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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by AshfireMage View Post
    Quick mechanical question: Do vampires lose Humanity for things they do under the influence of Dominate?

    I know it's difficult to use the discipline to force people to defy their nature, but difficult is not impossible, and depending on the individual, it's quite possible for there to be a lot of horrible things that aren't truly opposed to their nature, but still not something they'd do normally.

    Sorry, just occurred to me while trying to figure out an appropriate humanity score for a character.
    Masquerade or Requiem and which edition?
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Masquerade, Revised edition, although I'd be interested in knowing the answer for V20, too, if it's different
    Last edited by AshfireMage; 2017-02-08 at 02:23 AM.

  3. - Top - End - #123
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    I'd say that definitely falls under the "unintentional harm" breaking point, so yeah. Exit: I use the term breaking point but it's pretty much the same in Masquerade at higher levels of humanity.
    Last edited by fishyfishyfishy; 2017-02-10 at 08:20 AM.
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    So, a solid "maybe", depending on what, exactly they were made to do and how high their humanity was to begin with?

    I wasn't sure if it was based on responsibility/intent (I mean, there could be a debate on how morally/legally responsible you should be for things you were made to do via mind control, but that's probably not a productive direction for this thread and hopefully you know what I mean) or on the experience of performing the act itself.

    In this particular case, I'll probably go with "the character did lose humanity for it, but not nearly as much as if they had done it of their own volition"

  5. - Top - End - #125
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    *Flips table* TOO HELL WITH OBFUSCATE!!

    No player, 5 sessions in, should have anywhere NEAR 6 dots of Obfuscate.

    God it's such a broken power.

    Context: died to a player that's been eating other vamps and managed to get 6 dots of Obfuscate.
    Last edited by Silus; 2017-02-11 at 10:49 PM.

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

    So I'm looking at the possibility of running Hunter: The Vigil in the OWoD setting because I feel like Hunter is a great way to introduce players to the setting, but I vastly prefer Vigil because it feels more like regular mortals rousing up. Thoughts on any challenges I'd have to overcome/conflicting themes/rules conflicts?
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  7. - Top - End - #127
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Milo v3 View Post
    Demons can because they are physical beings and biologically identical to human, Angel on the otherhand are ephemera even when materialised.

    Angels don't even have hormones or a pulse, so if one was meant to have a child I'd imagine it'd be through possessing a human or some succubus style "first part of the occult matrix is collecting DNA from x cult, second part is processing DNA through y ritual, third part is materializing an angel which outputs that DNA, fourth part is performing z ritual which grants said angel a cover which gives it oppertunity to output the occult genetic material".
    Not entirely true I thought, since it can be the experiencing of hormones and human emotions that causes an angel to fall and become a demon, no?
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  8. - Top - End - #128
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Jallorn View Post
    Not entirely true I thought, since it can be the experiencing of hormones and human emotions that causes an angel to fall and become a demon, no?
    Hormones, no. Emotions yes. They're sapient beings, so they have emotions even if they are basic because of inexperience/GM recycling angels, but their bodies are ephemera not a collection of organs. Even when solid they don't have "organs", if you cut out it's heart you just cut off a portion of it's corpus, but it doesn't debilitate it more than any other part you could cut off (if it even has a heart... might have a black hole, the colour blue, or a CD instead).

    Even demons themselves seem to only have chemicals like hormones while they are in human form. Flowers of Hell talks about how "A demon doesn’t suddenly stop loving her wife when she takes her demonic form, but she no longer feels the flood of pheromones, norepinephrine, and serotonin that stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain, for example."
    Last edited by Milo v3; 2017-02-12 at 02:37 AM.
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Jallorn View Post
    So I'm looking at the possibility of running Hunter: The Vigil in the OWoD setting because I feel like Hunter is a great way to introduce players to the setting, but I vastly prefer Vigil because it feels more like regular mortals rousing up. Thoughts on any challenges I'd have to overcome/conflicting themes/rules conflicts?
    Vigil is based around using watered-down versions of the other PC Splats as enemies, if you use the actual Splats from OWoD then they will probably effortlessly tear through any groups of New-Hunters like so much tissue-paper.

