General World of Darkness Discussion Thread QQ Edition

[vighzs]

A lot of it has to do with the choices made by the people who are making the content

V5 opened up with a lot of stupid shit and the stuff that paradox clamped down on didn't make it so they improved the other parts that were shit (looks at blood stained love)

Then what I loosely call video games where a lot of it was stupid, didn't use WoD's actual systems/lore, or were just straight cash grabs

Edit

I had reminded my brother who had originally pre ordered the first version of the game for my birthday Years ago that he might want to check if he got refunded for it (he paused and then checked to realize that it being an entirely new game hadn't resulted in that being refunded already)

I'm not sure if I want to drop money on getting a game to analyze the shit myself for full price or if I should bookmark playthroughs by non shills

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From what I've seen you won't miss much by only tuning into a 100% no commentary run. If you really want to see it for yourself I'd wait for a deep sale, chances are it will have one in christmas season if not sooner considering it's rather bland if I want to be charitable.

 

[heralding_bubble]

From what I've seen you won't miss much by only tuning into a 100% no commentary run. If you really want to see it for yourself I'd wait for a deep sale, chances are it will have one in christmas season if not sooner considering it's rather bland if I want to be charitable.

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watch as it's on 2025 Hallowe'en sale

 

[Maragas]

I'm not sure if I want to drop money on getting a game to analyze the shit myself for full price or if I should bookmark playthroughs by non shills

Click to shrink...

You know what, I can do one last thing before I shelve Bloodlines 2 for good. Theorizing what the fuck is happening there with my limited knowledge that I got before softlock.

Fact: Our Elder lost most of his powers. He is marked all over his body.
Fact: Our Elder has his blood written in strange symbols all across the City. Consuming them grant us some XP.
Fact: The symbols even appear on the outside of the elevator of the Prince's Court. Meaning someone needs to be either very sneaky or part of the Camarilla.
Fact: Fabien was the one who found and opened our cask.
Fact: Everyone is going nuts and there is chaos on the streets.
Fact: Anarchs are frenzying everywhere, with moderates not in sight.
Fact: Sheriff is nuts and rogue. Openly says fuck Camarilla and fuck the Prince.
Fact: That Toreador chick was pretty bland when I lied to her that Ventrue Lau was fine, like she was expecting the opposite.

With these I can make some assumptions. We have someone who has access to magical BS, someone that has access to even the Camarilla Court, someone that can use Fabien and someone with a motive, ruin Camarilla in Seattle, to do so.
It could be a Baali. They have access to magic BS and all the weird symbols and marking could be infernal. They are also very sneaky, sneaky enough get into places they shouldn't. But not only V5 is allergic to them until recently but it doesn't explain how Fabien got involved.
It could be a Tremere. They are primarily made out of magic BS. They are part of the Camarilla, which can cover the elevator and why Fabien was involved. But what is the motive? And who is it? Ventrue Lau told us that there is no chantry here. Is it Sofia? She knew of us but everyone we met knew of us. So that's not it either. Tremere Antitribu then? But Sabbat mostly fucked off to the Middle East.
It could be an Assamite. They have magic BS, stealth BS for Camarilla access for elevator mark and Fabien involvement but still...what is their motive? Are they Ur-Shulgi follower who hates Camarilla? Sabbat Assamite? Personal vendetta?

Whoever it is, they are probably behind all the Anarch nonsense and there is a decent possibility that they are working with that Toreador Progenitor. I don't know why Sheriff is nuts but perhaps he is a neutral party after he lost his Prince and hates the new one? They will be doing a grand ritual using our lost Elder powers
So no conclusive answer but hey, I think this is a pretty good estimate from someone who stopped playing after the first night.

 

[shadowdice]

You know what, I can do one last thing before I shelve Bloodlines 2 for good. Theorizing what the fuck is happening there with my limited knowledge that I got before softlock.

Fact: Our Elder lost most of his powers. He is marked all over his body.
Fact: Our Elder has his blood written in strange symbols all across the City. Consuming them grant us some XP.
Fact: The symbols even appear on the outside of the elevator of the Prince's Court. Meaning someone needs to be either very sneaky or part of the Camarilla.
Fact: Fabien was the one who found and opened out cask.
Fact: Everyone is going nuts and there is chaos on the streets.
Fact: Anarchs are frenzying everywhere, with moderates not in sight.
Fact: Sheriff is nuts and rogue. Openly says fuck Camarilla and fuck the Prince.
Fact: That Toreador chick was pretty bland when I lied to her that Ventrue Lau was fine, like she was expecting the opposite.

