Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Kickstarter

[Havoc]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-wraith-the-oblivion-20th-anniversary-editio

Fuck no, please, my wallet. I've already kickstarted Dark Ages 20th. If next will be Demon and Changeling, I'm gonna go broke. Thank god, Mage 20th isn't out yet, because I didn't kickstarted that one and wanted to PoD it. Shieeeet.

 

[Night Goat]

Does anyone actually play these? As far as I can tell, WoD is deader than disco.

 

[Havoc]

If it was dead, then they wouldn't do 20th editions. Just check those kickstarters.

Dark Ages 300k
Mage 700k
Werewolf 400k

There was no kickstarter for Vampire, but if I would guess, it would get near the Mage amount or more.

 

[Night Goat]

That still doesn't answer my question. Are people playing these, or are they just taking up space on shelves? I live in the city where White Wolf was located and am active in the tabletop RPG community, and I still never hear of anyone playing their games anymore.

 

[Havoc]

Then it's just your place is shitty. I'm playing WoD with my online friends (Play-by-Forum), strangers (Roll20) and my gaming group.

 

[Melan]

Vampire, sure. Werewolf, likely. Changeling and Mage, wellllll maaaaaybeee. But people really playing Wraith? That doesn't sound legit.

 

[Havoc]

Now this I understand. Yeah, Wraith is one of those settings like Changeling, only some people play it in the WoD club. Mage is more liked than Werewolf (KS backs my claim up).

 

[Melan]

A long-long time ago, perhaps even before the first edition was published, Purple Moon, Hungary's first (and finest!) RPG magazine conducted an interview with role-playing bad boy Mark Rein*Hagen. After finding out about such interesting things as the pronounciation of the dot (there wasn't any), how he wrote Vampire in a shitty phase of his life while subsisting on Ramen noodles, and his background (he was a true Ventrue, descended "from diplomats and important politicians") the interviewers asked him about his new game. So Mark spoke a bit about the premise of playing super-depressed ghosts in a shadowy netherworld devoid of hope, where things were going, and so on. Asked about his target audience, Mark answered that Wraith would be a game for "burned-out deviants." Unsurprisingly, not even those friends of mine who were once unhealthily obsessed with Vampire had played it.

So that's my exposure to Wraith. Hardcore stuff. (I owned the 2nd edition for a few years, before selling it off to someone who really wanted it, but I am told it is tame compared to the first, glow-in-the-dark version.)

 

[Xathrodox86]

Then it's just your place is shitty. I'm playing WoD with my online friends (Play-by-Forum), strangers (Roll20) and my gaming group.

I hate you so much right now. I was running H:TR for more than a year but then my group decided they wanted to play WFRP... which is fine too, but I miss my rainy vampire-hunting nights.

I'll be the first to kick-start H:TR 20th.

 

[Havoc]

Play online. Find a group on Roll20 for Hunter.

https://app.roll20.net/lfg/search
https://app.roll20.net/forum/category/22

 

[Xathrodox86]

Play online. Find a group on Roll20 for Hunter.

https://app.roll20.net/lfg/search
https://app.roll20.net/forum/category/22

Thank you Good Sir!

 

[Havoc]

Well... fuck me. Got sick. Had to spend a little of cash and that means I need to spend money I had left for this Kickstarter. I doubt I'll get cash before this ends. Feels like Mage KS, again.

 

[Akasen]

Correction real quick, there was a Kickstarter for Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition. The numb nuts seemed to have accidentally deleted it or something though.

Now that I am here, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE GLORY OF V20!

 

[Xathrodox86]

Correction real quick, there was a Kickstarter for Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition. The numb nuts seemed to have accidentally deleted it or something though.

Now that I am here, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE GLORY OF V20!

How is it fluff wise? Did they acknowledged the modern day setting more? What about mechanics. I dream of HtR 20, but it'll surely never happen...

 

[Akasen]

How is it fluff wise? Did they acknowledged the modern day setting more? What about mechanics. I dream of HtR 20, but it'll surely never happen...

Okay first off, there's a reason for the name of 20th Anniversary. Your Hunter the Reckoning will probably have some Kickstarter in like 2009 2019. V20 did come out in 2011, though W20 came out a year late, and M20 will be about two years late from its actual twenty.

So Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, what is it? I have explained it many time on this sub-forum, but I love talking about it anyways.

So what 20A does is that it takes all this information from most of the past editions and splat books, while at the same time acting as setting agnostic as possible. The main Thirteen clans are there along with many of the bloodlines and most (so I have read) of the other discipline powers. The Bloodlines includes things like Salubri, the Cappadocians from Dark Ages, Gargoyles, Blood Brothers, True Brujah, Harbinger of Skulls, Baali, and more. All these different Clans and Bloodlines are given loving detail about what they are and little bits of fluff that relate to the meta of Masquerade.

