General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

[Grytorm]

An entity that inverts the assumptions of gnksticism. Something that desperately wants to enter the Fallen World but is held back by the Seers and the Abyss. It doesn't care about mages and some story about how it is trying to bring Truth to the masses. Its come down because it wants to experience something Real.

[One Tin Soldier]

An entity that inverts the assumptions of gnksticism. Something that desperately wants to enter the Fallen World but is held back by the Seers and the Abyss. It doesn't care about mages and some story about how it is trying to bring Truth to the masses. Its come down because it wants to experience something Real.

Ooh, I like it. Challenging the worldview. Is this something you want to use for your game, or a general "how would you break mage's minds" or what?

[Morty]

I ended up withdrawing my pledge for the Contagion Chronicle Kickstarter. There's just not much there that interests me. I'll simply buy the expansion that contains help for crossover without the Contagion. In the meantime I bought Changeling 2E. It's different from the playtest version I'd got from the Kickstarter.

[Rater202]

so as someone a touch out of the loop, what do we know about contagion?

[The Jack]

So... any thoughts on my Obfuscate ideas? (IE amp up 1, nerf 2)

In a succinct way, what don't people like about the mechanics of VTM, specifically v20.
-If you've played other editions, what was your favourite celerity rendition.
-What does vampire need from mage/werewolf/wraith/changeling or whatever.
-What discipline powers aren't worth the points, or are easily a must-have investment.

I was thinking I'd do a quick write up, pay what you want 4.1 edition that's backwards compatible (because I'm not re-writing an entire core book, you should use it in conjunction with something) It's quick and unambitious, unlike a certain 50k guide to why and how you wanna kill all the garou that seems to be on the eternal backburner while I sort through real life priorities (getting a qualification, becoming a dad, moving across the world... I want some quick bucks rather than a magnum opus right now))

Stuff I'm pretty sure on.
-Fixed XP costs rather than X level for attributes/abilities (I'll keep disciplines the way they were, mostly)
-Taking half for soak/damage rather than rolling (except for soaking fire/sunlight and other exceptions)
-returning to the 1e days where vampires could soak agg unless it was the banes (fire, sunlight, faith)
-Probably going to go to town with protean and vicissitude.
-Will suggest a most likely metaplot. (The tremere are challenged by the proliferation of alternative blood mages such as the assamites and those damn anarchs with computers, which they can't openly do anything about because more blood magic is increasingly necessary to combat modern technology; Infernalism's gonna make a comeback; Elders clamp down on vicissitude usage which somehow always makes it into a camarilla game, but a growing minority are starting to see the benefits in the modern age; The Path of Kings becomes low-key acceptable in the camarilla. Do you see how freaking relevant this stuff is to the troubles of our age whilst still remaining Vampire? The sects can stay where they are.
-Suggestions for new players and storytellers. VTM is pretty overwhelming and there's a lot of things they end up doing that doesn't go so well.


Stuff not so much
-What the hell do I do with presence? Awe is just more dice?
-What rules are people unhappy with? Is there a specific mechanics that's ridiculous?
- Does anyone have any specific issues with specific powers? I don't wanna cover all of the blood magic or every bloodline discipline, but it's good to know.
- How should derangements be handled? A more conservative, tactful approach is what I'd do, but maybe the out-stuff's there for gameplay.
- Anyone got any road suggestions? I think a few (paradox) are fundamentally unworkable and you've gotta wonder how people on such roads can survive (Tho samsara's pretty good). I've not played many roads.


I wanna make conservative changes, to evolve rules rather than to flip them on their head, and I wanna not turn the game into requiem.

[Morty]

so as someone a touch out of the loop, what do we know about contagion?

It's a crossover setting that centres around the "Contagion", which is a supernatural disease that affects the fabric of reality. The book focuses on how different supernaturals, plus hunters, deal with it, either by trying to deny it or aiding it. The central idea is that different splats cooperate on both sides. That's a very condensed version.

[Rater202]

It's a crossover setting that centres around the "Contagion", which is a supernatural disease that affects the fabric of reality. The book focuses on how different supernaturals, plus hunters, deal with it, either by trying to deny it or aiding it. The central idea is that different splats cooperate on both sides. That's a very condensed version.

