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The new White Wolf RPGs

Erebus

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They're not really new anymore, but you know what I mean : the RPGs that replaced Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Mage the Ascension, etc.

Are they any good ? I never hear anything about them. In fact, it often feels like there are many more people still playing VtM than the new generation of White Wolf RPGs.
 

Grunker

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They're not really new anymore, but you know what I mean : the RPGs that replaced Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Mage the Ascension, etc.

Are they any good ? I never hear anything about them. In fact, it often feels like there are many more people still playing VtM than the new generation of White Wolf RPGs.

oWoD is miles better in most departments. Some of the new ones, like Promethean for example, are pretty cool as concepts but mostly play as shit. I played a bunch of Requiem and then went back to Masquerade. Same goes for Mage, though the transition here is less bad. There are a few really good ideas in the new Mage.

oWoD was already more than "emo with a personal focus" enough - the history, powerplay and politics was always stronger than the inward looking Beast vs. Humanity theme. Requiem steps up the BLEEEEED to 500 and drowns most of the history.

Politics and powerplay are simplified as horizontal struggles between groups of allied Kindred rather than the complex webbing of horizontal (clan) and vertical (generation) struggles of oWoD. Vampires automatically going into torpor once they reach a certain age killed it somewhat for the unrealistic but hugely fun period-spanning campaigns.

Disclaimer: As far as the rules for each of them goes, they're way, way better in all the new editions. So what I'm talking about is everything else. Though you can get Vampire the Masquerade with the updated rules now (as an anniversary pdf).
 
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Excidium

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They're alright. I don't like some of system changes nor the fluff of most of them.

Also I don't know if you know but the oWoD lines are being relaunched, Mage 20th kickstarter will probably happen by the end of this year

goes for Mage, though the transition here is less bad. There's are a few really good ideas in the new Mage.
Really? To me nWOD mage transition is second in badness only to nWOD werewolf. Gone are all the different factions that are strongly tied to the cosmology, gone are all the magical traditions based on real life stuff, all replaced by some bullshit backstory about atlantis and DRAGONS.

Not to mention the really stupid "Death" arcanum probably shoehorned to fit the magic multiple of 5 number they obsess over in nWOD, which is something I hate the most. This kills the verisimilitude. 5 mage orders, 5 mage paths, 5 vampire convenants, 5 vampire clans, 5 werewolf auspices, 5 werewolf tribes, and it goes on...

Maybe the God Machine Chronicles explains that. :M
 

evdk

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Same goes for Mage, though the transition here is less bad. There are a few really good ideas in the new Mage.
Out of curiosity, which ones? I really disliked Awakening, but I would be interested in reading what you think they did right (hint: it's nothing).
 

Grunker

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Same goes for Mage, though the transition here is less bad. There are a few really good ideas in the new Mage.
Out of curiosity, which ones? I really disliked Awakening, but I would be interested in reading what you think they did right (hint: it's nothing).


I like the focus on the otherworldly. I really, really liked some of the new spells. I liked the orders as well. Mostly, I liked the fact that unlike Vampire, Mage wasn't unrecognizable.

Codex Rabbi asks: You think they did nothing right at all. Explain?

Excidium said:
To me nWOD mage transition is second in badness only to nWOD werewolf. Gone are all the different factions that are strongly tied to the cosmology, gone are all the magical traditions based on real life stuff, all replaced by some bullshit backstory about atlantis and DRAGONS.

I don't care much about the backstory here, honestly. Didn't in Vampire either. As soon as we get to detailed lore and "the universe, life and everything" of White Wolf, I think they've always been pretty shit.

When I play any of these games, I always keep it to the basic themes, low level mechanics and low level lore. I never delve into the full-fledged stupidity.

Your mileage may vary.
 

Grunker

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Though you can get Vampire the Masquerade with the updated rules now (as an anniversary pdf).
This is not true, the anniversary editions still use the classic ruleset but with further revised rules.


