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Leeham
2009-08-06, 02:06 PM
I've recently started a mixed group WoD game, and I decided to look the system up to get a general idea of how it all worked. Then I started to read about oWoD and nWoD. Eh? i'm guessing i'm playing nWoD (The books were published in 2004), but what's oWoD? how is it different?

kamikasei
2009-08-06, 02:11 PM
Old and New. A new edition/generation, basically. The core difference is that they unified the various games into modifications on a single system, so instead of stand-alone books one per creature type there's now a core system book and a game book for each type (so effectively, you have a core book that describes how humans work and each franchise has its own "template" to apply to make vampires, werewolves, mages etc.). Supposedly it was partly motivated by the desire to make mixing and matching the lines easier.

The Gilded Duke
2009-08-06, 02:19 PM
Old World of Darkness came first, and had multiple editions.
There are plenty of differences in the tied supernatural games, but the main differences themselves are these:

oWOD has multiple actions in a turn.
oWOD has a signifigantly higher critical failure chance.
oWOD has rolls for attack, for damage, and for soak.
oWOD tends towards end of the world plots while nWOD tends to avoid them.

nWOD rarely has multiple actions in a turn.
nWOD is better able to run crossover games.
nWOD has one roll that determines attack and damage, and has no soak.
nWOD has clearly defined interactions between the powers of different supernatural groups.

oWOD has:
Mage the Ascension
Vampire the Masquerade
Werewolf the Apocalypse
Changeling the Dreaming
Kindred of the East
Hunter the Reckoning
Mummy the Resurrection
Demon the Fallen
Orpheus

nWOD has:
A more playable mortal game with just the base WOD book
Vampire the Requiem
Werewolf the Forsaken
Mage the Awakening
Promethean the Created
Changeling the Lost
Hunter the Vigil

Project_Mayhem
2009-08-06, 02:24 PM
oWOD has multiple actions in a turn.

Yay for Celerity. The new ones lame.

Seriously, I find that while I'm very attached to some oWoD fluff, specifically Masquerade, nWoD seems more mechanically streamlined, and generally of a more consistent quality.

And Changeling the Lost is so awesome it makes me shiver

Leeham
2009-08-06, 02:28 PM
We did find it very easy to get into. Even my player who usually struggles with rules. Good fluff guy though. Would you recomend Changeling? I just ordered Mage recently. Vampire, Werewolf and Mage kinda seemed like the core ones to me. Apart from the actual WoD book that is.

Project_Mayhem
2009-08-06, 02:32 PM
Would you recommend Changeling?

See above. Yes.


Vampire, Werewolf and Mage kinda seemed like the core ones to me. Apart from the actual WoD book that is.

Yeah, they're the ones with the most support. The rest only have limited expansions

Haven
2009-08-06, 02:35 PM
I just want to say that from what I've heard the new Mage isn't half as amazing as the old. Old Mage had the most flexible and interesting magic system I've ever seen, and the best fluff of about anything ever, new Mage apparently replaces all that with, um, Atlantis.

Clementx
2009-08-06, 02:36 PM
Another huge benefit: Fixed target numbers. oWoD had multiple systems with different base DCs, different factors to increase or decrease, and abilities which added dice or modified DCs. And each game line had slightly different versions of even mundane actions.

nWoD is always try for 8, 9, 10, add or subtract between 1-5 dice as suggested in the book or just eyeballed (which ends up being very easy to guess as you learn more systems). All the mundane actions are the same for each game, and supernatural effects all correspond the equivalent stats in other game lines. Vampires and Werewolves both have a stat located in the same stop which determines their mystic potency, and is subtracted from rolls to affect them magically.

There are more modifications beyond adding dice, but those are specific for certain situations, which can be inferred and justified. Armor Piercing ignores objects' and armor's Damage Reduction, and affects the dice the same way for a rapier, a FMJ rifle round, or a diamond-bit drill. If you want something to be very lucky or explosively dangerous, use the Extra Reroll system. Mystic powers of fate and shotguns both work the same way.