With these I can make some assumptions. We have someone who has access to magical BS, someone that has access to even the Camarilla Court, someone that can use Fabien and someone with a motive, ruin Camarilla in Seattle, to do so.
It could be a Baali. They have access to magic BS and all the weird symbols and marking could be infernal. They are also very sneaky, sneaky enough get into places they shouldn't. But not only V5 is allergic to them until recently but it doesn't explain how Fabien got involved.
It could be a Tremere. They are primarily made out of magic BS. They are part of the Camarilla, which can cover the elevator and why Fabien was involved. But what is the motive? And who is it? Ventrue Lau told us that there is no chantry here. Is it Sofia? She knew of us but everyone we met knew of us. So that's not it either. Tremere Antitribu then? But Sabbat mostly fucked off to the Middle East.
It could be an Assamite. They have magic BS, stealth BS for Camarilla access for elevator mark and Fabien involvement but still...what is their motive? Are they Ur-Shulgi follower who hates Camarilla? Sabbat Assamite? Personal vendetta?

Whoever it is, they are probably behind all the Anarch nonsense and there is a decent possibility that they are working with that Toreador Progenitor. I don't know why Sheriff is nuts but perhaps he is a neutral party after he lost his Prince and hates the new one? They will be doing a grand ritual using our lost Elder powers
So no conclusive answer but hey, I think this is a pretty good estimate from someone who stopped playing after the first night.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler

it is Sophia

 

[Maragas]

Spoiler

it is Sophia

Click to shrink...

Really?
I thought it was weird that she was like, marshmallow puff, when everyone else in the entire City is arrogant as fuck against us. Especially as Tremere, guys who are mostly cold, logical and usually amoral. But I put it aside since Nosferatu Tolly is also weird

 

[shadowdice]

Really?
I thought it was weird that she was like, marshmallow puff, when everyone else in the entire City is arrogant as fuck against us. Especially as Tremere, guys who are mostly cold, logical and usually amoral. But I put it aside since Nosferatu Tolly is also weird

Click to shrink...

Spoiler

yup her

I had her pegged because she was the one attractive woman to me several hours in, being nice, and immediately mentioning your name after people were talking about the dead prince

 

[NoFunposter]

clearly something happened if so many childe have room temperature IQ)

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>The younger kindred are coming down with "Brainrot" from all the Micro-plastics Pentex has put in the Kine's blood.

 

[shadowdice]

As it turns out my brother wasn't able to get the preorder of the hardsuit labs version refunded so I have the game

…shall I suffer for others?

 

[Vague Wanderer]

I mean wasn't the "get inspired > use inspired to boost a roll > get inspired from said roll > use inspired to boost a roll > get inspired from said roll > etc" cycle a thing too?

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Definitely, though the suggested fix to that is to simply let the GM pick the condition the Exceptional success grants after the first loop. Otherwise you just end up with the whole table annoyed at that one guy.

Since most of my tables would heavily frown against this as it would be considered "meta-gaming" outside of scenes that were specifically Mage "training on dispelling".

But in general it would say it would land in the same category as end of session "beats" or why tend to not NPC's to not gain any new powers in the time it takes your Mage to go from 3 dots up to 5. There are ways to explain that away (my favourite is that those characters have stagnated and have hit a bottleneck in their development) but first and foremost it's just a gameplay artefact.

P.S. I'm not sure what you mean by "normal" Mage (beside it being a fun oxymoron), but I assume you talk about the "rivals" section in "Nameless and Accursed".

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Yeah, most of the established Mages described in the Rivals section are like Gnosis 3-5. It seems to be the typical range for a "normal" Mage (which yeah, kind of an oxymoron) with Gnosis 6 generally seeming to be the peak outside of the occasional Hierarch or hermit who's dedicated himself to being a monster. Which makes sense I suppose - that's pretty capable, and it's easy to imagine someone in that position getting "comfortable" and not pushing their limits, and not advancing further.

But it does kind of raise the question of how quickly most mages actually reach that point. Technically, a character can start with Gnosis 3 if they spend all their Merit dots, which suggests it's possible to hit with single minded determination over the course of a few months. Maybe just call it 10 XP in 10 weeks for the sake of simplicity?

Obviously, this wouldn't really matter in a normal Mage game, because training in downtime just isn't really a thing in Mage typically. But I've been musing over running a Mage quest, and the question of beat farming would likely come up, especially as I've had a few ideas for Legacies with Attainments focused on beat farming. So I'm just trying to figure out a framework where that can be helpful, but not so game breaking that everyone else has to be an idiot not to do it.