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

    Regular mortals rising up in oWoD will result in those mortals being effortlessly swept aside by any supernatural opposition. So either you use watered-down approximations, or you'll run into problems.
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Morty View Post
    Regular mortals rising up in oWoD will result in those mortals being effortlessly swept aside by any supernatural opposition. So either you use watered-down approximations, or you'll run into problems.
    But there is the Inquisition and the Society of Leopold. They are ordinary mortals, aren't they? And while they don't have much hope of really altering things, they aren't exactly simply swept aside either, are they?
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  12. - Top - End - #132
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    In a time period/location with no Masquerade (6th century Scandinavia for example) is there much to stop Vampires and Werewolves (and similar) from basically ruling their local area like gods other than the risk of things like the Strix noticing and coming to prey upon them?

    Most humans don't seem like they'd pose a threat to even a moderately potent Vampire, and their only native opponent in nWoD to my knowledge is the Strix.
    Sanity is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

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

    Ostensibly, the Masquerade was created to begin with because vampires figured out that humans knowing about them tended to work out poorly. That would have had to come about from experience.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Grim Portent View Post
    Most humans don't seem like they'd pose a threat to even a moderately potent Vampire, and their only native opponent in nWoD to my knowledge is the Strix.
    Theoretically most humans don't pose any threat, but there are currently billions of humans on Earth...

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

    In areas of low population and low travel, especially with little contact to the rest of the world, nothing. Those three factors are what makes the modern age so dangerous to the monster splats.

    Low population means that you can't team up against a superior predator. Even a fraction of a percent of a modern city hunting a race of monsters is deadly. Even 10% of a medieval village rising can be handled, but good luck getting that many out.

    Low travel and other contact outside gives two benefits. In the modern day, you can ask an online forum how to hunt a vampire, or read a book in the library on early werewolf myths and weaknesses. Contact and travel allows you to share information, and our Vampires and Werewolves have secret weaknesses that they don't want you to find out. These are especially secret, because Vampire and Werewolf literature didn't become widespread until much later, and our Vamps and 'Wolves are based on Romantic, Gothic, and late Victorian literature. Today, someone can guess that staking a vampire through the heart is a good idea. But that was discovered in 14th-15th century Croatia. Look at early Norse myths of Draugr, and judge how accurate the weaknesses of those monsters are.
    Secondarily, in the modern day, you can travel to Milan or Washington DC, call in your Lucifuge or Taskforce Valkyrie allies. People travel, and bring in allies. In remote villages, however, people don't. How far are your villagers/prey going to go to get help? The next village? The local market town? This may not be as true for 8th-10th century Scandinavia, but if we're talking 6th century, we're before the overpopulation of the area led to the Viking escapades, so you're still good. If you want to advance your setting to the true Viking era, than know that one Viking "crew" would realistically have been the men-folk of a single village or holding, equipped and funded by the head of the village or holding, so your head-honcho monster could have a ship and a ready crew behind them.

    Otherwise, I assume you've read the Werewolf Dark Era, The Wolf and the Raven, as it should cover a good bit of this, being Werewolf set in viking-era Scandinavia.

    Edit: a Vampire still probably couldn't stand against an actually powerful mortal King though. Even a 6th century Norse king can surround a village with warriors and set the entire thing ablaze. You want to be a powerful god-king, but you don't want to piss of Charlemagne.
    Last edited by Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll; 2017-02-13 at 04:55 PM.
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    So how would a mortal ruler take down a vampire with several dots, let's say 3, in Protean, assuming they don't know any more about them than their local folklore would suggest?

