Secret Etheric history edition

>Previous Thread
>>95809014
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https://mega.nz/folder/ePQ1BKhJ#RCosRCh59Ki2Mpb1M9H3Uw
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>Anders Mage Page
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>White Wolf Wiki:
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page

>Thread Question
which splat is your favourite? why do you like it?

What was your guys' "what do you mean Fomorians are humans possesed by evil Spirits of Polution and not Gaelic Giants living in underwater kingdoms, guarding the Shadowlands" moment? Where the WoD version of a monster (classic or otherwise) shares absolutely nothing with the name AND is far lamer in comparison?
Cause that's the big one, DnD did Fomorians lightly based on the Book of Invasions, but there they clearly are Fomorians and the lore mentions their decline and fall, so it works>>95839907 (OP)

>>95839907 (OP)
>which splat is your favourite?
Humans. They have so many customization options and progression paths, it's unreal. No other splat can compete.

>>95840020
Hurr durr?

Hurr durr.

>>95840111
>he doesn't know about mortal template stacking
ngmi

>>95840020
Humans can pokevolve into any splat with the right equipment

>>95840198
the right equipement is often "being born that way"

>>95839778
This is something that I want to approach with my character concept of a Fianna larping (actually not larping) as a knight. She views her fight against the fomori (the humans corrupted by banes) alongside her lupine brethren, as a prelude to the biggest battle that will ever be against the Fomorians when she'll fight beside her fairy friends.

>>95839907 (OP)
TQ: I only played Vampire so by default my answer would be that, but I really want to play as a Werewolf or a Changeling

>>95840254
You mean werewolves/demons and Only werewolves/demons. There are methods for humans to become any other splat(changelings included).

>>95839907 (OP)
>TQ
Hunter the Vigil, the indomitable human spirit

>>95839912
>Where the WoD version of a monster (classic or otherwise) shares absolutely nothing with the name AND is far lamer in comparison?

This is a solid 50% or more of oWoD to me. But rather than talk about games I don't like at all, I'll talk about how the two glaring examples in VtM, a game I adore.

>Ghouls
Conceptually, making Renfields a clearly defined thing in mechanics and lore is a good idea, giving even the least sociable vampires access to minions. However, naming them ghouls is just a waste of a good classic monster you could have stalking homeless camps, morgues, and sewers.

>Revenants
Even worse than Ghoul, where you can at least argue for other uses of the term (ghoul can refer to someone obsessed with death and the macabre) applying, Revenants have nothing to do with congenital ghouls. Made all the worse by the fact WoD has actual Revenants in the Risen and Kuei-Jin (Revenants (Asian)).

>>95840335
Werewoofs aren't safe either. There's alchemy and rituals that let you become a full woof.

>>95839907 (OP)
>which splat is your favourite? why do you like it?
Overall, probably Mummy the Resurrection. Nifty magic system; and I like the whole idea of becoming a mummy by having the bad part of your souls swapped out.
Wraith the Oblivion is really neat, but a little too depressing.
Mage the Ascension is probably my favorite conceptually, but I'm too dumb to really wrap my head around it.

>>95839912
I'd never heard the term until it came up in WoD, so I never had that moment.

What does a game of Lost actually look like, from anyone who's actually played? I just can't imagine what the world looks like beyond showing up to support group meetings to bitch about how afraid you are of your rapist showing back up, until they do show back up. To me, the setting just feels a bit, wishy-washy? Hard to describe, but I just can't imagine what drives Changelings.

>>95840776
Think about it like you are doing Dungeon runs to and from the Dungeon Dimension (tm) and returning back home to downtown Detroit... only there's a weird bar carved into the bedrock of where it would normally be a sewer that actually is where all the funny gremlins, that all those WW1 pilots spoke of, like to hang out, except all these gremlins used to be humans, are depressed/angry/nostalgic at their old life as slaves to the elves so they organise runs to the Dungeon to gather artifacts and rep with their fellow Goblins to one day kill an elf or two, oh and also the local Vampire Cartel

CtL COULD be about talking about your Rapist to a support group, or it could be about being a Gremlin balancing his Geek lifestyle with being a monster hunter and hopelessly addicted to gambling the slopiest, greasiest hedge magic known to man for the chance of abusing Loopholes, which give him an adrenaline high

>>95840776
I only got to play in a short-lived game with like 3-5 sessions, but we never once had an IC cry session. This was about a decade ago, playing 1e.

Basically we were recent arrivals to the Freehold, which was itself under siege in a way. Set in the american southwest, a True Fae known as the Coyote (based on the one from NA myth) was known to haunt the area. He wasn't, as far as we knew, a keeper. But he was known to fuck with changelings for fun, and his idea of fuck with could often be lethal. We were trying to work our way into the good graces of the freehold and the courts therein, while avoiding his notice.

>>95839907 (OP)
Can't help but be reminded of this gem by the OP image.

>>95839907 (OP)
>which splat is your favourite? why do you like it?

Hands down my favorite would have to be Hunter: the Vigil. It's very flexible in a way that most WoD games aren't. Hell, even most urban fantasy games aren't. Call of Cthulu, Delta Green, these all have a setting that is somewhat baked into the mechanics. You can completely throw the rest of the setting out the window and fill an entire game with custom monsters to hunt, there's even systems to make creating custom endowments and compacts/conspiracies easier, though what Vigil already has is quite flexible and covers most options you would want from a game called Hunter.

Not to mention, the mechanics aren't bad either. Tactics are fun, practical exp/group beats encourage working together. It's fairly deadly, but not so deadly players become so timid they advance at a languid pace. It's just generally enjoyable.

>>95840776
>What does a game of Lost actually look like, from anyone who's actually played?
In my experience, it is close to vampire in the sense that you are more often than not given a task and the rest of the supernatural community bickers over some petty bullshit as doom approaches.

When that's not the case, you are goofing off and using your powers for personal reasons. Think stuff along the lines of "Oh no! I made gold nuggets out of my chicken nuggets. now I have to find someone who would buy this without calling the IRS"

I'm tired of using the jyhad as "do x as fetch mission" and need more ideas for upper level stuff. Any good tabletop logs or books or even greentexts about the actions of the jyhad and how they're manipulated? X vampire is told to do this, which plays into the plan of Y vampire, because Z vampire wants objective alpha and each is a tiny aspect of objective beta of napping methuselah vampire?

>>95840776
In our campaign we did a lot of globe-hopping via the Hedge to do various jobs, like infiltrate a Vampire lair and collect the fae relics the owner had been collecting in Europe and act as outside investigators on who was betraying a Japanese Freehold.

In downtime, my character ran a teahouse, made clothes, and helped out new escapees with room and board. He was a tiny, pretty Fairest Mirrorskin in Spring.
Another player was a Wizened Fire Elemental from Summer who mostly holed up in our shared Hollow and crafted stuff.
The third was a Darkling Mirroskin who'd been abducted from prison because he was a bit of a murderer.

>>95840776
The campaign I played in we ran a discount private detective agency so we could help people with various problems (which invariably turned out to be paranormal in nature). There was a little tension brewing between the Summer and Autumn courts, but it wasn't a big focus.

>>95840254
>being born that way
IS THAT A MOTHERFUCKING-
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3Vzrr64ZrVU

I need Selkie pussy

>>95842551
Honestly when you get into Methuselah level shit, you have to accept that you are not smart enough to accurately depict the intellect of an ancient predator that has survived for 4000 years and intends on surviving another 4000. It's why you'll often see in official books some Int 7 Wits 8 giga Methuselah make decisions that seem solidly 2-3 int and wits. Which is why I do understand why V5 went in the direction of capping things to five, even if I think the execution was awful.

In my experience the best way to handle 4th dimension hyperchess Jyhad moves is to let the game play out naturally with the neonates, ancillae and garden variety elders. Then, work backwards and figure out how you could plausibly "just as planned" this for your methuselah or upper echelon elder. It may seem cheap, but if you have a good enough poker face and have a good justification for how an action would benefit them, it works great.

>>95840942
There's more than one way to get Anakaris.

>>95842551
the basic idea of the Jyhad is that it is fought by elders and methuselah through pawns that don't even know they are pawns in a shadow war. High level stuff would then be things that really move the Jyhad forward like killing your enemy, acquiring powerful domains, or getting your hand on magical artifacts and fragments of important texts (sorcerous, lore, book of nod, etc) that can further your jyhad.

note then that all of these examples I gave would probably require decades if not centuries of getting the right kindred into the right place at the right time so missions can probably get rather weird like "help my rivals with taking over" or "ensure this specific mortal is embraced by this specific kindred at this specific time and then ensure they end up as sheriff of this particular city" you know weird esoteric goals that don't make sense unless you are planning a thousand steps forward and have 2000 contingency plans ready. remember that the real players are thinking in terms of millennia!

>>95843685
>When the Selkie Wilder makes her sealskin a leather g-string
H-hot.

Since the vampire's curse comes from God, and apparently the only way a Mage can reverse it is with like Arete 9 or some bullshit like that... what a transference of conscience?
With Life, Spirit, Mind and Prime 5 a Mage could create an artificial body and soul, then transfer the consciousness of the vampire to this new, clean body. Right?
Or maybe not even transfer it. Just copy his mind 1-to-1, kill the vampire and have the newly created human go on his way, believing the vampire curse has been lifted.

>>95844911
>a Mage could create an artificial body and soul, then transfer the consciousness of the vampire to this new, clean body. Right?
Possibly.

>Or maybe not even transfer it. Just copy his mind 1-to-1, kill the vampire and have the newly created human go on his way, believing the vampire curse has been lifted
The ol’ Swamp Thing special hehe

>>95844911
A consciousness transfer would probably require Mind 6 considering transferring the mind into an artificial body is the Technocrat's version of ascension. A copy however would work, if you're only caring about getting rid of a vampire.

>>95844968
mind 4 can be enough anon

>>95844284
I think you actually just need to find balance between natural unpredictability of the world and keikaku of an average Methuselah. They're impossibly intelligent but that doesn't make them omniscient, much less immune to whatever bullshit happening in the world. Putting an elder's plan into motion behind the curtains and seeing how it plays out against players can be just and rewarding as creating one retroactively.

I'm working on an HtV campaign and I've stumbled on an idea I quite like. Games like Until Dawn and the Quarry have these end-of-chapter scenes where a supernatural figure interviews the player (it's revealed they're interviewing a character in the game eventually) and asks them questions about what happened so far, and their hopes for the future. It gives the player some vague warnings etc but serves as a shell story to frame the actual events of the game.

I'd like to do this with a Slasher campaign. The PCs will individually be interrogated throughout the course of the campaign by someone who's more than they seem. They're an ally with a motivation of their own, but they have a vested interest in the PCs success. My current plan is to use a Demon (of the Descent variety). It wants to live in a quiet and safe town and avoid undue attention, but there's the Slasher-uptick and it wants to help the PCs deal with it. Does that work, or would it be better to have them be some Witch or something with a similar motivation? There's only one Vampire in town and they're a Neglatu hiding out from a pack of Amaranthine Cats who've carved a bloody path through the nightlife. I also debated using a Slasher themselves (there's a Genius at the centre of it all) but I worry that that might be too immediately obvious to the players.

I'm going to the Goblin Market to buy some slaves.
You guys need anything?

>>95845036
>Does that work, or would it be better to have them be some Witch or something with a similar motivation?
Come up with a handful of things and then just let it go and adapt as the players move.

Go to town making it obvious that this guy is human and normal, too. Describe how he groans as he stands up and pops his back, or how he does some really fucking inhuman things like eats open faced tomato sauce sandwiches with a big fat stupid grin or whatever. Maybe he's got some fucking foul cologne, the sort of thing only retards wear. Jiggles his foot, whatever. The sort of thing you'd see from a blatant bureaucrat who really doesn't give a shit - he's just checking a box. Then you can have him unfold into a turbovampirewitch whatever. As long as the players have something to fixate on - he's an FBI agent! - they won't look much deeper.

>>95839912
The fact that Werewolves are basically retarded druids that have explosive anger issues that fight made-up gods that make no sense and use a chinese temu equivalent of cultural spirits and monsters.

They're literally nothing like the werewolves of myth outside of being able to transform into wolves.

>>95846075
>chinese temu equivalent
China didn't invent this. Every culture had local/family spirits and deities below the big boys. Europe included.
It's just not brought up much because europe was christianized in the late roman period, so most of that folk culture got lost or was purposefully re-written thanks to overzealous monks.

>>95846075
And what is the Werewolves of the myths? The cursed dudes who transform into a wolf once a month? The twilight style tribes of shapeshifters? Harry Potter style diseased ones who transform once a month?

Do you also want medieval style Smaug in the Lord of the Rings or D&D? Size of a horse?

>>95846229
>The giant, 12 foot tall knight that barely fits on his war horse slays the dog-sized dragon

>>95845735
I’ll need 3 fiddy

>>95846075
I dunno man, I just want to kill poachers as a 9 foot wolfman

>>95846415
...in WoD, right?

On the topic of unofficial WoD games (and werewolves),
https://youtu.be/M0GCr2P9510

Any advice for running a War for Chicago game? By its nature it’s one of the more crossover heavy plot points.

>>95839912
Vampires.

The canonical Noddism is such retarded bullshit, it's ridiculous. Generations and Antediluvians are such an absurdly retarded concept that it beggars belief that the setting still exists. The idea that the Masquerade is still intact after the Camarilla, Sabbat and Anarchs all fuck things up with their retarded structures and traditions is mind-bogglingly retarded. Vampire the Masquerade has such little attachment to the traditional folklore of vampires at this point that it beggars belief. The entire setting is so myopic and self-referential that it's retarded and loses sight of what vampires actually are in legends and mythology outside of the setting.

>>95846075
The Garou are everything you could want out of the werewolf myth, there's nothing missing. The writers just gave you something to do on top of that. Playing solitary serial killers who have no control over the wolf part of things wouldn't last more than a one-shot. Just play Mafia instead to scratch that itch.

>>95846941
You should definitely keep posting this every thread and also shill your shitty homebrew version of vtr.

>>95846595
I plead the 5th

>>95844983
Allow me to clarify, I'm not saying that Methuselah (or any great intellect) can't have plans ruined by unseen factors. The issue is that for the deep keikaku jyhad Anon was mentioning, it's very easy to make a simple mistake that undermines the fantasy and causes players to be skeptical during the big reveal. Especially when such characters are supposed to have superhuman intellects beyond mortal means.

You shouldn't create characters, goals, and endgames post-hoc. Not if you can help it. But it's far safer to work backwards when figuring out what intrigues have been occuring. Don't make it nonsense "mwahaha the Sabbat diablerizing my grandchilde the primogen was all a part of my master plan" stuff, of course. Find reasonable angles to retroactively incorporate to a fixed character and their goals.

>>95845036
Whatever sort of creature you want to make him, do your best to give the PCs a reason to go along with his stuff and don't try to force the framing device if they are skeptical of him and don't want to play ball.

>>95844897
Not a good idea. Literally everyone will want to take it off her, even if it's not to steal the skin...

>>95844911
>the only way a Mage can reverse it is with like Arete 9
This is paradigm and effect dependant. You'd only need arete 9 if you're doing something crazy, like curing All vampires in the world.