I have the PDF :M

The "the" was misguiding I see. What I meant was that the anniversary edition was updated enough that nWoD's rules weren't that much better. Not that they substituted disciplines and stuff like that.
 

lightbane

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Changeling: The Lost is all that you need. Along with the God-Machine book one. That reminds me, has anyone tried Mummy: The Curse?
 
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Excidium

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Though you can get Vampire the Masquerade with the updated rules now (as an anniversary pdf).
This is not true, the anniversary editions still use the classic ruleset but with further revised rules.


I have the PDF :M

The "the" was misguiding I see. What I meant was that the anniversary edition was updated enough that nWoD's rules weren't that much better. Not that they substituted disciplines and stuff like that.
Yeah. Screw nwod rules. I like my fixed wound levels thanks.
 

evdk

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Same goes for Mage, though the transition here is less bad. There are a few really good ideas in the new Mage.
Out of curiosity, which ones? I really disliked Awakening, but I would be interested in reading what you think they did right (hint: it's nothing).
I disliked them bringing a Morality stat to Mage. I didn't like the 5 orders/5 paths thing they were doing with all the lines (and I hated the fluff of all of the nMage factions). Them abandoning the interesting consensual reality concept to go with some Atlantis mumbo jumbo was a dumb design decision (which they IIRC tried to distance from by claiming that the Atlantis back story is just one version of reality or something like that). I didn't like he fact that they tried to enforce the orders more then in the oMage.

To be honest I think I just liked how through the four original editions of Mage the backstory become cheerfully insane thanks to non stop retconning and the new fluff, which was also designed to be as accessible as possible, could never match that. Same could be also said for all of the game lines, although interestingly I kind of like the VtR, thanks mostly due to Mekhet and Lancea Sanctum.
 

Grunker

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Same goes for Mage, though the transition here is less bad. There are a few really good ideas in the new Mage.
Out of curiosity, which ones? I really disliked Awakening, but I would be interested in reading what you think they did right (hint: it's nothing).
I disliked them bringing a Morality stat to Mage. I didn't like the 5 orders/5 paths thing they were doing with all the lines (and I hated the fluff of all of the nMage factions). Them abandoning the interesting consensual reality concept to go with some Atlantis mumbo jumbo was a dumb design decision (which they IIRC tried to distance from by claiming that the Atlantis back story is just one version of reality or something like that). I didn't like he fact that they tried to enforce the orders more then in the oMage.

To be honest I think I just liked how through the four original editions of Mage the backstory become cheerfully insane thanks to non stop retconning and the new fluff, which was also designed to be as accessible as possible, could never match that. Same could be also said for all of the game lines, although interestingly I kind of like the VtR, thanks mostly due to Mekhet and Lancea Sanctum.


Well, then it seems I can respond to you as I did Excidium :) :

I don't care much about the backstory here, honestly. Didn't in Vampire either. As soon as we get to detailed lore and "the universe, life and everything" of White Wolf, I think they've always been pretty shit.

When I play any of these games, I always keep it to the basic themes, low level mechanics and low level lore. I never delve into the full-fledged stupidity.

Your mileage may vary.
 
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Excidium

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I really like the cosmology and overall background of the WoD, at least in what pertains to Mage and Werewolf. Wraith is cool too. I'm a fag for umbral things.
 

evdk

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Also the Technocracy was an antagonist better that anything nMage was able to come up with, especially the laughable Seers of the Throne.
 

Alex

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They're not really new anymore, but you know what I mean : the RPGs that replaced Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Mage the Ascension, etc.

Are they any good ? I never hear anything about them. In fact, it often feels like there are many more people still playing VtM than the new generation of White Wolf RPGs.

oWoD is miles better in most departments. Some of the new ones, like Promethean for example, are pretty cool as concepts but mostly play as shit. I played a bunch of Requiem and then went back to Masquerade. Same goes for Mage, though the transition here is less bad. There are a few really good ideas in the new Mage.

oWoD was already more than "emo with a personal focus" enough - the history, powerplay and politics was always stronger than the inward looking Beast vs. Humanity theme. Requiem steps up the BLEEEEED to 500 and drowns most of the history.

