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Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-11, 08:55 PM
I've mostly played the pre-reboot WoD systems (Vampire, Werewolf & Mage) but the other day I was flipping through the new Mage book and it got me thinking.

What does the forum think of the New world as opposed to the Old one? Specifically I'm interested in Mage players, but insight on the other systems would be appreciated.

Thanks, O Wise and Noble Internet!

Thrud
2008-09-11, 08:59 PM
I've mostly played the pre-reboot WoD systems (Vampire, Werewolf & Mage) but the other day I was flipping through the new Mage book and it got me thinking.

What does the forum think of the New world as opposed to the Old one? Specifically I'm interested in Mage players, but insight on the other systems would be appreciated.

Thanks, O Wise and Noble Internet!

Haven't played new Mage, and refuse to. Mage is my favorite RPG, with 2nd ed being my favorite of all the versions. I truly despise what they did to mage in the new system. They took an incredible freeform game system and decided to hamstring it. The new Mage game reads more like a PHB with all sorts of rotes to learn that remind me of D&D spells rather than the incredible freeform system it used to be.

FEH!

:smallbiggrin:

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-11, 09:02 PM
Haven't played new Mage, and refuse to. Mage is my favorite RPG, with 2nd ed being my favorite of all the versions. I truly despise what they did to mage in the new system. They took an incredible freeform game system and decided to hamstring it. The new Mage game reads more like a PHB with all sorts of rotes to learn that remind me of D&D spells rather than the incredible freeform system it used to be.

FEH!

:smallbiggrin:

See, that's what I was thinking, but I was flipping through the Mage book and noticed that you still could do freeform magic, but Rotes were just easier to do - which makes sense.

Since I noticed you run a bookstore, perhaps you have a Mage book you could flip through and confirm how big the change was? And in what ways?

Thrud
2008-09-11, 09:51 PM
I read it a while ago, so yeah, it would take flipping through again to really get the details. Unfortunately I don't actually have any copies in the store any more, though. I did not sell a single copy of the nWoD books after they came out. So I stopped carrying 'em. They were a waste of space and money. Sorry, you're going to need someone else to help you out with this one. I'll try to remember to flip though it again next time I am in my friend's comicbook store, though. Assuming he still has any on hand. Hmm. Now that I think about it he might not have 'em either.

Jerthanis
2008-09-12, 01:59 AM
Simply put, Mage: The Awakening (new mage) is the biggest waste of money I've ever spent on RPG materials. There isn't a thing I like about it, from the terribly unbalanced system to the insipid, uninspired setting to the lack of interesting antagonistic forces to the awful fiction pieces. The system makes magic by turns a tool that, while occassionally helpful, would be supplanted by better gear or any other tool in the world.

A perfect example of how terrible the system is occurs on page 121, where it breaks down the rules on how ritual casting works. The example character has Forces 3 and Gnosis 3, making him a midlevel mage working a secondary Arcana (40-70 exp, so likely more than 10 sessions of play), the example has him attempting to improvise a spell to make his flashlight brighter, for a day. This monumental task is so beyond this reasonably experienced mage that he must cast it as a ritual, a process that will take this reasonably experienced mage who is particularly fast at rituals for his experience level two or three hours or ritual casting to complete. If the example was of a Forces 5, Gnosis 2 character, they'd still be forced to cast the spell as a ritual, but it would take six to nine hours instead of two or three. You know what amazing ability I have that lets me gain access to a brighter flashlight? It's a ritual that takes maybe 20 minutes... I drive to a store and buy a brighter flashlight. The arcane material component is about 15 bucks or so.

The politics and history of the setting are just amazingly bad, and must be read to be believed. There are dragons, who left gems behind in Atlantis, gems that taught humans how to use magic.