>hermetics
>have special hermetic names that hide their identity
>as above, so below. world is divided into a perfect spiritual world and a material world
>use long incantations in special magical languages

>virtual adepts
>use usernames to hide their identities
>world is divided into the digital world at the "center" and the material on the "surface"
>use programs written in programming languages

>>95846075
While I do agree with you that the Garou do not pass the vibe check, making an actual Werewolf game is quite difficult. Most myth/folklore lycanthropes aren't a well defined thing, it's more of a magical ritual than a type of being. So most of your folklore werewolves would be covered by Mage/Sorcerer and to a much lesser extent Vampire. Sure VtM's vampires are ultimately derivative of the modern hybridized vampire, but almost every culture has a form of intelligent undead that feeds on the life force of the living to sustain itself. Vampire describes a type of entity. Werewolf describes a power.

So then you're left with the modern conception of Werewolves to work with. And it's impossible to make a game where all your powers come from a conditional state that requires loss of control and memory enjoyable for more than a few sessions of play.

Theiss of Kaltenbrun but with generic animism replacing christianity is certainly not my idea of what a Werewolf game should be. However, it's hard to conceive of a folklore or pop-culture accurate lycanthrope worth making an entire game around. Perhaps if the scope were broader and focused on multiple kinds of shapeshifters you could swing something, but then you risk stepping on Fae toes.

>>95846198
Anon, he's not saying animism is Chinese, he's saying WtA's animism is inauthentic and a knock-off.

>>95847300
>use usernames to hide their identities
That also have no magical significance and provide no actual protection. You have a point, but WW played favorites and implicitly made the hermetics more correct by giving their paradigm actual mechanical benefits(true names, lower difficulties vs angels/demons, resistance to sympathetic magic) while putting penalties on the VA paradigm(weakness to quiet).

>>95847394
>he's saying WtA's animism is inauthentic and a knock-off.
It's not a knock-off of chinese mythology though? It's a knock off of hindu mythology. Anon's comparison doesn't make sense in either context.

>>95847421
>implicitly made the hermetics more correct
Based.

>>95847432
NTA but I think that by "chinese temu" the other anon is saying "cheap knockoff" of a multitude of animist myth

>>95847421
This really fucking gets me. In multiple books they harp on it being impossible for mages to use static magic, but the turn around and give various traditions paradigm-dependant static magic abilities in their tradition books.
Which is it? Can mages access static magic or not? Is it based on paradigm? Can a verbena ignore Blood Treachery and be ghouled at no consequence?

>>95847510
>Is it based on paradigm?
This, but it's dependent on the paradigm of the current writer instead of the player.

>>95845735
I ran out of Sprote and Gold Nuggets, if you need something I have a couple bricks.

>>95847432
What >>95847477 said. Nobody is talking about actual China here. Have you never heard the term "chinese knockoff" before?

>>95846198
>>95847432
Has anyone noticed that reading comprehension in these threads is getting significantly worse in some posts?

>>95846229
>Do you also want medieval style Smaug in the Lord of the Rings or D&D? Size of a horse?
Don't be reductive and retarded.

>>95846980
>there's nothing missing
There's a ton of shit missing, you can't even do the basic thing that werewolves do in almost every myth: Make more via a cursed bite or some baneful rite.

>>95847394
The problem is more that they deviated so far from "actual" werewolves that we arrived at something that's closer to a fantasy archetype than a horror archetype. All the horror in Werewolf is basically Gen X fearmongering about global warming and bat-shit retarded use of cultural beliefs that's thinly spread over a trio of deities that no one in setting knows of or talks about outside of WtA. It's fine to play, but it's always blown me away how completely out of left field the splat is, even the naming conventions are awful.

>>95847647
Anon, every splat has its own cosmology that is rarely acknowledged outside of that splat, and even when it is, it typically has very little bearing on the cosmology of other splats.

No one but vampires give a shit about Caine.

>>95847693
The difference is that Caine isn't an overt supernatural force that affects the cosmology of the planet on a daily basis.

>>95847647
>you can't even do the basic thing that werewolves do in almost every myth: Make more via a cursed bite or some baneful rite.
Anon, that's a fucking hollywood thing. WTA werewolves actually got that one right. The only ways people become werewolves in mythology is being born one, turning yourself into one with magic, or being turned into one by a God. All three of those things are already in WtA.

>>95847710
Except Caine's existence requires God's existence and God is very much an overt supernatural force.

>>95847647
I think that on paper WtA has some good horror angles. Ancient and mad archetypal gods tearing reality apart. Inheriting a doomed world from fuck-up ancestors. An evil megacorp making beer that causes you to beat your wife.

The issue is that the execution is utterly lacking. The Garou aren't typically challenged in their understanding of the cosmology, they are treated as more or less having an accurate understanding of things which undermines a lot of the horror that could come from the triat. Garou failure typically comes from their own ineptitude, rather than the formidable nature of their enemy. It really wants to be a more conventional action game wearing the skin of horror.

Also, agreed on Werewolf setting precepts making cross-splat into a mess. It's not purely WtA's fault, even if it started the trend, very few of these games actually fit together well. They were made up as the writers went along, and virtually no effort was put into making things fit. It is what it is.

>>95847773
God's existence with regard to Caine relies on God being God and Caine being Caine.

>>95847798
>Garou failure typically comes from their own ineptitude, rather than the formidable nature of their enemy.
I mean, it comes from both. People have a bad habit of over-exaggerating Garou incompetency because it's funny to meme on the retarded werewolves, and downplaying the threats that they face because all of attention gets given to the goofy demon burgers and wife-beater beer.

In NWoD, you get a density of like 1 supernatural per 2000 people or that jazz. Plus 3 lesser templates hanging on when averaged out.

I tend to split them up into 4 bunches
The main focus of the chronicle the 50% of the supernaturals.
The lesser thread the 25%, and the two random groups for spicing things up at 12.5% each.

>>95847757
>that's a fucking hollywood thing
Most of WoD is a hollywood thing. Not that it matters because WtA doesn't adhere to ANY actual legends about werewolves and what they did, outside of transformations.

>>95847773
And every splat talks about God, to the point that it's a largely Abrahamic setting, where God definitively exists even in splats that don't follow typical (or any) Christian concepts.

>>95847798
This really does hit the nail on the head with a lot of its problems. At the very least there could be questions on what exactly the Werewolf's place in the world is, but instead their place is definitive via an extra-planar source and the ability to just sniff it out with ease. This would be like if Vampires just knew Caine existed on a fundamental level, and if they didn't, they could just commune with him to figure out their purpose.

Instead the conflict is an entirely fictional contrivance outside of the character of an individual: There's a deity that's gone crazy and manipulates capitalism to also be a comically evil, and it's all the Garou's job to stop it, but they can't, not because the Wyrm is extremely clever or powerful, because they're extremely bad at it.

>>95847757
Only the "being born as one" is in the splt, though. Unless you count using dynamic magic or sorcery to give yourself a crinos form, the only way to become a garou if you're not one is to kill 5 garou and use their skins on a ritual that leaves you permanently Wyrm tainted.

Hell, you can't even become kinfolk unless you're a 10 dot hippie and happen to run into a Children of Gaia woof who happens to be a level 5 theurge

>>95842551
I like to think of PCs as wildcards in the goings of the world so no matter what they do, it's some elder's plan

E.g. "prince from clan A descended from Metuselah 1 has had control of X city for 300 years since its foundation, but this is only because [player faction] allows it as long as he is amiable to local clan B, which through rumors is looking for the grave of torporing metuselah 2 to devour. They're unknowingly unearthing torporing Metuselah 1 because of disinfo from Metuselah 2's pawns.

Prince A is sick of [player faction] bossing him around so he sends PCs to fuck with the construction of a shopping mall that is a cover for clan B's research. Do they sabotage the mall succesfully? Keikaku from Metuselah 1. Do the PCs decide to instead sabotage the prince and allow the mall? Keikaku from Metuselah 2. While the kindred above dream of power moves, diablerie, political influence and riches, the oldest of them hold much darker and sinister motives:

This all stems from Metuselah 1 making a mean comment to Metuselah 2's theater play back in ancient greece, so now Metuselah 2 wants torporing Metuselah 1's grave to have constantly leaking piss and noise through the sewage pipes from the mall's Pentex sponsored Chuck-E-Cheese.

>>95847925
You're forgetting alchemy anon, the rite also only wyrm-taints you if the pelts are taken from unwilling donors. A tribe could absolutely begin a tradition of donating their skins when they fall in battle and ritually promoting the best of their kinfolk without any kind of issues(becoming like space marines with gene-seed).
I believe the "God/Incarnae turns you into a werewolf" happens to an NPC in one of the novels/rage books

>>95847905
>And every splat talks about God
Werewolf, Changeling, and Mage would like a word.

>>95847905
>but instead their place is definitive via an extra-planar source and the ability to just sniff it out with ease.
I think you'd be shocked by just how difficult this is for werewolves, not because werewolves are retarded, but because it's genuinely difficult to ascertain the spiritual nature of so many things in the setting. All of the Sense gifts are notoriously unreliable and werewolves who just act on whatever the Sense gifts tell that are lampooned as idiots by the official material.

>>95848045
>Werewolf
He's a powerful Celestine that definitely exists and is acknowledged by many spirits. They just think he's uninvolved in the current era compared to other cosmic powers.

>Changeling
A muse that's incredibly important, but they're not involved with. Whether he's real or not is inconsequential. So you're technically right here.

>Mage
The One is God. Many Mages also have musings that awakening requires a spark of divine power from Him.

>>95848031
Where's the alchemy-werewolf from? I remember seeing another anon mention it in a previous thread but haven't come across it yet

>>95847859
I think this perception is actually downwind from the WtA playerbase itself. In my experience, it's very common to see discussions of how player character plausible Garou can get like 25 dice to combat pools and how a reasonably built pack can kill anything and everything. When that is a reasonably achievable level of ability, the Garou must be extremely inept at everything else in order to be losing as badly as they are.

>>95847905
Do you have any thoughts on Forsaken? There are still aspects of it I'm not a fan of, but I think it was a step in the right direction making Werewolves feel more like Werewolves. Warform being difficult to maintain for long without completely succumbing to rage, rising primal urge coming with drawbacks, people can even become wolf-blooded from prolonged or intense exposure to werewolves and lunacy (renamed delirium). Heck there's a 2e gift that lets you bite someone to make them into Lon Cheney Wolfman style werewolves.

>>95848145
>He's a powerful Celestine
The christian god was demoted to just being an incarnae known as "The Patriarch" in werewolf. He works for the Weaver
>The One is God
A shit ton of choristers will laugh in your face if try to say this.

>>95848148
Sorcerer revised. Alchemy 6 lets you turn anything into anything else south of a God. Can't do changelings or demon for some reason though. Also technically can't do ghosts, but turning someone into a ghost is rather straightforward.

>>95848198
I think that perception is born out of a lack of familiarity with the sorts of threats that werewolves have to face, or how numerous they are. At such a power level, a pack like that can be expect to be thrown into the belly of the beast, into absolute hellholes where nexus crawlers and wyrmholes are a dime a dozen.

>>95848350
That you presuppose one should be throwing a well optimized pack note: I've seen people in this very thread talk about how easy it is to make world-beater werewolves of that caliber. directly into the gaping maw of the wyrm itself is why the perception is so common. The Garou nation has been fighting Pentex for over a century and hasn't adapted its tactics outside of a few camps.

Even if it is a misconception, it's a very reasonable one to have. The books will often talk about how violence alone doesn't work and how you can't defeat Pentex with tooth and claw, but then every premade adventure will involve constant fighting. In an attempt to sell the bleak, end is nigh conceit, the Garou have be losing, and rather severely. When many NPCs fall into the "belligerent idiot" stereotype and Werewolf victories don't actually stop their enemy, it's very difficult to see them as anything other than inept.

>>95848259
Just checked the book and the 6 dot alchemy only mentions vampires and awakening people as mages, but I could see a "turn into werewolf" potion being a thing. The interesting part is:

>werewolves can learn sorcery paths, including alchemy

I know asking for consistency in any splat (and especially if it involves multiple ones) from WW is too much, but how come no garou or kinfolk thought of figuring out how to make said werewolf potion? Even if it took forever to make, it's still a way to boost their numbers

>>95848580
>Just checked the book and the 6 dot alchemy only mentions
Anon, it's the difference between an inclusive and exclusive list.alchemy 6 can do more than what's listed and the examples are to show possible abilities.
>werewolves can learn sorcery paths, including alchemy
So can vampires. A tremere vampire could technically brew a potion of awakening if they have the merit that lets them take sorcery paths.
The werewolf sorcery is also gated behind a merit. Unless you're bastet or kitsune, they're actually Expected to know sorcery.
>how come no garou or kinfolk thought of figuring out how to make said werewolf potion?
These are the same factions that thought slaughtering their own allies during a metaphysical War was a good idea. Werewolves are not known for thinking skills and should have left that job to the Mokole like Gaia intended.

>>95848563
Fighting isn't enough but fighting is also necessary. For every pack taking the fight to the Wyrm and hunting Banes that would cause all sorts of carnage if left unchecked, there needs to be a pack focused on healing the wounds inflicted on Gaia before they fester and give birth to more Banes.
And if a group is making a pack that is optimised for combat, then that group is best suited to fighting the servants of the Wyrm in the places where the Wyrm is the strongest, or where Gaia is suffering the most. It also makes the most sense from a meta-perspective, since it would be pretty shitty of an ST to force a group that is clearly focused on combat to focus instead on the "violence doesn't solve everything" half of Werewolf.
Fighting in the Amazon War and mowing down legions of Scrags in an effort to slow the deforestation is a perfectly acceptable way to play the game and if werewolves didn't do shit like that, the Wyrm would have already won. Yes, too many werewolves exclusively on that sort of problem-solving and that's one of the many reasons why they're losing, but that doesn't mean that fighting the Wyrm is unnecessary, or that it's easy.

>>95848236
The problem with both of those is that their alternative explanations make no sense even in the context of their own cosmology. It's like they're both trying really hard to contrive bullshit reasons why God doesn't matter, but the setting is wholly defined by all the concepts associated with Him and not their own nonsense.

>>95848786
I wasn't even remotely suggesting they shouldn't fight. My point is that Werewolf's books and players tend to reinforce the very stereotypes that lead to the common "lmao these guys are idiots" take.

>>95847798
>>95847905
But you're both just fucking wrong. The main theme of WtA is that the Garou are sure about everything, but really know nothing. They don't even know or have a consensus on what the Apocalypse is. They believe that they have a divine mandate and purpose, but the existence of the BSD disproves that, since they are Garou that also believe they're doing what Gaia wants them to by serving the Wyrm. And as for Gaia, they don't really know what she is either, or if she is an actual being beyond just being the sum-total of everything. The Garou don't have an incompetency problem, they are just fighting the wrong war. You can't punch the cosmic conception of Entropy and it do anything. The game knows this, I guess the writers were too hopeful that the audience would be smart enough to know that too. But I know your real problem is that you've never actually read any of the books or tried to seriously engage with it. Your entire knowledge of the setting comes from shit posts from this general.

>>95848823
Anon, No they aren't. Each splat has their own individual and incompatible cosmology. Vampire, Wraith, and Demon have zero say in how other splats work.

>>95848849
How does a bunch of werewolves who leap into the screaming maw of the wyrm saying the wyrm is good actually seriously undermine the Garou's worldview? Could you post actual sources to back up your claims about how Werewolf is actually very mysterious? Apologies if this sounds rude, but you seem to be quite angry and that makes it hard for me to take your claims based on good faith alone.

