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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9536402" data-attributes="member: 18">I feel like this was less true that it, like, should be... especially in the 1980s and early 1990s, and even a little bit in the 2000s, a lot of games weren't really very consciously or thoughtfully designed, but just sort of slapped together, mechanically, without a really clear eye for what they wanted to achieve. Rifts is a superb example of game that is not really very designed, just like, full of churned-out "content". Ideas seem to have come first there and mechanics only as a sort of afterthought in many cases, even though those mechanics occupy hundreds or thousands of pages.oWoD wasn't that bad but a lot of the mechanics seemed to be pretty poorly-conceived and to kind of clunkily serve the purpose they were allegedly for - not least Humanity, where spraypainting graffiti onto some sick naughty word's car was considered worse than beating the hell out of an innocent.That said, your point re: crunch existing for a reason is fair, but I think it was very clear at the time and in retrospect that there was a real tension within the people at White Wolf as to what was "supposed" to be going on with their games. That some people absolutely thought werewolves engaging in daiklaive duels was cool as hell, or vampires dodging gunfire to chop people up with their katana at hyperspeed ruled, and other people writing seemed to think if there was any actual combat in the game, let alone badass trenchcoats and katanas combats. You could see this in some of the Storyteller advice for 1E/2E oWoD books particularly. There was almost a sort of split-personality thing, and it even extended into Revised - Revised came down with very much a "body/existential horror is literally the only acceptable way to play VtM" position, but then it's still bringing out splatbooks and WoD: Combat and so on.All that said I just opened up VtM 2E to look at it and GOOD GOD that is a GORGEOUS book. Wow. Astonishing. They don't make them like that anymore! Everything is so well-aligned aesthetically - the fonts, the art, the borders, just absolutely on-vibe in a way I have just not seen, not even in good indie RPGs, in the last decade. I've seen like, 50% as strong - mostly with stuff from Rowan, Rook and Deckard, but man, as good as Heart or DIE might be, they're just not on this level.</blockquote>

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