Yeah, that's basically what I'd put together.

Finding info is difficult, do we know anything more concrete or is that it?

Becuase I like the idea of crossover games and I'm still salty about Beast being changed from "Ancient Family of reincarnated mythic beasts exploring the WoD and trying to sate their hunger without causing too much trouble" to "monsters from the dream world ate your soul and took its place so now you have to hurt people 'for their own good' and I guess there are some crossover support and a family theme that dont make sense anymore" in development.

(Changing "Soul" to "Horror" and Homecoming to "Devouring" still makes me irrationally pissy when I think about it. I don't want to be a guy whose soul got eaten by a hydra. I want to have been a hydra all along and that I know I can use my Hydra powers.)

[Morty]

There's a Kickstarter going on with only six more days to go, so I wouldn't call finding info difficult. It's crossover, but tied to a particular event and plot, so not really what I'm after. I've long since decided to ignore Beast and I don't regret this decision.

[lightningcat]

I didn't care for either Beast or the God-Machine ideas. In fact I not real big on the default themes in any of the Chronicles of Darkness books. They just feel... bleh. Not bad, just not good.
I like the mechanics, but for the next game I run I am going to strip it all the way down are rebuild the universe. In WoD, everything was an existential threat, while in CoD, it seems to be only introspecticive threats. There doesn't seem to be any reason that any of the groups care about their own group, let alone other groups. OK there are the owl-spirits (whatever they are really called) in Vampire, but they seem out of place. Maybe I just need to read up more on them, but the authors seem determined to keep them mysterious, and don't even give good theories about them. They even gave multiple theories about VII in nWoD, so why not the owls?

[Leliel]

I didn't care for either Beast or the God-Machine ideas. In fact I not real big on the default themes in any of the Chronicles of Darkness books. They just feel... bleh. Not bad, just not good.

Them's fighting words, son.

I like the mechanics, but for the next game I run I am going to strip it all the way down are rebuild the universe. In WoD, everything was an existential threat, while in CoD, it seems to be only introspecticive threats.

Good. Existential threats all day every day are boring. And also this is explicitly wrong, by your own post - those owl spirits, the Strix? They're a pretty damn existential threat if they're feeling ambitious. Some, like Anna Red, are canonical examples of those who make it their stock and trade.

There doesn't seem to be any reason that any of the groups care about their own group, let alone other groups. OK there are the owl-spirits (whatever they are really called) in Vampire, but they seem out of place.

I hesitate to play in your game, where the only thing binding people together is apparently external threat. That's a bit bleaker than anything even the WoD at its grimdarkest put out. "These people understand me, they know what I've been though, let's be friends" is reason enough. And that's not even getting into Werewolf, where every tribe is based around hunting a specific enemy. Or Mage, where part of the reason the Pentacle Alliance exists is to fight against the cosmic empire of the Seers that want to prosecute and conquer all the people in the world for a bit more power. Or Changeling, where the whole point of Courts is to form a ward against the True Fae that enslaved everyone who is capable of forming a Court. Or the upcoming Deviant, where parties of them exist purely because they have a grudge against the Conspiracies that mutilated their souls and condemned them to a short life. Or Promethean, given how you need somebody to watch for the Pandorans. Or...

Maybe I just need to read up more on them, but the authors seem determined to keep them mysterious, and don't even give good theories about them. They even gave multiple theories about VII in nWoD, so why not the owls?

If that's the case, then yes, you do need to read up. The Strix are invaders from a world without life, and they want to experience living. This is made explicit in the core.

