it together storywise. Just watch out for the fact that mage PCs can be bigger deus ex machinas than anything a GM comes up with on short notice.

[Totally Guy]

Isn't this the premise of the Munsters? You could make this in nWoD with expansions.:smalltongue:

Herman is a promethean.
Lilly is a mage.
Grandpa is a vampire.
Eddie is a Werewolf
And Marilyn is a core book only character.

They'd to do quite well at it, hilarity would ensue every session. But the changling expansion goes unrepresented.

[aberratio ictus]

Okay, so find a way to make mages work with others and daylight on vampires are the big ones.

The first might not be possible, and it might require some good decision on what is bending and breaking reality to really work out. Gonna have to mental test that one.

The second one seems easy to solve though: just play at night, or set it at night.

Alternatively, you could just let the vampires play one of their respective Ghouls at daytime. It might be hard to convince the other players to just do nothing while their vampire friends are sleeping; especially if there are important things at stake.

[Project_Mayhem]

In the mage game I'm playing at the moment, we have an player with a vampire character who only plays occasionally.

This has worked fine so far; she pops up every now and again and makes all the characters feel uncomfortable as we ask her for help, and then she calls in the debts, covering her own agenda.

I don't know how it would work with a full-time player though. I've been planning a very modified Changeling campaign (based on Neverwhere) and I know one player wants to play an Order Dracul Vamp.

[grautry]

That starting character would need to take three (and a half, with the time to use High Speech in a ritual) hours per roll. That means over 30 continuous hours of ritual casting to use that to full effect.

Well sure, which is why I said that you need the time to prepare.

As long as mages need to improvise they are quite well balanced. Still very powerful but not in a way that they are unbeatable. At least until Master-level magics which make you so powerful that NWoD mechanics simply can't properly handle characters like those.

But anyway, one thing you need to know about mages is that they are the - as I mentioned - god-kings of finding information. Running a mystery game is very challenging with mages as very simple one-two dot effects can give you tremendous amounts of information. Absolutely no other supernatural race in NWoD is even a tenth as good as mages are in that area.

But really, so long as your players aren't the type to punch holes through the system - and you're able to run a game with players who gather information as well as mages - you'll be fine.

Beneath it all, what's important is that despite it's sometimes serious mechanical flaws, M:tAw is a fun game, mages are really cool as characters and I think you'll have plenty of fun with them.

[Otogi]

Isn't this the premise of the Munsters? You could make this in nWoD with expansions.:smalltongue:

Herman is a promethean.
Lilly is a mage.
Grandpa is a vampire.
Eddie is a Werewolf
And Marilyn is a core book only character.

They'd to do quite well at it, hilarity would ensue every session. But the changling expansion goes unrepresented.

What about the monster under the staircase? Wouldn't he be like an ogre or a darkling?