Oddly, nWoD core is probably one of my favorite RPG sourcebooks ever, presenting a tight, quick to play system with a decent amount of customization, great fluff and atmosphere within the book, and with a lot of great personal-focused horror. nVampire is also pretty good I think. I liked old Vampire, but one thing I disliked about it a great deal was that NPC vampires were higher generation and older than you, and they were the real movers and shakers of the world and the PCs were operating in the background of all these other, larger NPCs. It had majesty, but I couldn't help thinking, "Wouldn't it be cool if this story were more about the PCs?" In nVampire, if Longinus himself, the first vampire, awoke from torpor and decided he really hated the PCs, four or five midlevel PCs could probably successfully oppose him politically, socially, or physically. This makes the PCs more capable of becoming the THE GUYS of the setting. Similarly, the tragedy focuses more on the individual as well. While it lost a lot of the metaplot and specific cool things of V:tM, I feel like nVampire is still overall pretty good.

I haven't read new Werewolf at all... so no idea what that one's like.

Thrud
2008-09-12, 02:09 AM
I was so horrified by newMage that I couldn't bring myself to touch any other newWoD product after that.

I had flipped through Vampire a bit before that, but didn't really ever give it the attention it apparently deserved. Oh well. We're starting up a mixed 2nd ed WoD game soon, so I get to go back to being a Mage again. Woo Hoo, gonna make a Dreampeaker, 'coz spirits are just fun at parties!

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-12, 02:11 AM
OK, I'm not touching nMage with a 10' pole then. Good to know.

What's so good about nWoD core? Is it improved mechanics or what? I crave specifics! :smallbiggrin:

Jerthanis
2008-09-12, 02:47 AM
The first thing I'd praise nWod for is its speed. The system boasts one-roll-combat, where a character's total attacking dice pool is equal to Attribute + Skill + Equipment bonus of weapon or circumstances - enemy's defense score - armor the enemy is wearing. Successes on that die roll are health levels of damage that the target takes. Stamina dots give more health levels instead of being rolled as soak. It's not a combat-heavy ruleset, and the combat rules let themselves be tight and intuitive so you can get through them and put them back in the closet when you're done.

Second, the fiction bits and pieces you get are really good. And more than one of them were used as inspiration for me when I ran the game. The guidelines to Storytelling a horror themed game were better than any I've read elsewhere. The Morality system is really great for horror games in my opinion, because it represents a character's mental stability not in terms of "oops, you rolled a 6, you're now a gibbering madman." but in terms of the specific actions that are done by that person, and good guidelines are drawn relating to what sorts of psychosis characters would gain for what kinds of actions. I also liked how the Virtues and Vices were set up, particularly how the Vices are the seven deadly sins, and how indulging in vices regains willpower and resisting it costs willpower, making an incentive for players to play their characters as flawed beings.

The book is short too, barely exceeding 200 pages, yet it presents a plethora of evocative examples of most of its mechanics that also help to underscore the darkness pulling at the corners of our reality.

If there's any flaw with the book, it's that the supernatural elements are hinted at, and many clues are given as to their nature, but nothing is explained. STs have to come up with most of their own material, even though they have dozens of neat jumping off points. There's really no explanation of what you're supposed to run as the antagonists to a chronicle, and the mechanics for handling ghosts near the end of the book feels incomplete. Still, as a GM type who likes the "Inspiration as a first step and then jump out on my own creatively" approach, I can think of few better game systems.

Since the book retailed for 20 bucks originally, you can probably find a copy for cheap somewhere. If you find it, buy it as a source of inspiration if nothing else.

1of3
2008-09-12, 03:11 AM
There are demo adventures or even campaigns for every new game. The Vampire one is even pretty nice, but all of them include their respective new rules. You can find them at White Wolf's homepage.


As for nMage: It's a nice game about wizards in modern day society, and it's wizards. No Scientists! or believers or such. The whole paradigm stuff is out.

That's good insofar that the spheres (now called arcanas) actually work. In oMage there were all those interesting non-hermetic and non-magic Traditions but from time to time things got funky when we tried to use the spheres for their magics.

Background-wise nMage has five orders four of which claim they have been founded in Atlantis. As usual for nWoD games it's not made clear where and when Atlantis existed or whether it's only myth. (Generally gaming groups have much more white space with their personal gaming worlds in nWoD).