Perhaps what they are capable of is mysterious, but the Owls themselves are not at all. In fact, they're rather straightforward in their motives, because the Strix are simple. The Strix do not have a cosmic backstory beyond that because the Strix do not care. One or two might, because the Birds of Dis are nothing if not individualistic, but as the Beast embodied, they are all about the here and now. If it does not affect a specific Strix, it does not matter. They are, in fact, the platonic ideal of vampires, without all that mucking about with tragedy and Humanity; ruthless, selfish demons that exist to feed and to play sadistic games with creatures they despise, and they are always willing to add more people to their list of grudges. Out of universe, they are what vampires were before gothic fiction, before the idea that the Kindred were, in part, the people they were in life. In-universe, they feel that any vampire that gives a damn about being human is a waste of potential, worthy only of scorn and some entertainment - so they don't feel at all guilty when they take over vampiric bodies, and so have a life that won't decay around them.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

The Strix are strongly hinted to be the ancestors of the Beast inside each Kindred. Beyond that, they're thematically the foil to Kindred society, and a foil to the individual Kindred of the group. They're both a reminder of why the rules of society matter (if we all acted purely in self-interest and vengeance, how could we keep the Masquerade?), and a reminder to Kindred of why Humanity is something worth holding on to (if you give in, you're no better than that breath-stealing monster). In a broader sense, they represent a more folklore vampire to contrast with the Kindred's literary vampire; a bloody possessed corpse rather than returned-from-the-grave individuals. So that's their thematic place anyhow.

In terms of backstory, they're kinda eternal in the way that Spirits are eternal: they're a part of the world, they don't NEED an origin story. As long as there's been life, there's been the restless dead. They have a metaphysical explanation given as well: at one point the writers float the theory that they're from a pocket dimension without true life, hence their desire to steal life force and their hatred of those who cling on to their life-force after they die.

Broader, while the themes are all introspective, I wouldn't say that the THREATS are. The threats to the various splats vary by splat, and I'm most familiar with Vampire, whose threats are mostly political: other vampires are a vampire's worst enemy. When resources are scarce, even more so for the danger of over-feeding in an area, predators turn on each other. Then of course there are external threats; the eternal existential threat of the Masquerade breaking in your city, hunter cells, werewolves, Strix, outsider Kindred... All sorts of things can stir the pot.

Other groups similarly have a mix of introspective challenges, internal politics, and external threats to stir up trouble, with varying emphases on each.

I agree with Beast, especially with Rater202's critique's and disappointments. The God-Machine I really like though, though it's certainly not something that you can just drop in a game and have it fit. It's a beautiful idea to build a campaign around though!

[Ignimortis]

So... any thoughts on my Obfuscate ideas? (IE amp up 1, nerf 2)

In a succinct way, what don't people like about the mechanics of VTM, specifically v20.
-If you've played other editions, what was your favourite celerity rendition.
-What does vampire need from mage/werewolf/wraith/changeling or whatever.
-What discipline powers aren't worth the points, or are easily a must-have investment.

Implement Bloodlines-like mechanics for the Kiss - it erases the last few minutes of mortal's memory, so you don't need Dominate 3 to feed without killing.

Celerity was the best in V20, because all of its' versions are unbalanced as hell anyway, but at least in V20 you have to pay lots of blood for it. If I were to suggest something - let Celerity give you extra dice passively and ONLY ONE extra action for 1 BP. As an alternative, you can make Celerity give auto-dodges (inexhaustible dodge/parry pool of (Celerity) dice, basically against all attacks) for 1 BP/turn.

Fortitude should add to Stamina the same way Potence and Celerity do for other physicals. Maybe extra HP would be warranted too, at least +1 HP at 1/3/5.

Stuff not so much
-What the hell do I do with presence? Awe is just more dice?
-What rules are people unhappy with? Is there a specific mechanics that's ridiculous?
- Does anyone have any specific issues with specific powers? I don't wanna cover all of the blood magic or every bloodline discipline, but it's good to know.
- How should derangements be handled? A more conservative, tactful approach is what I'd do, but maybe the out-stuff's there for gameplay.
- Anyone got any road suggestions? I think a few (paradox) are fundamentally unworkable and you've gotta wonder how people on such roads can survive (Tho samsara's pretty good). I've not played many roads.


I wanna make conservative changes, to evolve rules rather than to flip them on their head, and I wanna not turn the game into requiem.

Presence is almost fine. Awe is -1 difficulty to all social rolls on those it affects. Always useful, never overbearing. Allow Dread Gaze to affect small crowds - one person limit is dumb. Other powers seem to be fine.
Roads, in some way, should be better than Humanity. More stringent, but if you can actually follow the Road successfully, it's not as swingy or judgemental as Humanity is. There's a reason for many old vamps to switch over - you tend to find your own code after a few centuries, and Roads use that code to chain down your Beast.

