As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Monte Cook's World of Darkness
Dracomicron
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, I haven't bought any PnP RPG books for ages, and I justified the $50 price tag by buying a discount card as well for use this Christmas.
I have just started to read the book, but, while the premise is somewhat jarring for those familiar with the "Traditional" World of Darkness books, I'm finding it pretty facinating so far.
The game is a heavily modified Open Source Gaming game based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition rules and currently consists of only one book (this might be the only book that's going to be produced, I'm not sure). As would be expected, it was designed by Monte Cook, one of the veteran developers of Dungeons and Dragons.
Setting:
Real world, circa NOW. Well, almost. A year ago in the backstory, Enormous Alien Beings From Beyond Comprehension appeared and turned a 300-mile diameter bit of South Dakota into something akin to The Nothing from The Neverending Story called the Intrusion. Personally, I wonder, if they destroyed the Corn Palace and Wall Drug, can they be that bad? They would have destroyed the earth, but humanity's collective spirit, embodied in less than 1% of the population known as "Awakened," somehow keeps them at bay... like plankton being rather standoffish towards the whale.
Plot:
To get even more metaphorical, the aliens, known as "Inconnu" (I love how Cook uses terminology from the OWoD in a completely different way), bring the cosmic equivilent of blankets filled with cholera to rid themselves of the humans preventing them from destroying the world. Summoning the evil dead (yes) and beastial spirits to possess people, creating vampires and werewolves, as well as calling in demons, they seek to kill the Awakened and complete their absorption of the earth. Some of humanity, in response, were able to tap their potential and become mages, who are the wildcards in all of this. This is all leading to a sort of secret war across a landscape partially ravaged by apocalypse.
Character:
Players can run any of the following types-
Awakened: The allegory for jack-of-all-trades Humans in D&D, these are basically the paragons of the human spirit. They don't have super flashy powers or the ability to shoot chainsaws from their eyes, but they do have a nearly indominatable will, extra skills & feats, and great stats.
Mage: Pretty much identical to their OWoD counterparts in theory, though they do not suffer from Paradox and are limited to a number of Component points per day as far as what magic they can cast (spells cost Component points based on their range, duration, effect, etc).
Vampires: Dead, evil spirits merging with living human bodies to create a joint entity with a personality conflict, they are supposed to be gathering information on the Awakened for the Inconnu, but often get involved with their own obsessions. Some even break from the Inconnu completely to do their own thing. They fit into five psychological profiles represented by the five NWoD clans, Mekhet, Gangrel, Daeva, Nosferatu, and Ventrue; unlike the normal WoD, the clans just signify their mindset and loose organization, rather than an established ancient society (as they've only been in existance a year or so). Vampires have pretty much all the same sorts of powers as they do in the classic games: blood bonds, disciplines, ghouls, et cetera.
Werewolves: Many of the spirits that merged with human hosts are simply raging, beastial spirits from another world. Until they merge with a human to gain human sensibilities (which many proceed to ignore unless convenient). They're from a nocturnal world where it's always night and the moon's phase is determined by your geograpical location (!?). They're governed by those phases even on our world. Some are rational enough to talk to and reason with, but if one changes into their ("fucking awesome") werewolf form, their beastial natures will overcome them and they'll pretty much chew up everyone. That's in fact, their mission from the Inconnu: smash shit up and kill things. If that isn't enough comparison to Barbarians in D&D, they also get d12 for their hit points, +2 Str, and +2 Con.
Demons: Far from the humanized fallen angels in Demon: The Fallen, these are completely alien spirits who craft themselves flesh & blood bodies from inanimate materials like dirt, wood, plastic, or the like. Unlike werewolves and vampires, there is no human soul to mitigate their evil, and are pretty much nasty customers through and through. They can shapechange, have freakish powers, and normally never die. They are catagorized as Tempters and Scourges, and have corresponding stats. Very few demons exist; fewer turn against the Inconnu, and those that do aren't benevolent, they've just got their own agenda.
All PCs start as what would be 4th level characters in normal D&D : they have 4 HD and better saves & skills than a starting character usually has, in accordance with the more fleshed out starting characters that tend to exist in World of Darkness games.
