SR Vs. WOD Options

[rlemansky]

Greetings.

I've been following the posts on SR movies and music, and I remember the D20 Modern discussion. If one's looking for SR inspiration, the WOD offers lots of sources. I realize that there's a HUGE difference between play styles-gritty realism versus overdone teen angst, but am I the only one to note the correspondences between the two Worlds?

I'm not saying that the games are the same, but some of the crossover makes for good fun, especially if you don't want to foul the SR Metaplot. I think the Pentex Corp. from WOD makes an excellent SR nemesis. The Werewolves' and Vampires' clans could be a cool addition-I'd imagine that in fifty years of game time, Shapeshifters and HMHVV Infected could/would get together and organize in some way, shape or form (IIRC one of the villains in the original Power trilogy was a very organized Wendigo and his operatives...).

I loved the novels (An anthology of SR short stories'd be prime-any budding young authors wanna try an e-book or something?) and love the sourcebooks-so much of SR is so well thought out and developed. Unfortunately, I like watching it develop and don't want to muck things up in my game world(s)-the new stuff that comes out is almost universally fun, and I'd hate to have made choices in the game that preclude new developments. SOME of the WOD stuff is developed and thought through to the point where it becomes useful (if you scrub off the teen angst), so I find it useful and somewhat entertaining.

Shadowrun/WOD

Governments and MegaCorps/Technocracy
Researchers/Progenitors
Organized Crime/Syndicate
Corps/New World Order
Samurai/Iteration X
Awakened/Mages
PhysAds/Akhashic Brotherhood
Shaman/Dreamspeakers and Verbenea
Hermetics/Order of Hermes
Toxics/Marauders and Nephandi
Awakened Races/Changeling Kith
Critters/Bygones
HMHVV Infected/Vampires
Shapeshifters/Werewolves

Anyone come up with some more?

[mfb]

arcanum v runs a shadowrun/WoD game, using WoD rules. i don't know the details, though.

matter of fact, i haven't seen arcanum around in quite a while. hm.

[BumsofTacoma]

You point out some interesting ...er points.

I play WOD as well as SR, I kind of like your way of thinking, but would never try it myself, I would muck everything up.

BUt you know maybe I'll give it a shot, I need to challenge my brain, havnt been thinking enough latley. To much Grand theft auto: Vice City, has me brainded.

[Kagetenshi]

I still want to see a WoD vampire meet a Shadowrun vampire sometime.

~J

[rlemansky]

Kagetenshi:

Man, that'd be a tough encounter-SR Vampire vs. WOD Vampire. My money'd be on the SR Vamp, unless he did himself in so that he wouldn't have to listen to all the WOD Vampire's whining...

Immortality, super strength, etc.-yeah, cry me a river, fang boy. That goes for Rice's Vamps, too...

R

[Kagetenshi]

Average human in WoD is what, one dot? Two dots?

~J

[BumsofTacoma]

.
. But then again, wod already has cyberware, ghouls, and magic, technically there isnt really a need to switch or change any rules. Aside from a street sam in WOD wouldnt get paradox for having obvios cyberware. technocracy books are handy and i might read through them a bit.

So really the only thing you would need to change is story, and thats only if you wanted to. You could just pick a system and meld stories.

Mitsuhama, aztec, technocracy, those guys that make fomori or whatever their called.

in wod you have, magic, vampires, hunters, werewolves, cyberware, more magic,mega corps, mega corps run by evil creatures,


Hmmmm

You take runs against the tecnocracy for the mages of the city, hunt down a werewolf that killed the princes childer. maxed out with chrome from the technocracy.



you could always translate weapons and cyberware from sr, as well as metatypes and the like.

or you could tweak the rules till your eyes fall out and your brain melts to sludge.

[paladin]

[BumsofTacoma]

all in how you play it.

wod isnt always played by whiney goths who cry all night smoke cloves and dance (have a seizure) to skinny puppy, and sr isnt always played by overwieght nerds with glasses and 10 gigs of porn on there hard drive.

[BitBasher]

if you think SR doesn't have gritty realism you havent played in my game. Atmosphere is 99.9% all the way the GM runs the game. Not the game system.

[Adarael]

[Fortune]

[Adarael]

Why would I want to store 8 gigs of porn on my hard drive when I have two things that are better?