[lightningcat]

I was actually saying that there needed to be threats between the two extremes, but did not make that clear. Deviants actually looks really interesting, and I am waiting for it. A little worried about everyone having different Enemies that you need to deal with, but that is from bad previous experiences. If you keep that problem under control, it could be realy cool.
You guys have explained the Strix better in 3 paragraphs then they did in the whole book. You also made them interesting, so thank you. I read them being a way to punish the players instead of a real plot.

[The Jack]

Implement Bloodlines-like mechanics for the Kiss - it erases the last few minutes of mortal's memory, so you don't need Dominate 3 to feed without killing.

I think I'll put that in as a standard vampire power, rather than something necessary to learn. Perhaps a delirium equivelent where the strong rationalize it and the weak forget it happened (assuming you're not trying to sell the kiss for pleasure)

Presence is almost fine. Awe is -1 difficulty to all social rolls on those it affects. Always useful, never overbearing. Allow Dread Gaze to affect small crowds - one person limit is dumb. Other powers seem to be fine.
.

In which edition is awe -1?
Presence 3 is horrendously vague.
Dread gaze... it's an odd one.

[Milo v3]

Yeah, that's basically what I'd put together.

Finding info is difficult, do we know anything more concrete or is that it?

Contagion happens when God-Machine glitches, and thus every factions view on what the contagion is, is wrong....

Becuase I like the idea of crossover games and I'm still salty about Beast being changed from "Ancient Family of reincarnated mythic beasts exploring the WoD and trying to sate their hunger without causing too much trouble" to "monsters from the dream world ate your soul and took its place so now you have to hurt people 'for their own good' and I guess there are some crossover support and a family theme that dont make sense anymore" in development.

(Changing "Soul" to "Horror" and Homecoming to "Devouring" still makes me irrationally pissy when I think about it. I don't want to be a guy whose soul got eaten by a hydra. I want to have been a hydra all along and that I know I can use my Hydra powers.)

You do know that you can have been a hydra all along and that your devouring was a homecoming... ? "Very occasionally, the dreamer spots a Beast first and follows her, trying to make sense of the odd connection she feels, eventually realizing she is, in a sense, chasing herself", " new Beasts invariably feel that by becoming a Beast, they have not lost their humanity but gained something they were missing all along. That feeling — the realization that the dreamer has, in some way, always been a Beast — isn’t universal, but is extremely common." "For Beasts who experience the Devouring spontaneously, the Devouring is more of a homecoming".

[Morty]

You guys have explained the Strix better in 3 paragraphs then they did in the whole book. You also made them interesting, so thank you. I read them being a way to punish the players instead of a real plot.

Punish them for what, exactly? The entire idea behind the Strix is that they find the idea of humanity or any kind of morality entirely alien and don't seem to care a whole lot about the vampire society. If the players have to deal with Strix, it's not very likely that it's a result of their actions, unless they purposefully tried to summon them.

[Ignimortis]

I think I'll put that in as a standard vampire power, rather than something necessary to learn. Perhaps a delirium equivelent where the strong rationalize it and the weak forget it happened (assuming you're not trying to sell the kiss for pleasure)

Pretty much that, yes!

In which edition is awe -1?
Presence 3 is horrendously vague.
Dread gaze... it's an odd one.

No edition. It's always been "people feel inclined to agree with you" and successes say how many people you can sway at once, but I don't know why it can't just be -1 to difficulty. That's precisely how it should work, isn't it?

Presence 3 is probably a 2-nd level benevolent pseudo-Blood Bond. The target wants to please the vampire, and they have their full faculties meanwhile, but they do feel some sort of devotion. Maybe -2 difficulty to resist suggestions from vampire, and if the vampire isn't too hard on them and isn't giving dumb commands, then the vampire can exert some amount of influence like Dominate 1?