    A protean can vanish into the earth, even though it can't move after doing so, can shapeshift into carnivores or carrion eaters it's had a chance to eat, which could mean wolves, bats, rats, crows, eagles, mice or any of a number of things. That's a lot of mobility and camouflage for a guy with a few dozen soldiers with swords to try and deal with, and a band of villagers are going to be hard pressed to stop a shapeshifter from turning into something that flies and taking wing to escape.

    Shapeshifters are the biggest troubling point to me because, well Gangrel are Protean specialists and are supposed to be very common in the wilderness/pagan areas while the other Clans stick to the more inhabited areas where their powers can be used to greatest effect and their flaws can be indulged in more readily.

    I can see a mortal army easily dealing with a Deva or similar, because they rely on subtlety above all else and once the mob is after them they can get overwhelmed, but a Gangrel could spend weeks or months hiding in the woods and caves disguised as bats and wolves, or skulk in the barnhouse as a cat, only to creep into the Longhouse at night, turn into a bear and start slaughtering people then flee in the form of some innocuous creature once it decides things are going badly.
    Sanity is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

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

    But what does the Gangrel get out of doing that ? Assuming he doesn't die to a cunning trap or a lucky bunch of local warriors the best he gets is the people move elsewhere which means he's denuded his own hunting grounds.

    months hiding in the woods and caves disguised as bats and wolves, or skulk in the barnhouse as a cat, only to creep into the Longhouse at night, turn into a bear and start slaughtering people
    I'm pretty sure that's how Grendel dies in the saga of Beowulf
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    But what does the Gangrel get out of doing that ? Assuming he doesn't die to a cunning trap or a lucky bunch of local warriors the best he gets is the people move elsewhere which means he's denuded his own hunting grounds.
    The potential gain is that they can claim lordship over an area as it's Jarl, Thane or semi-benevolent trickster deity that drinks half a persons worth of blood every few days, it's easier to claim a dot of blood from 5 semi-willing people every few days than it is to steal 3 dots from 2 unwilling people without getting caught, and while they would not technically have any rights to lordship over the area might makes right does apply under the circumstances. Rule by the strongest may not have been an officially endorsed concept, but many rulers ruled solely by right of conquest, which a reasonably strong vampire is very suited to do provided no one can rip the roof off it's dwelling and get it burned by the sun.

    I'm pretty sure that's how Grendel dies in the saga of Beowulf
    The parallel was not lost on me, but I doubt everyone's lucky enough to have a legendary hero napping in their hall every night.
    Sanity is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Grim Portent View Post
    The potential gain is that they can claim lordship over an area as it's Jarl, Thane or semi-benevolent trickster deity that drinks half a persons worth of blood every few days, it's easier to claim a dot of blood from 5 semi-willing people every few days than it is to steal 3 dots from 2 unwilling people without getting caught, and while they would not technically have any rights to lordship over the area might makes right does apply under the circumstances. Rule by the strongest may not have been an officially endorsed concept, but many rulers ruled solely by right of conquest, which a reasonably strong vampire is very suited to do provided no one can rip the roof off it's dwelling and get it burned by the sun.
    But its much more difficult to rule than merely to terrorise. To rule means you must have a way of your people finding you to bring important matters to your attention. That means either they know where you sleep (which means the chance of you waking up one day on fire) or you must meet them at a pre-arranged spot.
    Meeting at a spot has its own problems though. Do you fly in and out to preserve security, in which case you're burning a hell of a lot of blood on Shapeshifting. Blood that the people in a poor wilderness area may just not be able to give. Leading you to literally bleed your people dry so they are forced to fight back or simply leave, leaving you with no subjects.
    If you don't shift then you can be followed back to your lair and waking up on fire again.
    The other problem with a pre-arranged spot is it means the 'Fearless Vampire Hunters' know exactly where to find you. Maybe the locals are no threat but I'll bet more than one Vampire who tried this trick turned up to a meeting to find a bunch of Faith packing Teutonic Knights ( or Inquisitors) waiting to purge the demon

