Emm...

Ever read 'Project EOS'?
There ARE mortals out there who aren't controlled by anyone and who know 'something is out there'.

Some FBI, USSS and CIA peeps watching camera-footage which shows if someone in the congress has a slight shadow over him, which means that he's a puppet of 'the 7 clans'. (That's what they know so far. There are 7 vampiric clans.)

And they aren't Technocrats either. They're jst mundanes with an attitude.

Book's pretty old, though. Early years of 2nd ed. if I've got my dates right... *ponders*

7 clans? Boy, are they in for a surprise when the others come out of the woodwork-or start trying to ghoul the apporiate congressional staff members.

Not like this. *g*
It's just: "Hey, he's kinda' fuzzy. Damn... Not human."

You wouldn't happen to mean Project Twilight (ISBN 1-56504-310-3), one of their offerings during the Year of the Hunter? Where they describe what various shadowy US government agencies know about the supernaturals?

Chummer, you want paranoia, play a Hunters campaign with characters from FBI's Special Affairs Department and the NSA.

Let's see here, a very opinionated, and somewhat possibly factual write up about each game. There are some facts in each one.

Vampire:The Masquerade:White Wolf's first game in their World of Darkness series. This game is based around the Curse of Cain. It was put on by God for killing his brother Abel. It takes several generations of vampires later, as well as several millennia later.

Werewolf:The Apocalypse:White Wolf's second game. This one is about the feeling of hopelessness and utter horror of humanity, as the end of the world draws nigh, and humans destroy their planet. Despite the fact that they seem that way, not all werewolves are killing machines.

Mage:The ascension:White wolf's third, and IMHO this is my favorite game. This game is based around the possibilities of reality, rather than reality itself. It's actually based around the idea of Hope, rather than a depressing idea, like all of the other games, including Changeling, and Wraith, which are OOP, and will not be discussed.

Hunter:The reckoning:Something happened in Bangladesh. Something big. Nobody knows what it was, but because of it, people started spotting supernaturals that have been in charge of the world for ages. Hiding amongst us, fighting, amongst us, and using us when they can. Well, enough's enough. Time to fight back, for humanity.

Demon:The Fallen: Picture this. There was a war, long before humanity took a hold of everything. When the feel of the creator was everywhere. Several angels revolted at the creator's orders, and they lost. They were supposed to be imprisoned until the end of time, but... something happened. Something big. In 1999, when the incident in Bangladesh occurred, it broke the barrier to hell, and released us. We now take humans who have, for some reason, lost their soul. We take over from there.

Not mentioned, or barely mentioned...Kindred of the East, Mummy:The resurrection, Changeling:The Dreaming, Wraith:The Oblivion, Orpheus, and the Dark ages books.

And Wild West Werewolf...

Why roll eyes?

It's like "Sorceres Crusade" for Mage. (Gettin the book on monday.
Happy happy, joy joy! *grins*)

And it fits rather nicely with the native american feel. (Although it's
from the time, where White Wolf could have done their research
somewhat more... Thouroughtly. And although it got somewhat
better, they still can't stand up against SJGames when it comes to this.)

Agreed. Shame they only ever brought out three of the five original ST games for GURPS.

I'd heard it was a clash of personalities between Rein-Hagen and Steve Jackson, but you're right, the GURPS rules are better. The sourcebooks are better written, too. Much clearer and more straightforward.

WW often overdoes the in-game flavour to the detriment of clarity as far as rules are concerned. GURPS authors don't seem to have that problem.

Although it's fairly straightforward to convert ST games to the Cyberpunk pattern, i. e. Attribute+Skill+D10 to beat a target number.
Improves the flow of the game considerably.

The basic rules aren't that hard. Attribute+Ability(which is stat+skill) vs TN(Ususally 6.) More success is better. As usual, 1's are bad.(Worse than shadowrun.)

I've also noticed that some of the special rules for the supernauturals are a bit complex, but hey, I figured some of them out at least.

Hi guys, NightWind here.

I started playing White Wolf games before I got into Shadowrun. I dunno. For a person starting out in the Gaming world, I think the Werewolf and Vampire basic rules are easy to follow.

However, I got a little miffed at White Wolf when they suddenly took my favorite Werewolf Tribe and stuffed them in a different categroy. It totally ruined my character on one Mush. I had had that character for several years. I fought to get a Stargazer Theurge on the Mush. I was the only Theurge there and when they shifted the tribe over to a different set of rules that the Mush diddnt use.