>>95848945
The problem is:

>White Wolf: gives each splat a complex cosmology that is nigh impossible to work together with each other without jury rigging and recommends that each individual splat is treated as an independent setting
Also White Wolf: sets up the status quo of all splats with a single megacrossover event and semiregularly mentions supernaturals treading on each others' storylines (Sam Haight, Tremere being former hermeticists, vampires in Pentex)

It's been a source of frustration to a fair few people here that WoD refuses to sitck with one approach or the other to the setting at large

My buddies and I are playing werewolf 20 (we’re all first time players minus the GM for context). I’m still on my first character (ahroun) and I put a bunch of points in my background to get a jarlhammer (sounded cool and strong). I presume because he doesn’t know how to deal with my strong weapon (all he’s really said is fuck you) he’s decided to give me the same penalties as the klaive and minus 2 gnosis (even though it specifically says its pure silver vs silver-laced iron). Should I just forgo using my hammer if he’s just going to fuck me over for having a good weapon?

>>95848839
I said all of that to explain why the fighting of pre-made adventures is perfectly in line with the themes of Werewolf the Apocalypse. Even if there is more to saving Gaia than fighting, fighting is still a very necessary and important part of stopping the Apocalypse, hence the focus on it in official material.
As for using the actions of players to justify takes, should I view Vampire the Masquerade as a combat-focused game because of the masses of idiots who chuckle about how they can abuse Celerity to make the combat system their bitch? Or should I just see them as white-room faggots who aren't representative of what the game is about? I think the latter makes more sense than the former.
It's okay to think that werewolves are idiots, their fumbling of the situation is an important part of Werewolf the Apocalypse. However, a lot of people have a habit of exaggerating this to the point where "werewolves are retarded" dominates any discussion of Werewolf the Apocalypse and overlook other aspects of the setting. In this thread alone, I've had to explain that werewolves are losing not just because they're incompetent, but because they face dangerous and numerous foes, among other reasons. That's how little some people understand the setting.
>>95848972
>Apologies if this sounds rude, but you seem to be quite angry and that makes it hard for me to take your claims based on good faith alone.
Not that anon, but there's no need for a tone argument, someone can still be rational while being angry. Thinking less of someone's statement because of your perception of their mood is fallacious behaviour.
As for why the Black Spiral Dancers undermine the Garou Nation, their worship of the Balance Wyrm as an equalising force and their desire to remake Gaia by freeing the Wyrm has some logic behind it that is actually supported by the Time of Judgement book. The Garou Nation's perception of the Wyrm as the ultimate evil isn't necessarily objectively correct.

>>95849094
A jarlhammer is a big, big deal. Which one did you go with? Have you done anything to make your ST penalise you like this, or did he apply it as soon as you picked the jarlhammer?
I wouldn't forgo using it, it's going to be one of the most interesting things about your character and a great hook for your ST. See if you can talk to him about your character eventually earning the respect of the spirits within it and losing the gnosis penalty, maybe?

>>95849280
He decided it now in the aftermath of our latest session. It’s been a learning process for all involved. Like I didn't realize I was also supposed to roll Gnosis to activate it. This is in the aftermath of the latest session. The party went off to fight some FBI agents (its a long story, but the GM is implementing silver weaponry/damage), I didn't come with because it was a bad idea, and the alpha didn't ask me to come with.

>>95849354
Also I picked up troll eater it sounded really good for big damage.

>>95849354
>>95849365
This isn't just a weapon, it's an important, legendary ancestral heirloom, one of seven in the world. Knowledgeable werewolves who see your Ahroun with the jarlhammer are going to be very interested in learning where he got it from. Fighting without it or leaving it behind could be taken as an affront by other Get of Fenris.
Or is the ST ignoring the lore surrounding jarlhammers?

>>95849150
>As for using the actions of players to justify takes, should I view Vampire the Masquerade as a combat-focused game because of the masses of idiots who chuckle about how they can abuse Celerity to make the combat system their bitch?

No. But you shouldn't be surprised when people get that impression. I had a friend completely bounce off of VtM the first time he tried to run it because one player made a super optimized city gangrel celerity+agg blender. I restate my point. Even if it's a misconception, oversimplification, exaggeration, or all three, it's understandable why it exists. Cancerous D&D5e players poison a lot of people's views on what is otherwise a solid gateway RPG that is easy to pick up and play. I also think there's a big issue in making the statement of
>who aren't representative of what the game is about?

Don't get me wrong, I get it. I roll my eyes whenever I see someone reduce VtM to "vampire mafia". However, the mindset that there is a right and a wrong way to play a game leads to WoD5's "one way to play this" mindset, which I would assume we agree has produced subpar games. Ultimately, the kind of retards who enjoy that stuff have a right to enjoy that stuff. When they become a loud group that influences public opinion, it's annoying but hardly surprising.

I'm not telling Werewolf players to not play Werewolf. You guys knock yourself out. I got involved with this discussion just because I wanted to give my two cents as to why Werewolf doesn't really work for me, in a positive way, with no intention of being inflammatory. My point on the ineptitude is that, as someone who read a couple of Werewolf books and did not find them to my liking, that is how they came off to me. That and what I typically see posted.

>>95849398
Like I said I picked it up in character creation. We haven’t gotten too deep into lorestuff because all of us but him are first time players. I think he’s mainly penalizing me because I have this powerful item at rank 1. I want to keep using it cause it’s a really cool item, but my gnosis is piss poor (I have 4 the penalty would make it 2) which makes activating it harder.

>>95845735
Some Looking Glasses.
Making an alt way into Arcadia.

>>95849400
The first half of your post focuses on the importance of impressions, so I hope you understand why people who like Werewolf the Apocalypse might object to people giving their "two cents" in a way that seems somewhat uninformed and exaggerated. Opinions such as yours give people a negative impression of the game that we like, which would be perfectly fine if I thought that all of your point were reasonable. However, I disagree with some of the points that you have raised and I argue against them, in order to minimise the negative impression of the game that I like, as I think Werewolf the Apocalypse is one of the better World of Darkness games and I'd like more people to try and enjoy it.
In particular, I believe that you focus too much on the ineptitude of the Garou and exaggerate it, and I believe that you are incorrect in your evaluation of how definitive and objective the Garou Nation's interpretation of the setting is. In fact, rigid adherence to this interpretation is one of the core failings of the Garou Nation, as they would have a better chance of stopping the Apocalypse if they weren't so certain that they had an "accurate understanding of things" and that "their place is definitive." Yet their perspective isn't entirely baseless, as the Wyrm is undeniably a great threat to Gaia that does need to be dealt with, even if their interpretation is flawed, and so far, they have kept the Wyrm from bringing about the Apocalypse.
Werewolves do get shit wrong and they do need to improve. That's a part of the setting and you're allowed to not like it. However, I ask that people are reasonable about it and don't get hyperbolic with statements like "the Garou fail at stopping the Wyrm not because the Wyrm is extremely clever or powerful, but because they're extremely bad at it," because it might give people an impression of the game founded on misconceptions.

How would one build an espada from bleach? Something like Ulquiorra?

>>95847647
Anon, most VTM Vampires aren't even near Vampire myths. Mages are also doing their thing with fancy dressing of different cultures and beliefs.
Demon the Fallen is similarly uses Christianity/Abrahamic religion as the base but not much else. Mummies are definitely not like their RL counterparts.

You just want the setting closer to your definition, that's it.

>>95849837
I can certainly understand why people get annoyed by criticism of something they like, however I often feel like you can't criticize something here without inciting a half thread-long debate or posts discussing one's gross offense at reading a contrary opinion. "If all your points were reasonable" is rather subjective and anyone could claim any criticism is unreasonable or ill-informed.

I believe you are seeing my statements as more extreme than they are. "More or less having an accurate understanding of things" is not an exaggeration. The Wyrm is mad, an existential threat. The Weaver is also a major threat, but far less pressing of one. They understand the Umbra fairly well, and understand that reality itself is unbalanced. I would liken their understanding to Newtonian Physics. It isn't perfect, but it works in practice most of the time. Their issues are in their inflexibility and adherence to a strict doctrine that is no longer functional. My use of "extremely inept" in the post about how WtA players exacerbate this image refers to the tendency for these mechanical flexes to cause the "dumb idiot brute" angle to be quite visible to any outsider looking in. When speaking on the setting itself I said "Garou failure typically comes from their own ineptitude, rather than the formidable nature of their enemy." While it may be unfair to blame modern Garou for the actions of their ancestors, they did attempt genocide on all their potential natural allies. They often mistreat kinfolk, the logistical backbone of their operation. They even continue to infight on the very eve of the apocalypse. While battle is necessary, they also routinely neglect other forms of resolution. Their enemy is formidable, but it often feels as if the Garou are the cause of their defeat far more often than the Wyrm.

I do not consider my statements to be hyperbolic, and I am happy to hear criticisms of games I play, even if I think they're flat on their face wrong.

>>95848580
>I know asking for consistency in any splat (and especially if it involves multiple ones) from WW is too much, but how come no garou or kinfolk thought of figuring out how to make said werewolf potion? Even if it took forever to make, it's still a way to boost their numbers

Garous are extremely prideful and 90 to 99% of them would never accept that any kinfolk be promoted to a full garou. Most are even offended at the idea that kinfolk should fight too. Only in the most dire circumstances would it happen for most tribes, and if it did happen and said kinfolk manage to survive they would receive a pittance of temporary renown. Renown that is quick to be taken away with garous all to eager to strip them off the kinfolk all to strike their own egos.

The potion would have to be taken in secret, and even then it’s not safe.

When did bots take over this general?

>>95850260
Is ChatGPT in the room with us right now, Anon?

>>95850208
>"If all your points were reasonable" is rather subjective and anyone could claim any criticism is unreasonable or ill-informed.
Well, yes. People are free to have opinions, and people are free to have opinions about opinions. You're welcome to have an opinion about my opinion about your opinion too, it's how discourse works.
>I would liken their understanding to Newtonian Physics. It isn't perfect, but it works in practice most of the time.
Not necessarily. For example, the Weaver is not necessarily the less pressing threat, even if she isn't actively attacking the Garou Nation. Their understanding of the Umbra isn't as concrete as they think either, as they often fail at determining the true nature of certain spirits. The Patriarch mentioned above is one example of this.
>they did attempt genocide on all their potential natural allies.
This is due to manipulation by the agents of the Wyrm.
>They often mistreat kinfolk, the logistical backbone of their operation.
This falls under the "overzealous and misguided approach to necessity" angle. Kinfolk are vital to the continued existence of the Garou Nation and do need to be managed and protected, but they fuck up in the process.
>They even continue to infight on the very eve of the apocalypse.
Every tribe brings something valid and necessary to the table, they're just particularly overzealous about it, as Garou are wont to be.
>While battle is necessary, they also routinely neglect other forms of resolution.
Not all of them, and there are a few who lean too far in the other direction.
>it often feels as if the Garou are the cause of their defeat far more often than the Wyrm.
I consider this feeling incorrect and based on an underselling of the Wyrm and its servants. Even if the Garou fixed themselves up and operated in an objectively optimal fashion, the deck's stacked against them. I continue to believe that you place too much importance on the ineptitude of the Garou.

>>95850470
>>they did attempt genocide on all their potential natural allies.
>This is due to manipulation by the agents of the Wyrm.

lmao. lol.

>>95850470
>You're welcome to have an opinion about my opinion about your opinion too, it's how discourse works.
>I continue to believe that you place too much importance on the ineptitude of the Garou.

Well then I think it's fair to say we're at a point where there isn't anything new to say, and I'd rather spare the thread us arguing the same points until the thread hits autosage.

>>95850026
Just build a high xp Wraith or Spirit.

>>95850535
The most detailed account of the War of Rage that we have comes from the Nagah, who have records of one of their own, an agent of the Wyrm, killing a Silver Fang prince and framing her own people for it, which caused a spiral of outrage and misunderstandings that led to the War of Rage. It was undeniably orchestrated by the Wyrm.
While they could have handled it a lot better, you can't blame the Garou exclusively for the war, when the Wyrm successfully made the rest of the Fera look like a bunch of back-stabbing cunts ganging up on the Garou.

>>95850563
What if I want to play an Espada? And can wraith even throw ceros?

What about resurrecciòn? So far the only splat that I know who transforms into a super form is either werewolf with crinos, or demon with apocalyptic forms. I haven’t seen anyone play demon.

>>95850692
You can take the Kuei Jin's demon arts, Fomorian traits and other shit from WtA.
If you just can't be bothered to translate shit, play an ExWoD Abyssal. The document is in the first Mega in the OP >>95839907 (OP)

>>95850692
>What if I want to play an Espada?
Exotic Spectre
>And can wraith even throw ceros?
Give them a far-shore variant of Outrage
>What about resurrecciòn?
Variant Moliate
>So far the only splat that I know who transforms into a super form is either werewolf with crinos, or demon with apocalyptic forms.
Wraith allows you to make up your own variants of Arcanoi and combine them into more powerful variants as tempers. You can literally replicate everything in bleach using the listed mechanics

Unless you're playing Wraith20, in which case the game takes a dump on you and demands you thank it for the effort.

>>95850782
You don't need to homebrew a new splat. Wraith 2nd literally lets you do this shit as a default. IT doesn't even conflict with any lore because Far Shores are a thing. Bleach could 100% happen in WoD and it'd fit right into the lore.

>>95850820
>You don't need to homebrew a new splat.
Probably, i just don't remember shit about Wraith's powers.

>>95848690
>if they have the merit that lets them take sorcery paths.
Where can I find that merit?

>>95850311
Yes, and it reviews all of my posts before allowing me to send them, and it's got a gun pointed to my head. It sucks, man.

>>95850900
The Wolves of the Sea book. Also has a vampire with enchantment 6 if I'm remembering correctly.

>>95850820
>You don't need to homebrew a new splat.
You don't need to homebrew to put KotE disciplines on another splat. The Yama Kings can do that for literally anyone. It'd be hard to justify/work infernalism into replicating bleach-lite story though.

>>95850969
Unfortunately, rune wise doesn't allow one to buy Alchemy.

>>95850993
>It'd be hard to justify/work infernalism into replicating bleach-lite story though.
Just say a Wraith elder developed the same powers

>>95851057
Oh whoops, I got it mixed up with the WtA merit then.

>>95851064
>Wraith elder
Wraiths don't have elders. Even charon was capped at Arcanoi 5.

>>95851164
Does that allow dogboys to learn alchemy?

>>95851187
Fair, but you could still have something with strange powers being discovered. Like how soulsteel was created by charon's buddy he found in the labyrinth.

>>95851164
Time of Thin Blood allows thin-blooded characters to learn hedge magic without restrictions, but they do it by transforming those paths into disciplines. A thin-blooded alchemist isn't learning the 6th dot unless they diablerize someone.
Funnily enough, the book allows any vampire to learn a discipline a thin-blood has "created", meaning anon's example tremere elder(>>95848690) could absolutely still learn mortal alchemy by blood-bonding a thin-blooded sex-slave to translate paths into disciplines.

>>95850782
I haven’t much knowledge on Kuei Jin besides surface level, memes and 1d4chan. I’ll have a hard time to figure things out… fomorian traits, I know that I read about those once, but I haven’t got a clue. Isn’t it like a 1:1 of vampire infernal pacts with extra freebie points?

>>95850799
Can you even play as a spectre? I was under the impression that it was like nephandi, maurauders, and other guys like that. Always NPCs and their mechanics aren’t for players and any ST wouldn’t allow it

Wraith too I severely lack knowledge. I think the theme of accepting one own’s end and in the best of cases moving on towards the unknown is too depressing for me.