    The parallel was not lost on me, but I doubt everyone's lucky enough to have a legendary hero napping in their hall every night
    Heh, true. But it does rather the possibility was Beowulf a hero or just a strong guy with some tough mates who were there the night some Vampire's luck failed him ( and keep doing this and your luck will fail sometime) who was smart enough to cash in on his reputation
    Last edited by comicshorse; 2017-02-14 at 09:08 AM.
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  20. - Top - End - #140
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll View Post
    In areas of low population and low travel, especially with little contact to the rest of the world, nothing. Those three factors are what makes the modern age so dangerous to the monster splats.
    After Sundown talks about this a bit, basically it fully acknowledges that the game takes place in what is effectively a horror movie.

    Of course After Sundown is...let me allow someone else to describe it;
    On the negative side, it's an incoherent mishmash of setting material. In theory you're playing Universal Horror monsters (Bela Lugosi, etc.) but there's all this Barkeresque cosmology worked in the side. It's also weirdly prone to stereotypes.
    And the writing! Let's put it this way: if you don't like reading the words "seriously" and "literally" several times per page, this may not be the game for you.

    On the strong side, it's free.
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    That might be slightly disingenuous, so I'll let the man himself explain it;
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    After Sundown is a modern horror game where players take the role of monsters. The basic conceit will be familiar to anyone who has played a World of Darkness game, but even more familiar to people who have played Nightlife. There are differences in focus (After Sundown has the social interaction chapter before the combat mechanics and has core cities on several continents), and differences in mechanics (After Sundown runs entirely on d6s and playing cards), but the most crucial difference is one of philosophy. After Sundown is concepted as a cooperative storytelling game, which means that while it doesn't completely forsake the DM role, it does dispense with referring to anyone as a master, storyteller, or director. For reference, every RPG has a few paragraphs to explain what Roleplaying is, and that understanding colors how the authors create their rules. So it seems appropriate to post those paragraphs from After Sundown to show where it is coming from:

    "After Sundown is a cooperative storytelling game that tells stories in the realm of horror. Players take on the roles of monsters out of horror movies or the humans who oppose them, while one of the players takes on the role of the MC – a combination referee, narrator, and roleplayer of last resort for antagonists and minor characters in the story."

    Cooperative storytelling can be done without any products at all, as with collaborative writing or Cops and Robbers. After Sundown provides structure and conflict resolution in the form of an established world and story, as well as with a set of mechanics to determine the results of actions with the help of six sided dice. In this way, players of After Sundown can bypass many of the hangups of both collaborative fiction and Cops and Robbers: most notably the “I shot you/ No you did not” problem. It is hoped that the backstory and established characters of After Sundown will be sufficiently evocative as to give players of protagonists and MCs ample launching points for stories of their own.
    So here's the plug part. After Sundown is 225 pages long and a complete game that real people have played in the real world. Also, it can be purchased as a pdf for 99 cents. It's being put up on various servers as an ebook, and the first one that is up and running is Payloadz, which is Here. It's supposed to be up on the Kindle store at Amazon shortly, but it isn't yet so I don't have a link. Beyond that, After Sundown can also be torrented for free. Because I honestly don't expect people to pay even a dollar for a product they don't like, the entire pdf can be acquired and traded and printed without sending me a single dime. The pirate bay link is Here. If you like it, you can send me money later. Or not, either way.

    It is important to note that the 99 cent price point is not because I am a dirty hippie, or because I am trying to undermine capitalism or destroy the RPG industry. The free release isn't part of that either. The 99 cent price point is because a number of books have done well selling at 99 cents, and the free release is because books rarely seem to do worse when they are available in libraries. There is a whole set of arguments on what the "proper" price point for an ebook is, and I happen to be on the 99 centers.

    -Frank
    Last edited by Sydonai; 2017-02-14 at 09:32 AM.