The idea is that you don't need to study expanded rules, tables, or invent bizarre systems. The toolbox and numerous examples are given, and you can combine them on the drop of a hat, getting something which is probably very close to the published version you didn't have on hand.

The Gilded Duke
2009-08-06, 02:36 PM
Changeling the Lost and Hunter the Vigil are two that I would recommend to most anyone. Changeling the Lost can go darker places pretty quickly, more so then any of the other games.

I think Changeling started out as a limited set, but after it sold well they decided to make it one of their larger games and make it more then 5 books.

The Gilded Duke
2009-08-06, 02:40 PM
New Mage has a better system then Old Mage.
They also divided up Entropy into "Death" and "Fate" magic.
If I were going to play old mage again I would use the new mage system.

And yes, the Atlantis stuff is annoying.
However in at least some of the books it is shown that not all mages believe in it. In the World of Darkness Chicago book there is a cabal of Free Council Mages who refuse and ignore the symbolism of the Tarot and the Atlantian history and instead view the world and magic through Baseball.

They are awesome.

Leeham
2009-08-06, 02:42 PM
I just looked it up. Changeling looks awesome. I've always held a candle for dark fey.

Project_Mayhem
2009-08-06, 02:44 PM
I tend to wax lyrical to anyone who stands still long enough about how awesome combining changeling with ideas from 'Neverwhere' is

Umael
2009-08-06, 02:46 PM
The general consensus is that the mechanics for nWoD is better, something even most of the people who adore oWoD and despise nWoD admit.

The world is quite different.

The issue is that the old setting was not set up to be automatically compatible between the different systems. Vampire: the Masquerade was supposed to be a game about vampires, not werewolves. Although there were werewolves in the world, the rules for playing a werewolf (other than an NPC) were found in Werewolf: the Apocalypse. The two systems were very similar, but had marked differences (werewolves couldn't buy the Background Generation, vampires didn't have Rage).

While there was universal sense of the end of the world being nigh, each "group" had its own paradigm about what was going to happen (giving each game different fluff). Vampire had a Judeau-Christian mythology behind it, as the first vampire was literally Caine, as in Caine from the Bible. The end of times (Gehenna) was when the ancient vampires would arise in a massive, global war between the older vampires and the younger vampires. Werewolf had a more New Age view, with all of the cosmos being a battle between three extremely powerful spiritual beings who literally shaped the "world" and all the creatures in it. The Apocalyse (and eventually, Armageddeon) would be between these three powers and all the various servants they had.

Ironically, the differences often served to heighten the interest people had, sometimes by showing how the various groups interlocked in any particular paradigm, partially by leaving holes which the Storytellers had to fill. The disagreements between the "canon" sources about what was actually happening lead to a situation similar to the blind mice trying to describe the elephant.

After 13 years, White Wolf officially ended the old World of Darkness, although not before producing a series of game products designed to help people end their own campaigns with an end of the world scenario. From a story viewpoint, this made quite a bit of sense - after all, White Wolf had been saying that the end was coming for a number of years, so it was good they could actually go and end it. From a game design viewpoint, it gave them a change to re-write the rules into something more streamlined.

This last point is actually a very good selling point for the new World of Darkness. The concept that you buy one book that serves as the Core means that all other books work off that one book. Then, if you wanted to play, say, a vampire, you buy the vampire book and build your vampires from the same set of rules that you use to build your werewolf (rather than building your vampire from a similar set of rules that you use for building your werewolf).

The world was, essentially, the same in concept. Like the old World of Darkness, the new World of Darkness was also a place that was very much like the Earth we live on. Unlike the world we live on, both Worlds of Darkness were places were the rich were a little richer, the poor a little poorer, most of the police were corrupt, crime was more rampant, beacons of light a little fewer, a little further away, a little dimmer. It was a new canvas on which to describe a new power-structure, a new history, a new way of playing the same game.