After 3 years of playing the character, building it up with experience.. I'm suddenly told that I either have to go Ronin or make a new character with Beginner stats. I told them to *bleep* off! Gods that made me mad.

However, White Wolf does have some merits when it comes to comparing it with Shadowrun. They both are dark and oftentimes violent. Where Shadowrun has Cybernetics and Magic, Vampires and Werewolves have Gifts and Powers. It's kind of interesting.

On a side note, there IS a WOD *World of Darkness* Mush out in the net called Dark Metal. It has successfully combined White Wolf gaming with the Cyberpunk/Shadowrun Cybernetics. It's kind of interesting.

I dunno, I'm rambling again. hehehe I 'll just go over in the corner now and make my drones do strange things to the universe.

NightWind.

I've played WoD for 8 years now, played Changeling for 7 of those years (only online unfortunately as I cant find a game in Sydney).
Changeling is interesting because while it's seen as just a Pretty Faerie game by some people, and the full colour series of books didnt help that, it can be such a dark and nasty game.
People forget the mecurial nature of the fae and why they were called the Goode Folk.
Throw in that you were once immortal, but are now reduced to hiding in a human body, forever cast out from your true home.
Then throw in that by mundane standards, the average person doesnt believe in you, and sees you as insane. Now throw in that your own allies might betray you and kill you, the nobility are selfish gits who see you are property, and your life just got more interesting.

Themes: Banality and it's weight as it crushes your soul. The nightmares that people dream, and so on.

No one.
I repeat: No one.

Has to change their characters because of this. The stargazers left. Right. Because the beast courts provided more security and caring and philosophical equalities than the Werewolf-Nation.

But it was _clearly stated_ that there were Stargazers who stayed with their packs.

Yeah, Sarge. Clearly stated in the books.

But the anal retentive Staff on the Mush had other ideas. Rather than cause a stink, I just left a note to have em nuke the character and I left the Mush.

I like the STargazers because they're the philosophical types. Yes, I like the Garou Kung Fu that is exclusively theirs, but I hardly used it. Instead, I put myself into getting creative with Gifts that could help the Pack and Caern.

:snickers: I remember my first task as Theurge for the group. It was to create a Rite that no one else knew that would h elp the Caern.

MUAHAHAHA!!! Oh boy did I do it. Do you know how hard it is to keep a pack of Garou from disturbing an area covered by hte Rite of Feng Shui? But it worked. Ahhh.. those were the days.

Too bad I cant roll up a character like that to play for Shadowrun.

NightWind

Yeah, I heard that some Mush'ers are pretty. . . Anal about such stuff.

I know some RL-Gm's who're like that, too. *snorts* ("Hey, in this book it says, that..." - "But... We're playing like this for years!" - "But the book says..." *argh*)

I'm sorry for you.

Well, one of the problems with on line play compared to a sit-down game is that you aren't friends with everyone, to put it a little bluntly. In a game at home you know everyone (or will soon), and -- more importantly -- there's a very very clear-cut division between "player" and "GM." You know the GM, the GM knows you, and you know who the GM is. The GM knows how his people play, he knows what they like and want and expect and he's willing to make house rulings to help with that. The players know the GM, they can approach him about house rules they might want or think are necessary, they can complain directly and easily when some silly rule rears its ugly head, and things can get changed. One GM, who can modify his game as he sees fit.

On line, you don't have that and can't do that. On line games are a lot more open, most of the time -- especially something like a MUSH or talker. In a play-by-post or play-by-email you do tend to get back to a "set" GM, a single person who can make rulings and house rules and calls as situations arise. On a talker or a more open-forum style game (where you roam from room to room like a MUD or something, interacting and conflicting primarily with other characters), a GM doesn't really...exist. You're dealing with ten or fifty or a hundred players, sometimes, who are on sporadically or fanatically, who are mostly fighting and backstabbing and sweet talking one another, who spend their time battling other player characters and stopping their plots and schemes... and the GMs that are there aren't really "Game Masters" so much as they're referrees. Most games have a "GM's Discrection" clause about everything, from combat modifiers to social situation statistics to stealth and perception rules. When it's two players trying to go at one another (and it almost always is, on a MUSH/Talker/Whatever), the GM has a lot less leeway. It looks like he's playing sides, picking favorites, screwing someone. He has to act as impartially as possible, and stick as closely to the books as possible -- so it's clear to whoever's about to lose this dice-rolling match that it's not his fault the Hunters snuck into the haven, or the Mage is leeching Quintessence from the Caern while the Garou aren't there, or whatever.