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

    I'm going to be starting running a WoD set game of some form in the near future. I have a few ideas, the players seem to be pretty happy with all of them, and I'm not sure which one I want to run. Do any of you guys happen to have any cool ideas or just recommendations for any of the following campaign settings?

    OWOD - VTM Anarchs, Modern Day
    This is the easy choice - probably set in Niagara Falls / Buffalo area, with the PCs and the rest of the local Anarchs caught in the middle between Camarilla expansion / retaking of the area around New York, and the Sabbat cities of Toronto, Montreal and Detroit. Plenty of interesting political stuff to work with, and I have some ideas for characters and motivations, but there's nothing that hooks particularly strongly and it feels kind of 'vanilla'. Some of the players haven't roleplayed much before (though everyone has at least played D&D) so this could work as a nice introduction to World of Darkness before moving on to one of the more interesting settings below.

    OWOD - Dark Ages Mage, Baghdad, early 1200s
    I've always liked the idea of running a middle eastern game around this time, with the Batini, Taftani, proto-Order of Reason and most of the Traditions all having interesting hooks in the area. There's a natural campaign finale, with the Mongols sacking the city in 1258, but there's a good few decades to run the game beforehand, with the ruins of Babylon nearby as a good source of antagonists, and plenty of other cool bits and pieces happening around that time, since Constantinople gets burned in 1204 and Samarkand falls in 1220.

    NWOD - Demon the Descent, 1940s/50s London
    This is another idea I've had bouncing around for a while now - the primary focus of the setting being the British Museum. After it gets bombed out in the second world war, the rebuilding seems like a good time for the God-Machine to hook in a load of new occult matrices and other fun stuff into the construction, and it seems like just the sort of place to be a hotspot for weirdness in the setting. Lots of interesting strange artefacts, odd visitors and crazy staff members, plus there's the whole rest of London which can easily be filled with strangeness when technology is just starting to tentatively reach the digital age, which I imagine is a good time for the GM to sneak its wiring out of the cracks and into reality proper.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Gauntlet View Post
    OWOD - Dark Ages Mage, Baghdad, early 1200s
    I've always liked the idea of running a middle eastern game around this time, with the Batini, Taftani, proto-Order of Reason and most of the Traditions all having interesting hooks in the area. There's a natural campaign finale, with the Mongols sacking the city in 1258, but there's a good few decades to run the game beforehand, with the ruins of Babylon nearby as a good source of antagonists, and plenty of other cool bits and pieces happening around that time, since Constantinople gets burned in 1204 and Samarkand falls in 1220.
    This sounds pretty clutch. You/your players might like Peter Adamson's podcast, which has some good paradigm fodder for the period.

    (Also - not that this is a complaint - but what is it with the WOD and Mesopotamian city-states as ancient dens of evil? Just the Bible, or...?)

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

    I think the Silk Road is where I'm going to go for. Just need a few initial plot hooks - I'm pretty sure the eventual storyline is going to deal with the Mongol invasion in 1258 but that's pretty far away in campaign timeline.

    That podcast does look great, definitely some good inspiration there.
    Last edited by Gauntlet; 2017-02-20 at 04:56 AM.

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

    Quick question - in WoD games, have there ever been rules for having familiars/pet monsters?

    I suddenly had a thought for a Storyteller System game about normal people with extraordinary pets, with options covering things like Symbionts (beast+you=humanoid with superhuman abilities - Persona, some Digimon series, maybe even the passengers in Worm as more obvious creatures?), Familiars (Pokemon, but grimdark {or maybe Monsters and Other Childish Things, depending}), Swarms (Broodlords, Necromancers, etc), and other concepts where the supernatural being you're attached to is the actual powerhouse here. Whether this would mesh at all with WoD or not is of little object to me, but it could be interesting to see a WW/OPP-style game for this sort of thing - a more horror-inspired take on a more anime concept.