So if you just like playing wizard in today's world and are fond of Giles in Buffy, nMage will be fine.

NeoVid
2008-09-12, 03:55 AM
I got into roleplaying with old Mage. I'm the only gamer I've ever heard of who likes it when new editions come out, so I didn't mind too much when the oWoD ended. After all, there's only so far you can go with the base setting idea of "The world is ending soon, and you can't stop it!" From my looks at them, Requiem and Forsaken looked like I'd prefer them over the originals, though I still didn't have a huge interest in Vampire. I still haven't played that one, so I'm not really qualified to judge.

I've played a little of Forsaken, and it definitely fixes up the main thing I disliked about old Werewolf, which was how stupidly powerful any werewolf was, no matter the experience. Like the rest of the setting, there's a lot less hopelessness getting in the way of having fun, also. Still, I only have a couple of months worth of sessions of playtime, so I'm no expert.

Awakening, though, I was waiting (and waiting and waiting... they delayed it something like 5 months) for, and my usual group had a group of PCs planned out ahead of time, so we could jump in as soon as it was released. We started up a campaign just weeks after the first book came out, and it was one of the best experiences I've had gaming.

The magic system had actually been balanced... I didn't realize how overpowered old Mage had been until I saw that the new version actually has rules preventing you from putting an infinite number of permanent buffs on yourself. It was annoying that my favorite Sphere (entropy) was the only one with major changes (divided up into luck and death), but I dealt with it. Death by itself was still pretty sweet... I still bring up the time my inexperienced character improvised an area-effect decomposition spell that crumbled the guns of a group of goons... then broke the floor under them... :smallamused:

There were solid mechanics for everything you can do... 100 pages of sample rotes, instead of the old version's giving a mechanical effect for rotes without giving a single rule on making or gaining them. Of course, you don't really need rotes... the fact that you can still do whatever you can think of that's within your power level keeps the single greatest thing that makes Mage what it is. As beginners, we all stayed with a few tricks we used often, but once we learned the possibilities... There's no other game out there that gives a single character so many options.

Paradox became spinelessly weak, sadly, but better designed otherwise, with it being harder to dodge entirely, but possible to mitigate, and more logical, with middle ground between coincidental and vulgar. Dox being less of a punishment does make the secret police more important, and since I usually play one.... bwahaahaaa...

I've been playing the game at every opportunity since then, and there's a few things that were surprising, like how it really becomes a different game at moderate power (3 or less in your best Arcana) and high (4, 5, or more than one at that level). I've been in two campaigns that went nearly a year each, and the difference between being nubs and being political heavy hitters with Masteries is amazing... and damn satisfying to build your way up to.


The big warning I can give when starting out is to take a good look at the improvised casting rules, and make certain every player has a good idea what the Arcana their character has is capable of at that level. You will make mistakes, since it's not simple, but it's not hard... you just won't be able to keep everything in mind until you have some experience.

Whew. I have a hard time shutting up about this game.

I've got little experience with Changeling, but it's the most popular game in the setting, so it should be easy to find info from players.

Promethean is one of the most brilliantly original concepts I've ever seen, but it's a hard game to play and run, so it's damn hard to find a group for.

Hunter I still haven't tried, but we'll be wrapping our current Mage campaign to try it out soon. Since I completely agree that the WoD core setting with ordinary humans still rocks, and Hunter is really just an extension of that, it should be pretty sweet.