>>95851406
>Can you even play as a spectre?
Dark Reflections: Spectre
>I was under the impression that it was like nephandi, maurauders, and other guys like that.
They are. There are rules for playing All of your examples. Nephandi/Marauder rules have been in the book od madness since 2nd edition(same edition the sabbat became playable).

>>95851406
>fomorian traits, I know that I read about those once, but I haven’t got a clue. Isn’t it like a 1:1 of vampire infernal pacts with extra freebie points?
No. Fomorians= another name for WtA Fomori. Their abilities come from bane possession, which doesn't happen to ghosty boys that don't have a body to possess.

>>95851406
Fomorian traits are just powers you add to the statblocks of possed people. They should be on the w20 corebook next to charms and other spirit powers.
If you need a cost just say it takes 3 freebie points or 20xp

>>95851441
There's also Changelings Fomorians, no relation. They are the things that existed before creation and are pissed that they can't just go back to non-being.

What's the highest you could get a Werewolf's soak?

>>95848690
>bastet can learn sorcery by default

Is that why Ascension's Right Hand put them as potential consors for almost all of the Traditions?

>>95851424
Really? I’ve been looking for weeks on rules for marauders because I was interested in making Shirou Emiya! I had zero hits on Reddit and other forums, and the search AI pretty much convinced me to give up.

Question: Hollows are spirits but they can interact with the living world, right? They can hurt people, destroy buildings, etc. Only thing is that they can’t be perceived by people without spiritual energy, and even that could be question with the hollow at the hospital Don Kanoji fought in the early parts. I think the public heard it… or was it just Ichigo’s friends?

So far my initial idea before asking in the thread was that an arrancar could be a wraith that managed to come back to life (or become a risen) and the soul reaper powers = getting a mage avatar

>>95851441
I know about the fomorian/fomori stuff, but thanks anyway

>>95851481
Is it just your interpretation or was it written somewhere? Perhaps if some traits could have equivalent in the infernal pacts there could be a way to calculate the freebie cost

>>95851574
Yes, and for sexual reasons too.

>>95851638
Both both the bastet tribe book and ascension's right hand worked Very hard to push bastet as sex-slaves. The tribe book had multiple common+tribe gifts that made bastet as breedable as possible and ARH was very angled toward fucking your consors.
Pic is official art.

>>95851619
>Is it just your interpretation or was it written somewhere?
I was a short hand solution. If you want the proper rules go read the Player's Guide to the Possesed or whatever W20 equivalent .

>>95851619
>So far my initial idea before asking in the thread was that an arrancar could be a wraith that managed to come back to life (or become a risen) and the soul reaper powers = getting a mage avatar
Short answer: No
Long answer: Hell No
Mage books go to great pains to make it clear that 1. A mages avatar is lost the moment they die and 2. other splats and True Magick don't mix, Period. Trying to make non-humans into mages typically Giguls them(destroys their soul).

>>95851669

>>95851619
>Hollows are spirits but they can interact with the living world, right? They can hurt people, destroy buildings, etc. Only thing is that they can’t be perceived by people without spiritual energy, and even that could be question with the hollow at the hospital Don Kanoji fought in the early parts. I think the public heard it… or was it just Ichigo’s friends?
First question, Yes. Wraiths can do that too by using arcanoi that fuck with the skinlands from the shadowlands(typically via Outrage). As long as they don't use the Embody arcanoi(manifests them in the living world) no one but a Medium(human with spiritual powers) can perceive them.
Second question, only ichigo's friends heard it.

>>95851638
Hot, desu

>>95851669
Tfw Gaia has carefully crafted you to be a sex slave for the other changing breeds

>>95851674
Will do, thanks for the suggestion
Hope I didn’t offend you. It’s already hard to have ST/DMs agree to anything not in the core books that they haven’t homebrew themselves. I was hoping that it could help my odds.

>>95851692
Dying kills the avatar, but if they’re back to life can they have their old one, or (if it already reincarnated) a new one? Since avatars can be destroyed, even tore into fragments split between multiple awakens, is it possible to create entirely new avatars?

>>95851728
I think you’d need Embody 5 if you would like to do like I described, right?

>>95851831
>Dying kills the avatar, but if they’re back to life can they have their old one
Nope already reincarnated and they don't get a new one. A mage that dies is Fucked.
The way to revive a mage with their magic intact require manipulating Time.

>>95851831
>Embody 5 if you would like to do like I described, right?
No, the opposite in fact. Embody manifests you physically in the skinlands in a way everyone can see. Think of it like how Fullbringers in bleach can make spiritual things "Real".
The "skinlands is normal material reality. Wraiths can innately travel to the shadowlands, which is the spiritual reflection that exists overlapping reality.
The bleach equivalent of the shadowlands is how ichigo, hollows, and ghosts are walking around phasing through matter in the manga, they're on the spiritual side of the normal world.
The other areas of wraith like stygia, the tempest, the labrynth, the far shores, etc. would be equivalent to soul society, hueco mundo, the quincy shadow, etc.

>>95851777
>Tfw Gaia has carefully crafted you to be a sex slave for the other changing breeds
And the Garou fucked it up in the war of rage. Now they bottom for the Mage traditions instead.

Anyone play any Deviant games recently? I'm thinking of trying to get some friends to try out the ST system using it. I feel like it has less baggage as an original thing rather than Mage or Vampire.

>>95851911
>tfw you god intervenes to make an entire race of eager sex-slaves, but your ancestors were so retarded they NTRed themselves and dragged your entire species down with them forever.

>>95849449
You shouldn't be having penalties, BUT by lore your character would be getting shit about everything unless he is spectacularly successful. A cliath having a Jarlhammer is like Kou Uraki in 0083 being the series's Gundam pilot, but there are even more higher-ranking figures than Monsha challenging you for the right to use it, because they're battle-tested veterans and you aren't, and there's more trust about their ability to use it better than in yours.

(Amuro managed to avoid a number of challenges because he played a min-maxed Newtype.)

>>95851325
Path Dancer. It was first an Older Brother thing, but the Bastet and Kitsune can also join in.

>>95851556
Depending on the roll, could be as high as 23 per soak Gift used (with a specialty and rolling all tens), but you're more likely to get somewhere from 5-10 soak per Gift from an optimized soak character (of which there are three). Some fetish armor can add on a few more dice, usually 3.

If you're playing a Mokole instead, you can get it even higher, though the one additional soak Gift that they can get over Garou is rather short-lived to make up for how they can load up on Stamina or natural armor from their Archid traits.

>>95851911
>Bottoming for the traditions
>But they were both bottoms!

>>95852409
>But they were both bottoms!
To be fair Hermetics are hard tops, but they're so incompetent at it that it's impossible to tell most of the time.
The other option is joining the technicrats and working a 9-to-5 so you can top a spidery goth-gf

>>95852481
>goth-gf
Personally, I welcome our bureaucratic overlords!

I've been trying to think of a way to transition LA from the By Night book to Bloodlines. I don't think anyone really disagrees that Bloodlines was a fantastic game and a really interesting way to have a city 'tabletop ready' (ie, full of hooks and seconds away from disaster) so I'm focusing on the transition of that to bloodlines, from the book setting of 1994 to an ending point around 2003. The Great Leap Forward is scattered around several books and I'll assemble a timeline later. What I'm hunting from you lot is some feedback on the transition and how it can be improved.

There's a few big problems with the 1994 to 2003 timeline. Before 1999 we've got Louis Fortier, the Crypt's Sons/Bloods war, the werewolves, the serial diablerists, the traitors, the kuei jin/ninja in little tokyo and Houghton. Post 1999 we've got approximately 4 years to show why the Anarchs and the Camarilla are somehow sort-of co-existing.

Werewolves. There's BSDs in Griffith Park (Corrupted caern, metis shock troops, skull pigs) and actual garou in the north and northwest, having massively fortified everything up there because there's a caern they don't want to lose. The uncorrupted ones plan to attack LA in the near future in revenge for a 1993 fire, specifically their leaders. So they do but fail, taking serious casualties. All their main targets are alive by 1999. They retreat to their fortress mountains and remain there, licking their wounds and keeping the BSD's off their lawn. The BSD's, for their part, are a constant threat. Their youth appear anywhere in LA at random (except for downtown, anyway) and hunt vampires as a rite of passage. This wears them down over time until 1999, until they act like the regular Garou and fort up in Griffith park around the corrupted caern. Over the next four years both sides focus on building their numbers and rites, fending off external challengers and each other.

>>95852481
You might be able to get close to some spidery goth-gfs (Sketin-Spiders), but some are the Unchanging (Drones, the Weaver's fomori) and utterly disinterested in you, and two thirds of the spidery goth-gfs are either trying to kill you (Kumoti) or spin a web around you to turn you into a disposible fomor shock troop (Hatar).

>>95852565
The easiest one is the ninja and the kuei jin that commands them: They just leave. Nobody knows why she turned up in the first place, so pretend she gets what she wants or runs afoul of a werewolf war party, BSD or regular at some point. No warning, no wind up. One night supernaturals in little tokyo just stop disappearing.

The serial diablerists in the hills are mostly just a relic of an older edition, so we'll say they're caught and slaughtered. Humanity 0 is a bit of a problem. They do take to hunting Fortier's friends, though.

Fortier runs most of west LA. He's got a small army of ghouls, a harem and sometimes makes more vampires to help feed the ghouls. He's personally fairly potent but nothing special. He takes a fair bit of damage in the werewolf incursion, losing the sabbat spy in his harem to them as well as lots of his baby vamps and ghouls controlling the area. He tries to recover, but this leads to him selling out to the KJ by 1999 anyway. A pissed off Anarch Elder kicks down the door and rips his head off and finishes his harem. The KJ play the world's smallest violin.

Salvador sells out to the KJ in 1999 to see Mohammad Al Muthlin of the Crypt's Sons killed off and the rest of his gang, but the bloods still exist. We'll say they had a 'hot' conflict - killings just keep increasing until 1999, but the Crypt's Sons go mask off and start shovelheading to keep their numbers up until Salvador whores himself to the KJ. The bloods are devastated, but form a core of vampire hunters that now menace LA's kindred. The surrounding baronies take chunks out of them in the wake of all this but can't hold their new land, especially with the KJ about. Salvador doesn't escape this time - he just vanishes quietly, MacNeil doing him in personally and keeping it quiet.

MacNeil is sent off by the secret Camarilla/KJ alliance as normal and continues hiding out of the free states.

>>95851878
So I assume that you can split off an avatar, destroy it, but can’t create a new one? Shame then.

>>95851902
But didn’t Ulquiorra and Yami steal the souls of civilians and made a huge crater in the real world? There would be a need to walk into the skinland for that, right?

I was so sure that the shadowlands were in the low umbra like the other stuff from wraith, in a completely different dimension instead of a single layer below.

>>95851911
This gives me harano

>>95852613
Then we come to the Great Leap outward. The Sabbat don't even *notice* them landing in Mexico, the usual wave of shovelheads just annihilating them. But in LA they start making waves and the war goes mostly as it's stated in the books. Everyone is demoralised for a few years, the week of nightmares really caps things off, the Camarilla are happily shit stirring. With the end of the war the Camarilla slide in, throwing a disposable prince who has pissed off plenty of people into the domain.

Now we have a depopulated domain - the west is almost completely vacant, the east have been slaughtered by the combined sabbat/KJ assaults. Ironically the surfer vampires probably fared the best - they're all pretty capable and there's a lot of them. They have no serious commercial interests. LaCroix is squatting in downtown with his shiny tower, prepared to defend his new domain to the last brujah. The KJ are still willing to fight to the last acolyte/chi-meh/whatever. Both of their actual soldiers are pretty unlikely to want to fight. Morale was already a problem before the week of nightmares.

Oh, and Houghton. Houghton died because his sire's elder hit squad finally found him. They fucked off immediately after.

>>95852654
So now we're at the start of 2000. LaCroix's got a handful of primogen who either turned on the anarchs or were imported from other cities, his gorilla guardian, a pile of liquid capital he's sinking into the city as fast as he can and almost no authority beyond the reach of his sheriff's sword. The primogen no doubt hate him, having been uprooted and placed in the city, the anarchs hate him, the sabbat are agitating and someone keeps sneaking werewolves into his tower.

The Anarchs have no real leader beyond ancillae veterans of the last 60 years of war, depleted numbers and a complete lack of any sort of remaining government structure, beyond even the minimal one supplied by the free states and their rants. With LaCroix in downtown, the previous barony of the angels (where all the vampires who were creative, clever or not interested in being a gang banger lived and are now all nominally Camarilla because nobody wants to fight them) in his hands, they have mostly veteran soldiers left and that's it.

The sabbat only have random war parties coming up from the south. They're done as an organised force for years, the listed bishop of this time is mostly trying to regain control.

>>95852684
Voerman into Santa Monica, the return of the Sabbat, the lack of real control by any faction over the city in general. We're at about 2000 here and I'm blank on where to go for the next few years. Suggestions?

I assume that the Venture Tower was actually under construction years beforehand, and this becomes a huge point of contention with the anarchs as evidence of the camarilla plot.

>>95852617
>There would be a need to walk into the skinland for that, right?
No. Ulqiorra and Yami weren't "in the skinlands" by wraith standards. They'd be seen by people without spiritual powers if they were.
The shadowlands and the skinlands exist in the same plane overlapping each other. The shadowlands is just the spiritual side of the real world and can see the real world.
Ulqiorra and co would just be using arcanoi from the shadowlands to affect the material world.
>I was so sure that the shadowlands were in the low umbra like the other stuff from wraith
Every umbra(high middle low) has a section that overlaps the real world.
When a werewolf enters the middle umbra for example, they start in the middle umbra that overlaps the real world, can see the real world(if a bit warped), and can interact with the real world using gifts.
Changelings do the same thing with the high umbra/dreaming
Wraith are the low umbra side.
To add to the confusion, none of the above interact with each other either. So the material world can be affected by 3 different "reflection" worlds that exist in the same place as the real world, and can see the real world, but from the other side of a differently flavored spiritual filter.
TL;DR: It's complicated. Embodying in the skinlands is equivalent to using a gigai in bleach.

>>95852578
>two thirds of the spidery goth-gfs are either trying to kill you
Luckily, those are not the ones that hang out with the tenchocrats according to the breed book.

>>95852759
All right I think I get it
Honestly a gigai factory sounds like a pretty sweet business to have. Or simply useful all around

>>95852851
>a gigai factory
For who? Most WoD wraith just need to learn Embody. It'd only be in the "Soul Society" far-shore where the embody arcanoi is rare.

reminder that the NWO considers psychic powers to be scientific

>>95847510
it's stupid as fuck because you're telling me that you could have 5 dots in every sorcerous path and the moment you awaken you can't even light a candle?

>>95853501
Sorcerers are the cheerleaders to the mages, not mages. And they need to be shown their fucking place. Brucatto says so.

>>95853606

>>95852771
How would you be able to tell? They're born to masterful poker faces and infiltrate and backstab each other all the time. Their only rule for keeping their feuds down to a dull roar is "Us against outsiders", as they will try to kill each other but if you butt in they'll both try to kill you.

Also they can eat brains and replace people. Good luck sleeping with that tidbit.

>>95850111
>Anon, most VTM Vampires aren't even near Vampire myths.
The basics of about 10 of the Clans are directly taken from myth and pop culture. Only the Lasombra, Tzim, and Salubri aren't based on some myth or trope. Compare that to Werewolves who are based on faux-shamanism and bat-shit uninformed cultural paganism.