Chronicles:
The book has two chapters based on example cities for use in the chronicle. Chicago is the signature city on the edge of the radius of the Inconnu's nightmare zone, plagued with ghost risings, supernatural creatures, and freak happenstance. I like this; Chicago was always the showcase city for the Old World of Darkness (with three editions worth of "by Night" books), and is a city I'm personally familiar with. The other city is of more interest to me: Minneapolis/St. Paul, the city where I, personally live, is within the original blast zone, and perhaps 50,000 people (and non-people, I suppose) have survived from the few million who once lived here. It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with the US military frantically trying to get to the surviving populations and get them to safe havens along I-94 such as Hudson and Eau Claire (my hometown). I hadn't known about these settings when I bought the book, but I was fairly pleased with the level of research in the short chapters attributed to them.
Summary:
As I said, I haven't read the whole book yet, but I thought it at least deserved a mention here (I hadn't seen a thread dedicated to it yet, and I searched for "Monte Cook" and "McWoD"). The section on the Twin Cities kinda makes me want to do a "Year Zero" sort of thing with the players starting off as normal mortals and witnessing the Intrusion and Nightmare Wave firsthand. Of course, I haven't run anything PnP in years, so...
I have just started to read the book, but, while the premise is somewhat jarring for those familiar with the "Traditional" World of Darkness books, I'm finding it pretty facinating so far.
The game is a heavily modified Open Source Gaming game based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition rules and currently consists of only one book (this might be the only book that's going to be produced, I'm not sure). As would be expected, it was designed by Monte Cook, one of the veteran developers of Dungeons and Dragons.
Setting:
Real world, circa NOW. Well, almost. A year ago in the backstory, Enormous Alien Beings From Beyond Comprehension appeared and turned a 300-mile diameter bit of South Dakota into something akin to The Nothing from The Neverending Story called the Intrusion. Personally, I wonder, if they destroyed the Corn Palace and Wall Drug, can they be that bad? They would have destroyed the earth, but humanity's collective spirit, embodied in less than 1% of the population known as "Awakened," somehow keeps them at bay... like plankton being rather standoffish towards the whale.
Plot:
To get even more metaphorical, the aliens, known as "Inconnu" (I love how Cook uses terminology from the OWoD in a completely different way), bring the cosmic equivilent of blankets filled with cholera to rid themselves of the humans preventing them from destroying the world. Summoning the evil dead (yes) and beastial spirits to possess people, creating vampires and werewolves, as well as calling in demons, they seek to kill the Awakened and complete their absorption of the earth. Some of humanity, in response, were able to tap their potential and become mages, who are the wildcards in all of this. This is all leading to a sort of secret war across a landscape partially ravaged by apocalypse.
Character:
Players can run any of the following types-
Awakened: The allegory for jack-of-all-trades Humans in D&D, these are basically the paragons of the human spirit. They don't have super flashy powers or the ability to shoot chainsaws from their eyes, but they do have a nearly indominatable will, extra skills & feats, and great stats.
Mage: Pretty much identical to their OWoD counterparts in theory, though they do not suffer from Paradox and are limited to a number of Component points per day as far as what magic they can cast (spells cost Component points based on their range, duration, effect, etc).
Vampires: Dead, evil spirits merging with living human bodies to create a joint entity with a personality conflict, they are supposed to be gathering information on the Awakened for the Inconnu, but often get involved with their own obsessions. Some even break from the Inconnu completely to do their own thing. They fit into five psychological profiles represented by the five NWoD clans, Mekhet, Gangrel, Daeva, Nosferatu, and Ventrue; unlike the normal WoD, the clans just signify their mindset and loose organization, rather than an established ancient society (as they've only been in existance a year or so). Vampires have pretty much all the same sorts of powers as they do in the classic games: blood bonds, disciplines, ghouls, et cetera.
Werewolves: Many of the spirits that merged with human hosts are simply raging, beastial spirits from another world. Until they merge with a human to gain human sensibilities (which many proceed to ignore unless convenient). They're from a nocturnal world where it's always night and the moon's phase is determined by your geograpical location (!?). They're governed by those phases even on our world. Some are rational enough to talk to and reason with, but if one changes into their ("fucking awesome") werewolf form, their beastial natures will overcome them and they'll pretty much chew up everyone. That's in fact, their mission from the Inconnu: smash shit up and kill things. If that isn't enough comparison to Barbarians in D&D, they also get d12 for their hit points, +2 Str, and +2 Con.