(realizes length of post)

... Um, I'd say that's enough for now. :smallbiggrin:

Krrth
2008-09-12, 06:58 AM
I personally rather like the NWoD Mage. I think it is important to point out that rotes are just that: a ritual you have learned to do. You can still fast cast and improvise if you want, but you get more dice and a discount on cost when using a route.
What you can do is spelled out at each level of the Arcana, and it is the same across the board. Give it a shot, you might like it

Grynning
2008-09-12, 07:25 AM
stuff...
Death by itself was still pretty sweet... I still bring up the time my inexperienced character improvised an area-effect decomposition spell that crumbled the guns of a group of goons... then broke the floor under them... :smallamused:

There were solid mechanics for everything you can do... 100 pages of sample rotes, instead of the old version's giving a mechanical effect for rotes without giving a single rule on making or gaining them. Of course, you don't really need rotes... the fact that you can still do whatever you can think of that's within your power level keeps the single greatest thing that makes Mage what it is. As beginners, we all stayed with a few tricks we used often, but once we learned the possibilities... There's no other game out there that gives a single character so many options.

Paradox became spinelessly weak, sadly, but better designed otherwise, with it being harder to dodge entirely, but possible to mitigate, and more logical, with middle ground between coincidental and vulgar. Dox being less of a punishment does make the secret police more important, and since I usually play one.... bwahaahaaa...

I've been playing the game at every opportunity since then, and there's a few things that were surprising, like how it really becomes a different game at moderate power (3 or less in your best Arcana) and high (4, 5, or more than one at that level). I've been in two campaigns that went nearly a year each, and the difference between being nubs and being political heavy hitters with Masteries is amazing... and damn satisfying to build your way up to.
...stuff

You must be playing a different game than I am, man, either that or your ST gave you a BUNCH of starting EXP.

I've been playing nMage for about 6 months now and have yet to actually feel like I could do magic. I've been 2 different characters, both starting where the book says you should, and pulling off even a simple improvised spell is damn near impossible do to the low die pool you have to work with (4 or 5 if you're lucky). In the group I'm in now, most of us have to roll several times just to get our mage armor and mage sight spells up, and forget doing anything awesome like "melting people's guns and then the floor" with an improvised spell, that would have a very small chance of success if you go by the RAW and would have a pretty high chance of paradox whether it worked or not. I have 3 dots in matter with my current mage (an alchemist/snake oil man in the late 1800's), and changing 6 BULLETS into an obsidian compound that would hurt were-jaguars was pretty difficult, AND caused a paradox. Essentially, I've discovered that unless you have a rote for something, it's probably going to fail.

I'm not as rules savvy with WoD as I am with D&D, but I can say for sure that nMage makes you feel incredibly gimped and useless. I never really played the old one but now I kinda wish I had, it sounds like it was a lot more fun.

Eldmor
2008-09-12, 07:41 AM
I played in a nMage game last year and my overall impression is m'eh. Seemed like an unnecessary amount of crunch for a very fluffy system. I actually had more fun role-playing someone with Wits 4 and Intelligence 1. With a hippy as a mentor.
If you're willing to try something a little out there, nChangeling is the book form of awesome.

Krrth
2008-09-12, 08:02 AM
You must be playing a different game than I am, man, either that or your ST gave you a BUNCH of starting EXP.

I've been playing nMage for about 6 months now and have yet to actually feel like I could do magic. I've been 2 different characters, both starting where the book says you should, and pulling off even a simple improvised spell is damn near impossible do to the low die pool you have to work with (4 or 5 if you're lucky). In the group I'm in now, most of us have to roll several times just to get our mage armor and mage sight spells up, and forget doing anything awesome like "melting people's guns and then the floor" with an improvised spell, that would have a very small chance of success if you go by the RAW and would have a pretty high chance of paradox whether it worked or not. I have 3 dots in matter with my current mage (an alchemist/snake oil man in the late 1800's), and changing 6 BULLETS into an obsidian compound that would hurt were-jaguars was pretty difficult, AND caused a paradox. Essentially, I've discovered that unless you have a rote for something, it's probably going to fail.

I'm not as rules savvy with WoD as I am with D&D, but I can say for sure that nMage makes you feel incredibly gimped and useless. I never really played the old one but now I kinda wish I had, it sounds like it was a lot more fun.

....You do realize that you don't roll to activate mage armor, right? That's an automatic cast. The roll is to see how hard it is for someone else to dispell. as for melting someone's gun, that would have caused paradox under the old system. The key to mage is to be subtle. Don't melt the gun, cause it to jam or misfire.

