nWoD Advice?

[Cryptos]

My personal feeling - and White Wolf purists tend to hate this - is that in a "meta" sense a cross-splat WoD game is best hinged on Mage cosmology. You can easily draw (very obvious, in some cases,) similarities between the Supernal Realms where magic comes from and the splats, with Mage at the center.

Faerie Arcada is described as a place where Time and Probability are not constants, and there are strange and powerful beings that reside there. Supernal Arcadia is a place where Time and Probability are not constants, and there are strange and powerful beings that reside there. Both have a distinctive theme that is similar, so that one could be part of the other, or both could be parts of the same place, with ease. You could make an effort to draw comparisons to the Primal Wild of the Supernal and the Pangaea/Primal World that Werewolves talk about... it could be that when the Supernal was close to the world, the Primal Wild is what werewolves are howling about in their oral history, before the Mages (or whatever cosmological event) drove a wedge between the Supernal and the mundane worlds. Vampires could easily be the result of some sort of daemon of lust and wrath from Supernal Pandemonium that makes up the Vampire's Beast, and spreads through the ways in which a Vampire is made, reproducing like a disease.

(Hint: Don't ever discuss this on White Wolf's forums in any detail. You'll be lynched. If possible, they'll find you and literally lynch you.)

In terms of rules, the core system is the generic WoD book. Mage is very careful to avoid the "I can turn Vampires into lawn chairs" or "open a portal to Japan and let the sunlight through" tactics so that the Vampires and Magi can exist in the same world together.

As examples, you need a Conjunctive Death 2 to add to a spell to make it directly affect or change Vampires; and those pesky portals only let things through that are sent through by force of Will... someone has to deliberately go through or put something through it... so you can't open a portal to somewhere where it's daylight with basic Space magic and fry all the vamps, or open a portal into a volcano and hit everyone with lava that fries the vamps. No Will to pass through, no passing through. You can put a portal to Japan in front of a Vamp and he could unwittingly step through, or you could push him through, but you don't get a free "Sunlight bomb" just for knowing Space magic. There's got to be a conscious decision by someone to move for something to pass through a portal, whether they know what they're doing or not. Or Conjunctional Arcana knowledge, like Forces for light or electricity, or Matter for the lava.

Every supernatural has a resistance statistic and that resistance stat is used against anything supernatural, more or less.

The various games are as compatible as they're probably ever going to be now, and they were very careful to make sure that one group can't make the other group their ***** with ease.

Addendum / Caveat: Mages will kick everyone's butt in the "gathering information" aspect of the game. Through existing and improvised spells, the easiest thing to do with magic is to know or perceive something. If you're running a mystery game with mages, the trick is to give them the facts and leave them to their own interpretation, to give them plenty of opportunities to misinterpret the information. Don't color it with opinions or interpretations, they get enough info on their own as it is. Someone at RPG.net described mages as "walking CSI labs"... that's not far off. The Practice of Knowing and the Practice of Unveiling could be the hardest things for you as an ST to adapt to. Unless someone with magic or another type of power is working to conceal information, they will get it eventually. Don't let your stories hinge on finding something out. Let them hinge on what the PCs will do once they find out.

 

[Professor Phobos]

Werewolf is probably the most like it's predecessor of all the nWoD books. There are differences, but it will still feel like "old" Werewolf.

Really? This is an atypical impression, from what I know- the new Werewolf is really very different from the old one in a lot of key respects. I would definitely say that Requiem is the most like its predecessor.

Mage is the least damaging to an existing character in terms of becoming supernatural during the game.

This is more or less true- an awakened mortal is basically the same guy, only now he knows about magic.

Thanks for all the input, guys. Mage and Changeling are really starting to sound like the best bets. But, that begs another question: How well do the nWoD games blend?

They blend pretty well in terms of cosmology- there's so much contradictory information about "the truth" that there isn't enough of a grounding to decide what is factual or not.

Crossover issues still present themselves in terms of balance and whatnot, but in principle they should all be thematically compatible. Most importantly, though, is that they have no built-in reasons to hate each other, unlike the oWoD. There's a natural security dilemma based on the intrinsic paranoia of the setting, but other than that, a vampire and a werewolf could get along just fine.