>>95853668
LOOK UPON HIS WIZARD NIPPLES
>>95853675
Sort of puts the "a human eats ten spiders a year" bullshit factoid into perspective.

>>95853704

>>95853722

>>95853729
Motherfucker, I only made 3 before I got bored.

>>95853740
There is an unlimited amount of shirtless brucatto.

That's what ascension is. You become a shirtless brucatto.

>>95853748
>That's what ascension is.
The Tremere were right.

>>95853757
The vampires have golconda (and weirdly like half a dozen other methods of leaving their state from their antes, up to and including just fucking off out of the universe and coming back because all the other abyssal beings are being mean to you). The mages have ascension. Werewolves probably just tell god to square up and get to leave if he's impressed enough with them. The Tremere are just playing the percentages.

>>95853822
the Tremere became vamps because they are pussies that are afraid of death despite hermeticism containing a belief in reincarnation

>>95853887
Yeah, but you could be reborn in some shithole. Or as a girl(female).

Which changing breed is the most destructive on its own? Highest dice pools, biggest bang, whatever. The Gurahl have some weird shit.

>>95853931
That is only a problem if you are a weak willed maggot, a proper hermetic mage has such discipline and strength of will that they should have no problems overcoming such shortcomings

How much control do marauders really have? I was reading through the book of madness and it seems like they’re almost victims of their own realities and can’t really control anything. Are they even capable of properly using sphere magic?

>>95853983
Don't let the sadhana guy catch you.

Please explain the brucato hate to me.
I'm new to all this shit.

>>95854284
Calls himself Satyr but is afraid of Wicca, Occultists and Farmazons, he also never participated in a blood orgy despite the name

>>95854284
I don't think anyone actually cares enough to hate him, not really. He's more of a meme.

He's just a uniquely fucking strange person. Definitely a bit of a pedo, likes to write about young girls getting groomed by elderly 'uncles' and let's not forget that passage about father's thrusting cock. He is to Mage what Lucas is to Star Wars, but watered down. He doesn't have the same breadth of vision. He's responsible for some of the fun stuff, but the more influence given the worse it is. So much of M20 is just smug bullshit rather than gameplay advice, like "Write a wiki! Use the web! Don't order pizza, make a nine course feast for your table! Checking a table to see what a Nephandus aura looks like? Well tough shit, it's literally "wouldn't you like to know?"! Sorry, no rules for antagonists, because you might literally turn into a dark wizard! Also he changed his name to 'satyros' because he's a sex pest. Even his former co-workers lay into him. His personal blog was very funny because he's just a reddit poster, and his appearance on a sex podcast as a 'priest of passion' and the transcript is a mite odd.

tl;dr He's just smug and responsible for shitty product, that's all.

Alright so I read the entire Mage the Awakening 2e book in one go. I then read some of Signs of Sorcery. I've got too many questions to ask so instead I'll say it was pretty cool overall and was pretty confusing but reading through it one go was the right move.
It feels like in actual play crafting a spell with a new group of players is going to pause the entire game for the night while everyone figures out what sorts of spells the can make and what sort of modifiers everyone's getting from: what Yantras they can use, who's looking, what merits apply, what's the Reach, what's the Paradox ,and what Storyteller thinks. I'm sure if everyone figures this all out ahead of time and gets used to it, and uses Spells they ooc have memorized how they work it could even be fairly quick with the rolls but it still seems like it would be hard to run.
I also read some of the other books that did magical systems of various kinds, I wonder is there any sane way to work all these rules together that were written in various times and focuses without making a total mess of the attempt? Because I do intend to try but if anyone else has even thought about trying I'd be happy to use their ideas first.

>>95854554
>I wonder is there any sane way to work all these rules together that were written in various times and focuses without making a total mess of the attempt?
no

Best bet is to have the spell tables ready and assume that every player is going to use investigative spells willy nilly.

>>95854554
The power fantasy of Mage the Awakening is that system mastery is everything. Every obstacle can be overcome if you are smart enough and know the system well enough and anything can be accomplished if you use the right rules in the right situations.
In Mage the Awakening, you play someone who has unlocked the cheat codes to the universe and can warp reality, but they need to be careful and clever about how they do it or they will suffer from Paradox, or get outwitted by a cleverer mage. The importance of system mastery means that playing a mage mechanically is a lot like being a mage in the setting. Caution and expertise is rewarded, recklessness and ignorance is punished.

>>95852692
Are you looking to go past the end of Bloodlines? If I remember correctly that canonically ended on 31/10/2001 so there would be roughly two years of stuff to fill in from there. If not then I would fill in the intervening time with the background/setup for most of the major players of Bloodlines. For example Voerman and Tungs relationship then falling out, the KJ spies infiltrating Santa Monica along with the rest of LA, I can't remember the Baron of Hollywood's name but him embracing the actor guy would also need to occur around this time period. Straus could also set up shop along with the Camarilla since he didn't seem to be well established in LA in the game, he also could be trying to use the anarch remnants to undermine LaCroix since we see he is will to use them as catpaws in his questline. Jack could also start showing up and laying the ground work for the sarcophagus scheme of his.

>>95853687
>Compare that to Werewolves who are based on faux-shamanism and bat-shit uninformed cultural paganism.
WtA is a lot more mythologically sound than you'd think. They're based off The Benandanti, the christian concept of werewolves in "The City of God", and the celtic legends of the Werewolves of Ossery. The discount-hindu shit with the triat not withstanding.

>>95854860
>The Benandanti
>Immortal Werewolves jumping into hell to fight the devil
Why didn't hollywood go with this version? This is Metal as Fuck

>>95854755
Bloodlines takes place over approximately 2 weeks in 2004, ending on the 1st november. There's a dated laptop in foxy boxes.

Mostly I wanted to bring it to 2003 - that way you get the city still on the knife edge, but nobody has a scheme ready. They're all recovering. Past bloodlines is possible, but I don't have the gall to actually watch the LA by night thing.

Voerman and Tung would work, especially if it's hinting that the two sisters are secretly working together even without meaning to. I understand that Jeanette was fucking LaCroix and using dementate, similar to how Michael was afflicted before the fall of Constantinople.

KJ spies might do well as a much more mobile force - there one night, gone the next. The war with the KJ mostly ended because neither side was willing to fight anymore. If the KJ babies are being, well, babied, because MX might have them mutiny otherwise that'd help. I guess it could also work for the fall of the Monkey Trip Wu and his replacement with MX.

Isaac and Ash in hollywood works, provides endless masquerade coverup jobs.

Strauss is an interesting one. I'd gotten the feeling there were very few actual Tremere in the city - maybe 3, not counting the possible protagonist and sire. He could also be a source o missions, especially trying to help fortify the Camarilla over LaCroix. Cock Robin is also probably giving him some help there.

>>95854872
Mystery. A complete mystery. Probably toxoplasmosis.

>>95854554

>>95855213
You must IMPOSE YOUR WILL UPON THE GAME for it to work

>>95855213
uhm he's talking about MtA and not MtA! please fix your meme!

>>95854860
>They're based off The Benandanti
If this is true it's the loosest possible basis imaginable.
>werewolves in "The City of God"
There are no werewolves in the City of God, there's a simple belief in the possibility of people turning into wolves which is quickly dismissed as illusion, and if they aren't they're demonic.
>Werewolves of Ossory
Again, nothing to do with druid-hippies or talking to spirits.

>>95854872
Because it's not what they're based off of. Benandanti are just an agrarian cult-like tradition of supposed dream warriors that battled witches. They're not werewolves and have nothing to do with werewolves outside of some random thief who claimed it at the end of the 17th century almost 150 years after their existence.

>>95855005
So I did remember incorrectly. Only other two points I have to bring up would be that there is a token Giovanni presence but they are so minor to the plot of the game that other than their horde of relics I don't see them as having much potential for a game. The other point would be that the brotherhood should be getting started up so as a low level minor plot in the background of downtown LA you can have the slowly growing death/millennial cult growing. Maybe Jezebel or the Nosferatu in the Sewers hasn't joined up yet? Bishop might be new in town and looking for a place to set up shop? I dunno just another hook if you need it.

>>95855467
>Anon clearly doesn't know wtf he's talking about.
Did you actually read the sources and failed you reading comprehension or did you just skim wikipedia?

>>95855572
>You see WtA is based off of three completely different things which are only thinly similar and some of which aren't even werewolf related at all.
Yeah ok.

>>95854860
WtA is based on none of these.
Word of god has flat-out said numerous times that they just basic shamanistic traditions from across Europe and North America, then slotted werewolves in there because of Norse berserkers supposedly transforming.

>>95855629
>only thinly similar
NTA, but isn't that's true of most Inspirational material? An artist that copied an inspiration 1-for-1 is a talentless hack trying to pretend they aren't plagiarizing something.

>>95855733
>An artist that copied an inspiration 1-for-1 is a talentless hack trying to pretend they aren't plagiarizing something.
So... standard whitewolf writers?

>>95855733
The problem is none of that stuff actually has anything to do with WtA, that anon just pulled some shit out of his ass and then tried to save face with a basic insult.

As someone else said, WtA is inspired by Animism across western Europe and indigenous peoples of NA with a splash of berserkers and other animalistic warrior folktales.

>>95854650
>>95854614
I think I could run it off of impressions alone but even impressions of balance require some touchstones to work with. Like for instance the Spirit Spell Annihilate Spirit doesn't work on Spirits of rank 7 and up so you can use that to sort of guess that Rank 6 is the barrier for other spells that would mess with a spirit. Similarly you can use the Forces chart to sort of guess what level of effects others forces not listed on it would be by doing some equating and remembering the law of meaning.
But then you've got like the Time stuff or Call Lightning doing an auto 10 bashing maybe and I'm without an anchor. I figure there's a few tenets to work with that make this more manageable by referring to those and extrapolated from them similar to how the example spells are all tools to make your own.

>>95855733
I think this surge of people having problems with WtA over the last year are those that thought it was going to have the pop-culture horror found in VtM, which is what they're probably familiar with. Instead WtA is just a constant lore dump of things that aren't found anywhere in real myth and isn't intuitive at all. It doesn't help that a lot of WtA's world building is high fantasy concepts that dissolve the street-level play and ignore higher concept RP. WtA is just a very different game, and it's really hard to argue it's as well-written as most of the other lines when it really is just the most mid-west milquetoast understanding of shamanism.

if you wanted to send out swarms of animals to attack people would that be mind(+maybe correspondence)?

>>95853687
Yes, the basis. The issue is that Vampire the Masquerade immediately gets high on its own supply and abandons the basis in favour of focusing excessively on its own lore, abandoning real life mythology and folklore in favour of the bullshit that it has made up.

>>95856002
You could use Entropy (Summon a swarm by chance) or Mind (Come to me, servants of the forest!) or Correspondence (Locate and TP over an existing swarm) or Life (Just make a new swarm right then and there) maybe even Spirit (You could ask a spirit to send out swarms of their respective animals for you) There are lots of ways you could do it.

>>95856029
You can describe most VtM clans to someone who has never played VtM before and they'll immediately identify with at least one of them intuitively and then match them to a type of vampire they've heard of.

You can't do that at all with WtA. If I mention Wendigo, people immediately assume they're definitively evil winter spirits that deceive and eat humans through demonic-adjacent methods. In WtA they're just Werewolves that are purity spiraling and have a Wendigo totem that's just a war spirit who uses ice storms.

>>95856133
>If I mention Wendigo, people immediately assume they're definitively evil winter spirits that deceive and eat humans through demonic-adjacent methods
Anon, the average person that hears "wendigo" isn't going to know wtf that is beyond a vague understanding it's a common creature in fantasy. They'd have zero issues with "wendigo" being a native american werewolf.
Remember to go outside and talk to normies occasionally to remember how low their power-level actually is.

imagine trying to kill a technocrat and he just hits you with this

>>95856133
>If I mention Wendigo
Oh yeah, and if I mention "Ventrue," a random normie is immediately going to realise that I mean vampire aristocrats. Combined with what >>95856194 said, "Wendigo" is more evocative and closer to making a normie think of werewolves than "Ventrue" is to making a normie think of vampires.

>>95854284

>>95856311
Entropy is definitely one of the more broken spheres in a technocratic paradigm.

>>95856499
WTF is this Shit?

>>95856547
That's Brucato.

>>95856586
I find it hard to believe anyone can get away with putting that into a splatbook. Even a fucking whitewolf book. I'm calling BS and assuming that came from some fanfiction site.

>>95856598
M20 core book page IX. It's the opening fiction.

>>95839907 (OP)
>which splat is your favourite?
Official, Deviant. Unofficial, ExWoD.

>>95839907 (OP)
Werewolf
It's fun

>>95854292
>>95854317
>>95856499
So everything bad about M20 is Brucato?

>>95856662
Not everything, but a great deal is.

>>95856608
wtf It's REAL?!?

>>95856733
His blogs is supposed to be lots of fun.

>>95856194
>Anon, the average person that hears "wendigo" isn't going to know wtf that is beyond a vague understanding it's a common creature in fantasy.
Which is more similar to actual Wendigo myth than Werewolves are.

>>95856367
>Ventrue
"Wealthy Vampire aristocrat and mogul that rules as blue bloods of the night" vs "Purity focused druidic werewolves thinly based on native american shamanism"

>>95856367
>"Wendigo" is more evocative and closer to making a normie think of werewolves
Not even a little bit. You'd have to be a retard to think of Wendigo as anything remotely like WtA's Werewolves. There's a reason the whole tribe got shitcanned in W5, and it's because it was retarded.

>>95856133
If they're under the age of 30, there's a good chance they'll think of a wendigo as skull-head deer monster, sometimes with tits. But most people are familiar with the idea that just because something is named after another thing, doesn't mean it's one-to-one. So that's just nitpicking.
Werewolf tribes are not like vampire clans. They are not "the type of werewolf" someone is, because they're are all just werewolves. And mainly, the reason for this is because there are not different types of werewolves in media, and when they are different they are very different. Vampires have Anne Rice, Dracula, Necroscope, Lost Boys, and more all drifting about in public consciousness. With werewolves you have what? Wolf, Ginger Snaps, American Werewolf in London and the Howling? And the werewolf presented in those movies is not the werewolf you can sit down as a group at a table and play a game as. They work as NPCs and better as antagonists, which Vampire utilizes in their lupines. If you just want to play VtM but feel like a werewolf, the Gangrel and Brujah are there for you.

>>95857112
There's nothing about either description that would be off-putting to a normal person. The point is that the names of the vampire clans, except for Nosferatu, are just as meaningless to a normie as the werewolf tribe names are.

And to be honest, normies will connect WtA werewolves to cultural werewolves because they're shape-shifters who transform into wolves and wolfmen who are vulnerable to silver and suffer from primordial rage. That's 80% of what a pop culture werewolf is and what normies know about werewolves, the only thing that's missing is the lunar transformation and infectious bite.

>>95857147
The tribe got shit canned because the blood sucking corporates were worried about not being PC so they axed ALL non-white elements from the line. In the liberal bootlicker mind, you can be non-white when it's a color palette swap for their art pieces. The tribes are political affiliations, not understanding that is exactly why there is nobody who enjoys the tribes as presented in W5. It's like getting mad that the Ordo Dracul doesn't mean you are a Dracula.