So they're locked into what's "canon," and that's that. If the book says that most of _______________ (Stargazers/Ravnos/Abominations) are ______________ (gone/dead/unplayable), then the GM can't let one person play a ______________ (Stargazer/Ravnos/Abomination) unless he let everyone play one. And if everyone was playing one, he's just ignored the most recent supplement.

It's one of the biggest problems and issues with on-line play. A lot of the optional rules that might make something really cool have to be ignored, a lot of the potentials for RP have to get bypassed, etc, etc, etc. Because unless a GM turns himself into a straight-and-narrow follower of canon, people bitch and moan and stop playing there, because he's "out to get them" or "doing favors" for someone else, etc, etc.

I've played my share of White Wolf games, and I've played my share of them on-line. Comparing it to a sit-down game is like holding up an apple next to an orange -- and it's almost always the players' faults, not the GM. They make the GM make the stupid calls, because if he's not "anal" people get pissed off and the Talker/MUSH dies.

*bows to apologize*

Sorry didn't want to insult with this.
And it makes perfect sense for online gaming. But the last person I talked with about this, was kinda... Aggresive and 'houlier than thou'. "We stick to canon, no stupid house-rules disruptuing our game. If you want to screw around with this, frag off, munchkin."

You just proved to be the exact opposite. Thanks.

. . .

What still irks me, are Gamemasters, who only stick to the books and don't allow any leeway in story and background, even if the books mention exeptions and sometimes even encourage them. (the greatest is the "Golden Rule" in most Storyteller system games, but which is also prevelant in nearly any other game. But enough GM's try to ignore it, as good as they can. *grrr*)

Part of that is keeping the PCs balanced.

Sure, exceptions exist. Oddly enough, many result in more powerful characters, and are often desired by a particular species of players. I'm not suggesting that is why you'd do it, Sarge, but it makes a lot of GMs wary of going against canon. Including me.

I usually allow deviations from canon only if there's a good IC explanation. Come up with one, and you're set. Of course, you'll also have to live with the consequences.
If some Vamp wants a Garou g/f (which has happened), the reason needs to be a real good one, and may require a Merit (True Love, in this case, but not at +1). While you're picking this, jot down Dark Secret, no points gained, because if your Kindred "friends" find out, there might be a bit of a problem.

Yeah, that problem is there.
But the scary stuff with these guys (So, I admit, they're four of my colleagues. *grr*) is, that they even act stupid, if I, as a GM, give them mor freedom.

These are the same people who didn't want to try Mage and Fading Suns, because the games were 'too different.' The heck?!

Define "stupid", Sarge.

One of the better VtM games I've played, the GM basically told us to go wild. No points, no limits, no nothing (OK, so they all had to be Camarilla chars, as there was exactly zero on the Sabbat). Just create a character (story), then make up stats that fit. Game balance was notably absent, as might be expected. But even the one player who created a baseline 1st Ed. starting character (and a Caitiff to boot) loved it. And this in a group where the average generation was 7th.

'Stupid' like:
"Hey, are we allowed to declere attacks like that? Shouldn't we roll something?" - "No... If you can describe your attack, we're just going on with the story." - "*thinks*. . . *rolls dice* I hit him." *argh*

They just cling to every ruleset and don't want to let go of it. Even if it hinders the story and flow of events.

It drives me nuts.

The other group I'm a regular player with (GURPS, go figure. *?*), takes the other approach. Only use the rules, if you need something totally impartial. Every other time... Tell and have fun! I just like it like this.

So do I. Helps a lot if your group understands combat a bit, makes for fewer dice rolls. I've also reduced fights to a single die roll, just to see who wins. Details to be sorted out by narrative.

Ahh, but I did get my piece of revenge in a round about way. When they made me quit my Stargazer, they were cutting their own throats. I was the only Theurge on the Grid as well as being the only Stargazer.

Guess what? When the High Level Garou up and left. No one knew the Gifts or Rites to keep things going. No one to intercede with the Spirits for help.