    Right now, I can see a party in my head composed of Jaden Yugi with a Duel-Disc that actually summons things; Yu Narukami (how do I remember his name so well?), golf club at the ready, with Izanagi super-imposed over him; Kerrigan surrounded by a crowd of Zerglings, Creep spreading beneath her feet; and Ash Ketchum, Pikachu at his side and Poke-Ball in hand; all staring down vampires, mages, and werewolves. Obviously not the desired tone conglomeration, but definitely echoing the sort of archetype equality I'm envisioning for this.

    I have no idea if any of the splats discusses anything remotely similar to any of the above, but I'm curious about what is there right now.
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by JBPuffin View Post
    Quick question - in WoD games, have there ever been rules for having familiars/pet monsters?
    Sure, Vampire have Ghouls and Mages have Familiars.
    Sin-Eaters have either a Persona or Stand, depending on which series you prefer.
    edit:
    Also, something I posted on a different site.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sydonai
    Actually, if you use Innocents as a base, remove the horrible parts of Beast, and use the fluff from Monsters and Other Childish Things then you could have a pretty good game.
    Quote Originally Posted by MJ12 Commando
    "if you remove everything from Beast you could have a pretty good game" is an accurate statement, although I'm not sure it's a meaningful one.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sydonai
    I meant something more like this;

    Your "Horror" is not a part of you, it's "just" your Best Friend, although you are connected to it.
    It's still an archetype of fear from the human collective subconscious, the fact that it is your Best Friend doesn't mean much for other people.
    A Horror interacting directly with a normal person causes a reaction similar to a Promethean's Disquiet, someone with an already damaged mind(low Integrity) that has a bad reaction(you roll a botch) can have their mind break as a response and instinctively cloak themselves in an archetype opposed to your Horror as a method of coping(If your Horror is The Big Bad Wolf they could become a Hero themed after The Woodsman, etc).
    It's "Satiety" is not filled by Predation but by its Favorite Thing, which is not inherently malevolent or hostile but is always thematically appropriate(it can be stuff as specific as "Their Kid does really well in a social situation" or as simple as "Pearls").

    -and so on.
    You take the basic framework and build from there.
    Last edited by Sydonai; 2017-02-21 at 12:08 AM.

  26. - Top - End - #146
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by JBPuffin View Post
    Quick question - in WoD games, have there ever been rules for having familiars/pet monsters?

    I have no idea if any of the splats discusses anything remotely similar to any of the above, but I'm curious about what is there right now.
    There are many ways to have familiars/pets in CofD, not sure about oWoD though. From memory there is:
    CofD
    Has rules allowing mortals (and anyone else) to summon and bind ghosts/spirits/angels to their will, and there is a merit in Hurt Locker called Invoke Spirit which gives you a rank 1 spirit pet.
    VtR
    Have the Raise the Familiar power in Animism which turns dead animals into vampiric familiars, and vampires can create homunculi and gargoyles as minions as well. Pretty sure they are also bloodlines which let you use ghosts as battle-pets.
    WtF
    Packs have a spirit totem which can be used as a familiar/battlepet, the bottle spirit rite allows you to make pokeballs (but you can only have one at a time), the Pack also adds rules for having spirits as packmates letting you use them as familiars.
    MtA
    Has powers which allow you to control basically any form of creature you can imagine, specific rules for familiars of various types, rules for creating creatures from nothing, etc.
    CtL
    Has merits which give you hedgebeast familiars, hedgebeast battlepets, and hedgebeast mounts.
    GtS
    Being based on Persona 3, it has ways to have your geist come out of you and fight for you.
    DtD
    Has an exploit which lets you turn creatures into monstrous cryptid minions, and it's technically possible to have other players as your "familiar" if they get a cover which is an animal.
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Milo v3 View Post
    There are many ways to have familiars/pets in CofD, not sure about oWoD though. From memory there is:
    CofD
    Has rules allowing mortals (and anyone else) to summon and bind ghosts/spirits/angels to their will, and there is a merit in Hurt Locker called Invoke Spirit which gives you a rank 1 spirit pet.
    VtR
    Have the Raise the Familiar power in Animism which turns dead animals into vampiric familiars, and vampires can create homunculi and gargoyles as minions as well. Pretty sure they are also bloodlines which let you use ghosts as battle-pets.
    WtF
    Packs have a spirit totem which can be used as a familiar/battlepet, the bottle spirit rite allows you to make pokeballs (but you can only have one at a time), the Pack also adds rules for having spirits as packmates letting you use them as familiars.
    MtA
    Has powers which allow you to control basically any form of creature you can imagine, specific rules for familiars of various types, rules for creating creatures from nothing, etc.
    CtL
    Has merits which give you hedgebeast familiars, hedgebeast battlepets, and hedgebeast mounts.
    GtS
    Being based on Persona 3, it has ways to have your geist come out of you and fight for you.
    DtD
    Has an exploit which lets you turn creatures into monstrous cryptid minions, and it's technically possible to have other players as your "familiar" if they get a cover which is an animal.
    Oh!...Oh wow, that's a lot of stuff. I won't be able to get all of those books, for sure, but it's good to know there's a precedent. With that said, (and this may just be the ol' DnD mentality creeping in), are these options on par with the others available to their types? Basically, is it worth it for a Vampire or Werewolf to devote themselves to minionmancy, or is such a character inevitably crippled if they do so?