Would nMage and nChangeling work well together? Would I have to say "this is a Mage (or whatever) game, but Changeling PCs are allowed" or could I just let them have at it?

It should work very well. One of the Mage splats- the Acanthus- might even get their magic from the same place Changelings get their horrifically traumatizing supernatural transformations. (Space in several Changeling books discuss this in some detail)

What about picks from other games? Anything that should be avoided (oVampire + oWerewolf)? Could a single mortal work in an otherwise supernatural game, or would the character just be Xander?

Depends. He'd not be able to keep up in power but if you balanced out the screen time and "dramatic heft", I wouldn't see the problem. I'd advise building him as a Hunter though, so he can risk willpower and use Profession merits. (Risking willpower in particular helps a lot)

Would that work with nWoD, or would it dilute the flavor of each line too much (which was my big fear with oWoD)?

It stretches the tone of the setting a bit much to have too much mixing, and definitely it is a little troubling for suspension of disbelief if some dude gets embraced, another awakens, another has his first change, another escapes from Arcadia, etc, all at the same time.

There is, however, no reason whatsoever a bunch of Mages couldn't awaken at the same time or a bunch of Changelings couldn't escape from Arcadia together.

Also, if it's wide open, I can pretty well bet on one Werewolf and one Mage, with a fair chance of at least one Changeling, another Mage, and a Mortal/Hunter. I don't see anyone choosing a Promethean in a mixed game or a Vampire. Is that a disfunctional mix?

Vampires and Prometheans are the hardest to mix. Prometheans have the Disquiet which is basically insurmountable. Vampires have the sunlight problem- I usually advise letting a vampire player create a Ghoul mortal that handles his daylight affairs, and then switches off for nighttime stuff.

Werewolves and Changelings are the second most problematic, because Werewolves are instinctively pack/family-focused and Changelings have a lot of problems of their own to deal with. These are minor and easily dealt with.

Hunters and Mages don't have any built-in mechanical reasons not to work together.

Addendum / Caveat: Mages will kick everyone's butt in the "gathering information" aspect of the game.

The first three games were divided on the Physical/Social/Mental divides WW has going. Mages are the mental characters- there is basically no mundane information or secret they can't discover. Werewolves are the physical characters- an unprepared werewolf is still extremely dangerous, while an unprepared Mage is just a guy with weird friends. Vampires are the social characters- they have tremendous ability to influence and manipulate mortals.

These are just broad things- werewolves have social and information gathering abilities, Mages can kick the living hell out of things, etc, but they're themed in those ways.

The next three were themed around Power/Resistance/Finesse. Hunters were Power- much of the game revolves around how regular mortals get around their relative powerlessness compared to supernatural creatures, and what they'll do to have that power and what it does to them. Changelings were Finesse- a lot of it is oriented around clever use of situational abilities, manipulating events in your favor, etc, rather than brute force. Promethean was Resistance- Prometheans are the toughest critters in the entire World of Darkness. Every single one gets one free "get out of death" card, and some of them can recharge it. The game revolves around persistence- Prometheans can become human, but it is a long hard road, and if they give up, they fail.

 

[Mercule]

It stretches the tone of the setting a bit much to have too much mixing, and definitely it is a little troubling for suspension of disbelief if some dude gets embraced, another awakens, another has his first change, another escapes from Arcadia, etc, all at the same time.

That's my basic concern. I had a way to make it make sense (which was part of the metaplot for the chronicle), but I didn't make any notes and it's been years.

Still, it sounds do-able, if I can get the foundation set. If I have to do too much hand-waving, I'm not going to try. That's what screwed up a couple of oWoD games I ran.

Werewolves and Changelings are the second most problematic, because Werewolves are instinctively pack/family-focused and Changelings have a lot of problems of their own to deal with. These are minor and easily dealt with.

What about a situation like what I outlined: the First Change occurs where no other Werewolves can help? Are there mechanics that will force the PC to seek out a pack, or is it a psychological thing that could tie her to the other PCs because they were around when she changed and seem trustworthy?

The first three games were divided on the Physical/Social/Mental divides WW has going.

...snip...

The next three were themed around Power/Resistance/Finesse.

That's an awesome summary. If I go with any sort of mixed game, I'll definitely be able to use those terms to help my players out.