Oh, I had the choice of going Ronin. But that is the last thing I wanted to do. *I* had done nothing wrong in the game to get the stigmata of Ronin. Therefore it was insulting to me as a player to be told I had to either go Ronin or Nuke the char.

I found out later, when I went on as a Guest and played stupid, that most of the Caern quit the game over that fiasco because they couldnt DO anything spiritually. And at least half of them had kept in touch via E-Mails. I dont think the game ever recovered from that many Garou leaving all at once.

NightWind

A little tangent, but somewhat connected to NightWind's last post; the only Werewolf character I've really wanted to use was a Shadow Lords Ronin who was *not* a manipulative, amoral and vindictive control freak. Pity that game never got running...

Oh yeah, and has anyone else seen who the Wayward character is in the new PS2 game? Joshua Matthews, AKA God45. I liked that... (of course, only Hunter players will understand why, but I thought I'd raise the point).
The Hunter computer game did raise an interesting thought though. It is obscenely easy to change the WOD games to suit almost any play style. I mean, take Underworld (after all, White Wolf is trying to ), after reading the plot ideas I thought; a high action Vampire game ala movies like The Killer or Romeo Must Die - lots of over the top action, big guns and the vampiric abilities that make them so great in the first place... It could be done easily (especially once you use Exalted rules such as standardised difficulties and Extras rules).

Hunter was another game that struck me as a good example of it. In the computer game you had the Hunters stepping off a subway train into a town literally under siege by the creatures of the night. It has a certain Western feel and would really serve as a basis of a campaign where the angst and terror of a Hunter's life is replaced by taking the fight to the monsters with very little consequence (except some cool explosions). Resident Evil (particularly Nemesis) is an example of the sort of thing I'm thinking about. Just add ghosts and shadowy vampiric manipulators and you could have a really high action and really fun Hunter campaign. That could work (trust me, I've run a couple of adventures along those lines). Hell, you almost have canon precedent with New Dijon (only real Hunter players will understand *that* ).

Is it against the feeling of the White Wolf games? Well, that's an opinion thing. I think that as long as you have fun that doesn't really matter. Purists would disagree.

My rambling ends now...

I agree, most of the WW games seem to be light on mechanics and more characters driven-unlike the antithesis which are the 20d game systems.
You can do VtM as anything from a soap opera to soft core porn to occult thriller to a shoot 'em up.

Greetings all,

I've played White Wolf games for about 7 or 8 years and I've enjoyed them very much. The two games I know most about are Vampire and Mage.

Vampire is a very political game, both within the Camarilla and Sabbat. The differences between the two is that the Camarilla created the Masquerade and hides within humanity, whereas Sabbat don't feel the need to bemoan their lost humanity so take great pleasure in revelling in their vampiric nature. The one problem with vampires is that because they have non-mortal life spans, they can't have mortal lives. The problem with that is, everyone needs resources to sustain their existence. So the grab is on, for money, property, weapons, retainers, status, anything. It's not a case of whoever dies with the most toys wins, it's who ever has the most toys continues his existence. And for those who asked "If vampires are so powerful, how come they aren't running the world?", the answer is "Because of what happened in the dark ages". During the dark ages, there was no masquerade, there was no hiding from the humans. The vampires of old strode the darkened streets as lords and princes, to whom humanity were little better than underlings. Then came the Inquisition, when the humans brought fire and stake to the vampires and ages old elders found themselves throwing their assets at the inquisitors in an effort to keep themselves from the Inquisition

Mage, for want of a better term, is a wondrous game. The mages themselves are capable of metaphysical feats through their relation with their awakened avatar (soul). The latest edition of Mage sees the end of the Ascension War. The Technocracy won, but it was a hollow victory. Due to the propaganda the Technocracy spread far and wide, the stasis they wanted so much has come back to bite them in the arse. People now don't believe in magic, but they have a harder time accepting some of the new "advances" the Technocracy is trying to achieve, such as stem cell research and genetic engineering.

I'm currently running a Mage LARP in Sydney and the game has seen quite a number of interesting moments, especially with the mages who have a flair for the dramatic. As such, the game itself can become a series of missions, especially for the Technocracy. Funny thing is, I've looked at some of the cyber enhancements in the book and I've been SO tempted at times to just go looking through Man & Machine. I've also had people who have never played Mage arrive to play NPCs and one asked if he could play a Technocrat on a permanent basis. I must admit, the Technocracy get the best toys.

