WoD renaming, White Wolf returns

[VelvetViolet]

Personally, I don't find either the WoD or the WitchCraft systems and settings particularly satisfying.

Ok. I’m more interested in the idea of WitchCraft since I got into rpgs after it was canceled and only learned it about a decade after when the fandom was already largely vanished. What would you find interesting then? Tell me. Maybe I’d like it too. I’m not satisfied with the current nostalgia-worshipping pop culture wasteland.

Now you guys are making me sad the very existence of Eden Studios is tenuous at best. They were really ahead of the curve with All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

AFMBE is amazing. All the different guidelines and deadworlds are very creative and inspiring. Every game should be designed like that.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm also waiting on Mechanoids Space from Palladium.

You're going to get a lot further on that score by simply getting the Trilogy.
The Mechanoids:The Mechanoid Invasion::Mechanoid Space:Mechanoids Homeworld.
Since Invasiona and Homeworld are in Trilogy...
I'll note as well, the letter format The Mechanoids is slightly updated from TMI, but is still pre-MegaDamage. The first mention of MS was before everything had to go to having rifts integration...

I want The Mechanoids for Savage Worlds, really. But I'm too lazy to convert it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm pretty sure they all think that. A reality where magic works according to the whims of mages is far too dangerous for mortals, and solidifying the laws of reality means mortals can exploit them to build mundane technology that helps them.

Yeah, but when you get into the guts of it, its really hard to believe some of the people running some aspects of those can be taken seriously on that given what they're doing. Some of the field agents and other mid-to-lower level types, on the other hand, can think that in good faith because what they're doing is, well, fighting monsters and its pretty clear what they're doing on a zoomed in view is hard to read as anything but benign. They don't have to ignore other parts of the individual Convocations because their work is so siloed they just don't know about it.

Its when they start getting higher up in the organization this requires progressively more cognitive dissonance. With conventional stereotypical spy agencies of the era that inspires them, that was hard to do even at the bottom for too long.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ok. I’m more interested in the idea of WitchCraft since I got into rpgs after it was canceled and only learned it about a decade after when the fandom was already largely vanished. What would you find interesting then? Tell me. Maybe I’d like it too. I’m not satisfied with the current nostalgia-worshipping pop culture wasteland.

The problem with the WitchCraft setting is that its too mage-centric. In most of the urban fantasy I find interesting, they're just part of a bigger picture that includes a lot of nonhuman groups that factor in as much. Its not like there aren't nonhumans in the WC setting, but for the most part they're marginalized by the setup.

(WoD doesn't marginalize them as much, but its really badly set up for interactions to work well, and as presented, its hard to see why the Mages should really care about them except on a situational basis. This gets back to the whole "mages turn vampires into lawnchairs" problem. The gap between the power levels and how badly the mechanics interact is too large, even accounting for some of the benefits vampires, changing breeds and changelings have).

This is not an uncommon problem; there are urban fantasy games that avoid it, but often they're set up with a stylistic focus that doesn't suit me.

AFMBE is amazing. All the different guidelines and deadworlds are very creative and inspiring. Every game should be designed like that.

Well, its easy to do with AFMBE because the focus of the game is, when you get down to it, very narrow. Not every game has that particular advantage.

 

[MGibster]

You're going to get a lot further on that score by simply getting the Trilogy.
The Mechanoids:The Mechanoid Invasion::Mechanoid Space:Mechanoids Homeworld.
Since Invasiona and Homeworld are in Trilogy...

I actually haven't played any Palladium game since sometime before I graduated from high school. i.e. It's been more than thirty years. I do remember seeing ads for Mechanoids Space though.

 

[aramis erak]

I actually haven't played any Palladium game since sometime before I graduated from high school. i.e. It's been more than thirty years. I do remember seeing ads for Mechanoids Space though.

Yeah, I figured. Last I saw it on Palladium's schedule was before Rifts launched.
There is the MegaDamage Rifts Mechanoids... Ugh. But seriously, the Trilogy sourcebook is the original 3 comic sized in a modern palladium layout - ie, mostly usable. But all the original art is in there, too.

 

[VelvetViolet]

The problem with the WitchCraft setting is that its too mage-centric. In most of the urban fantasy I find interesting, they're just part of a bigger picture that includes a lot of nonhuman groups that factor in as much. Its not like there aren't nonhumans in the WC setting, but for the most part they're marginalized by the setup.

That might be a relic of the fact that the vampires, ghosts, werewolves, etc. only got playable rules in supplements, so the core rulebook couldn’t really integrate them into the setup without feeling unfinished. Most of the associations don’t discriminate against them and allow them as members.

IIRC they can all learn the magic systems too, rather than being arbitrarily barred. So the distinction between mages and everything else is blurred.

How would you redress this? Do you want more associations that limit themselves to particular species? A ghost only association, a feral only association, a vampire only association, etc? Like WoD splats?

This is not an uncommon problem; there are urban fantasy games that avoid it, but often they're set up with a stylistic focus that doesn't suit me.

I’m still searching too. I don’t think that a suitable urban fantasy game exists because nobody wants to waste money on it anymore. Urban Shadows is the most recent I found and it doesn’t even have any settings. You’re expected to just invent all the factions yourself.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That might be a relic of the fact that the vampires, ghosts, werewolves, etc. only got playable rules in supplements, so the core rulebook couldn’t really integrate them into the setup without feeling unfinished. Most of the associations don’t discriminate against them and allow them as members.

I'm not seeing that as true; a few may allow some of them in, but I'd be really surprised to find a werewolf in the Rosicrucians or the Storm Dragons. Maybe the Wicce. Or are you talking PC groups here? What they do doesn't have much to do with the overall thrust of the setting, honestly.

IIRC they can all learn the magic systems too, rather than being arbitrarily barred. So the distinction between mages and everything else is blurred.

That's not entirely true, though to what degree its not I'd need to go back and reread my book (it's been two decades since I did anything with it). Some are compatible, but not all. But even if it was, it still favors magic proper too heavily.

How would you redress this? Do you want more associations that limit themselves to particular species? A ghost only association, a feral only association, a vampire only association, etc? Like WoD splats?

Some of it is simply an issue of power; as I noted Carella did not balance the various options very well; even within human powered characters the difference between a mage and most of the other types is pretty pronounced. You see it a little better in some of the Armageddon groups, but at that point it just shifts it around from Mages to Seraphim being the big dogs of the setting.

I’m still searching too. I don’t think that a suitable urban fantasy game exists because nobody wants to waste money on it anymore. Urban Shadows is the most recent I found and it doesn’t even have any settings. You’re expected to just invent all the factions yourself.

Honestly, I'd rather have that with a system that is going to make it easy to keep everything vaguely in sync and do my own setting than one that has a bunch of setting information but there are too clearly winners and losers.

 

[VelvetViolet]

Honestly, I'd rather have that with a system that is going to make it easy to keep everything vaguely in sync and do my own setting than one that has a bunch of setting information but there are too clearly winners and losers.

I long since realized that the only person who can write a setting I'd like nowadays is myself, but that hardly helps when I want to chat with other urban fantasy fans. Unless I publish my setting, they won't have a point of reference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I long since realized that the only person who can write a setting I'd like nowadays is myself, but that hardly helps when I want to chat with other urban fantasy fans. Unless I publish my setting, they won't have a point of reference.

There are settings that are models that would work for me, but they're all fiction sources, and either don't have a game for them or I didn't find the game system involved suited me.