 

[Cryptos]

Really? This is an atypical impression, from what I know- the new Werewolf is really very different from the old one in a lot of key respects. I would definitely say that Requiem is the most like its predecessor.

Huh. To me, Vampire is wildly different in Requiem form. There's less definition of what a vampire is or where it came from, and more on what that means:

You'll never truly feel anything new again... you might have ideas or feelings, or variations of old ideas and feelings, but essentially the person side of you is done developing. It would take a major effort just to keep up with the times, let alone feel something new or have a truly original idea (original from what you could think up while alive.) It's less "emo" from the sense of everyone acting like drama queens and more from the sense that the "dead" part of undead actually means something. Most consequences of being "dead" in Masquerade were more along the 'no more sunbathing' and 'occassionally you might eat someone' category.

You're not trying to hold on to humanity so much as you're trying to hold back a Beast. The focus was the other way around in Masquerade. You're more like to hit the Powerball lottery than to find some legitimate way to become human, and most wouldn't care to do so if they could just control the Beast.

Predator's Taint keeps vampires scary to other vampires, at least at first. In Masquerade, you really didn't have to take others seriously if you didn't want to... oh, they might destroy you, sure... but there was nothing stopping you from walking up to the Prince and saying, "Yo, pimp, I hit that one last night! Check out Mr. Prince and the sloppy seconds!" There's a sort of enforced protocol of respect and fear amongst vampires that comes from that initial sense of just how bad@$$ the other guy is.... Sure, it's always a bad idea to be casual and insubordinate with a Prince, but it didn't stop one neonate in every group from trying. Various constructs help enforce mood better to avoid the stuff players had to endure from their fellows in oWoD.

Clans are less straightjacked. There's no "oh, these are the magic vampires" or "oh, these are the vampires you don't want to fight hand-to-hand." There are strengths in certain areas for each, but not so much that you had with old Brujah, Fishmalks, and Tremere.

Concepts that wouldn't work well together before because they'd be too adversarial can now live in the same city without always trying to relentlessly destroy one another. Some covenants have a very definite "Sabbat" or "Camarilla" feel... but they're just groups of local vampires instead of worldwide organizations vying for control of the night and continually at war.

Organizations aren't city-based so much as they are coalition-based, have game effects, and the world may as well not exist outside of the chronicle's city without the metaplot.

"Curses of blood" or drawbacks are somewhat less debilitating or at least can be worked around... Nosferatu being the most obvious. No one has to sit outside or under the sewage drain, or under a cloak, while the rest of the group socializes.

Disciplines seem considerably less... visceral and "rampage" friendly. The vast majority of physical things a Vampire does are things all Vampires do, with boosts in resilience, strength, or speed but not exactly as powerful as Masquerade. Gone are the days of waiting ten minutes for the Brujah to finish tearing everything to pieces so that you can have your turn in combat.

In Werewolf, to me, you've got the same stuff with different names and faces. You're dealing with spirits a lot more, but you're still defending your territory and hunting down enemies. No Black Spiral Dancers, but the Pure might as well be them, for all that they'd like to rip your face off and you'd like to rip off theirs, etc. To be more precise, my impression has been that the Werewolf changes are the most cosmetic, rather than changes to style of play or overall mood. Werewolves still "work" the same way, for the most part - pack running, renegerating, crossing over into Shadow realms, clawing, biting, tearing - for much the same reasons - territory, rivalry, spiritual and 'environmental.' There was nothing in new Werewolf that made me say "I wonder how they do this...", only to discover that werewolves worked in a completely different way. That's more because a "werewolf" has to do certain things in order to be called a werewolf, but they probably could have changed things up a bit more. The hunter and the hunted switch places, but there's still a hunter and a hunted, hunting and being hunted in the same ways with the same basic abilities.

Killing the metaplot did a lot more to change Vampire than any other game, IMHO. That one thing completely stripped away most of Vampire's baggage. It has a negligible effect on Werewolf. Some influence on Mage and the others, but affects Vamps the most.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Actually, I'm going to immidiately go against what you said and suggest nHunter as a starter game ;p

nHunter has three levels for a reason. You can very safetly keep the group on the cell level (maybe go to compact as they advance) and never once see a single Hunter-brought supernatural power. Hunter makes for an awesome first game, ESPECIALLY when you start at cell level, because then they really do have no clue how to fight the supernatural except for what they research and find. It really helps push the flavor of fighting desperately against the horrifying unknown when it really is the unknown. That said, if you want a less-horror theamed urban fantasy, Hunter isn't what you want.