>>95857180
>Werewolves are druids?
>Yes, Native American druids.
>What?
>They use moon bridges to fly like the Bifrost.
>But I thought you said they were werewolves, and they're Native Americans? Now they're Nordic?
>Yeah they can fly through the spirit realm on moon beams to caerns.
>But caerns are a Scandinavian practice.
>Yes, but also druids. And Shamans.
>Like from WoW?
>Yes, but they're fighting the Wyrm.
>Like a Dragon?
>No not really, it's a metaphysical concept that's served by megacorporations.
>Is the Wyrm Native American, Nordic, or Celtic?
>It's just made up.
>Why are cursed demonic creatures fighting megacorps?
>They're not these are just druids that can shapeshift and have anger issues.

vs

>Yeah they're vampires and they can turn others and drink blood.
>Oh ok
>These are the pretty ones, these ones rule, these ones are kinda crazy like Drusilla from Buffy, these guys look monstrous.
>Damn those monster ones look fun
>They're called Nosferatu, and they traffic in secrets
>Oh like the movie, cool

>>95857198
>The tribe got shit canned because the blood sucking corporates were worried about not being PC
Yeah that happens when the actual elders of the tribe make a public statement saying: "you've fucked up our folklore so bad we forbid you from using it."

>>95856499
>An Awakened dropping being sexually abused by their father
Oh grow up. You guys are pearl clutching over this when the Baali Clanbook’s opening fiction exists.

>>95857246
Which nation? Show me an actual public announcement where White Wolf/Paradox was forbidden from using it. Yelling at clouds.

>>95857246
Didn't the native consultants got kicked out of development of W5 because Karim Muammar insisted on making the Get of Fenris into right wing strawman against said consultants' wishes?

>>95856311
>Correspondence 2 be like

>>95844911
Do you even ritual bro? 9 arete mage? You need an Arete four mage with life, entropy, spirit, and matter at four, and a cult background of 5. Maybe another mage for added successes. Nine Arete would be like trying to remove the concept of vampires from reality.

Verbena are the masters of the Life sphere. Are you telling me the witches can get up to Baki-tier acts?

>>95857236
This post features political cartoonist levels of absurdity, that boils down to:
>the normie is critical of and confused by and doesn't like your thing
>the normie is understanding of and accepting of and enjoys my thing
This can easily be done the other way around.

>So all vampires came from Caine?
>Yes, Caine from the Bible.
>What?
>There's also the Kuei-jin who are the corrupted descendants of the Wan Xian.
>But I thought you said that vampires came from Caine? Are they Biblical or are they Chinese?
>There's also hermetic mages who became vampires through a ritual.
>But hermeticism is Greek.
>Yes, and there's also gypsy vampires. And body horror vampires.
>Like Dead Space?
>Yes, but they belong to a death cult that wants to kill the Antediluvians.
>The Sumerian kings?
>No not really, they were the vampires who were turned into vampires by the vampires that Caine turned into vampires.
>Are they Biblical, Chinese or Greek?
>None of the above.
>Why are sexual abuse allegories fighting Caine's grand-vampire-children?
>They're not these are just cultists that can shapeshift and have daddy issues.

vs

>Yeah they're werewolves and they can transform into wolves and are weak to silver.
>Oh ok
>These are the wild ones, these ones fight a lot, these one try to blend into human society, these guys are Native American.
>Damn those Native American ones look fun
>They're called Wendigo, and they worship a cannibal spirit
>Oh like that video game, cool

>>95857340
I don't have to do shit, the evidence is there in the game. Go jump through your own hoops to prove me wrong if that's what you want.

>>95857351
There was so many problems with W5 that Paradox took the reigns and brought in their own people to write it. There were no native consultants, just a pair of Native Americans from Hunters Entertainment that happened to be brought on when part of the writing team was outsourced. The basics of it was that no matter what they wrote, and no matter how hard they tried to save the setting from it previous misappropriation, with a genuine effort not to ruin it, Muammar refuted their attempts at every turn.

>>95857387
Sure, why the fuck not.

>>95857420
>I don't have to do shit, the evidence is there in the game.
Sounds like you had your face buried in a hat when looking at the evidence

>>95857391
Difference is you don't need to know any of VtM's backstory to play VtM. WtA is such a departure from actual werewolves that you need to constantly dump exposition through spirits and other NPCs to get the ball rolling.

The night-to-night of a vampire is not remotely affected if they know nothing of Caine or the Antediluvians. The day-to-day of a Werewolf is beset by a barrage of in-house vernacular that doesn't mean what you think it does because it's actually something else.

>>95857387
Yes but most of the time they just use it to make their tits bigger and become immune to menstrual pain.

>>95857440
It's almost like they're totally different games and one of them is meant to play an actual spiritual war.
Sounds like you just want Curseborne.

>>95857450
The point isn't that they're different games.
The point is that one game is intuitively understandable because it's well made contemporary fantasy, and the other is a few steps removed from Marvel movies.

>Fighting a spiritual war for Humanity’s sake
Werewolf
Mage
Changeling
Mummy
Hunter
Demon

>Can kind of just fuck off and do your own thing
Vampire
Wraith

Sound about right?

>>95857450
I'm sure Curseborne would make him cry too

>>95857450
>It's almost like they're totally different games

Nta, I'm just saving this quote for the next time someone tries to shove cross-splat into a discussion where it doesn't belong.

>>95857420
>the evidence is there in the game
Cool, so there is no evidence. Already know this because Paradox never bothered asking for consent. Native input is not important to them. Corporations are parasites.

>>95857469
You can kinda fuck off in Demon and Changeling, but I'd say that's pretty spot on.

>>95857469
Add Wraith to the first list. The struggle against Oblivion is literally the final battlefront. There is Vampire, and then there is the World of Darkness. There's a reason that vampires are banal creatures.

>>95857466
But they ARE different games. One of these differences is what you're having a whinge about. VtM does its thing its own way, WtA does its this its own way. They do these things differently because they're trying to be different things and if they did these things the same one or the other would fail to be what it is trying to be. It's not hard to understand. You just don't like a game. Big whoop.

>>95857479
It's incredible how this is a non-issue but the mere mention of a WoD5 splat will get arguments anyway.

Question since we have WtA on the brain. Out of the extinct breeds (Camazotz, Apis, Grondr, and I'll include lost fera tribes like the Okuma and Ao as well) do you guy see as the most interesting.

>>95857496
I didn't say it was hard to understand. I said one is better than the other because it matches what it says on the tin and the other is just weak comic book writing so I don't like it and wish it were different.

>>95857487
Well, Transcendence is kind of a personal goal. Unlike with Ascension, most Wraiths aren’t concerned if others achieve it or not. Well, Charon was. That’s why he established Stygia in the first. And we all know how well that went.

>>95857466
Because one is a gateway drug into WoD and made easy to get into because convincing your goth friends to read pages upon pages of lore just to play pretend at a table is a big ask.
Meanwhile the other is specifically designed as a combat heavy ultraviolent super monster game for people autistic enough to dive in.
One is a game to convert normies, the other is a game you play after you converted them.

>>95857440
You cannot play Vampire the Masquerade without dealing with the concept of generations, which requires you to deal with the fact that Caine is a thing and then you need to grapple with how vampires record things such as generations without acknowledging the existence of Caine and the Antediluvians. For example, becoming Ventrue requires that the Ventrue acknowledges that lineage leads back to Caine, which requires acceptance of the existence of Caine and Antediluvians and Noddism as a whole.

>>95857512
>it's not hard to understand
>listen to me explain why I don't understand it
okay

>>95857512
>I don't like it and wish it were different.
What do you wish it was like, without just making it a furry version of Vampire the Masquerade?

>>95857504
Camazotz.
If I were given the reins to make 6th edition, I would out of the bat say there's been sightings of giant chiropterans all over the world, including bat-people in Chichen-Itza.
That's right bitch, I'm bringing them back. And I'm making it an important event because they represent the sins of the Garou's past, and I would make most other Fera side with them because they recognize the Garou were fucking assholes. And I'm also giving them customization options similar to those of Nagah and Mokolé because I like them, fuck you.

>>95857469
It can certainly explain the disconnect. Main reason none of the other oWoD games clicked for me was they all require you to buy into the same sort of conceit where there's this metaphysical issue you need to address. It's not what caught my interest in the first place, and if I wanted to play in a game about an existential war, spiritual or otherwise, there are better options in my estimation. Not to mention I rarely agree with the presupposition of said spiritual conflict.

Honestly at this point is there even a reason to attempt rational discussion when everyone's so pissy about their favorite splat being criticized?

>>95857521
Don't try to be clever if you aren't.

>>95857530
Everytime this question is asked in these threads, no matter the response, people just argue more. As if the mere idea that WoD stayed an urban horror-fantasy setting were some kind of blasphemy.

>>95857530
>What do you wish it was like, without just making it a furry version of Vampire the Masquerade?

nta, I've seen you, or other anons similar ask this question, and then cherrypick whatever you want from the resulting response to say "see that's just vampire again!". Or call it W5 again.

>>95857504
Camazotoz

Mostly because I like bats

>>95857557
>Don't try to be clever if you aren't.
An ironic statement if I've ever heard one

>>95857469
It's crazy how vampires, being the most popular splat, are by far the most evil one too.
Even Demons (PCs) are meant to be heroic in their own way.

>>95857565
Not in the way you think it is, unfortunately.

>>95857504
Also Camazotz. They're just pretty cool all around. Bats are rad, they've got neat forms, a decent niche for their Gifts, and fluff that doesn't suck. I'm like 70% on making a bat-themed Primal Family for Curseborne because of it.

>>95857549
>Honestly at this point is there even a reason to attempt rational discussion when everyone's so pissy about their favorite splat being criticized?
There's that tone argument again. Just because you perceive a person to be emotional, that does not mean that they are not being rational.
Why do you accuse other people of being upset whenever they disagree with you? You're making a habit of this.

>>95857469
Is Werewolf really about a spiritual war for humanity's sake?
I feel like it's more "for the sake of the planet" since plenty of woofs seem to hate humans or at least disregard them unless they're kinfolk or mages.

>>95857557
>As if the mere idea that WoD stayed an urban horror-fantasy setting were some kind of blasphemy.
Explain how the game set in urban environments, during its contemporary time frame, drawing on both the horror and fantasy genres, some how isn't inline with an urban horror-fantasy setting?

>>95857469
>A Beast I am, lest a Beast I become
Does nobody understand vampire's thing is you shouldn't be a low humanity subhuman? I get on paper like having a game where you can't kill anyone in self defense kinda sucks but the humanity mechanics are all about maintaining your soul compared to the dickwads around you.

>>95857520
>"Older vampires are stronger."
That's it. I don't need to explain anymore than that.
>becoming Ventrue requires that the Ventrue acknowledges that lineage leads back to Caine
No it doesn't. Ventrue aren't always Noddists and outside of Elders few of them even know what that is. In practice more Ventrue follow their lineage up to a Methuselah and stop, especially in the Cam, and doing that amounts to "You're X generations removed from Y, he was known for Z.
Which is no different than just being in a family lineage in general.

>>95857585
The "humanity's sake" part is mostly the discussion between hyper genocide and genocide with breeding camps.

>>95857592
Only VtM & HtR, and to a lesser extent WtO fit urban horror. Everything else is just another genre entirely, where you're out fighting some cosmological existential threat that usually leads to some Avengers moment.

>>95857594
There's still a difference between being a relatively high humanity non-hyperpredatory vampire and outright fighting for something greater.

>>95857622
Explain why it doesn't fit. Tell me which things are required for urban horror-fantasy and how those requirements are not met in a game like WtA.

>>95857559
>nta, I've seen you, or other anons similar ask this question, and then cherrypick whatever you want from the resulting response to say "see that's just vampire again!". Or call it W5 again.
Just like how people cherrypick whatever they want from these discussions about Werewolf the Apocaylpse to say "see werewolves are just retarded."
In the end, we all have our own tastes, and the people in this thread who dislike Werewolf the Apocalypse tend to have a fondness for Vampire the Masquerade, so when they want a version of Werewolf the Apocalypse that aligns with their taste, it usually involves making it more like Vampire the Masquerade and less like the Werewolf the Apocalypse that Werewolf fans enjoy.

>>95857635
>Everything else is just another genre entirely, where you're out fighting some cosmological existential threat that usually leads to some Avengers moment.
It's right there anon.

>>95857644
Nothing about those elements disbars it from that genre. If you sincerely think it does you've got an incredibly limited view on these genres to the point that you've not even seen some of the biggest pop culture touch stones in horror. Genuinely read more books than WoD.

>>95857577
Because we are not having a rational discussion. We haven't for 60% of the thread at this point. You're assuming I'm an anon you were arguing with prior, just as I am assuming people are pissy. You are being far more accusatory by saying I'm trying to label anyone I disagree with are upset. >>95857557 is definitely pissy, and he's not on your side of the argument.

So kindly shove that shit about tone up your ass. You're assuming more than I am.

>>95857684
As you are using aggressive language, does that mean you are not longer behaving in a rational fashion and I can dismiss your argument?

>>95857640
>In the end, we all have our own tastes
Congrats, you understand there is no resolving this argument. Now can you all kindly shut the fuck up?

>>95857704
If you want somewhere where you can state your opinion without anyone commenting on it, get a blog and disable the comments.

>>95857684
>saying I'm trying to label anyone I disagree with are upset. >>95857557 (You) is definitely pissy

>>95857704
I don't know why someone always comes in and tries to quell arguments here when these threads have historically been inter-splat and edition shitposting for almost a decade now. It's not like anyone here has anything new to talk about, and most questions on mechanics are still answered pretty promptly, usually by the people arguing.
Get thicker skin.

>>95857514
>Transcendence
Transcendence and the struggle vs oblivion are two different things. The neverborn don't give a shit if your uncles ghost finds peace or not, they're going to try to eat reality either way and the wraiths that don't transcend are currently the only things holding them back.
Mass wraith transcendence would actually be a game-end for humanity.

>>95857714
Are you retarded? I'm not in this argument. I want you idiots to shut up about this played out werewolf vampire shitflinging debate.

>>95857740
Provide something more interesting to talk about then.

>>95857469
Mage, changeling, and demon are fully open to players fucking off to do their own thing and wraith has the war vs oblivion/the neverborn.

>>95857719
he's saying he agrees with that guy on the vamp v wolf thing but thinks he's pissed off too

>>95857754
Yeah, I just thought it was funny, that's all.

>>95857601
>Ventrue aren't always Noddists
Anon, tracing lineages doesn't mean you're noddist. The ventrue do it specifically to track lines of succession for when someone important gets killed, generation is just one more thing in those family trees.

Have any of you ever had recurring NPCs between games, or had PCs from previous games make cameos?

Part of me feels it's extremely indulgent. But it also makes things feel bigger and more important when used sparingly.

>>95857774
Ventrue do not commonly trace back to Caine, ergo I don't need to ever mention Caine or the noddist understanding of him.

>>95857774
Ventrue also do it to glorify the elders by having neonates use them as a source of legitimacy. It also gives those neonates a source of legitimacy.

Clan Ventrue has genuinely perfected the art of the circle-jerk.

>>95857798
I will always sprinkle in 1-2 NPCs from previous games, even if it's contrived. It's a good way to lighten my workload, and also put something on the playing field that players are already familiar with. it also helps the world feel like it's moving forward even outside of the players when they see the Neonate they helped in Denver has become the Sheriff's Hound in San Diego, and then on a third game they're the Sheriff of Tucson.

>>95857504
Never liked the other fera. As a whole, the concept of them is cool. But the actual writeups we get is so one note and often just dogshit. I don't know how you could do them better, but I could never play a fera game, and I'd even be uninterested in another PC playing as one instead of a Garou.