[The Jack]

I'm thinking I should make some small rating social rating chart (with the usual 1-5 rating for normal people. 0 for blind hatred and 6 for worship) And presence 3 moves you up the chart (maybe down the chart fir an interesting alt power)

For presence 1.. maybe your presence dots in dice for social rolls?

[fishyfishyfishy]

Celerity was the best in V20

Nah, Dark Ages V20 had the best versions of the physical disciplines. Celerity works within the existing rules for multiple actions, and Fortitude is actually good for once.


Best version of Serpentis, Quietus, and Obfuscate too. DAV20 fixed up a lot of the problems with disciplines.

[Rater202]

You do know that you can have been a hydra all along and that your devouring was a homecoming... ? "Very occasionally, the dreamer spots a Beast first and follows her, trying to make sense of the odd connection she feels, eventually realizing she is, in a sense, chasing herself", " new Beasts invariably feel that by becoming a Beast, they have not lost their humanity but gained something they were missing all along. That feeling — the realization that the dreamer has, in some way, always been a Beast — isn’t universal, but is extremely common." "For Beasts who experience the Devouring spontaneously, the Devouring is more of a homecoming".

That was a side-bar after a whole book of "Nah bro, your soul got eaten and that part of you replaced by an otherwise unrelated monster."

Also, I hate the term "Horror."

"Soul," Capital letters, and it for sure having always been your soul is a much more evocative term. Horror is just... blagh.

And "Homecoming," 'this is who you always were and now you've come home' fits with the family theme more than "your soul got ate and something else climbed inside your hollowed shell."

The only reason the finished Beasts aren't Pod People is becuase it's made explicit in other WoD things that your soul isn't important for being 'you' it's just kind of there.

They explained it as giving your character more "Agency" but "Something eats your soul soem it/something else crawls into you, maybe with your permission but probably not" is less Agency.

And I'm still pissy that the vocal minority who bitched about BEasts being abusive to those poor heroes(Ignoring the text in the original document that someone who was at Integrity four from abuse would probably not become a Hero and if they dind probably woulnd't hunt) didn't say anything about the final product's beasts having a social mandate to cuase harm to humans in order to teach humans a lesson--IE, to abuse humans and justify it with the rhetoric that abusers use. Implicit abuse is horrible but explicit abuse is AoK? What the hell people?

And lets not forget that the "teach mortals a lesson" Rhetoric is only in the game becuase some people complained that BEasts didn't have anything to do... They did!

Beast was supposed to be the Game that justified crossovers. Vampires Scheme, Werewolves hunt, Mages Study, Hunters Hunt, Changelings Hide, Promethean's try to become human...

And BEasts hang out with one of the above and learn more about them. They explore.

That's what they were supposed to be. They're supposed to be the crossover game.

People read it, complained about it not having enough to do outside of crossovers, so they slapped something together that justified the complaints of another group who then said nothing.

The fluff of the finished product is not the game we were promised, even if the mechanics are still there. We were promised Dark Families exploring the family tree. We got a club of abusive a-holes who can hang out with other creatures but that's not the focus and their claims of being a family don't hold up.

[The Jack]

Best version of Serpentis, Quietus, and Obfuscate too. DAV20 fixed up a lot of the problems with disciplines.

oh no, no, no, no!

Quuetus and obfuscate broke big unwritten rules in dav20.

Giving silence if death to obfuscate is not only really powerful, it doesn't actually work under the principles of obfuscate: silence of death is not a mind trick for people in range, you're literally killing sound.

More erronous is quietus.
A level one power where you turn hearts into jars for diablerie is just overwhelmingly dumb in mechanical context. Level one powers are at least the building blocks for later abilities if not the most broadly usable and least specialised power in the 1-5 range . The quietus power might work as a third level ritual, but it isn't fit for a first level discipline. Quite honestly it returns the clan to it's super-racist origins.

For serpentis some parts are better and other parts are much worse.
+more space to differentiate differences of faith/ person with cosmetic options (although this goes a bit far sometimes)
+ got rid of a ritual in a discipline.
-made things rediculously strong
-too much high-magic forms. Disciplines are better when they can appear, in mage terms, coincidental (or like a trick. )


I will give credit where it's due: they made diamonion very workable.