Selrahc
2008-09-12, 08:16 AM
A perfect example of how terrible the system is occurs on page 121, where it breaks down the rules on how ritual casting works. The example character has Forces 3 and Gnosis 3, making him a midlevel mage working a secondary Arcana (40-70 exp, so likely more than 10 sessions of play), the example has him attempting to improvise a spell to make his flashlight brighter, for a day. This monumental task is so beyond this reasonably experienced mage that he must cast it as a ritual, a process that will take this reasonably experienced mage who is particularly fast at rituals for his experience level two or three hours or ritual casting to complete. If the example was of a Forces 5, Gnosis 2 character, they'd still be forced to cast the spell as a ritual, but it would take six to nine hours instead of two or three. You know what amazing ability I have that lets me gain access to a brighter flashlight? It's a ritual that takes maybe 20 minutes... I drive to a store and buy a brighter flashlight. The arcane material component is about 15 bucks or so.

Uh huh. So that really is the best thing you can think of to do with ritual casting?

Because taking the stupidest posswible thing you can do with something, and using it to beat the system over the head strikes me as a bit silly.

Frankly at forces three you can do an awful lot of stuff, from shooting fireballs out of your fingertips to controlling radio waves to, yeah, making your torch the brightness of a stadium floodlight. And loads more.

You're just wrong if you think that that is an example of the power level of mages, who are frankly one of the more powerful supernaturals.


Haven't played new Mage, and refuse to. Mage is my favorite RPG, with 2nd ed being my favorite of all the versions. I truly despise what they did to mage in the new system. They took an incredible freeform game system and decided to hamstring it. The new Mage game reads more like a PHB with all sorts of rotes to learn that remind me of D&D spells rather than the incredible freeform system it used to be.

The stuff in the arcana sections are examples to let you gauge the power of each level. They can be improvised or used as rotes, and you can make up your own improvisations.


I've been playing nMage for about 6 months now and have yet to actually feel like I could do magic. I've been 2 different characters, both starting where the book says you should, and pulling off even a simple improvised spell is damn near impossible do to the low die pool you have to work with (4 or 5 if you're lucky).

Honestly its pretty easy to get the dice pool up on your primary arcanum. If you've got gnosis 2, and arcanum 3 then thats 5 dice, use a tool and its 6, use willpower and its 9, use some sort of magical theme and tie the improv into it, and its ten.

Since the system in general is built around Attribute+Skill, and they both cap at 5 ten dice is probably going to be more than you'd have for most things. And since you only need 1 success to pull off whatever it is you're trying to do then with odds of 1/3 per dice even without spending willpower 7 should be more than enough to get 1 or more successes.


As to it being really crunch heavy... I never found it to be. Make up a spell thats about the right power level, roll gnosis plus arcanum plus tool, check for paradox if neccesary. The only other things you need to do in normal play is know the general power levels of the different dots in the arcana and any potential modifiers.


I do agree about the fluff however. Pretty rubbish. (Although, really easy to not bring up at all.)


Anyway, new mage is not the best book in the world of darkness new. The core book itself has some pretty fast paced rules, which work pretty well. Not the greatest at combat simulation, but still solid enough. I personally loved Werewolf, which had decent backstory as well. Changeling is also a particular great. Vampire is meh, to me at least, but I hear its the one most similar to its predecessor. Promethean was interesting but not something I'd really play. Hunter is too new for me to really say. Could be good.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-09-12, 08:52 AM
Not a fan of eaither mage..

I think they jacked up the new vampire.. I hate it. I liked the other rules for it... The new clans are ghey. I miss my Followers of set/Tzimice....
And where wolf although the basic idea is cool as far as RP goes I hate what they did with the mechanics.

I've played the new mage and although like I said I'm not a huge fan its more stable then the old one in my opinion.

NeoVid
2008-09-12, 01:12 PM
You must be playing a different game than I am, man, either that or your ST gave you a BUNCH of starting EXP.