The fluff the book itself goes by is what they call "Setting Agnostic". Basically, you an run Vampire in any point in the metaplot you feel comfortable with and run things that way. The book gives explicit nods in sideboxes to things like how Gangrel become an Independent and some of the Assamites come into Camarilla, how the Malks can have their Dementation replaced with Dominate unless set after "The Great Prank" (Though the main Clan page for them lists them with Dementation anyways).

The book tries to bring Vampire to the bare bone basic ideas of being a vampire in a world where mighty elders reign. Where the Camarilla wage secret wars with the Sabbat, and the Anarchs just want out.

Now to directly address the Modern Day setting, it doesn't. V20 Companion is suppose to be the book that explains technology within the scope of a modern day world with smartphones, internet, and twitter. I couldn't tell you how well it does it, but it's a resource that could be of interest to look into. V20 Companion also covers things like "Titles" and "Prestation".

As of the now, there are books funded and coming out that sorta expand upon certain ideas and collect a bunch of others. Like all the Lore of Clans sound like it will take all of the clanbooks from the past and then compile and update them in one book. Hunters Hunted II was released a while back. It is the update to the old Hunters Hunted, but I doubt it suppose to act as Hunter: The Reckoning 20th Anniversary edition.

All in all, I think it's a solid book. Since I haven't played older editions, I couldn't really say how its rules fair to the old, but I know its the usual roll dice pools against difficulty deal. Multiple Actions is handled in a way like so:

Say you are in a car and driving and are also shooting at a person in another car. You look at your dice pools for driving (Dexterity+Driving[+Celerity]) and shooting a gun (Dexterity+Firearms[+Celerity]). You then take the lower of the two and then split that dice pool between the two actions. I couldn't really bring up any other rules of note off the top of my head, but I say they're fine.

 

[Xathrodox86]

You meant in 2019 surely?

I can wait. This whole 20th Anniversary thingie is really awesome and worth the wait. I really like how they are trying to streamline the whole setting, and making it more friendly for newbies. While I've always loved the extended metaplot of cWoD, it could be quite intimidating sometime.

The rules snippet that you've posted is also quite nice. Seems to me like it's easier than the original ST rules.

Overall:

 

[Akasen]

Fuck, I did. Best to to just cross it out for consistency and place in the correct predicted date.

Anyways yeah, V20 is very good in my opinion. So good, I think I will just copy and past little bits from the book

This is the very first paragraph in the books introduction:
(Of note, the way I paste these is how it is formatted in the book and that formatting carries over)

Let’s face it: If you’re reading this book, you almost
certainly have a history with Vampire, and with White
Wolf’s Storyteller games in general. We’re not going to
spend word count on “What is roleplaying?” or other
elementary principles of the hobby — this is stuff you
already know, and if you don’t, there are tons of websites
where you can get that information. Instead, we’re
going to spend more space in Vampire: The Masquerade
– 20th Anniversary Edition on all of the stuff that’s
usable to you — all of the rules and setting that form
the core of the Vampire experience, plus expanded
Disciplines, scores of bloodlines (past and present),
tweaked rules based on feedback from the Vampire
community, and bits and pieces from here and there
that should prove useful. Sure, we’ll go over the central
concepts of Vampire, but after that, we’re going to be
in high gear.

I love reading this personally because I sat around gawking at all this lore about VtM and just absorbing it all while just wanting to play a game. Then this whole V20 thing happens around the time I am really getting into roleplaying games and that time seem like fate.

This is the first paragraph on the Sects and Clans in Chapter Two:

In the first nights, so sires tell their childer, the 13
grandchilder of Caine who survived the strife of the
First City begat progeny in their own images, passing
on their mystic arts and magical curses. Thus were
founded the 13 great Clans of Kindred that haunt the
world to this very night. Century followed century,
and each Clan developed its own history, traditions,
and lore. As the Jyhad raged and the Antediluvians
retreated into the wastelands, the childer of the Clans
assumed lordship of the night for themselves.

This is the first paragraph on Clan Tremere:

In nights long lost to the passage of time, the Tremere
existed, though they were something else. Those early
Tremere then made a bargain — or wrought a spell,
or any number of other harrowing methods attributed
to the Clan — that changed them from what they had
been into the vampires they are tonight. Some claim
they stole the Curse of Caine from a torpid Antediluvian,
or that they concocted the flawed immortality
of the Kindred from the stolen vitae of other vampires.
Such mysterious origins, which some describe as
treacherous or even blasphemous, haunt the Tremere,
as the other Clans look upon them with mistrust and
suspicion. The history — and, indeed, the modern
legacy — of the Tremere is one marked by Clan war,
centuries-old grudges, and the stain of unwholesome
mysteries long left unsolved.

First and second paragraph on Clan Malkavian:

Clan Malkavian is twice damned: once by the curse
of being Kindred, and again by the turmoil that disturbs
their hearts and minds. Upon the Embrace, every
Malkavian is afflicted with an insurmountable
insanity that fractures her outlook for every night
thereafter, making her unlife one of madness.
Some consider this a form of oracular insight,
while others simply consider them dangerous.