[Grytorm]

Ooh, I like it. Challenging the worldview. Is this something you want to use for your game, or a general "how would you break mage's minds" or what?

I don't really have a game and am unlikely to get one since I cling to the familiar first edition despite most ideas I have heard of suggest 2nd is cool. But yeah, I came up with the idea because I don't like harder interpretations of the lie where all of the Fallen World is a trap. So I started to think about how to subverts it and just tried to flip things over. And through in my very bare bones idea of their being both the Real and the True.

Other half baked ideas, new Strix metastasize from vampires in long term torpod. It's where the blood potency goes.

And that there was some sort of original Atlantis that was edited out. It's almost impossible to tell what it was like because the fall caused a bunch of alternative Atlantis to touch the world. About the only way to find out would be asking a high memory mummy or one of their bosses. Or maybe some of the Incarna. Also the death of Father Wolf had something to do with all this.

If I were to run a game, I've only had solid ideas for a Vampire the Requim game or a Promethean game. The Vampire idea was mostly for a story where the players were tasked with investigating a sloppy feeding at a club and they can get the opportunity to pick sides.

And the Promethean one would start with the PCs being drawn to a religious revival by random pilgrim's marks. Once there it is being g led by a biker gang leader who was visited by a quashmallin and told to prepare some stuff because the entity was too early to meet the PCs. He grows wings and tells them to go one direction or another. Then a later story would be the characters escaping a rainstorm in a desert and are trapped in an old ruin inhabited by pandorabs.

Something something.

[Leliel]

I don't really have a game and am unlikely to get one since I cling to the familiar first edition despite most ideas I have heard of suggest 2nd is cool. But yeah, I came up with the idea because I don't like harder interpretations of the lie where all of the Fallen World is a trap. So I started to think about how to subverts it and just tried to flip things over. And through in my very bare bones idea of their being both the Real and the True.

Good, because Mage 2E agrees with you. People who claim the Lie is all there is to the Fallen World are objectively wrong and probably the villain even in 1E, definitely in 2E. The Lie is that "you don't deserve magic, and you need the Exarchs to protect you."

Other half baked ideas, new Strix metastasize from vampires in long term torpod. It's where the blood potency goes.

I like it. Ties into how closely related Strix and vampires are, and it has evidence in the form of how the primary reproductive mode of Strix is mitosis, shedding their own Shadow Potency to make another Owl.

And that there was some sort of original Atlantis that was edited out. It's almost impossible to tell what it was like because the fall caused a bunch of alternative Atlantis to touch the world. About the only way to find out would be asking a high memory mummy or one of their bosses. Or maybe some of the Incarna. Also the death of Father Wolf had something to do with all this.

That's actually canon. The byline in Mage 2E is that the Exarchs erased all possibility of there being a civilization based around magic from the past; the reason Atlantean ruins are so divergent is that they often aren't native to the same timeline, let alone culture. Hence why the official name for the Atlantean Age is actually the "Time Before", because it wasn't all Greece.

If I were to run a game, I've only had solid ideas for a Vampire the Requim game or a Promethean game. The Vampire idea was mostly for a story where the players were tasked with investigating a sloppy feeding at a club and they can get the opportunity to pick sides.

And the Promethean one would start with the PCs being drawn to a religious revival by random pilgrim's marks. Once there it is being g led by a biker gang leader who was visited by a quashmallin and told to prepare some stuff because the entity was too early to meet the PCs. He grows wings and tells them to go one direction or another. Then a later story would be the characters escaping a rainstorm in a desert and are trapped in an old ruin inhabited by pandorabs.

Something something.

I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Leliel]

Contagion happens when God-Machine glitches, and thus every factions view on what the contagion is, is wrong....

Wrong.

No, there's not a but, that directly conflicts with the book OOC. That's just plain bad info. There is concrete info about the Contagion, and it says the exact opposite.