>>95857862
I've mostly been turned off by them due to all of the players who ask to play other shapeshifters instead of werewolves as soon as you mention a WtA game.

>>95857236
maybe you're just not a good storyteller if you're doing autistic lore dumps for new players. like, who the fuck would mention moon bridges to a newbie like that? if you try describing the basic premise of werewolf (you are a rage monster, the enemy has infiltrated civilization, the tribes are flavors of how you plan to destroy the enemy) you can convey the kookier stuff from WtA as your players interact with the world.

>>95857440
Even the "vampire mafia" style of playing Vampire the Masquerade, focused on Camarilla politics and intrigue, is absolutely full of "in-house vernacular."
>Hey, I'm taking the rest of the coterie to snatch that Toreador harpy when she's leaving Elysium, I want you to keep an eye on the Malkavian to make sure he doesn't diablerize her or kill any bystanding kine, if we cause too much trouble for the prince, he'll send the scourge after us.

>>95857862
Some are better than others at this. Every single breed that only has one tribe for the entire breed is shit.
The Bastet and the Ananasi each have actual tribal camps(most likely because they're the clear writer-fetish ones) and have some actually interesting lore and mechanics.
The ahadi and the beast courts alleviate the tribe problem somewhat, but they're so baked into specific locations no one ever plays.

>>95857944
>How do I regain Gnosis
>You have to meditate
>Does my character no that
>Probably not
>How would I find out
>Commune with spirits
>Does my character know how to do that?
>They'll have to ask someone else
>Do I know someone else
>Not atm I suppose, you guys have been busy
>The book says I can also do some kind of hunt
>Yeah no one in the group can run something like that
>What about a Caern?
>You guys haven't secured one yet
>Why is this even in a 'werewolf' game?
>Because some idiot at WW thought shallow Gnosticism could be blanket-applied to literally everything from ancient Egypt to ancient time travelers

vs

>My bloodpoints are empty, guess I'll go feed like a vampire does.

>>95857828
I get that. My main issue in practice is that we do a lot of games set in historical periods, meaning we can't have linear progression. It also leans the bias towards recurring vampires, so I want to introduce some other immortals to spice it up. Should include a Purified at some point, that'd be fun.

>>95858103
Anon, how would the situation you described even happen? A werewolf that isn't part of any sept and doesn't know how to commune with spirits wouldn't be able to learn the gifts necessary to spend gnosis in the first place.
A cub like that would only have access to their innate shifting and Rage, which are very straightforward.

>>95858103
Now this is bait. Effective bait too.
>Does my character know that?
>Yes
End of story, why wouldn't the woof taking through them through their education as a woof (YOU KNOW, THE THING THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DO BEFORE THE RITE OF PASSAGE) tell them about all of this? Do you even play werewolf?

>>95858079
>Toreador?
>They pretty ones?
>Harpy?
>Basically queen bitch of the city
>Elysium?
>A social gathering for vampires, sometimes important, sometimes isn't.
>Malkavian?
>Drusilla vamps
>Diablerize?
>Soul eating another vamp
>Kine?
>Humans, think cattle
>Prince?
>Obviously the ruler of the city, it's in the name
>Scourge sounds pretty bad
>He is

As someone who has run both splats for years, WtA is awful to get new players into. Literally a non-stop salvo of shit that has absolutely nothing to do with werewolves as they exist outside of WtA.

>>95858103
The only way a Garou wouldn't know any of this is if they were a ronin, which ironically is what you'd probably be happier playing as.

guess the book

>>95858179
If you are >>95858103 and >>95857236, I'm afraid that you've been a very poor ST for years and you seem to have a hard time onboarding players.

>>95858169
>>95858175
>>95858233
Thank you for proving my point for me. The setting collapses unless you spend time dumping shit onto the player and explaining it constantly, even on a mechanical level. When you ease them into it, players will randomly read something in the book and realize they don't have access to it then ask the whys and hows without any actual ability to arrive at such things naturally. They have to be TOLD how to function narratively and mechanically.

>>95858254
Yes, I'm sure the inability to stoke interest in fake werewolves, specifically, is all my fault. There's no possible way I've had nothing but great feedback the last 18 years onboarding new players in everything else I've ran.

>>95857694
You don't need a reason to dismiss anyone's argument.

>>95858236
That could describe so many different things I have honestly no idea.

>>95858256
Shit, players have to learn about the more interesting setting as opposed to just erping with each other over blood. Vampire is also the only WoD setting that isn't complex. You can just dump players into any of the other games.

>>95858274
Bruh, vampire has the same tutelage period after being turned, there's a specific word for vampires who aren't taught how to vampire and are abandoned by their sire. This is a thing in almost all WoD games, Changeling, Vampire, Mage, Werewolf. They're not just monsters, they're part of a larger society of monsters living in a separate world from people. The characters know more than the players, and there's even a merit to allow for the players to catch themselves from making mistakes their characters wouldn't specifically for new players to rely on the ST's knowledge.

This is literally your fault. If you can't sell people on "Berserker Shaman Paladins fighting to delay the Apocalypse" that's on you.

>>95858310
do you want a clue?

>>95858274
All we've got to go off of is what you've demonstrated in this thread, Mr. Industry Veteran, and what you've demonstrated is inadequacy.

>>95857629
I know people don't like the anarchs but like that's the intended purpose of the faction. To fight the cammies and sabbat to change the world.

I love Midnight Circus, but I don't like most oWoD stuff especially crossover.

What does that make me?

>>95858427
>What does that make me?

Based. Something Wicked This Way Comes is a great book.

>>95858318
>Vampire is also the only WoD setting that isn't complex.
Vampire is complex, it's just intuitive and relates to vampires. WtA doesn't relate to Werewolves.

>>95858349
>vampire has the same tutelage period after being turned
It doesn't. You can play VtM without even getting into any of the terms or plot and players will have access to everything on their character sheet. Most VtM terms are also easily understood.
I don't have to sit there and tell educated players at my table that you don't actually attain Gnosticism as it's understood in the real world, and that it's actually just a resource tracker that grants literally zero insight or transcendent knowledge.

>>95858392
I'm glad you consider me a veteran I guess.

>>95858467
>Vampire is complex
It's vampire mafia. You've seen the Godfather? You got it. Capocollo.

>>95858467
>I don't have to sit there and tell educated players at my table that you don't actually attain Gnosticism as it's understood in the real world, and that it's actually just a resource tracker that grants literally zero insight or transcendent knowledge.
I know, man. Just the other day, I had to inform a very educated engineer at my table that in Vampire the Masquerade, the term "generation" sadly doesn't refer to the generation of electrical energy. The poor guy was flabbergasted.

>>95858553
>>95858657
The fact that you're not even really arguing the point, and haven't been for a while is enough for me, really.

>>95858553
While I don't know whether I'd go as far complex myself (complicated maybe?), "vampire mafia" is about as ridculously reductive as, say, V5's "Camarilla = high society". It might be a useful introductory shorthand. It's far from exhausting what the game has to offer.

>>95858671
The point is to point and laugh at the lolcow.

>>95858671
I know that your point is that all you supposedly need to know to play VtM is basic vampire pop culture whereas WtA supposedly has nothing to do with werewolves, but you fail to adequately support your point.

As soon as you scratch beneath the surface of VtM and do anything other than feeding on the blood of humans and hiding from the sun, you're immediately exposed to aspects of the setting that are not intuitive and that must be learned from the setting itself. There's over a hundred words in the VtM lexicon with no ties to outside media that are commonly used in the Camarilla, Sabbat and Anarchs, before we even touch on the Cainite Noddism angle and the elaborate cosmology that the setting is founded on, that most games inevitably end up touching upon unless you're running a chronicle with an extremely narrow scope.

You've brushed this off and failed to acknowledge this multiple times, so all I can do is laugh at you as you try to use "an autistic player of mine read the word 'gnosis' and immediately assumed it meant that Gnosticism is important to werewolves because he fails to comprehend basic mana systems" as a damning indictment of WtA.

>>95858418
I'm actually one of the few people who kind of like the anarchs...
But in all due honesty, even if they win, things wouldn't be too different from the Camarilla status quo.
At the end of the day vampires are humanity's parasitic predator. Any form of human victory is a threat to their prolonged existence.
>>95858427
Just read The Nocturnals instead. It's a great comic.

Turns out hedgefag returned in the form of wolfag.
Just go play curseborne or forsaken. You don't even know your werewolf mythology.

>>95858418
>To fight the cammies and sabbat to change the world.

I'd be more willing to consider that if they had a position that wasn't de facto returning to VTDA. And for the average young vampire, that state of affairs was awful. Any appeal to vampires doing things out of good faith is laughable, and when you can't form a polity based on mutual care and a shared interest, you need law. They think the elders of today are bad, but the Sects arose out of necessity.

>>95858929
They even had a test in the western US to see how well anarch rule works out. They immediately turned into everything they hated by forming a vampire government to keep members in line, And to no one's surprise, said weak-ass government run by volunteers fell instantly to an outside force in the form of the cathayan invasion of Cali.
Cathayan's that weren't even actually a proper invasion force, they were the unwanted, incompetent dipshits gathered up and sold up the river on a Lie because their own home-grown elders wanted them gone.
Anarch's couldn't have failed any harder if they Tried.

What's a better way to shatter the Tremere than 'oopsie, turns out a bunch of random mortals with no official sanction managed to slay the hyperpowerful occupants of and burn a magical vampire fortress that's half in the spirit world anyway' using the 5 timeline?

>>95860058
The best thing to do is not shatter them in the first place. The entire point of the tremere is the pyramid and their camarilla-given freedom to hunt "unsanctioned" blood magic users.

I don't actually think the Camarilla, Sabbat, or Anarchs are sold very well in their own setting. They don't feel, real, for lack of a better word. And this is actually even worse in V5 where they make the Anarchs the clearly "good guy" Vampire faction that cares about equality in a fundamentally Hierarchical existence that is being a Vampire. Even getting rid of Generation, as fucking gay and retarded as that is, you still ultimately have 1000 year old jerks that are going to just be better than someone born for all intents and purposes born yesterday, and at least more well read and connected.

Camarilla works, vampire Mafia and conspiracy yes yes. Fine. I don't think the setting does well enough to sell the fact that they're an usurper conspiracy that for all intents and purposes won and rewrote history. Frankly.

>>95860058
Personally, I wouldn't shatter the Pyramid because it gives the Tremere a worthwhile drawback and it's a major part of their identity. However, if you want a less handwavy justification, here's a few starters.

>While everyone is bound to the Council of Seven, the Council is not bound to each other. Infighting has gotten so bad that the council has effectively dissolved. The mystical covenant of the ritual broken, the pyramid's blood bond dissolves as regents and former councilors desperately try to keep a hold on their own power.

>Even the most powerful rituals can be undone. As a final act of spite against the clan that he both made and that which rejected him, Goratrix shatters the Pyramid, possibly aided by Sabbat Kolduns and Assamite Antitribu.

>A conspiracy within the House Tremere has been brewing for centuries. An unknown Elder within the clan, graced by a unique immunity to blood bonds hates what the clan has become. He or she has developed a ritual counter to the transubstantiation, and has slowly been spreading it throughout sympathetic regents for an unknown amount of time. The deception exposed, this has triggered a civil war within the Tremere between the Pyramid, and these rogue chantries.

Sabbat. They don't make sense in the setting, even in the 90s. You can't just kill 20 people then set their cars on fire and crash them. There's no way you can do that more than three times in a city before it becomes a local legend every kine hears and the kids tell each other at school. I don't care that the Ventrue have mind control powers they can't mind wipe an entire city block or even a small neighborhood. Even beyond the fact that the Sabbat would immediately get the FBI up their ass anytime more than four of them set up shop somewhere, their own ideology is just kinda. Dumb? Holy war? Most of their recruits are hearing this as of seven minutes ago. I feel like they should instead be a Fallen sect across the board more or less. Yeah sure a millennia ago they were holy warriors and crusaders and zealots but the Sect has obviously by now become something else entirely. Monsters who embrace their monstrous nature, an extrapolation of the old ways of rule by Kindred expanded from petty feudal lords to a petty and pale imitation of the Catholic Church, and just as corrupt and uncaring to its own rules and holy scripture as that. But also even more ruthless in ensuring that its Monsters still abide the Silence of the Night. Because Monsters want to survive, and it's all well and good and fun and 90s to have the "bad guys" be hilariously evil and over the top, but in a "serious" take 90% of Sabbat rituals would immediately be a massive Masquerade Breach worthy of getting FBI snooping around.

And even if you do just go "lol Dominate" every other splat except maybe Wraith should be up their fucking ass constantly because they're inevitably going to kill or embrace a Fallen's thrall, or run afoul of a Kinfolk, or stumble upon a Changeling, or slightly annoy a Mage at which point he does some fucking bullshit actually I just can't make Mage work as a cross splat thing Mage's power level is bullshit and should realistically invalidate all other settings outright.

Anarchs. V5's are terrible, but even old Anarchs are dumb. Why would a bunch of feudalistic European vampires care about equality and egalitarianism? Why would modern Anarchs either? It would make sense if it's just new age mantras and fresh Vampires thrusting their impotent beliefs onto an ancient ideology that should actually be much older than the Camarilla itself. The Anarchs should actually just be the Vampires who want the old power structure and Clan based allegiances of the Classical era. They shouldn't be called Anarchs at all, and they shouldn't really have a problem with Hierarchy, they should just be strictly about bloodlines and family, more of a mafia than the Camarilla even. But I digress.

>>95860159
> conspiracy within the House Tremere has been brewing for centuries. An unknown Elder within the clan, graced by a unique immunity to blood bonds hates what the clan has become. He or she has developed a ritual counter to the transubstantiation, and has slowly been spreading it throughout sympathetic regents for an unknown amount of time. The deception exposed, this has triggered a civil war within the Tremere between the Pyramid, and these rogue chantries.

Ironically, this person exists. Therinma was Carna before the stupid bitch existed. Blood bond breaker and all. She just got turfed a while ago.

>>95860366
Well there we go. Bring her back into relevance and have her plans begin to come to fruition.

>>95860398
Thing is, she became irrelevant in the first place because her plan had zero chance to succeed.
It makes Carna's bullshit even more infuriating, because ww literally already ran this story just to show how it wouldn't work. The new-wolf writers clearly didn't read the fucking lore.

>>95860507
Well did it fail in execution or in concept? You'd need to play a very long con and target less important chantries with younger and more sympathetic regents. She was from the book House of Tremere right? Back then they had enemies on all sides and few allies, it's harder to get people to break rank under those circumstances. But it might be more workable in the modern nights where the Tremere are more secure as a pillar of the Camarilla.

>>95860507
>Thing is, she became irrelevant in the first place because her plan had zero chance to succeed.

She became irrelevant because she was caught conspiring with the clan's enemies, but wether or not it'd work was more open. She mostly had lost faith in the clan.

>>95860560
>it's harder to get people to break rank under those circumstances
The opposite actually. You get way more turncoats when things are actively shitty than when things are passive-aggressively shitty. A lot of tremere ran to the side of the tzimisce during the DAs to ensure their own survival(of which therinma was one)

How do you handle crossover splats?