Not really... our first game, we were given 20 XP that we weren't allowed to use on anything magical. The campaign I was in that went longest we started with 0, since our characters only awakened a couple of sessions in.




I've been playing nMage for about 6 months now and have yet to actually feel like I could do magic. I've been 2 different characters, both starting where the book says you should, and pulling off even a simple improvised spell is damn near impossible do to the low die pool you have to work with (4 or 5 if you're lucky).


4-6 for improvised is not a bad die pool at all. The system averages 1 success per 3 dice, and since you only need one to get something to work, you should succeed most of the time. You can get in trouble when you start subtracting dice for modifiers like area effect or added duration, but you always have High Speech or Willpower available if you need more dice... There's also a Merit out of the Banishers book that gives extra dice for improvised casting, though it's a bit overpowered.



In the group I'm in now, most of us have to roll several times just to get our mage armor and mage sight spells up, and forget doing anything awesome like "melting people's guns and then the floor" with an improvised spell, that would have a very small chance of success if you go by the RAW and would have a pretty high chance of paradox whether it worked or not.

Hmm... consistent bad luck can happen, but it really doesn't cost you anything to try a few times to get your armor and sights on in the morning.

The character who pulled the trick on the gunmen was a just-awakened noob who hadn't even gained 10 xp yet. With his starting 3 Gnosis and 3 Death, I had 4 dice even with the penalty for making the spell area-effect. The spell I improvised was Death 3's Destroy Object, which is covert, and gets no Paradox by default. I lucked out and the spell didn't become Improbable, so I didn't even have to use a magical tool to cut the Dox down. Also, I rolled well.

...Oh yeah, just remembered that the guys' clothes crumbled before they fell through the floor. :smallbiggrin: And my chara had the brains to wreck the security cameras beforehand.



I have 3 dots in matter with my current mage (an alchemist/snake oil man in the late 1800's), and changing 6 BULLETS into an obsidian compound that would hurt were-jaguars was pretty difficult, AND caused a paradox. Essentially, I've discovered that unless you have a rote for something, it's probably going to fail.


Matter is one I've used the most, and yeah, in its case, you really do need rotes, since everything cool with matter is vulgar as hell. You need to be careful with it so you aren't forced to pile up Dox on yourself, but it can be an instant fight-ender when used right. "I turn the tears in his eyes to acid." :smallamused:

It doesn't seem like you should have had too much trouble, with that spell... let's see...

Assuming this is the character that you said has 2 Gnosis and 3 Matter, that's one base Dox for a vulgar spell like a transmutation. It's likely you cast that as preparations ahead of time, so it would be your first vulgar spell in the scene, there would be no sleeper witnesses, and you'd be free to use High Speech. That's one Paradox die total and a die pool for the spell of 7. Use your magical tool (which is a necessity for a Matter specialist), and the Paradox is reduced to a chance die. On the 10% chance it succeeds anyway, negate the dox by taking one resistant bashing damage. Seems like you'd be OK unless the rolls were horribly against the odds.

Jerthanis
2008-09-12, 01:41 PM
Uh huh. So that really is the best thing you can think of to do with ritual casting?

Because taking the stupidest posswible thing you can do with something, and using it to beat the system over the head strikes me as a bit silly.

Frankly at forces three you can do an awful lot of stuff, from shooting fireballs out of your fingertips to controlling radio waves to, yeah, making your torch the brightness of a stadium floodlight. And loads more.

You're just wrong if you think that that is an example of the power level of mages, who are frankly one of the more powerful supernaturals.

It was not an example of how weak mages are, it is an example of how awful the system is. It's not my example either, it's the book's example. I could go on at length how a Mind 4 character with the right rotes will win every situation you can put in front of them without generating hardly any Paradox. I could also go on about how Fate rotes are incapable of duplicating mechanically the effects described in the rote's own flavortext. Or how Forces can shoot fire out of your fingertips, but with the way combat works, unless you have a rote for it, you'll do about as much damage as punching them, or maybe even throwing a rock at them, but you'll also get slapped with Paradox for it and blow a mana while you're at it.