The Contagion is a disease that mutates the world and its occult physics, which the God-Machine harnesses but is not directly, often when the Machine glitches, in much the same way influenza takes advantage of a compromised immune system to infect the body. It is not part of the God-Machine, and the God-Machine hates it. What it is beyond that is undefined, but what is known is that one of its most common symptoms, to the point where it may be core to its own biology, is to erode barriers between alternate universes. Every faction's view on it is a possible explanation for the root cause of what was Patient Zero. There's actually an example of an outbreak that (probably) wasn't related to the G-M directly in the case of Chile (it seems to have used a bit of Pangaea to enter the world in the Chilean form instead).

[Milo v3]

That was a side-bar after a whole book of "Nah bro, your soul got eaten and that part of you replaced by an otherwise unrelated monster."

Those weren't quotes from a sidebar.... those were direct quotes from the section on devouring.

And I'm still pissy that the vocal minority who bitched about BEasts being abusive to those poor heroes(Ignoring the text in the original document that someone who was at Integrity four from abuse would probably not become a Hero and if they dind probably woulnd't hunt) didn't say anything about the final product's beasts having a social mandate to cuase harm to humans in order to teach humans a lesson--IE, to abuse humans and justify it with the rhetoric that abusers use. Implicit abuse is horrible but explicit abuse is AoK? What the hell people?

And lets not forget that the "teach mortals a lesson" Rhetoric is only in the game becuase some people complained that BEasts didn't have anything to do... They did!

Basically everyone hates the horrible lessons thing, everyone views it as victim blaming type crap that is the exact sort of thing an abuser would use to try and justify their actions. Basically everyone thinks beast is super messed up.

Wrong.

No, there's not a but, that directly conflicts with the book OOC. That's just plain bad info. There is concrete info about the Contagion, and it says the exact opposite.

The Contagion is a disease that mutates the world and its occult physics, which the God-Machine harnesses but is not directly, often when the Machine glitches, in much the same way influenza takes advantage of a compromised immune system to infect the body. It is not part of the God-Machine, and the God-Machine hates it. What it is beyond that is undefined, but what is known is that one of its most common symptoms, to the point where it may be core to its own biology, is to erode barriers between alternate universes. Every faction's view on it is a possible explanation for the root cause of what was Patient Zero. There's actually an example of an outbreak that (probably) wasn't related to the G-M directly in the case of Chile (it seems to have used a bit of Pangaea to enter the world in the Chilean form instead).

Tell that to the Contagion Vector or Chapter 3. Contagion Vector's capstone is entirely based around the fact that contagion is GM-Based. Chapter 3 goes heavily into detail on what the contagion is assumed to be in the default contagion chronicle, and how it is the sickness of the God-Machine. The God-Machine glitching or having problems is the vector by which the contagion enters the world.

It basically GM infrastructure glitches somewhere in the world (which can be anywhere because "There is scarcely a place on Earth the God-Machine hasn’t touched at one time or another, ... therefore there’s scarcely a place on Earth that couldn’t host an outbreak of the Contagion."), and that glitch can be caused by nearly anything (like a beast failing to incarnate), causing the contagion to enter the world.

At one point I actually asked the developer about this, because the introduction chapter presented it as if GM doesn't have innate connection to it I was confused. His reply was "The Contagion and the God-Machine are definitely linked to varying degrees, depending on the setting you use. In your game though, you can completely extract the God-Machine from it." By default, they're linked. It might be a big connection, or it might be super super super small and not discussed, but feel free to handle it differently.

[Rater202]

I was on the OPP forums during the BEast Playtest.

And I distinctly remember that I was the only person at the time complaining about how Beasts had become Abusive jerks and that the people who erroneously claimed they were abusive in the first draft didnt say a damned thing.

[Milo v3]

I was on the OPP forums during the BEast Playtest.

And I distinctly remember that I was the only person at the time complaining about how Beasts had become Abusive jerks and that the people who erroneously claimed they were abusive in the first draft didnt say a damned thing.

*Shrug* That's before my time. I can only speak to the modern communities views, and I also am not just referring to the OPP forums.

[The Jack]

My experience of onyx path forums is that they're biased and sensitive and the mods have carved out a very nice echo chamber for themselves. It's a safe space.

