Questions about NWoD (necro from Oct 05)

[Lokishadow]

Okay, so I'm a dyed-in-the-wool oWoD player/GM. I was reading the thread on New Mage, and I noticed a lot of people hailing the "improved" rules of NWoD.

My question: some one please explain the new system to me! How is it better? As near as I can tell, it's actually WORSE...no more variable difficulties. Everything (with the rare exception) is Difficulty 8...i.e. you must roll and 8 or higher to get a success. Statistically, this makes no sense to me. That means you get 3 successes out of a 10 dice pool. Whee! I have to be a Olypmic Gymnast (Dex 5) with a Black Belt in Kung Fu (Brawl 5) to land a "completely successful punch," (3 successes) to use old rule descriptions.

So, in a nut shell, HOW does it work? No more soak rolls, no more variable difficulties (for those ridiculously easy actions that still carry a chance of failure).

The settings look really cool. I've like all the storyline concepts that I've seen in Vampire and Werewolf. Haven't seen Mage yet, but Old Mage was (is?) my favorite game system ever, hands down. Yeah, it took some time to get really competent, but it worked, and I had a solution to that. I've even adapted the rules set to run a kind of "White Wolf D&D."

So, how's your mileage with the new WoD?

YMMV
-Loki

 

[evildmguy]

Okay, not sure I can answer everything but I will try and answer a few. I haven't read Mage yet and am not done with Werewolf, mostly because I am not playing it.

Mechanic - Instead of two rolls, there is only one roll now. You take attribute + skill + specializations + modifiers - defense - modifiers (yes, I did modifiers twice). Whatever your roll that is 8 or higher, is a success.

For example. Your mortal character shoots at a vampire. He has firearms 3, dex 3, specialized in pistol for 3, uses a Desert Eagle .50 which is 4. The vampire has a defense of 3. So, the first shot would be 3+3+3+4-3=10. You roll 10 dice and every 8 is a direct wound to the vampire. (Yes, they still have bash/wound/agg.)

Pretty much that's how most of the skills work. Except for combat, though, most won't have negatives, except situationally. (Research from a book with no index or some such.)

As for story, the story hasn't changed much for Vampire, imo. They did simplify it in a nice way, though. Now, there are fewer clans, which is based on an archetype (strong, ugly, leader) but they have bloodlines, which allow for variations. They also have philosophies that a vampire believes and that gives them abilities as well. However, the BEST change they made was that age does NOT determine strength or power of the vamp. Now experience does that. Further, the more powerful a vampire is, they need more powerful blood, i.e. other vampires. If/when they get too powerful and willingly, or not, go into torpor, when they wake up, their power will have dimished over time. It actually works well.

For Werewolf, the biggest change is the mythology. No more Wyld and weaver. They are still aware of a shadow place and they try and protect their world. There are actually two clans of wolves, who don't like each other, based on the mythology. This also means that werewolves and vampires aren't immediately enemies.

As I said, I haven't read mage to know anything about it.

I hope that helps somewhat!

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

 

[Drew]

If anyone else is as slow on the uptake as me...OWoD equals the original World of Darkness games by Whitewolf (Vampire, Werewolf, etc.) and NWoD is the updated versions of those. I had to read about half this thread before I figured that out, so I present this as a public service to anyone else not as savy on the acronyms.

 

[Satori]

Loki Shadow: You NEED to share your d20 conversion of White Wolf! Some friends and I have considered doing that for several years now, but it always seems too daunting.

I personally love the atmosphere and storyline of WoD...but absolutely, positively despise the rule system. A game should be quickly playable with one of every die types...we shouldn't need 20 d10s per player!!!

 

[Aus_Snow]

your d20 conversion of White Wolf

Eh, it looked exactly the other way around to me. Bleh, maybe I need caffiene.

 

[teitan]

You are mistaken in your thoughts on how the system works. You only need 1 success to succeed at ANY task, more successes mean better success but you just need to get one success. Statistically speaking it works a heck of a lot better because you don't have Ones eating your successes anymore either. The system really is a lot better and the static target number works wonders. Penalties are done as dice negations. Say you have a total of 6 dice combining your stat and skill. The Storyteller decides its not that easy and gives you a minus 3 penalty, that means you roll three less dice. He can also give bonus dice for outstanding circumstances etc. It is very elegant in play. You should try it.

Definitely don't think of it in terms of oWOD, think of it in terms of AD&D vs. D20, superficially similar systems but D20 is far superior.

Jason

 

[scadgrad]

What EvilDmGuy said.

I'm an old fan who sold off my entire WW collection before my last move. I like the fact that they've brought out a new version and really had too much of the old stuff anyways. Similar to my Hat of d02 collection.