Going by each edition's presentation, Mage and the Technocracy should just hard dominate everyone. Even a single loose Mage can pretty much crack open reality at the same stage a Vampire is getting the ability to mindwipe people or soak your average trash fire (as long as they have blood lmao). Any inclusion of Mages into a story would necessarily mean they either need to be a particularly weak Mage, busy with something far far more important, or you to fucking nerf those little bastards. Including things like Changeling or Fallen just makes this even worse, where a 200exp Vampire Ancillae is typically going to get fucking bodied by some guy who's been here for a month tops.

>>95860589
>A lot of tremere ran to the side of the tzimisce during the DAs to ensure their own survival

Would the Tzimisce even take them? I was under the impression they viewed the Tremere as usurping abominations whose very existence insulted their clan. To the point even modern Tzimisce were wary of and bigoted against the Tremere Antitribu. They collabed once to make the Blood Brothers and that was it.

>>95860601
>How do you handle crossover splats?
I don't.

>>95860615
>Would the Tzimisce even take them?
They did. Therinma was sheltered by them and currently presents as tzimisce to anyone that asks.

>>95860615
>Would the Tzimisce even take them? I was under the impression they viewed the Tremere as usurping abominations whose very existence insulted their clan. To the point even modern Tzimisce were wary of and bigoted against the Tremere Antitribu. They collabed once to make the Blood Brothers and that was it.

The barest handful of them, and they'd done big things for the Tzimisce beforehand. Most were executed anyway. The Tzimisce might SAY they'd take them in as refugees, but most of them would cheerfully welcome the Tremere as new reagents. The Tremere survived the Omen War because the Gangrel and Tzimisce fought each other as much as the Tremere.

>>95860601
>How do you handle crossover splats?
Mechanics first, don't have a single consistent "right answer" for how the cosmology works between campaigns. 99% of WoDs draw is conspiracy theories and trying to figure out what parts of what you know are misinformation.

>>95860626
I'm gonna reread House of Tremere soon because I was under the impression Therimna pretends to be a Tzimisce out of convienence, not because the Tzimisce welcomed her with open arms.

>>95860615
>Would the Tzimisce even take them?
saying that the tzimisce and tremere been at war is a bit misleading the omen war was between the voivodate and house tremere

tzimisce outside of the voivodate did not give a shit the dracon tzimisce even allowed a chantry in constantinople and the voivodate tzimisce did not discouage run away tremere because that would be stupid because even then "during it's height" they had only a handful of kolduns who couldn't work well together and also weren't used to fight other sorcerers. (source Libellus Sanguinis and tome of secrets)
they even had negotiations with the telvanic tremere in which they offered them tzimisce bloodline status if they joined in the war against house tremere despite their distain towards them (telvanic). however said talks been disrupted and then ended by the tremere and ventrue crushing the telvanics before anything could happen (source dark age clan novel tremere)

>>95860706
She does. "It's koldunism, not thaumaturgy, bro"

>>95860744
You think the Tremere planted a rumor that she was a Tzimisce spy just to get her kicked out of Budapest? Seems like something they'd do.

>>95860761
I didn't know she had been. Probably not though - they needed the supplies.

>>95860838
I don't think she was, that section of the book says she got kicked out on "suspicion". So it was probably a falsehood.

>>95860601
>How do you handle crossover splats?
Work backwards from what you want to happen.

>>95860649
>>95860914
The question was not seeking advice, the question was "How do you handle crossover splats [in your games]?"

>>95861005
For the most part I just use them as stat blocks to throw at the group because I rarely use them as actual plot hooks.

>>95861005
I let the players play what they want and build out the city using as much incompatible and conflicting information as possible.
A good campaign ends with characters sounding like paranoid schizophrenics.

>>95861100
>so Kupala who was a Mage Vampire Demon Fae was actually just a robot made by the Technocracy to counteract the ACTUAL Kupala that was actually just the Eldest who was actually Abel's Wraith driven insane and consumed by Oblivion which left a stain on reality?

>and also Dracula was involved

>>95861134
>the woofs are completely forgotten
As was foretold

>>95861134
Given how books have intermittently claimed that weaver was the DtF's Lucifer all along, that caine is what wounded the wyrm enough that the weaver could overpower it in the first place, that the wyld is in the low umbra And arcadia somehow, etc. that's not actually too different from official lore.

>>95861166
Also the Exalted setting is involved somehow.

>>95861160
>>95861166
>as usual, the wolves are completely wrong in interpreting not only Gaia’s will but the reality they see before them, calling anything they can’t bonk with a klaive a “spirit” and then proceeding to participate in the 17th kin slaying this month over accusations that a rival tribe is a servant of the Wyrm because they didn’t murder a small child for spitting out some gum on the ground

>said child was actually a Fomori discarding new Chum Gum brand Gum by a Pentex subsidiary that specifically draws in or seeks the nearest endangered animal and gets stuck in their trachea or gills and turns them into a Bane

>after 35% of each tribe has been killed in infighting the survivors team up and firebomb local delivery trucks distributing the gun to supermarkets

>>95853964
>Gurahl

Their warfarm has a dexterity *penalty* and most of their gifts are defensive. They have the highest possible strength but that's about it.

>>95853964
Garou. Get of Fenris specifically. It's very easy for a rank 5 get to throw around 60 dice of unsoakable aggrivated damage

>>95840776
I'd imagine the most common thing with Changeling is that people like the theme but fuuuckiiiing haaate the premise. So they ignore it.
Personally, I find the default premise limiting and the whole psy vampire thing present in both versions to be abhorrent. It's a fun thought experiment how to improve it.

Does this happen in your games?

>>95860601
you overestimate how strong mages are

>>95861603
half the table are fujos so yeah they like to make me and the other guy flirt and stuff

>>95861809
What kind of stuff?

>>95861834
Sappy emotional stuff

>>95858799
Nah.

>>95839907 (OP)
On the WW wiki it says that the Angellis Ater became demon hunters that work along side the Inquisition. After spending almost three hours looking for it, what the fuck is the source of this claim? I can barely even find information on the Angellis Ater, let alone anything that says they sided with the Church, which seems exactly the opposite of what they'd do.

>>95861603
All the time.

>>95861867
The claim appears to date back to 2015, a three part shitpost edit from the 'lasombra and storytellers book". No account, no source. It actually sounds indian from the phrasing - check the page history for 151.65.2.5 - and has made no other edits.

At a guess it's some fucking retard going 'lol they snuck into the church clearly they hate demons'.

>>95861902
Based wiki editors, forging an alternative wod.

>>95861902
Fucking tiresome.

Ventrue women are weak to anal

>>95860201
>Why would a bunch of feudalistic European vampires care about equality?
They didn't. That's how they ended up at war with their children.
V1 was partly, but significantly inspired by 18th-19th century European literature and history (think of it as what HK movies were to KotE, I guess). Anarchs are inspired by disgruntled revolutionnary movements that have existed for at least two centuries now. Would make sense, given VtM's sub-theme of vampires inaptitude to change, that there would be a transgenerational coalescence (dear lord, you're allowed to shoot me for that one) of those embrassed in those populations.
Tyler in original Chicgo by Night was an interesting character take on that angle, I guess.

>>95860058
Tremere are so heavily modified in my games, very little can be transfered.
IE: original clan can't actually embrace and the clan members have been /created/ via Thaumaturgy to this day (hence the blood bond, that's how they're made through the Elder's Blood. Hence the tight control on embrace too). What Carna managed with he Book of the Grave-War is to finally make her branch of the clan able to embrace. Hence the delicate war-tango with what remains of the Pyramid: they certainly would rather have her dead, but they want what she has too. And the rebelTremere are gaining in number (through embrace) what they're losing in knowledge (having lost access to most ressources of the clan)
That said, I like the idea of at least letting on that the White Worm finally awoke and the SI attack is just noise around that.

>>95860180
>Sabbat don't make sense in the setting. You can't just kill 20 people then set their cars on fire and crash them.
While I tend to agree with the sentiment, out of fairness' sake: the WoD is *defined* as a reflection of our world where this *can* happen. It's meant to be stylized, and is about as realistic as a Broadway street fight.
The issue is more whether one /wants/ to buy into it or not, I'd say.

>>95862156
>original clan can't actually embrace and the clan members have been /created/ via Thaumaturgy
Based Tremere alchemists. I hope you include different potions sometimes producing different results.

>normal avatars do literally nothing until you awaken
>nephandic avatars can indoctrinate newborns into being mega-evil without needing to awaken
are nephandic avatars literally just "better" than normal ones? seems like these mfs will drag you kicking and screaming into an awakening no matter what unlike normal avatars that will just snooze your entire life

>>95862179
Issues and attemtped variations in/with the creation process have long been a convenient excuse to let players go crazy with character concepts, yes.

>>95857798
I'll do that often, actually, provided it makes sense.
One thing I love to do is take former PCs and - with the players' permission - re-inject them in game as NPCs.
It's a cool way to give density and a lived in, shared creation feeling to the world over time.
This actually led me to my pet theory on revolving DMs and shared notes: a modicum of secrets can do wonders for games, but shared knowledge about the world actually works very well too.
When I take that old PC that acts friendly, but everyone around the table knows is a connivigng sociophatic asshole, players start acting within the constraint of their defined roles a lot better in my experience.

>>95862192
Not "better", just incapable of going back to sleep. Which seems "better" until you realize you're gonna be murdering kittens as a child, raping little kids as a teen, and grooming people to do exactly that as an adult.
Any widderslainte deserves to be immediately gilgul'd and then killed. Even if it's a newborn.

>>95862333
>barabbi are edgy theistic satanist black metal kids
>widderslainte are an entirely magical caste of puff daddy's

I have to admit, the one very funny part of the whole widderslainte thing is talking about attempting to redeem such a person in the book and the very next passage saying "The technical name for this process is suicide."

>>95861317
Under some circumstances. Under others, you're going to want a Mokole with Tall x 5, Upright Walking, and Grasping Hands. Because why not be Legendary Godzilla?

>>95862379
yeah I'd imagine you'd need to practically be a saint to not become evil as a widderslainte

and even then the path too hell is paved with good intentions...

How do you make WoD combat better

This is an open ended question but also if you have any specific homebrews you apply feel free to mention those too

>>95861166
Also, as an anon pointed out in the previohs thread, there's a non zero chance that Gaia is a loyalist elohim who stayed behind

Btw, where does it say that Caine wounded the Wyrm at some point?

>>95857798
Definitely, both as player and ST, but as said, sparingly. Mostly as character referencing a friend of a friend for favors, a PC being the grandsire of another NPC, or madness network visions. Had a Malk PC reference an NPC from last game the table disliked as a herald of Gehenna in his schizo mural.

>>95857420
I'll bite.
>Muammar refuted their attempts at every turn.
The guy said you can't exalt nordic and germanic/saxon cultures because this is equal to exalt nazis and said "it is in their blood memory" to be a nazi.
This is no refutation, it's nazi fetish.

>>95863058
Red Man story, it's in one of the tribe books i think (silver fangs maybe?)

>>95863344
Don't forget he also said "too hard to do native american representation with Uktena. Let's wipe them out White Howler's style so we don't need to worry on that" and "Let's keep Wendigo the savage natives like always" even though Paradox promised to be more careful with these topics.
Even AI books has more soul than W5 will ever have.

>>95861134
>>95861100
This is the way. Some clans can't even trust their own sires to tell them the full truth (Lasombra, Gangrel, Tzim, arguably Setites and Malks) even after a few kooky rites of passage so why the fuck would your freshly embraced ass trust other clans, sects, let alone splats? My players don't need to know why the Setite temple they're raiding thanks to the tip from that guy with the shaved head has a fleshlight Bastet chained in the basement, they just need to know that they better start running.
>>95861216
Kek, underrated post

>>95863357
>Red Man story
"Bloody Man", it's in the silver records.

>>95863344
>this is equal to exalt nazis and said "it is in their blood memory" to be a nazi.
How appropriate that it's in his 'blood memory' to destroy cultural artefacts.

>>95863344
>"it is in their blood memory"
So he absolutely agrees with nazi ideology when it comes to eugenics, but he idolizes a different group than germanic aryans. I imagine hos given reason for hating the nazi's is that they believe in eugenics.
It's amazing how many of the current WW writers are clearly insane by every medical definition.

>>95863006
Unfortunately WoD combat just isn't good. No edition does it particularly well and most homebrew moves it more towards narrative procedure rather than making it better.
There's just too much rolling, too many difficulties for each action and reaction. I've never seen a homebrew that fixes this.

>>95863006
Easy, use a pre-programmed auto roller

>>95863516
thanks mate

>>95863594
Funniest shit to me is him converting to islam and using that a shield from any criticism against him.

>>95863207
>that image
DEH

So the perfect metis is prophesied to be born at the end of the world and play an instrumental part in it. Jesus, in bible canon, is prophesied to bring about the end of the world. Jehovah is heavily implied to be Wormwood, except Werewolf claims at one point he is a spirit named the Patriarch. This can be easily resolved under the theory of the holy trinity, wherein Wormwood is the Father and Patriarch is the Holy Spirit (or vise versa, if the naming issue offends you). That would, however, imply that Jesus is the perfect metis. Would there be any lore contradictions if I ran with this and said he was a werewolf, historically? I don't think any of the game lines specifically claim him.

>>95864264
Canonically to WtA he was human, but the mere presence of Jesus was able to shift moon bridges and wound banes within miles around him like some kind of holy zone of alienation. Whatever sidebar this was in didn't place him in any supernatural camps iirc, so you do you.

>>95864264
I mean, it's your prerogative if you can turn that into cohesive lore. WoD contradicts itself frequently when it comes to its own cosmology, even if you stick to a single splat (at one point God was said to have been created by the Wyrm to spread mysoginy, for example)

>>95863006
>How do you make WoD combat better
Use CofD or Cyberpunk.

>>95861867
>>95861902
>>95861973
Lord Luna approves.

>>95864411

>>95864415
I can reconcile everything with only minor tweaks, but I do take the stance that Demon is blatantly lying about things. I still count that because it has an in-universe narrator, but you might not.

>>95864411
That's just a normal ability for having ridiculously high True Faith. Like Higher that 5+

>>95863006
I just started playing nwod and then cofd and just never went back

>>95864863
A normal human can get that by being a Sorcerer/inquisitor numina stack(just be a sorcerer and take the True Faith merit). Sorcerer's can convert Mana to Balance score and Inquisitors can advance to TF 4.
Adds up to having a total effective TF of 9, or according to HH, enough to permanently alter your surroundings using faith alone.

The courts of Lost just feel so underbaked to me. Why would any Changeling actually care about these factions? CofD in general suffers this problem where they identified the themes of what they were writing first and worked to really strengthen said themes, but the double-edge of that is things often feel very one note.

>>95864431
>>95865051
CotD seems like it would make the game even more “whoever goes first wins” since defense is substantially lower than offense and it just also becomes a numbers game

>>95865182
>it just also becomes a numbers game
Welcome to TTRPGs.

CofD combat isn't great, but it is better than oWoD which is poorly balanced and very slow with too many rolls. If you add athletics to defense (which is core cofd) defense is not substantially lower than offense. Given you're only succeeding on 8+, in my experience it turns all non grappling melee combat into whiff city. Things are much better without that rule because you miss more often on 4-6 dice than you might think. I've houseruled CofD enough that it has decent combat that doesn't feel like a drag.

If you want a satisfactory answer please tell us what you consider to be good combat in the first place.

>>95865081
Please, please tell me what books those rules are from so I can twink out a character.

>>95865081
Why would you bother with the inquisitor template?

>>95865167
>Why would any Changeling actually care about these factions?
Because the courts are a way to deal with the Fae's bullshit, keeping your shit together, and a general guide on how to move forward.