You can't talk about politics or religion here and that's rather infuriating at times where it'd be very natural/useful and you're doing so with only objective and unbiased information (The gu'auld often, but not always, ruke through fear.). but at least the moderators don't seem to have side(plus, you can't really trust people to be objective or non biased). OPP forum it felt like as soon as you gave a disagreeable opinion that didn't break the rules the mods would look for an excuse in another post. Then you'd get mad and do something stupid, like call a dev out.. They're extremely ban happy mods if you're not positive. And I try to be nuetral. I get more critical of people I mostly agree with voicing things badly than people I disagree with voicing their opinion. But I'm a weirdo because I understand all sides, which seems to be rare.

So hearing that the place is now toxically anti-v5... That's interesting. It's such a charged game that I dont believe it can be civily discussed by a lot of people. With 20th, there was a lot of bad stuff, the section on Ahrimanes or Madam Polari are bad enough to be parody; Polari'd be slaughtered in RuPaul, killed in court and her character sheet neither supports her writup nor does it actually work in accordance with rules... but you couldn't really talk about this stuff without mod ire.

[Leliel]

My experience of onyx path forums is that they're biased and sensitive and the mods have carved out a very nice echo chamber for themselves. It's a safe space.

You can't talk about politics or religion here and that's rather infuriating at times where it'd be very natural/useful and you're doing so with only objective and unbiased information (The gu'auld often, but not always, ruke through fear.). but at least the moderators don't seem to have side(plus, you can't really trust people to be objective or non biased). OPP forum it felt like as soon as you gave a disagreeable opinion that didn't break the rules the mods would look for an excuse in another post. Then you'd get mad and do something stupid, like call a dev out.. They're extremely ban happy mods if you're not positive. And I try to be nuetral. I get more critical of people I mostly agree with voicing things badly than people I disagree with voicing their opinion. But I'm a weirdo because I understand all sides, which seems to be rare.
.

As a frequent poster on the official boards, I can tell you this is not my experience at all. The moderators there are extremely reluctant to make infractions and you have three shots before they ban you. There is a bit of dev worship there, but it's the official forums and the devs are frequent posters, it's to be expected. My experience with them is that they're extremely patient and expect everyone else to be as well. You can have any opinion you want, just be polite about it, especially if you're trying to argue it.

(I an filing a complaint about how they delete threads with bad beginnings, but that's them).

[The Jack]

As a frequent poster on the official boards, I can tell you this is not my experience at all. The moderators there are extremely reluctant to make infractions and you have three shots before they ban you. There is a bit of dev worship there, but it's the official forums and the devs are frequent posters, it's to be expected. My experience with them is that they're extremely patient and expect everyone else to be as well. You can have any opinion you want, just be polite about it, especially if you're trying to argue it.

(I an filing a complaint about how they delete threads with bad beginnings, but that's them).

One time, they anounced they'd ban me for a month, but they gave me a year or something like that. I've also been banned for being an alt of a non-banned account after I'd talked to another mod about the technical issues that led me to make a new one with a painfully similar name (this was rectified by a different mod). I don't think they're trustworthy, the mods can be very unprofessional.

I think that maybe it was just or two mods that were a problem. But one or two mods being a problem is a big problem.

I'm an antagonist, i take WoD too seriously, I've been banned for 'trolling' when I was genuinely passionate about the integrity of the setting, but I do try to remain objective about it. Maybe that hurts feelings, but literature is about saying something.



I feel like OPP forum is an echo chamber. The people who are critical of the game get more frequent bans, the people who are big fans of psuedo-progressive changes to the setting are banned less for just as contentious behaviour.

But hey, I'm an odd kid. A lot of people on forums assume I hate X, therefore I must be Y. In reality I'm critical of the way X is done, I think it should be done better, I think it does more harm than good to do X poorly, I'm actually pro X, but people'll think I'm pro Y because they have seige mentality. OPP's forums seemed to be pretty seige when I last used them. Not everyone, but a sizable chunk.
There are disenters there, but they're not half as passionate as those in the castle, because the way it's moderated.

On that note, i think a propper WoD forum should be a wyrm ridden toxic battleground where the moderators will only issue bans for spam and illegal activites; anyone can say what they like. A meeting place for all sorts of radicals who oppose eachother with vitrol. A Forum of Darkness if you will.