Promethean...if your player has issues with it, then don't run it. Promethean is a game you really need to be serious about; you want everyone onboard to stay onboard, and god help you if you take a long break from that game.

I haven't played nMage or nVampire, so I can't really comment on those.

 

[Professor Phobos]

Still, it sounds do-able, if I can get the foundation set. If I have to do too much hand-waving, I'm not going to try. That's what screwed up a couple of oWoD games I ran.

It is doable. In fact, some suggestions- link the changes. If you really want every character to "switch" at the same time, then coordinate them somehow. This is easy with Mage/Changeling. If you have one Mage, have him be an Acanthus*, and when he signs his name to that Watchtower, simultaneously Changeling-Guy gets abducted. Since he can spend decades in Arcadia and have no time pass in the real world, he gets all Changeling-ized then makes it back moments later.

You've got a built in mutual plot hook there- does the fact that Mages can draw power from Arcadia mean Keepers can take people to Arcadia? Was a bargain struck? Did one character unknowingly authorize the other character's kidnapping and brutal supernatural transformation?

*I usually discard the Path restrictions; so I'd let him just pick two Greater Arcana and one Inferior and say that they're Arcadia-themed. Oh, another bit of Mage advice while I'm on the subject- the Path descriptions are notoriously awful, the worst WW ever did. Ignore anything they say about "stereotypical" Mages of Path X (Moros tend to wear black? Gee, great description!) and let your players decide. All Paths really determine is the mythological theme of the Watchtower and what Arcana you're good at.

What about a situation like what I outlined: the First Change occurs where no other Werewolves can help? Are there mechanics that will force the PC to seek out a pack, or is it a psychological thing that could tie her to the other PCs because they were around when she changed and seem trustworthy?

It's really tough to figure out how to be a Werewolf without other werewolves to teach you, but this could actually be an awesome concept for a character- a newly changed werewolf who falls in with non-werewolf supernaturals, and has to figure it all out himself and based on what hearsay information other supernaturals know about werewolves.

"Don't worry about silver, dude! Totally a hollywood thing!"
"Oh okay hey wait OW OW OW!"
"Uh...sorry?"

And so on.

Killing the metaplot did a lot more to change Vampire than any other game, IMHO. That one thing completely stripped away most of Vampire's baggage. It has a negligible effect on Werewolf. Some influence on Mage and the others, but affects Vamps the most.

I don't know much about Old Werewolf, but I hear from others it was pretty metaplotty itself, and that removing the Wyrm/Weaver/Wyld and the Apocalypse and all that really changes the equation for oWerewolf->nWerewolf transitions. No more saving the world or epic Captain Planet struggle stuff.

Dunno though, they're all pretty different from their predecessors.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Actually, now that I think about it, can I suggest something other then nWoD? Try using UA; it should do the trick very nicely indeed.

 

[Mercule]

Actually, now that I think about it, can I suggest something other then nWoD? Try using UA; it should do the trick very nicely indeed.

"UA"? Unknown Armies?

I think we're stuck on nWoD. 4/6 players have a good amount of experience with the system, via oWoD, and I already have Mage and Promethean, with another person having Vampire. Most of my group is also "new system averse", with myself and one of the Storyteller virgins being the only two who really like randomly trying new systems. Two of my players were around 15 years ago (wow, that long) when we started oWoD. I had to whine for a month just to get them to try it.

I'd prefer to stick with nWoD for no other reason than I have $120 in books sitting on my shelf that I've never used. I don't mind randomly flipping systems (love it, in fact). I just hate wasting money.

 

[Crothian]

The nWoD is a bunch of great games. There is a lot of creativity and versatility in their games.

 

[Professor Phobos]

I think we're stuck on nWoD. 4/6 players have a good amount of experience with the system, via oWoD,

Uh, just making sure here- you know the system is pretty different, right? The oWoD used "StorytellER" while the new one uses "StorytellING."