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Dragonmuncher
2008-08-12, 06:35 AM
So I was reading the Mage thread below, and I noticed people kept mentioning how the nWoD Changeling book is really great.

Is it really? Why do you like it? Why is it better or worse than the old Changeling?

(By the way, I know very, very little about Changeling. I'm passing familiar with Vampire and Mage, enough to follow a discussion anyway, but I've never really learned about Changeling).

Krrth
2008-08-12, 08:23 AM
Well, IMO Changeling is much lighter in tone than the other titles. The previous edition could almost get silly in play. Even the new edition, which is much darker, can evoke that sense of wonder.

VoxPVoxD
2008-08-12, 08:40 AM
The flavor of Changeling appeals to me a great deal more than anything else in the nWoD line. Like Krrth said, it often seems like the other books have a tendency to become so wrapped up in their conceptual darkness that in a lot of ways they can stifle the creativity of player and storyteller alike. I don't have that sense of limitation with Changeling at all.

Absolutely anything is possible when the Fae are involved, and that broadening feeling of possibility is a great benefit to creating stories and characters alike. You want a game of moody, dark horror? Changeling can do that (though so can every other game in the line). Want something lighthearted? Changeling can do that; while the book takes great pains to underline how dangerous the Fae are, it also highlights their unpredictable nature, which offers opportunities to explore their whimsical, childlike side.

In addition to the top-notch thematics and storytelling elements, you've got the much stronger and better-balanced mechanical side that you can find in every game in the nWoD. This simple, flexible system is a great compliment to a game where you have a foundation for any kind of fantasy you could possibly want.

We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.

CASTLEMIKE
2008-08-12, 09:02 AM
Changeling Rogue Variant for a skill monkey with 10 base skill points before intelligence.

Selrahc
2008-08-12, 09:42 AM
Changeling has the best backstory. Which lends itself well to some fairly easy adventure ideas. It also feels pretty fantastical in the crunch. Lots of thematic elements at every level of the game.

I prefer Scion if I'm playing White Wolf, but Changeling is the best WoD title(Apart from maybe Werewolf... But that may just be bias cause I had a fairly long running werewolf chronicle, and have only played a few changeling one shots)


Changeling Rogue Variant for a skill monkey with 10 base skill points before intelligence.

Uh... Maybe try reading the topic?

CASTLEMIKE
2008-08-12, 09:44 AM
Uh... Maybe try reading the topic?

I did the thread topic is "Why is Changeling so great?" not "Why is the WoD Changeling so great?"

kamikasei
2008-08-12, 09:47 AM
I did the thread topic is "Why is Changeling so great?"

:smallconfused:

The topic is about Changeling, the nWoD game from White Wolf. Not Changelings, the race from Eberron and MM3 in D&D.

banjo1985
2008-08-12, 09:51 AM
I do believe the OP's question was to do with the Changeling Rules System, not a DnD Class variant. :smallbiggrin:

I personally love the story fluff in Changeling, and of all the settings I have it has the most capricious and randomly dangerous and cruel of all antagonists; the Fey/Fae. I've never quite got around to running a Changeling game, but what I have read is absolutely top class. The antagonists and the story behind it make the setting as good as it is. To be honest I wasn't aware there was an old version of Changeling, so I can't comment on whether it is so much better than it's predecessor. But the solid mechanics of White Wolf's system are combined with a varied flexible setting in Changeling, which can only be a good thing.

However, I am a bit of a White Wolf fan and only really GM their games, so I'll freely admit the above statement may be subject to bias.

CASTLEMIKE
2008-08-12, 09:55 AM
I agree I originally posted based on the thread topic and will stop posting in the thread. :smallbiggrin:

Tadanori Oyama
2008-08-12, 10:24 AM
Changeling the Lost allows players to create characters of vastly varitant visual, emotional, and social appearances. The Mask and Mein allows a character to appear exactly the way a player wants them to. It also always you to create a backstory that could be a folktale, or a modern horror, or a legend, or an anime, or anything else.

Beauty and madness.

My players like it because it gives them the most freedom possible of any of the nWoD games when designing. Your backstory isn't as much about what's happened since you changed (since you where embraced, or awakened, or changed) and more about what happened during. Embrace is an instant, the First Change is a single night (generally), Awakening is a day or so (also generally). The stay in Arcadia can be years or minutes.

Even with variations, most other "races" in nWoD end up seeming similar. Two Ventrue Kindred aren't astoundling different from one another. Two Thantos Mages share qualities. Two Frankenstein Promethians are different, but have a similar background. Two Elementals, even Firehearts, might be vastly different.

I'd say that Changeling is the only game that allows you to paint with colors. The others are grayscale.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-08-12, 12:03 PM
Background fluff, Recaster, Warshaper, Changeling Rogue, never having to write down your character appearance, various sexual kinks...

...oh. Wrong changeling. Never mind me.