This last part, unfortunately, is where many fans said that the nWoD failed - and it is also where my knowledge isn't so broad, so bear with me (incidentally, I don't hate or dislike nWoD, I just haven't played it).

The setting for vampire in oWoD was that of something like an extended line of vampires, all related by blood, but not by genetics, such that they could (in theory) track their lineage back to the Biblical Caine, the First Vampire, cursed by God Himself for the murder of Abel. That setting was changed into something quite different. To my knowledge, there is no mention of Caine at all. Also, to my knowledge, vampires do not simply get more and more powerful as they get older, but hit a plateau and stay there until they are destroyed. The political organizations are not divided or even shaped the same way.

I need to cut this short. I know that doesn't really answer your question, but I hope it helps. The thing is, nWoD or oWoD, just play what you (and yoru players) like how you like and don't worry about the oWoD fans who scream about how the new World of Darkness stinks.

Jerthanis
2009-08-06, 03:14 PM
I find the biggest single difference between oWoD and nWoD is in the focus of the stories told by them. In oWoD, the focus is on the events transpiring in the world around you. Events and storylines take place with titans of the universe and you are there to witness and eke out a survival alongside those plots, influence them how you can, and so forth. nWoD is all about the characters you play, their plots and ambitions, their tragedies and emotions.

I'll try to give an example of how the rulesets facilitate this: In oWoD, as a Vampire, your Generation dictated how strong you were overall, and you couldn't be a PC at higher than 8th Generation. People also got stronger the older they were, and the eldest tended to be in power and stay in power. Toppling the Vampire hierarchy and establishing oneself as the Prince of a City at age death + 20 years was a pipe dream because elder vampires just kept getting stronger, smarter, and more ruthless as time went on.

Meanwhile, in the nWoD, when a vampire gets to be a certain age and a certain level of Blood Potency, he finds human blood no longer satisfies him, and must consume vampire blood. Since drinking vampire blood is difficult and comes with a lot of restrictions and cultural taboos, often times elder vampires slip into torpor and let their blood thin out a little, reducing their power and giving them decades of inactivity. This means an ambitious Death + 20something can maneuver to the top of the Vampire world because the people that are stronger than him or her might be asleep at the time, at least long enough to build up his or her strength to oppose them when they come back.

Mage: The Awakening is kind of silly though and I can't suggest avoiding it enough. I'm a big non-fan of it. It's system works well, but there's no worthwhile flavor to be found in its pages. Most significant is the lack of well defined, interesting antagonists. Every source of conflict, Banishers, Seers of the Throne, and creatures of the Abyss, each one is largely ideologically opposite Mages in a way that they can't be reasoned with. Combined with a poorly defined, vague goal given to mages of "acquire magical secrets", there's really not a lot to work with within the book.

jmbrown
2009-08-06, 03:28 PM
I preferred the setting of oWoD than nWoD but the mechanics are definitely more sensible. I still prefer Changeling the Dreaming for its setting but the mechanics in that was a mess to play.

Blacky the Blackball
2009-08-06, 03:53 PM
The general consensus is that the mechanics for nWoD is better, something even most of the people who adore oWoD and despise nWoD admit.

As a casual player (but not fanatic) of both systems, I have to agree.


This last point is actually a very good selling point for the new World of Darkness. The concept that you buy one book that serves as the Core means that all other books work off that one book. Then, if you wanted to play, say, a vampire, you buy the vampire book and build your vampires from the same set of rules that you use to build your werewolf (rather than building your vampire from a similar set of rules that you use for building your werewolf).

The basic nWoD book is an excellent "generic" modern day system even without any of the other books. I'm thinking of using it for my next Cthulhu campaign (rather than the percentage-based BRP system that Call of Cthulhu uses).