    Geist seems like as good a place to start as any, seeing as they basically ARE the symbiont model. Between Changeling, Mage and Werewolf there should be a workable collectible-pet setup, and somewhere among all of this one could do swarms decently. Major obstacle for me would be getting all the books together, no matter what methodology I use...
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  28. - Top - End - #148
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    Default Re: General WoD Discussion #5: Chronicles of Duty: Modern Darkness

    Mage the Ascension has the Familiar background so it does show up in the older games. Technocrats have an alternative name for it that I don't recall at the moment. Mechanically the Familiar can absorb Paradox in place of you so long as it is nearby. They can store up to 5 points per dot in the background and it bleeds off at a rate of 1 point per week. They are also full on NPCs in their own right and can give friendly advice and offer role play opportunities.
    Most of my posts are made on my mobile device. Please excuse any errors from auto correct.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by fishyfishyfishy View Post
    Mage the Ascension has the Familiar background so it does show up in the older games. Technocrats have an alternative name for it that I don't recall at the moment. Mechanically the Familiar can absorb Paradox in place of you so long as it is nearby. They can store up to 5 points per dot in the background and it bleeds off at a rate of 1 point per week. They are also full on NPCs in their own right and can give friendly advice and offer role play opportunities.
    They have a full list of abilities in Forged By Dragon's Fire. Paradox consumption is one of the better ones, as are Luck / Bad Luck Curse and most of the knowledge ones (depending on your ST). I've had someone play a character in a Technocracy game who was a Progenitor with several one-point familiars, all of which were plants he kept on his desk to manage his paradox. Familiars do require a supply of Quintessence every month, so there are drawbacks to their versatility, and the core mechanics are pretty thoroughly tied in to Mage, so I'm not sure how well a lot of the abilities would work in other systems.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Gauntlet View Post
    They have a full list of abilities in Forged By Dragon's Fire. Paradox consumption is one of the better ones, as are Luck / Bad Luck Curse and most of the knowledge ones (depending on your ST). I've had someone play a character in a Technocracy game who was a Progenitor with several one-point familiars, all of which were plants he kept on his desk to manage his paradox. Familiars do require a supply of Quintessence every month, so there are drawbacks to their versatility, and the core mechanics are pretty thoroughly tied in to Mage, so I'm not sure how well a lot of the abilities would work in other systems.
    Yea it is very specific to Mage. I just wanted to offer that example since another person was unsure if a mechanic existed in the World of Darkness. M20 recommends the Allies or Totem backgrounds of you want more specific powers beyond paradox nullification, so their powers vary depending on edition and Storyteller.
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