The old Mage system wasn't overwhelmingly good or anything, but it allowed a freeform nature that really made you feel like you were a powerful and creative person by coming up with clever ways to utilize your Spheres. It was also backed up by some of the coolest flavor in the world and amazingly well characterized antagonists. The new system has nothing of the above going for it unless you're starting with 100+ experience and don't choose to raise an Attribute+Skill+Arcana total to 15 and buy the rotes that use the three of them in conjunction to produce unstoppable effects and instead choose to just go for Gnosis and Arcana and be extremely weak comparatively, but also more flexible.

Urg, I guess you SHOULD try it though if a couple people like it. I can't help feeling that they're reading a different book and playing a different game than I was. Try to avoid spending money on it though, in case you regret it.

NeoVid
2008-09-12, 02:40 PM
I could go on at length how a Mind 4 character with the right rotes will win every situation you can put in front of them without generating hardly any Paradox.

I'm currently playing a Mind master, and I got my ass handed to me in our last session. My GM, tragically, has gotten used to my methods, and when my I Win Button fizzled on the first turn, I didn't get the chance to do much else.

You're right about the usual ownage by Mind, though. It's almost impossible to get Paradoxed using it. (And you don't need the right rotes. I've only bought one rote since character creation for that chara, and improvised pretty much everything.)

Of course, 4 in any Arcana gets hard to handle. My STs have usually ended the games not long after most of the characters hit Mastery, since it's so hard to run as anything but a political game at that point. You have to run things very subtly or very cosmically for a Master-level game to work well.

And our current ST is not an expert at subtle. Our cabal has had to face Archmages more than once by now.

Tamburlaine
2008-09-12, 05:06 PM
My stance on Mage is that the perfect way to do it is:
-Background from old Mage
-Base rules from nWoD
-Magic system from old Mage, but keeping the rotes from new Mage

The way that rotes work as a slight improvement over improv casting is really the only thing I like so much about the new Mage. Not to say that it isn't a good game, it just suffers compared to the original.

puppyavenger
2008-09-12, 05:18 PM
My stance on Mage is that the perfect way to do it is:
-Background from old Mage
-Base rules from nWoD
-Magic system from old Mage, but keeping the rotes from new Mage

The way that rotes work as a slight improvement over improv casting is really the only thing I like so much about the new Mage. Not to say that it isn't a good game, it just suffers compared to the original.

although the NWOD base rules are apparently quite a lot more streamlined and cross-over friendly

NeoVid
2008-09-12, 05:42 PM
My stance on Mage is that the perfect way to do it is:
-Background from old Mage
-Base rules from nWoD
-Magic system from old Mage, but keeping the rotes from new Mage

The way that rotes work as a slight improvement over improv casting is really the only thing I like so much about the new Mage. Not to say that it isn't a good game, it just suffers compared to the original.

The "old setting/current mechanics" method is a good one, simply since the current mechanics are much better designed, but even after 2 years of sourcebooks, the current setting isn't quite as cool. The biggest problem you'll run into is that there are 10 arcana instead of 9 spheres, which requires background changes. The new mechanics for Paradox with the old reasons for Paradox works perfectly, I'm told.

Though the OP wants to hear about all the nWoD lines. Somebody who's an expert at something besides Mage, please save everyone from us Mage obsessives! :smallbiggrin:

One definite piece of advice I can give: Just start small with core mortals. Once you and your players have a good handle on the system, you'll be able to switch it to any of the game lines... except Promethean, sadly.

Though you might not want to. Normal humans are actually playable and fun, unlike oWoD.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-12, 05:46 PM
Though the OP wants to hear about all the nWoD lines. Somebody who's an expert at something besides Mage, please save everyone from us Mage obsessives! :smallbiggrin:

Well... to be honest, I thought Mage was the most innovative of WW's lines (in that they stole it from Ars Magica :smalltongue:) so I'm glad to hear all about how nWoD handles it. So far, it sounds like it's not worth the $30, since half the fun of playing WoD is the fluff.