Demons: Far from the humanized fallen angels in Demon: The Fallen, these are completely alien spirits who craft themselves flesh & blood bodies from inanimate materials like dirt, wood, plastic, or the like. Unlike werewolves and vampires, there is no human soul to mitigate their evil, and are pretty much nasty customers through and through. They can shapechange, have freakish powers, and normally never die. They are catagorized as Tempters and Scourges, and have corresponding stats. Very few demons exist; fewer turn against the Inconnu, and those that do aren't benevolent, they've just got their own agenda.
All PCs start as what would be 4th level characters in normal D&D : they have 4 HD and better saves & skills than a starting character usually has, in accordance with the more fleshed out starting characters that tend to exist in World of Darkness games.
Chronicles:
The book has two chapters based on example cities for use in the chronicle. Chicago is the signature city on the edge of the radius of the Inconnu's nightmare zone, plagued with ghost risings, supernatural creatures, and freak happenstance. I like this; Chicago was always the showcase city for the Old World of Darkness (with three editions worth of "by Night" books), and is a city I'm personally familiar with. The other city is of more interest to me: Minneapolis/St. Paul, the city where I, personally live, is within the original blast zone, and perhaps 50,000 people (and non-people, I suppose) have survived from the few million who once lived here. It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with the US military frantically trying to get to the surviving populations and get them to safe havens along I-94 such as Hudson and Eau Claire (my hometown). I hadn't known about these settings when I bought the book, but I was fairly pleased with the level of research in the short chapters attributed to them.
Summary:
As I said, I haven't read the whole book yet, but I thought it at least deserved a mention here (I hadn't seen a thread dedicated to it yet, and I searched for "Monte Cook" and "McWoD"). The section on the Twin Cities kinda makes me want to do a "Year Zero" sort of thing with the players starting off as normal mortals and witnessing the Intrusion and Nightmare Wave firsthand. Of course, I haven't run anything PnP in years, so...
Dracomicron on
0
Posts
It's also got all of the rules for five systems, as opposed to having a core book and then buying the individual splats like Mage or Promethian.
How so?
Well, I think they're doing it in a fairly unique way. It's not the best or anything, but the idea of summoning the spirits of our own evil dead to possess people and create vampires is pretty awesome.
It's less of an ID4 or ET style aliens, and more Cthulhu style aliens from what I can tell.
Because that would be ballin'
Well, most points where it's related to the official WoD focus on the nWoD... so you have Daeva and Mekhet as two of the five vampire clans, for example. But most of the elements are there and you could fudge the details, assuming enough knowledge of WoD and d20.
Demon would be slightly tricky, since the McWoD demons aren't possessing humans and therefore have different characteristics (like, they don't possess new hosts on death, they just re-constitute themselves after awhile).
Mage probably translates the best, they have an entire chapter devoted to rotes and building spells.
I like the plot too, how's the art?
The art is very typical World of Darkness stuff (the splats look near identical to what you would see in a core book). A lot of it is somewhat uninspired (not as bad as Hunter: The Reckoning art), but there's some great stuff. On page 169 there's a huge picture of a human form werewolf hanging from a fire escape who just apparently punched a gun-toting opponent and knocked off his head. Arterial spray, fist, body, no head.
I do think that this is a good jumping-off book for d20 players who have never played oWoD or nWoD. Gets them used to the dark modern fantasy/horror setting and the general idea of playing potentially "bad" guys.
Sounds good, when does this come out?
I think the main thing is my friend the DM is more used to the standard DnD format of "go on quest, do stuff" then the investigative story bent of standard WoD. Also the recommended depth of character development is trouble for him and us as we are really quite awkward at playing in character + some of my friends don't take it seriously enough. I think I could the in depth "in character" stuff via a forum or chat but that's another matter.
This however feels like it could be much more our speed.
It's already out. I bought it at Border's.