As such, I like running Mage, because it's a great game and I believe has lots of potential, for any kind of story type.

U-Boat
"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you"

Actually, some of the newer twists suggest a return to the status quo. The ascension war is back on, just with newer tricks, and more of a tradition as a whole kind of order than before.

Read Manefesto:Transmissions From the Rogue Council to find out what I'm talking about.

U-Boat: Well, the Technocracy have always been the real good guys in the World of Darkness. Or as close as the WoD gets to good guys anyway.

Icepick:

I beleive thats 10 Unsoakable agg a round.

you got more than 10HL?
no? your dead.

What if you have Fortitude 10?

Err... Then you're some millenia-old über-vampire.
There should be some perks with immortality. *g*

Well, anyways, there's always the Immunity merit.

because there is only one post on it in this whole four page thread and because it is actually selling as well as vampire over the last few months I'm going to write about exalted.

Exalted is in some ways the opposite of the World of Darkness games. The characters have the ability within them to do darn near anything. They can take over the most powerful empire in all of creation or storm into heaven and use their unequalled bureaucracy skills to control the celestial order. The support books are specifically written to say how things are rather than how a set of characters within the setting think that they are. The rules and setting were designed for crossover play from the very beginning.

The rules for exalted give characters bonus dice depending upon how cool the action that the character takes is. The combat system tries real hard and in my opinion succeeds in making most combat scenes (an the game is set up for a good deal of combat) be wuxia-style over the top action craziness. Everything combat seems like something out of crouching tiger hidden dragon played in fast forward. The characters have large collections of mystical kung fu mastery schticks that combine together to give combat between exalteds an intricacy reminiscent of CCG's.

The die system is similar to WoD and shadowrun (roll a die pool count the number of successes) but rather than having a floating target number, difficulty is determined by how many successes are needed.

The setting is wide open. The world is flat and while it is smaller than earth it has more dry land area. The edges of the world fade off into chaos where the incomprhesible fae live. "Beneith" the world there is an underworld where ghosts try to scrape by and the dead souls of those primordial creators of the universe who fell in an ancient war plot to destroy everything in order to end their own undead existence. "Above" creation is the conenent sized city of Yu shan inhabited entirly by gods who take part in a complex and corrupt bureaucracy that controls all of creation. The setting is made for big games where characters accomplish big things.

When I played Exalted heavily, it was before the other types of exalted hit the shelves and it was really hard to put up decent opposition to the Solars. I imagine that now it's not too hard to have a decent game going on. I do dearly love the game and I'll be the first to admit that I'm a stunt dice whore when given the chance

The hardest part about exalted is realizing exactly how powerful your characters are. At game start, many Solar exalted could take out small armies of normal humans, and by the time they hit their first century, they're nearly unstoppable. The only thing that can scratch them are other types of Exalted and really determined armies of mortals. I have a small pile of books I've never even read through, including Games of Divinity which I read maybe three pages of before I got distracted with other things

I've played/GM'd/demo'd WoD games since 1996. Here are my thoughts...

Pros: Setting, character-driven gaming, metaplot

Cons: Game mechanics, imbalance, metaplot, dead game

The metaplot has had ups and downs, though it is on a major upswing now with the pending end of WoD as we know it.

The single biggest knock against them is that they are dying. The game setting is being cashed in and a new game will come out of it all. This doesn't affect the historic settings at all (well, it may...), but it makes purchase of current products (especially for someone just getting into the game) a poor economic choice.

If you're looking at getting into the line, wait it out. The new core rules and splats will be out in a year or two. If you can wait until then to buy into WoD, you'll avoid getting stuck with dead product.

Wft is a Gaki?

Don't play White Wolf (The "Vampire" game sort of put me off, although I did like the voice actors... ) and don't really have the money-patience to go forth and splurge again, just wanted the definition, and/or how a Hungry-Ghost fitted into the "World of Darkness"TM universe.

Or are they munchkins? I know Gaki is similiar in everyday use as "imp" to describe a naughty youngster.

Anyhoo,

l.

A Gaki is a cannibalistic proto-Kinjin (read: oriental vampire). Think Bruce Lee from the crow crossed with Gollum from the LOTR movies crossed with the unholy appetite for living flesh found in zombie flicks.

Right, right, my bad. Been a while.

It can happen to the best of us.