@Starcrossedsky mentioned getting this out of the thread we were using prior. I have to say I am only familar with heavily modified LARP versions of Vampire (based on Requiem) and Changeling (Nono is a Redcap from the old Changeling but again pretty modified rules because High Fantasy LARP) So! World Of Darkness can be chatted about here now I guess!
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT DEMON THE DESCENT Or: I was about to make a thread for this and then noticed that you did, so, sweet. FOR PEOPLE WHO AREN'T FAMILIAR: the World of Darkness is a series of generally-horror-fantasy based tabletop RPGs (a lot of which have been nodified into LARPs) with a focus on supernatural creatures in a modern setting (generally). It's split into two broad categories, old or classic World of Darkness and New World of Darkness, and published originally by White Wolf -> now published by Onyx Path. If you've heard of Vampire the Masquerade in any context, that's the first and oldest of them; pretty much all the WoDs follow the name format "creature the x." As an RPG, it's more based on story than on Fiddly Dice Rules, which IMO makes it more friendly than DND +friends just based on the fact that it uses only one kind of dice (D10s) and modifiers are "you add so many dice to the pool you roll to see if you Succeed Enough.) also if it wasn't clear I sperg hardcore on it, especially the most recent release, nWoD's Demon game.
See since I love the way both Vampire and Changeling play as LARPs I'd like to try it out as an RPG so much! But I am kind of put off by the changes they made in the new version of Changeling and I would have tried Changeling first if anything probably :/ I am interested in Demons, what kind of Demons, though? Like what can they do, what's their agenda and stuff?
And what makes you sperg about them? I am full of curiosity; I've read a lot of the books, but I've never had a chance to actually play WoD. It looks like so much funnnn.
My only practical experience with the 'verse is the VtM: Bloodlines game and a freeform RP played as a sequel to it (with the mc of the game having taken the "fuck all y'all" end route and left LA, referred to only in passing and avoiding specifics) but I did an excessive amount of wiki-diving to make sure I was getting things right (two of the other three players had played the tabletop version with the third borrowing books for background info). That was back in 2010 though and most of it has fallen out of my brain. If I had the budget or someone I was on friendly terms with in meatspace who'd lend me books I'd be interested in getting back into the 'verse. I avoided it for the longest time because I came in contact with a few players who were borderline cultish about it. I knew them through other things, and they were skeevy in other ways, but the WoD and especially VtM obsession was a shared trait that put me off. Then I found Bloodlines, which was one of the few games made by objectively awesome Troika, and I decided trying out the world in a single-player setting might not be horrible. It was pretty good, and the people on the GameFAQs forum recruiting for the RP (on another forum) didn't trigger my instincts. Actually, that RP was kind of an anchor for me for the... maybe year? I was active in it. It continued on after my depression finally hit hard enough I couldn't come back (though I was invited to several times). My characters became Established NPCs or died, something I believe I had expressed being OK with. (I'm generally OK with my characters being killed off under the condition that it's meaningful to the plot and/or characters. I don't treat my characters like precious babies, and after the hell I put them through entirely on my own sometimes what they need/deserve most is a Good Death.) Sometimes I miss those characters. I've re-used a couple of them in other 'verses. Lamya and Lonan are recurring characters of mine, oft recycled. So's Mandra. Gods I loved Mandra. Pity she showed up during my death spiral and didn't get much showtime before my Big Episode.
I assume you mean the differences between oChangeling and nChangeling (as opposed to the original nChangeling vs the 2nd edition of nChangeling that's coming out, because it isn't out yet, and also likewise not the difference between the original oChangeling and 20th Anniversary oChangeling, which will probably happen but hasn't even been announced yet). Which... Yeah, they're very different games. If you're looking for something with the more playful tone of oChangeling in the NWOD, I would actually commend you to Geist, the game about ghosts and dead people. It's kind of a bizarre celebration of life in its tone, since characters are people who died, Came Back Because Supernatural, and are now determined to live life to the fullest (mostly). That said, I actually prefer nChangeling myself; if you concept the WoDs are relating to human experiences, nChangeling is the trauma survivor game, and that speaks to me more than oChangeling does. To each their own. WHICH BRINGS US TO THIS and funny you should use agenda since that's the name of their social splat - The general caveat of what OP is doing with NWOD as an overarching thing is the addition of something called the God-Machine, which is a Very Literal Name. No one knows where it came from or what it's trying to do, but it has parts and gears Hidden from Normal Eyes everywhere, especially anywhere humans gather. One of these parts, as a broad classification, are "angels" who are self-aware but lack free will and serve only the interests of the machine, doing whatever tasks they're made for. Sometimes, those angels decide that they want free will. That's the Fall, where an angel becomes a demon, and must take on a human cover to blend into society, because the Machine Does Not Like when its agents decide to fuck off and do their own thing. What a given demon does with their new freedom and will is pretty much up to them; some find it terrifying and just want to go back, some want to Fuck Up The Machine, some just want to relish the fuck out of human life. As an aesthetic, it's a weird kind of cyber-supernatural the way you would expect from a machine-based thing; demon abilities hack reality, a lot of the game revolves around parts of the Machine, and so on. As far as the "WoDs that relate to human experience" thing that I mentioned upthread, it's a game that's both about passing (because if demons don't pass as human, they get hunted down and destroyed) and about being brainweird (because demons, not being human, can sometimes have Very Weird Morality - their Vice and Virtue can be literally anything. Seriously. I have a fan-AU where a character demon's vice is Sentimentality). Demons can imitate human behaviour perfectly, but they're always a step removed; they have to actively decide to display emotion and physical reactions. So it really speaks to me on both an aesthetic and a symbolic level, I guess. I love it a lot. ... gestures up at the rest of this post. The editions thing re:Changeling is the spergiest thing I've written in a while, my god.