I've not read all of V:tR yet, but it looks as if your campaigns won't be changing all that much. I'm not altogether happy about the Bloodline thing because it has now been splatified. Not sure what's in that book (V:tR Bloodlines0, but I'd like to have my Tremer, Tzc, Rav, and Lasombra back thank you very much. Some of the bloodlines are a bit dodgy or perhaps I just haven't got my head around the new Clans just yet. For the life of me, I don't understand the distinction, or more importantly the NEED for a distinction, between Daeva and the Toreador. Not that I'm a huge Torador fan, but I'm shocked that they're not one of the core clans.

For what it's worth, the book is so yummy in its layout and design. Totally blows away most (but certainly not all) of WotC's magic-the-gathering, full color comic book crap imo.

But on to Werewolf...

I just won mine on Ebay earlier in the week (nWoD stuff can be had at a subtantial savings on Ebay...just fyi) and I'm waiting on it to arrive. I had a blast weaving exciting, otherworldly tales w/ that system back in the day. It was one of my all-time favorites campaigns. I'm disappointed to hear about the loss of the Weaver and the Wyld. No more Nexus Crawler I guess. I'm assuming that the Umbra's still there, but I'll be disappointed if the Garou (I believe they've changed their name...sucks) are now "Leach Neutral." Additionally, rumor has it that the average starting werewolf is no where near as dangerous as in the past. IIRC I had heard that WW was trying to "level the playing field" between the games which sucks really. Our group appreciated the difference and when we wanted to power on, rip-rip, tear-tear, we'd do W:tA and when we wanted a more subtle game, we'd go w/ V:tM. Maybe it was because they had played both games, but when the group was playing Vamps, they "lived" in mortal fear of the lupines, and since our tales were set in-and-around Nashville, they knew exactly what was close at hand.

Anyone w/ the current edition of W:tF that can clear the air, I'd certainly like to hear your opinions.

 

[Barastrondo]

My question: some one please explain the new system to me! How is it better? As near as I can tell, it's actually WORSE...no more variable difficulties. Everything (with the rare exception) is Difficulty 8...i.e. you must roll and 8 or higher to get a success. Statistically, this makes no sense to me. That means you get 3 successes out of a 10 dice pool. Whee! I have to be a Olypmic Gymnast (Dex 5) with a Black Belt in Kung Fu (Brawl 5) to land a "completely successful punch," (3 successes) to use old rule descriptions.

It's only fair to point out that you really shouldn't use old rule descriptions here. One of the ramifications of the new system was that it was built so that one success is "success." It's not marginal, it's not barely adequate — the only time you need more than one success is on an extended roll. One success is "completely successful."

To use your example, we'll take an Olympic athlete (Strength 5), very experienced in fighting (Brawl 5; we'll leave the black belt out of it, because that's a fighting style Merit that grants very different bonuses), and say he gets three successes on an attack roll. The opponent takes three points of damage. Dodging and defense subtract from your attack roll's dice pool — it's one roll.

This is a pretty abstract system, yes; but it also means combat is whip-fast, like a back-alley beatdown. You don't have one person rolling a handful of dice to attack, another rolling a handful of dice to dodge, then a handful to do damage, a handful to soak, with the final result of not doing any damage.

So, in a nut shell, HOW does it work? No more soak rolls, no more variable difficulties (for those ridiculously easy actions that still carry a chance of failure).

The dice pool is modified by adding or subtracting dice. A ridiculously easy action that could still fail would add about +5 dice. Say you're skilled, and that brings you up to 11 dice or so; to fail, you would have to roll 7 or lower on every one of those 11 dice. Odds are, you won't.

Also, 1s do not subtract successes. The only way to "botch" is to be reduced to a chance die — when penalties take your dice pool down to 0 or below, all you have left is a chance die to represent that there's still a chance of success. Roll a one on the chance die, and you dramatically fail. This is, in my experience, the best-received change of all of them; didn't know many people who liked the old botch system.

 

[scadgrad]

Loki Shadow: You NEED to share your d20 conversion of White Wolf! Some friends and I have considered doing that for several years now, but it always seems too daunting.

I personally love the atmosphere and storyline of WoD...but absolutely, positively despise the rule system. A game should be quickly playable with one of every die types...we shouldn't need 20 d10s per player!!!

That's funny Satori, because I love their system. It's probably my fave, tied w/ CoC. I like the simplicity of character creation and the fact that it can easily be played w/out minis or a battlemat.

I see no problem at all w/ the Big Handfulls of Dice, but then again, I played enough Champions w/ 300pt characters to get used to it. Plus, I play a lot of WHFB so rolling 20 or more d6 is no big whoop. Well actually it is.



YMMV

 

[Lokishadow]

Ummmm....actually, I converted d20 (dungeons & dragons) into the White Wolf system. I like the white wolf system better. But, now that you mention it....hmmm. Why'd you go and give me a crazy idea like that? Now I'm going to be converting Werewolf and Vampire and Mage into D20...AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!

For those of you that don't know me well...I like to modify game systems. I've been doing it for personal use for about 10-15 years. Maybe I'll post something.

Satori, if you want to help, shoot me a line at: thaddeus_wyckoff@yahoo.com. I'll see what I can work out.

-Loki