The setting for vampire in oWoD was that of something like an extended line of vampires, all related by blood, but not by genetics, such that they could (in theory) track their lineage back to the Biblical Caine, the First Vampire, cursed by God Himself for the murder of Abel. That setting was changed into something quite different. To my knowledge, there is no mention of Caine at all.

That's mostly right. There are still definitive lineages and bloodlines of vampires, but no-one knows whether they all come from a single "original" vampire or whether there has been more than one "original" vampire created through the ages - and no-one knows how these "original" vampire(s) came to be.


Also, to my knowledge, vampires do not simply get more and more powerful as they get older, but hit a plateau and stay there until they are destroyed.

Not quite.

There's no such thing as Generation any more. All newly bitten vampires start on a level playing field no matter how powerful or weak their sire is.

However, all vampires slowly get more powerful as they get older (diablerie can speed up this process) via a new score called Blood Potency. An increased Blood Potency allows higher levels in disciplines to be gained and more blood to be spent per turn (just like Generation used to) but with the increased power comes increased restrictions on feeding - starting with no restriction, then human/vampire only, then vampire only.

When vampires spend time in torpor (either voluntarily or not), their Blood Potency slowly drops - so after an old vampire comes out of torpor they will likely have lost most of their power - but will slowly start gaining it again at normal rates.

It's a no-win situation for the poor vamp. The longer you stay awake the more powerful you can get, but not only does this restrict your diet (possibly dangerously), it also means that you'll torpor for longer - torpor length increases exponentially with Blood Potency level - so if you leave it too long you'll lose most of what you gained and wake up as little more than a neonate. Voluntarily torpor more regularly, and you'll never reach the levels of power you might otherwise have, but because you'll be in torpor for shorter periods you'll also lose less power and will wake up stronger than you would have done after the longer torpors.

The other main effect of long term torpor is that the vampire's memory gets somewhat scrambled as they spend the entire time dreaming and when they wake up they have trouble distinguishing real memories from dreamed memories.

So the most powerful vampires aren't necessarily the oldest. Instead they are the ones who have been awake for the longest.

The net effect of this is that while there might technically be 2,000 year old vampires they will have spent so much of this time in torpor that they won't be overwhelmingly powerful compared to, say, 200 year old vampires - and may even be weaker if they've only recently woken up. That combined with the memory loss means that no-one can say for certain where vampires come from because even if there are vampires around who might have known "low generation" vampires they are unlikely to remember accurately.


The thing is, nWoD or oWoD, just play what you (and yoru players) like how you like and don't worry about the oWoD fans who scream about how the new World of Darkness stinks.

Or vice versa, of course.

Speaking for myself, I prefer the nWoD rules and I prefer the new Vampire: Requiem setting to the old Vampire: Masquerade setting. But I also prefer the old Mage: Ascension setting to the new Mage: Awakening.

Yuki Akuma
2009-08-06, 03:57 PM
Also, to my knowledge, vampires do not simply get more and more powerful as they get older, but hit a plateau and stay there until they are destroyed.

That plateau being "Blood Potency 10".

And yes they do get more powerful simply by getting older. However, not all old vampires are super-powerful, because when you fall into a deathless coma-sleep thing, your Blood Potency decreases.

They tend to inflict it on themselves, because having Blood Potency 10 isn't very nice.

Ashes
2009-08-06, 05:11 PM
I find the biggest single difference between oWoD and nWoD is in the focus of the stories told by them. In oWoD, the focus is on the events transpiring in the world around you. Events and storylines take place with titans of the universe and you are there to witness and eke out a survival alongside those plots, influence them how you can, and so forth. nWoD is all about the characters you play, their plots and ambitions, their tragedies and emotions.

(emphasis mine)

I find that this is a very important point. oWoD was completely drenched in metaplot. The books presented a story with a definitive beginning, middle and end, and expected you to place your game in it. Some people liked this metaplot, I, myself, did not.

nWoD is more about producing a frame for you. It presents (in the case of vampires) what kinds exist, what political factions exist and the general culture that these creatures live in. All of this is optional. You don't need to use any of this (although removing the clans is a bit of a headache) and you can just create whatever plot you want, without messing with the games history, because there isn't really any.
It's more of a sandbox-type system, really.