Ooooh. I love the interpretation of it as about brainweird; officially way more interested in it now. :D
If you have any interest in nWoDs I can set you up with some PDFs. An entire dropbox full of PDFs. It also speaks to me a lot regarding free will and stuff, but: it's a game about brainweirds and passing and brainweird passing, and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.
Can I put in my interest in PDFs too? :T I'm slowly purchasing books, but I've been slow about it. I'm more interested in brainweirds and passing than free will SO. :D ... I mean, free will plot can be fun, but... I don't know, it sometimes squicks me out for some reason.
The amount of nWoDs stuff I have is kind of massive honestly Completely fair! It dances on my border of squick sometimes too, but then it's frequently Bile Fascination and I still like it anyway? Shrug. #I'm gonna go shower though so I'll be back in a While
Also, THIS. I've been kind of avoiding Nerd People for several years because I kept getting creepy stalkers, and it's dysphoric as a trans guy to be The Chick in every damn social group. :P At least adults are cooler than teenagers.
@Starcrossedsky yeah no I meant original oChangeling. The kind that our RedCap Crew is based on. I guess I could try explaining the awesomeness that is our RedCap Crew. Basically, because WoD is urban setting and stuff, we had to change some stuff for Red Caps to work quite so well for High Fantasy LARP, which is the kinda cons we frequent. So there needed to be a secondary theme. The theme is pirates. Red Cap Pirates, Rennaissance era. With flintlock pistols built by our Nöcker. It's all very ridiculous and goofy but super fun. I know how so many inedible things taste now. Oh but Demon sounds AWESOME! Cyber-Fantasy-Stuff Is so my aesthetic ahhhh. My RP-group just started Splittermond though so we'll probably not start another kind of game soon-ish
Aw man I need to get back to reading the Demon core book. Also I need to reread the Geist book. Also I need to Ok no if I list all of the nWOD books I've been meaning to read it's just going to end up being "all of them." I'm getting close to finished with those nChangeling playlists I've been snickering to myself about working on, though.
Well as far as nwods go, OP is actually right this moment doing a kickstarter for a book with Different Eras for a bunch of the nwod lines. (I REALLY HOPE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION DEMON HAPPENS I WANT IT SO BAD.) Yeah, the official aesthetic for demon is "technognostic espionage," which is a fancy way of saying "cyber fantasy with paranoia." I really love it, especially with non humanoid angels because those are so my jam. @bramblepatch GO READ SOME WODS. I'm really excited for those playlists though ngl EDIT: Just looked it up and YESSSSSSSS RUSSIAN REVOLUTION DEMON IS A GO. YESSSS. YES. yes.
Thank you so much. I will totally have t0 spam about this as I read. I can get the Bile Fascination, but only if it's... done right? Idk, I'm having trouble articulating this. (I went out to dinner so I've been out and about. :D I'm on a ski trip right now, so my schedule is totally nuts. (Six inches of powder though, AWESOME DAY.))
No, it's okay, I Get You. I'm that way with certain kinks so. and PLEASE DO, though by the second or third core book I'm sure you'll be skimming a lot of the rulesy stuff. A lot of it in like, charagen sections can get really repetitive/copy-pastey.
I think I've mentioned that I sperg about sperging, so I will totally go on and on as long as people want to chatter. I've read, uh... NWOD Mage and the main corebook, since that's what was at the library, and I've read the quickstarts because they're free, but I haven't gotten to anything else yet. :D (Mage is interesting, but 'the hubris of man' is kinda high concept and easy to do badly, I think. The main book doesn't have enough about mages TOTALLY GOING OFF THE RAILS, and like, using humans as experimental subjects and stuff. I mean, the logical extension of 'hubris-filled seekers of knowledge' is mad science, right? I really, really want mages who're just batshit, not ivory tower bureaucratic evil, which is I think what was implied for mages who aren't banishers or abyss-worshippers.)
You are the metasperg, it's you. (And yeah, I read hunter at my library during time I had to be out of the house because reasons. By then I already had nDemon and nChangeling core under my belt, so that's about where I started skimming.) Mage is actually one of the ones I haven't gotten around to reading (I've slacked off but I was pushing through Promethean the last time), but as far as mad science goes there's a fanline for that and it's one of the better ones. It's called Genius and it's in that dropbox... somewhere.