Free porn storage - I.E. the internet!
My mirror. Because... is too sexy! BUT I MUST!

(I couldn't help it!)

[Fortune]

Note that I never said that they were on your hard drive. :P ;) :D

[Adarael]

Oh, well. Then we better say I have several terrabytes of porn, what with all the porn sites out there.

[Tziluthi]

Kagetenshi, two dots is the human norm.

[Kagetenshi]

So a maxed WoD vampire would have a 7.5 (we'll be nice and call it an 8) in their stats, while a Shadowrun vampire who was perfectly average during life (all 3s) could, with the proper amount of feeding, hit 15s in all physical stats without much difficulty, the equivalent of ten dots.

Yeah, I'm thinking that'd be a teensy bit painful for the WoD vamp.

~J

[Eindrachen]

WOD has okay ideas for stuff for SR, but by and large the setting is complete trash. The point of the games was usually based on some metaphorical struggle with one's individual huamnity or morality, but every book made focused less on this ephemeral struggle, and more on everyone's constant squabbling with one another basically over who gets to be in charge of things.

The whole pretense of the thing just annoyed me after a while, so I quit playing any of it, and honestly have no motivation to start again. The only one worth a durn is Changeling, and it is actually a durn good game idea chained to a shoddy system (I even liked the MET game; it was a lot more fun that any of the others I had tried).

Anyway, yes, you can rob some ideas from WOD. Stick with Werewolf and Mage, though; Vampire and Wraith are pretty much worthless, and Changeling doesn't really fit the style (except for some of the Dreaming stuff; it can be good for astral/magic things).

By the way, there actually is a game that mimics Shadowrun. GURPS Technomancer is very, very similar: magic returns to the world with the development/use of nuclear weapons, and has huge consequences on the world as a result. I highly recommend you all to pick up a copy, if only so you can mine some great ideas (especially how magic and technology might blend together).

[Tziluthi]

Well, okay, lets say that eight is as high as the WOD vampire will get in attributes, through diablery or whatever, but in addition to that, they can temporarily raise their attributes by spending blood points, and they also have the Potence discipline, which automatically adds successes to strength related tests (i.e. damage tests, and they don't even have to spend blood points), the celerity discipline, which gives extra actions without any modifiers (a la extra intiative passes from initiative boosting magic/cyberware), and the fortitude discipline, which is basically extra toughness. That's not even accounting for the disciplines that render you virtually invisible, allow you to to control their minds, boil their blood, and so on and so forth. In my opinion, a WOD vampire, given the right amount of time and opportunities will wipe the floor with an SR vampire. They might even give a dragon a run for it's money.

[Sepherim]

I don't agree. Vampire and the rest of WoD are great games (specially Vampire and Wraith), and can offer plenty of ideas for an SR game. Still, be carefull, since it usually creates powerfull steretypes, when SR usually goes for the no-stereotypes kind of game. So, try to use them more for ideas than to base aspects of the SR world out of them.

[BumsofTacoma]

well white wolf has a few good games in my opinion, exhalted is pretty good, especially if you stick to the main book an dragon blooded.

hunter the reckoning is also pretty good. and mage is good.

i dont really play the others to much, vampire the dark age is okay if you cut out a lot of the politics.

as is vamp the masq,

but SR is by far my favorite game system, story, and well it just fits me so well.

Yeah i always found it funny how the only guys to fit rpg'er stereotypes are a few of the guys whom stay at the game shop all day long.

i myself work varios labor jobs, im 6'0 with my boots off, chain smoke, drink, im 156 pounds, long blond hair, look like an ex bassist from soundgarden, work on cars, and have had more than one girlfriend. so when people find out i play rpg's there like... why? your not a nerd! and to that i neither are any of the other rpg'ers i know!!!

[Sepherim]

I guess that's the main point: "if you cut out much of the politics". Most of WoD's games implicate quite a deal of politics, and Vampire most of all. If you take out politics, Vampire looses all it's strength and reason. At least IMO. :spin:

[BumsofTacoma]

then again if you dont like the politics dont play it, or play sabat mwahahaha

[Tziluthi]

Or Assamites, the munchkins of Vampire.

[mfb]