Politics and powerplay are simplified as horizontal struggles between groups of allied Kindred rather than the complex webbing of horizontal (clan) and vertical (generation) struggles of oWoD. Vampires automatically going into torpor once they reach a certain age killed it somewhat for the unrealistic but hugely fun period-spanning campaigns.

Disclaimer: As far as the rules for each of them goes, they're way, way better in all the new editions. So what I'm talking about is everything else. Though you can get Vampire the Masquerade with the updated rules now (as an anniversary pdf).


I am curious about what you consider better about their rules.

About the new mage, the towers aren't that bad, I guess, but the sects are pretty uninspired, I thought. I also really hate the idea of prestige classes in White Wolf games.

(...snip)
When I play any of these games, I always keep it to the basic themes, low level mechanics and low level lore. I never delve into the full-fledged stupidity.

Your mileage may vary.

Well, I would say having belief shape how the world itself is shaped, to the point of having different world views collide like they do in th original Mage is a pretty basic idea, but a really cool one. Way better than that weird story about Atlantis or whatever.
 

Grunker

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Also the Technocracy was an antagonist better that anything nMage was able to come up with, especially the laughable Seers of the Throne.

I agree with all that shit (remember I still think nMage is significantly worse), I just think it was much more like the original than Vampire was.

Alex said:
I am curious about what you consider better about their rules.

Oh jesus I don't even know where to start. I'm playing The Giovanni Chronicles (oWoD, Dark Ages) with a group right now with the old rules, and it's horrific. Any combat situation lasts a million years as celerity turns drag out, one player's turn lasts a minute, the next player's lasts 10 (and then come the celerity rounds). Nothing makes much sense neither from a gamist nor a verisimilitude perspective, and defining actions is a nightmare.

I always loved the structure of WW's rules - so simple, lots of dice (mmm), easy to roll with. But their combat rules have always sucked hard. That's cleaned up soooo much Requiem.

Combat is quicker to resolve and way easier to remember (less looking shit up), just like anything in WW rules should be.

Combat in WW should be fast and easy, over without much thought. At this point I'm almost ready to ask the GM to just larp us through the fights.
 

Night Goat

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I very briefly played the new Vampire game when it came out. I don't remember much about the mechanics, but the setting was a huge letdown. They threw out the more interesting aspects of the setting, like the Sabbat and the Antediluvians, and replaced them with...not much, apparently, because I'm drawing a blank.
 
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Excidium

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Alex said:
I am curious about what you consider better about their rules.

Oh jesus I don't even know where to start. I'm playing The Giovanni Chronicles (oWoD, Dark Ages) with a group right now with the old rules, and it's horrific. Any combat situation lasts a million years as celerity turns drag out, one player's turn lasts a minute, the next player's lasts 10 (and then come the celerity rounds). Nothing makes much sense neither from a gamist nor a verisimilitude perspective, and defining actions is a nightmare.
I like when people are going to criticize oWOD system 90% of the time it's celerity. Yeah it's a terrible implementation of multiple actions but it's one sub-system of one of the half a dozen games that fall under the WOD umbrella.

In werewolf for example, multiple actions are implemented much better.
 

Alex

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Also the Technocracy was an antagonist better that anything nMage was able to come up with, especially the laughable Seers of the Throne.

I agree with all that shit (remember I still think nMage is significantly worse), I just think it was much more like the original than Vampire was.

Alex said:
I am curious about what you consider better about their rules.

Oh jesus I don't even know where to start. I'm playing The Giovanni Chronicles (oWoD, Dark Ages) with a group right now with the old rules, and it's horrific. Any combat situation lasts a million years as celerity turns drag out, one player's turn lasts a minute, the next player's lasts 10 (and then come the celerity rounds). Nothing makes much sense neither from a gamist nor a verisimilitude perspective, and defining actions is a nightmare.

I always loved the structure of WW's rules - so simple, lots of dice (mmm), easy to roll with. But their combat rules have always sucked hard. That's cleaned up soooo much Requiem.

Combat is quicker to resolve and way easier to remember (less looking shit up), just like anything in WW rules should be.