Altima
2009-08-06, 05:30 PM
From a lore perspective, oWoD was sloppy, because systems were being added to the core design, and eventually got to the point where there was too many threads that they couldn't tie off. An example would be the VtM Gangrel clan--in VtM, it said they learned their talents from werewolves (or something like that) and were on decent terms with them. In Werewolf, it stated that all werewolves everywhere despised all vampires because they're nothing but filthy agents of the Wyrm.

nWoD is built from the ground up to encompass all the little groups and such.

...I miss oWoD :smallfrown:

Umael
2009-08-06, 06:02 PM
From a lore perspective, oWoD was sloppy, because systems were being added to the core design, and eventually got to the point where there was too many threads that they couldn't tie off. An example would be the VtM Gangrel clan--in VtM, it said they learned their talents from werewolves (or something like that) and were on decent terms with them. In Werewolf, it stated that all werewolves everywhere despised all vampires because they're nothing but filthy agents of the Wyrm.

nWoD is built from the ground up to encompass all the little groups and such.

...I miss oWoD :smallfrown:

While this is true, the design of the lore wasn't necessarily a flaw, sloppy as it was.

I mean, when you are talking about vampires from a werewolf's perspective, you use broad terms to describe them. Much like saying that all werewolves everywhere despise all vampires is like saying, "Look, a forest! It's made of trees!" Well, we know that a forest is made of trees, but it also has boulders and streams and grasses and flowers and animals and on and on. Vampires are nothing but filthy agents of the Wyrm became a viewpoint that was widely held, but when you looked, you could find exceptions everywhere. The back of the 1st edition Werewolf main book had a list of possible ways in which you could have a Vampire/Werewolf game, one where at the very least you wouldn't have a Werewolf automatically thinking "Wyrmspawn! Must die!".

As the expansions came out, you found out that the Bone Gnawer Tribe got along with the Nosferatu Clan (more or less), that there were Gangrel who wandered Werewolf lands without trouble, and that the Werewolves of Asia treated the Kuei-jin as another supernatural agent with its own agenda.

Haven
2009-08-06, 06:09 PM
New Mage has a better system then Old Mage.
They also divided up Entropy into "Death" and "Fate" magic.
If I were going to play old mage again I would use the new mage system.

And yes, the Atlantis stuff is annoying.
However in at least some of the books it is shown that not all mages believe in it. In the World of Darkness Chicago book there is a cabal of Free Council Mages who refuse and ignore the symbolism of the Tarot and the Atlantian history and instead view the world and magic through Baseball.

They are awesome.

Oh really? I'd gotten the impression that the Atlantean stuff was the One True Way and that attempting to view reality through any other paradigm is fail.

I don't really know much about nWoD, so I don't want to get into an edition war--although the fact that it's centered around characters and not metaplot sounds like a huge improvement (though I was never really invested in the official metaplot to begin with)--but Mage:the Ascension is one of my favorite things ever. Which makes it really sad that I've never gotten to play an actual game of it past the first session. :smallfrown: Ah well.

satorian
2009-08-06, 06:28 PM
For an all Mage game with creative, mature players, Mage: The Ascension is better in all ways than any other system of anything, ever. Immature players or people who just aren't naturally creative enough to use the freedom in a potent and fun way can really ruin the game. Also, Mages in oWoD are significantly more powerful than any other playable supernatural, especially with even a little experience. They're so powerful, in fact, that a mage group played in a weekly game for a year or two will have to relocate their campaign away from earth because of the paradox caused by their mere existence in the face of collective reality.

Mages, and all the others, really aren't even superficially balanced to be played with each other in oWoD. I liked that, as there's enough variety within each supernatural type to make a neat-o party.