One fun thing you could do is what I'm thinking about doing: Run a "year zero" game (the main game setting is "year one") and have your players play, essentially, themselves. Have the Intrusion happen with your city at the edge of the Annihilation zone, or perhaps in the Haunted region. Your players know your city. They know themselves. They'll have honest reactions. Then during the first session, you can have them choose their character types as the world goes to shit around them. This sort of avatar game makes some players uncomfortable (it did for me for a long time), but might be the best way to introduce your players to a different sort of game: at least they can fall back, RP-wise on the fact that they're playing themselves, only supernatural.
Each supernatural type is its own class, laid out with a level table just like Rangers, Monks, etc are in the Player's Handbook. Thus, there are five classes, and they're given different power schemes depending on the player's choice.
Awakened: Don't get powers, but they do get piles of stat bonuses, skill masteries, and feats. They're the human rogue type... lots of flexibility but little in the way of freaky powers.
Demons: They get feat-like Cants every couple levels, choosable from a sizable list. The player also chooses between Tempter and Scourge; Tempters get more social abilities and Scourges get more combat abilities on level-up.
Mages: They get "component points" and build their spells from quite a few tables determining effect, duration, range, scope, etc. They get a few rotes that they get discounted, but they can do their spells on the fly as well. They get "Gnosis" type feats that are much like metamagic feats.
Vampires: Choose between five clans for stat bonuses & penalties, as well as bonuses to Disciplines (Gangrel get bonuses with Animalism, Vigor, and Protean, for example), which are again handled like a seperate type of feat. They can also get Devotions, which are like the old combo Disciplines (Celerity and Heightened Senses let you take Quicken Sight, for example).
Werewolf: Choose between five auspices for stat bonuses, and their feat powers are called Rites. Some Rites are auspice-specific, but most are available to all werewolves. Werewolves get really strong base-level combat abilities.
I hunger for this book. It calls to me in the night. Also I want to combine it with other D20 Games, think it'll mesh decently?
It's a lightly modified 3.5E ruleset, so adding in feats and the like from d20 modern-setting games probably wouldn't be a problem. It doesn't really allow for multiclassing, though... you can't be more than one supernatural type, though you could theoretically add in other classes if you wanted to dilute the supernatural creature feel of the game.
Good luck in getting it, and also with the hefty price tag.
Jesus day fast approaches! As long as it's not too heavily modified, I'm a huge fan of pulling out stuff from other D20 systems in my D&D and Iron Heroes games. This sounds like just the ticket, because I have a couple guys who know just enough white wolf to fear the sight of a Vampire or Werewolf built using something based on the WoD. Also, I might actually try to run it.
Fair enough... I'd be interested to learn how the McWoD classes stack up against other games'. They all start at 4th level, of course, so you'd have to take that into account (level 1 has the stats as if it were level 4 in any other system, presumably to improve durability and de-stress min-maxing).
That's what I like to hear.
I'm going to bring the book for my friends to look at. We haven't gamed in years, so it might be fun to run a few sessions.
Let us know how it goes!
You may want to check the official White Wolf forums over at www.white-wolf.com because there's a whole forum dedicated to McWoD, and a lot of people have written up mods, house rules, and extra disciplines/rites/etc.
One guy is even trying to mod the Awakened into Hunter: The Reckoning-style Creeds.
The forums are a bit outdated, but that's part of their charm. ;-)
I like the sound of this. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
You should. I once got two women I know to play a succubus possessing a nun and a fertility goddess possessing a stripper, respectively.
I miss that game :P
"You can do stuff. What kind of stuff you say? Well, you can do these two things for sure and also if you ask your GM...look over there!"
*Sound of footsteps followed by tires screeching*"
Hee, cute.
Yeah, they tried to be as comprehensive as possible with their magic charts, but ultimately players will come up with stuff that requires a GM call.
I'm still trying to figure out if I have the player pool to actually run this game.
Aah, Tribe 8. Great RPG, but unfortunately it really jumped to the shark during the 2nd edition. Change from Vimary to Capal didn't really work, and some ideas introduced in the metaplot were plain stupid.
Hum... lemme have a look. Little RPGs like that are always fanciful at least.
Oh, it seems like everything's been going wrong since Canada came along.
Looking at that game's system, all I get is that six siders give me a headache. Not enough variation.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
That's the Full Monte right there.
Starring Monte Cook
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
If someone ran this game...right here.
I'm just sayin.'