Combat in WW should be fast and easy, over without much thought. At this point I'm almost ready to ask the GM to just larp us through the fights.

I never understood why people think celerity rules are so bad. I mean, I play using old white wolf rules, and most combats as a whole take 10 minutes.

Anyway, what I most disliked in the new World of Darkness is how they chucked out the variable difficulty thing. It is a neat system.
 
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Excidium

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Celerity is bad because it's a real no-brainer discipline choice, and it has a really low cost for the benefit it brings.
 

Alex

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Celerity is bad because it's a real no-brainer discipline choice, and it has a really low cost for the benefit it brings.

Oh, that I can agree with. But I think Grunker is saying it has some mechanical problem that slows down gameplay. I mean, I can see the game being slowed down if you want to check all the kinds of maneuvers you can make. Or if you want to make up stuff on the spot and want to compare it to what is already there. But in my game, we have a vampire with celerity and ambidexterity. And combat sill goes by reasonably fast, as long as we keep in mind how damage and such works. I was even thinking of suggesting she starts taking stuff from the Streetfighter game they released all those years ago.
 

Grunker

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Also the Technocracy was an antagonist better that anything nMage was able to come up with, especially the laughable Seers of the Throne.

I agree with all that shit (remember I still think nMage is significantly worse), I just think it was much more like the original than Vampire was.

Alex said:
I am curious about what you consider better about their rules.

Oh jesus I don't even know where to start. I'm playing The Giovanni Chronicles (oWoD, Dark Ages) with a group right now with the old rules, and it's horrific. Any combat situation lasts a million years as celerity turns drag out, one player's turn lasts a minute, the next player's lasts 10 (and then come the celerity rounds). Nothing makes much sense neither from a gamist nor a verisimilitude perspective, and defining actions is a nightmare.

I always loved the structure of WW's rules - so simple, lots of dice (mmm), easy to roll with. But their combat rules have always sucked hard. That's cleaned up soooo much Requiem.

Combat is quicker to resolve and way easier to remember (less looking shit up), just like anything in WW rules should be.

Combat in WW should be fast and easy, over without much thought. At this point I'm almost ready to ask the GM to just larp us through the fights.

I never understood why people think celerity rules are so bad. I mean, I play using old white wolf rules, and most combats as a whole take 10 minutes.


Alex, I'm sorry to say this, but sometimes you prove to me that I'm right in discounting your opinion on certain rules topics ;)

Celerity is a no-brainer discipline that makes some characters spend a disproportionately large amount of time on combat while others without Celerity just sit and watch, hands in their lap. There is no excuse for it, and frankly I even wonder how much you play the game when you claim it isn't bad.

On certain topics, it really feels like you favour the old rules simply because they're old. I have no idea why you'd excuse Celerity otherwise.

Even hardcore oldfags I know personally who defend The Ancients like you do rate nWoD's rules above oWoD's.

Celerity is bad because it's a real no-brainer discipline choice, and it has a really low cost for the benefit it brings.

Oh, that I can agree with. But I think Grunker is saying it has some mechanical problem that slows down gameplay. I mean, I can see the game being slowed down if you want to check all the kinds of maneuvers you can make. Or if you want to make up stuff on the spot and want to compare it to what is already there. But in my game, we have a vampire with celerity and ambidexterity. And combat sill goes by reasonably fast, as long as we keep in mind how damage and such works. I was even thinking of suggesting she starts taking stuff from the Streetfighter game they released all those years ago.

Most combat rules are obscure and most combat disciplines have texts half a page long with all sorts of weird rules. There's no system to the combat; every single thing works differently than the next. That means you look up tons of shit in combat, even when you're a veteran and since 5 enemies and three party members have three dots of celerity, two players are doing nothing for 9 minutes of the turn - and not only in real time. In game combat impact as well, those with Celerity have a huge impact compared to other players.

Combat should be one or two rounds of quick n' easy in a system that is designed that way in all other instances, yet it is needlessly complex and convoluted.
 