Make no mistake: Malkavian insanity is a
painful, alienating phenomenon, but it occasionally
provides the Lunatics with bursts of insight
or heretofore unknown perspective. Madness
for the Malkavians may take the form of any clinical
form of insanity, or it may be a hyperacuity of senses
others don’t know they have; a supernatural puppeteer
pulling the Malkavian’s strings, or a sense that
the Malkavian is somehow ahead of evolutionary
schedule. A Malkavian may believe herself to
be an idea given physical form or an avatar of
some concept the World of Darkness has yet
to encounter. She may be a nonstop ravening
psychopath, or may be a mostly lucid individual
sometimes rendered catatonic by fear of
an impending cosmic cataclysm.

Here be the whole deal on Celerity:

Not all vampires are slow, meticulous creatures.
When needed, some vampires can move fast — really
fast. Celerity allows Assamites, Brujah, and Toreadors
to move with astonishing swiftness, becoming practically
a blur. The Assamites use their speed in conjunction
with stealth to strike quickly and viciously from
the shadows before they are noticed. Brujah, on the
other hand, simply like the edge that the power gives
them against overwhelming odds. The Toreador are
more inclined to use Celerity to provide an air of unnatural
grace to live performances or for an extra push
to complete a masterpiece on time, but they can be
as quick to draw blood as any assassin or punk when
angered.

System: Each point of Celerity adds one die to every
Dexterity-related dice roll. In addition, the player can
spend one blood point to take an extra action up to the
number of dots he has in Celerity at the beginning of
the relevant turn; this expenditure can go beyond her
normal Generation maximum. Any dots used for extra
actions, however, are no longer available for Dexterity-
related rolls during that turn. These additional actions
must be physical (e.g., the vampire cannot use a
mental Discipline like Dominate multiple times in one
turn), and extra actions occur at the end of the turn
(the vampire’s regular action still takes place per her
initiative roll).

Normally, a character without Celerity must divide
their dice if she wants to take multiple actions in a
single turn, as per p. 248. A character using Celerity
performs his extra actions (including full movement)
without penalty, gaining a full dice pool for each separate
action. Extra actions gained through Celerity may
not in turn be split into multiple actions, however.

The Golden Rule
After twenty years, this is still the most important
rule of all, and the only real rule worth following: The
rules are what you make of them. You should fashion this
game into whatever you need it to be. Whether you’re
running a nearly diceless chronicle of in-character socialization
or a long-running tactical campaign with
each player controlling a small coterie of vampires, if
the rules in this book interfere with your enjoyment
of the game, change them. The world is far too big —
it can’t be reflected accurately in any set of inflexible
rules. This book is nothing more than a collection of
guidelines, suggested but not mandatory ways of capturing
the World of Darkness in the format of a game.
You’re the arbiter of what works best in your game —
mutually determined in play with the Storyteller and
other players — and you’re free to use, alter, abuse,
or ignore these rules at your leisure. Besides, there are
scores of fan communities online that delight in tinkering
with the rules to get just the experience they
want, and the exact rule you’re looking for may be just
a Google search away.

And so on and so forth. Of note, the only Kickstarters I have really backed are Vampire ones, but I am certain that the current publisher of these books, Onyx Path Publishing, will do and have done a fine job on the other books in this new line.

Not really interested in any of the other books, but hey it's great to see the classic games being resurrected. If you're not aware, they are also putting many of the older books up for Print on Demand. I think they said they have something like 600+ books up for such.

 

[Xathrodox86]

Yeah I know about POD. RPG Drivethru has a ton of old White Wolf books.

These paragraphs look really cool and perfectly capture the feel of the Vampire. Just one question: are the based Assamites in this book or will they recieve a completely new one?

 

[Akasen]

They describe the Assamites and then later describe two other castes of Assamite, "Assamite Viziers" who have the disciplines Auspex, Celerity, and Quietus. THen the Assamite Sorcerers, who have Assamite Sorcery, Obfuscate, and Quietus.

No clue what "Based Assamite" is.

 

[Xathrodox86]

They describe the Assamites and then later describe two other castes of Assamite, "Assamite Viziers" who have the disciplines Auspex, Celerity, and Quietus. THen the Assamite Sorcerers, who have Assamite Sorcery, Obfuscate, and Quietus.

No clue what "Based Assamite" is.

"Based" = awesome, cool, etc. Sorry, /tg/ habits die hard. So they've covered Viziers and Sorceres. Nice, but I also would like to read about Warrior Caste and the Web of Knives.

 

[Akasen]

Yeah, this whole V20 thing is great. I actually think the success of things like VtM 20A is what brought WoTC to bring much of the D&D stuff to DriveThruRPG. I believe i can get 3.5e books in PDF form and some new prints of said books in some stores. I also recall seeing some 2nd Edition AD&D somewhere about. Maybe some 1st Editon AD&D as well, but I'm not sure about that.

 

[Xathrodox86]

DriveThruRPG is really great for buying those old, obscure books. I love how one can get almost all of cWoD stuff there, including gems like Project Twilight or Pentex Sourcebook.