So, I'm glad to hear they depowered Werewolves... but what exactly did they do for Vampire? Is Generation gone now, or what?

puppyavenger
2008-09-12, 05:53 PM
Well... to be honest, I thought Mage was the most innovative of WW's lines (in that they stole it from Ars Magica :smalltongue:) so I'm glad to hear all about how nWoD handles it. So far, it sounds like it's not worth the $30, since half the fun of playing WoD is the fluff.

So, I'm glad to hear they depowered Werewolves... but what exactly did they do for Vampire? Is Generation gone now, or what?

yes, instead there's a blood power stat, it's pretty much the same as Gnoisis and as it get higher, the blood you can drink gets more restrictive.

Although, I always liked changeling and hunter best for the new game...

Why Couldn't They Give Changelings a Open0ended Contract System?

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-12, 05:55 PM
yes, instead there's a blood power stat, it's pretty much the same as Gnoisis and as it get higher, the blood you can drink gets more restrictive.


:confused:

Is everyone Ventrue now or something? Did they do away with the Childer/Sire thing too? I liked the Jihad :smallfrown:

puppyavenger
2008-09-12, 06:15 PM
:confused:

Is everyone Ventrue now or something? Did they do away with the Childer/Sire thing too? I liked the Jihad :smallfrown:

nope, 5 clans..
what are you referring to exactly?

NeoVid
2008-09-12, 06:24 PM
OK, I can answer basic issues about Vampire.

Like all the supernaturals, vamps have a base power stat (Blood Potency for them) that determines how powerful they can get, basically. Higher levels in the power stat make you more effective at using your powers, access to more abilities, and at really high levels (6+) you can crank up your base stats above human maximum. This being the World of Darkness, power has drawbacks. In vamps' case, the higher your BP, the more limits on what blood you can use. Go over 3, and animal blood is useless to you. Go up to... 6, I think... and you can only use blood from OTHER VAMPS. Elder vampires scare the [censored] out of everyone.

So, yeah, generation is gone. Diablerie is still around, and even more useful than ever, though! :smallamused: Vamps can't just buy up BP with XP, (I think), they have to either gain it naturally over time, or steal it unnaturally.

The main thing they did to depower werewolves is that they don't cause autoAgg with all their attacks. It takes 3-4 dot powers to get agg damage. The general power level and systems in nWoD are much more even and crossover-friendly, though you'll still got to be prepared. A Prommie or were will still pwn almost anyone in a straight fight, except a prepared mage.

And then, there are hunters, who aren't as powerful as everyone else, and have to conflict with them. That's where the fun starts.

Glad my ramblings actually helped out. I'm not going to have more chances to post for days, thanks to no free time over the weekend.

OH YEAH. White Wolf now has premade short adventures called the SAS system on their site. I don't remember whether any of those are available for free, but they're a good way to test out a game without an expensive commitment.

I will not hesitate to say you should get WoD Core, if you don't already have it. That's enough to run great games by itself.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-12, 06:41 PM
nope, 5 clans..
what are you referring to exactly?

Back in oWoD the only people with restrictions on blood consumption were the Ventrue - but NeoVid laid out the basics pretty well.

Krrth
2008-09-12, 07:07 PM
Back in oWoD the only people with restrictions on blood consumption were the Ventrue - but NeoVid laid out the basics pretty well.
It works the same way that generation did...the older your generation, the more powerful blood you needed. Blood potency can go up or down based on age and torpor length. As an aside, one of the vampiric factions found a way around the age/blood need. The Ordo Dracul figures out ways to....alter....the vampiric state. They have a very Tzimisti (sp) vibe around them.

Edit: I should probably add that many of the old clan favorites are still around in one way or another. The Brujah are a bloodline, the Tzimitsi are the Ordo, the Settites and Lasombra got folded into one clan, the Tremere are kinda in both the Circle of the Crone and the Lancea Sanctum. Nosferatu no longer have to have a zero appearance either.