Grunker

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A good example: GURPS combat is 300 times more complex, but also much less convoluted. On your turn, pick a maneuver and do whatever that maneuver states. Maneuvers, outcomes and tactics are insanely complex, but the basics are just that: basic.

Contrast this to oWoD's simplistic mechanics that have a huge number of addendums and ifs and buts and oh waits. WW combat should, on all accounts, be way faster and smoother than GURPS combat, yet isn't. That's a problem.
 

Alex

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Alex, I'm sorry to say this, but sometimes you prove to me that I'm right in discounting your opinion on certain rules topics ;)

Celerity is a no-brainer discipline that makes some characters spend a disproportionately large amount of time on combat while others without Celerity just sit and watch, hands in their lap. There is no excuse for it, and frankly I even wonder how much you play the game when you claim it isn't bad.

On certain topics, it really feels like you favour the old rules simply because they're old. I have no idea why you'd excuse Celerity otherwise.

Even hardcore oldfags I know personally who defend The Ancients like you do rate nWoD's rules above oWoD's.

I dunno about the time thing. I am pretty sure we waste less than one minute on any single character turn unless we need to look stuff up. And when we do, we usually remember it well enough for the next time. Then again we frequently go a few sessions without combat, so maybe it is just a cultural thing. About it being overpowered, all it needs is a tweak on the blood cost, or some kind of cost for the user. Since only one of our PCs is geared for face to face combat at all, it just hasn't been a issue either.

The new system has a few interesting ideas. Backgrounds and merits are consolidated, as they probably should have been all along. And the idea of disadvantages as a source of XP is good. But getting rid of difficulty numbers makes the system way too simple, I think. It is frequently all about accumulating dice, using the right tools and all. It seems the new version fixes some of this stuff, but not all, necessarily.

A good example: GURPS combat is 300 times more complex, but also much less convoluted. On your turn, pick a maneuver and do whatever that maneuver states. Maneuvers, outcomes and tactics are insanely complex, but the basics are just that: basic.

Contrast this to oWoD's simplistic mechanics that have a huge number of addendums and ifs and buts and oh waits. WW combat should, on all accounts, be way faster and smoother than GURPS combat, yet isn't. That's a problem.

But the ifs, buts and waits are what make it fun! That said, I think a good GM should just make a ruling rather than making sure everything is done by the book when different stuff interacts.
 
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Excidium

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Celerity is bad because it's a real no-brainer discipline choice, and it has a really low cost for the benefit it brings.

Oh, that I can agree with. But I think Grunker is saying it has some mechanical problem that slows down gameplay. I mean, I can see the game being slowed down if you want to check all the kinds of maneuvers you can make. Or if you want to make up stuff on the spot and want to compare it to what is already there. But in my game, we have a vampire with celerity and ambidexterity. And combat sill goes by reasonably fast, as long as we keep in mind how damage and such works. I was even thinking of suggesting she starts taking stuff from the Streetfighter game they released all those years ago.
What I gather that Grunker dislikes is that it creates a serious disparity on the time each player has to him in combat, since not everyone is going to be taking multiple turns. But then again it bears repeating that this is a problem with vampire.

In werewolf, multiple actions cost rage which to begin with is a double-edged stat, the higher your permanent rage the more you have to spend for extra actions but it also makes you much more likely to frenzy while also making people more uneasy around you, penalizing social interactions.

Second, everyone has rage, some auspices have more than others but it's still a resource naturally available to all that is also used for other important things like regenerating or shifting instantly. And werewolves also have really high combat pools so they don't need to take extra turns all the time, just split the dice pools which speeds combat and makes rounds more even for everyone.

And the biggest difference is that you can't refill your rage whenever you want (unless you're a codexer), it's p. much a GM-controlled resource save for some special occasions.

tl;dr

extra turns are a taktikal choice in werewolf that you have to use wisely because you can't suck anger from a bag
I get butthurt when people say owod when they clearly refer specifically to vampire
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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I'lll just drop by and say that as far as I am concerned Promethean is the finest game White Wolf has made.
 

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