My take: if you want a fantastic story and have a really good group, play oWoD, especially Mage. If you want a fun game that's more DnD-esque, with one guy playing a vamp and another a changeling, play nWoD.

comicshorse
2009-08-06, 06:57 PM
From a lore perspective, oWoD was sloppy, because systems were being added to the core design, and eventually got to the point where there was too many threads that they couldn't tie off. An example would be the VtM Gangrel clan--in VtM, it said they learned their talents from werewolves (or something like that) and were on decent terms with them. In Werewolf, it stated that all werewolves everywhere despised all vampires because they're nothing but filthy agents of the Wyrm.

But this was also because it was made clear that just because it was written in one of the books DIDN'T mean it was true. Thew books were always said to be the point of view of the Supernatural group they were about and so could very easily be mistaken.
Hence the fact that Rasputin is claimed as a member by the Brujah, the Cult of Ecstasy and the Silver Fangs in their respectice clan/tradition/tribe books.

This either makes OWoD an interesting open book where the P.C.s can't trust anything they read behind the G.M.s back and you can always surprise them. Or a confusing mess depending on your opinion

Civil War Man
2009-08-06, 07:27 PM
Count me in as another person who finds the mechanics of the new World of Darkness to be an improvement, but still prefers the crazy metaplots of the old setting.

I actually like the disorganized and occasionally schizophrenic portrayal of the old fluff. With all the politics piled upon politics, supernatural factions claiming famous historical figures as one of their number, and multiple contradictory Apocalypse conspiracies, it really accurately captures what the world would be like if we lived in a Fantasy Kitchen Sink (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyKitchenSink).

What makes it even more hilarious is the core book for Demon: The Fallen. The opening fluff has a human asking a Demon about the origins of human life, and which was the true origin (since we're talking Demons, the human was referring primarily to evolution versus biblical creation). The Demon's response amounted to "I can't really answer that question. Things worked a lot differently before Abel was murdered. Define true."

For the Hell of it I ran a Demon campaign where I combined as many settings as I could. Caitiff were all over the place. The Perfect Metis made a show-stopping appearance. Tons of Mages and a fleet of Wraith pirates. Even Caine himself made a short cameo.

There was actually more than one BBEG. There were several really powerful Earthbound Demons that over time became known among Werewolf society only as the Wyrm (which, in setting, is the cosmic representation of destruction and decay). They were trying to break free of imprisonment imposed on them by another group of Earthbound Demons who became known collectively as the Weaver (the cosmic representation of order and stagnation). The way I wrote it, they all were originally on Lucifer's side during the war against heaven, but the Wyrm began to have second thoughts, and eventually started sabotaging the rebellion. They were quickly caught and imprisoned.

There was one moment that I can only describe as pure beauty. One of the PCs was a Watcher before his fall, so he was big on investigation. He spent a decent chunk of the campaign gathering information on a corporate conglomerate named Pentex (one of the Werewolf antagonists. All the companies are Wyrm-tainted). He found a huge laundry list of corruption, extortion, murder, and all sorts of other depravities that could all be tied back to Pentex. So he sent his files in to the FBI.

Later on, during a plot dump, one of the other players remarks, "You know, this reminds me a lot of one of the Werewolf Apocalypse scenarios. It focuses on defeating the Weaver because it is actually the cause of the Wyrm's insanity. Though the whole thing kicks off when everyone on the Pentex board of directors is brutally murdered, and I'm not sure how that would fit in with our plot."

He glanced up and saw me smiling like the Cheshire cat, and looking at the Watcher's player. Then the realization hit him: "Oh ****, we just caused the Apocalypse."

NPCMook
2009-08-06, 08:13 PM
Old World of Darkness came first, and had multiple editions.
There are plenty of differences in the tied supernatural games, but the main differences themselves are these:

oWOD has multiple actions in a turn.
oWOD has a signifigantly higher critical failure chance.
oWOD has rolls for attack, for damage, and for soak.
oWOD tends towards end of the world plots while nWOD tends to avoid them.

nWOD rarely has multiple actions in a turn.
nWOD is better able to run crossover games.
nWOD has one roll that determines attack and damage, and has no soak.
nWOD has clearly defined interactions between the powers of different supernatural groups.

oWOD has:
Mage the Ascension
Vampire the Masquerade
Werewolf the Apocalypse
Changeling the Dreaming
Kindred of the East
Hunter the Reckoning
Mummy the Resurrection
Demon the Fallen
Orpheus

nWOD has:
A more playable mortal game with just the base WOD book
Vampire the Requiem
Werewolf the Forsaken
Mage the Awakening
Promethean the Created
Changeling the Lost
Hunter the Vigil

You forgot Immortal and Wraith for nWoD

Personally I just got into WoD, and was introduced via oWoD, and all I have to say is oWoD fluff is awesome, nWoD fluff... not so much

MALKAVIANS ARE NOT VENTRUE!

Belobog
2009-08-06, 08:34 PM
I've heard this big 'nWod has better mechanics, oWoD has better ideas,' thing a lot recently, and the only thing I can think of whenever it comes it is 'Why not just glue the parts you like together.'

So what exactly is holding people back from that?

Haven
2009-08-06, 08:36 PM
There was one moment that I can only describe as pure beauty. One of the PCs was a Watcher before his fall, so he was big on investigation. He spent a decent chunk of the campaign gathering information on a corporate conglomerate named Pentex (one of the Werewolf antagonists. All the companies are Wyrm-tainted). He found a huge laundry list of corruption, extortion, murder, and all sorts of other depravities that could all be tied back to Pentex. So he sent his files in to the FBI.

Later on, during a plot dump, one of the other players remarks, "You know, this reminds me a lot of one of the Werewolf Apocalypse scenarios. It focuses on defeating the Weaver because it is actually the cause of the Wyrm's insanity. Though the whole thing kicks off when everyone on the Pentex board of directors is brutally murdered, and I'm not sure how that would fit in with our plot."

He glanced up and saw me smiling like the Cheshire cat, and looking at the Watcher's player. Then the realization hit him: "Oh ****, we just caused the Apocalypse."

Ha! Pure beauty indeed.

NPCMook
2009-08-06, 08:53 PM
I've heard this big 'nWod has better mechanics, oWoD has better ideas,' thing a lot recently, and the only thing I can think of whenever it comes it is 'Why not just glue the parts you like together.'

So what exactly is holding people back from that?

you need both sets of books?

The Gilded Duke
2009-08-06, 09:15 PM
Weird, can't believe I forgot Wraith.

You mentioned Immortal though, I thought that was one of their one book supernatural groups. Is it actually doing a five book run?

Some of the one book groups are neat. I'm a fan of Second Sight. Haven't checked out Skinchangers yet.

Yeah, I'm not that into the new mage setting, but the system is better. I'm running a Chicago based game right now, which is the only reason I'm familiar with the Baseball Mages. Their Node/Dragon's Nest/Whatever you want to call it is US Cellular Field, which may or may not be a portal back through time to the 1919 "Black Sox" betting scandal and is haunted by Shoeless Joe Jackson.

I've also read a bit of the Banishers book. I like the Banishers. Mages who try to destroy magic, not necessarily for religious reasons. I like how they described the unifying theme of Banishers.

Someone who wakes up to the Supernal World and says "I will not have THIS in my reality."

Ooo.
So I just thought of a way to make Mage the Awakening more fun.
The Matrix.

Terraoblivion
2009-08-06, 11:15 PM
Different answers for different people. The amount of work you would still need to put into it is a major part, i suspect. So is the need to read a fair amount of stuff from a system you don't like large parts of. And then there are all the people like me who genuinely like nWoD fluff and have deep grievances with oWoD fluff, who don't need to.