And while Demon and Hunter were related on a metaplot level
Oh hey, I didn't know that! I only ever read a couple of the Hunter source/splatbooks, and they were all from early on in the game's publishing cycle, so the metaplot was still more on the mysterious side. Is there some online resource that describes the metaplot, and maybe lists the connections to the other games? I remember sinking a lot of time into the Unofficial White Wolf wiki, but although all of the VtM articles on there are super-detailed, the ones related to the other games tend to be more spartan.
And while Demon and Hunter were related on a metaplot level
Oh hey, I didn't know that! I only ever read a couple of the Hunter source/splatbooks, and they were all from early on in the game's publishing cycle, so the metaplot was still more on the mysterious side. Is there some online resource that describes the metaplot, and maybe lists the connections to the other games? I remember sinking a lot of time into the Unofficial White Wolf wiki, but although all of the VtM articles on there are super-detailed, the ones related to the other games tend to be more spartan.
Demons are the biblical angels who rebelled against got and were banished to a place called the Abyss, but the Time of Reckoning shit broke open the Abyss and let them all out.
Hunters (of Hunter: the Reckoning) are ordinary humans who get imbued with unknown supernatural power to fight other supernaturals during the Time of Reckoning; it's eventually revealed that they're in fact being imbued by the angelic host that didn't rebel.
He dug too deep to make this fortress and let powerful entities of uncreation in. Known as the Neverborn. Whom were the "Children" of an entity called Grand Maw. This entity is either the remnants of a failed universe, lashing out in anger against its successor. Or (as Lucifer believes) it is the Twin Sister of God. This entity could be Lilith (whom is arguably an Ascended Archmage), however this remains to be proven.
God damn do I love how convoluted the cWoD got, especially when you tried to reconcile the consensual reality of mage, the triat from werewolf, and all the biblical stuff from vampire/hunter/demon.
Wraith/Demon/Hunter/Vampire all work rather niftily well together, cosmology-wise. I just strip out the Garou and the Awakened and replace them with Lupines and Sorcerers.
Demons are the biblical angels who rebelled against got and were banished to a place called the Abyss, but the Time of Reckoning shit broke open the Abyss and let them all out.
Hunters (of Hunter: the Reckoning) are ordinary humans who get imbued with unknown supernatural power to fight other supernaturals during the Time of Reckoning; it's eventually revealed that they're in fact being imbued by the angelic host that didn't rebel.
He dug too deep to make this fortress and let powerful entities of uncreation in. Known as the Neverborn. Whom were the "Children" of an entity called Grand Maw. This entity is either the remnants of a failed universe, lashing out in anger against its successor. Or (as Lucifer believes) it is the Twin Sister of God. This entity could be Lilith (whom is arguably an Ascended Archmage), however this remains to be proven.
God damn do I love how convoluted the cWoD got, especially when you tried to reconcile the consensual reality of mage, the triat from werewolf, and all the biblical stuff from vampire/hunter/demon.
Demons are the biblical angels who rebelled against got and were banished to a place called the Abyss, but the Time of Reckoning shit broke open the Abyss and let them all out.
Hunters (of Hunter: the Reckoning) are ordinary humans who get imbued with unknown supernatural power to fight other supernaturals during the Time of Reckoning; it's eventually revealed that they're in fact being imbued by the angelic host that didn't rebel.
He dug too deep to make this fortress and let powerful entities of uncreation in. Known as the Neverborn. Whom were the "Children" of an entity called Grand Maw. This entity is either the remnants of a failed universe, lashing out in anger against its successor. Or (as Lucifer believes) it is the Twin Sister of God. This entity could be Lilith (whom is arguably an Ascended Archmage), however this remains to be proven.
God damn do I love how convoluted the cWoD got, especially when you tried to reconcile the consensual reality of mage, the triat from werewolf, and all the biblical stuff from vampire/hunter/demon.
see also: Rasputin
They actually managed to explain that away in the last Wraith supplement, Ends of Empires. It was basically just one Wraith who was an expert at possessing people.
And while Demon and Hunter were related on a metaplot level
Oh hey, I didn't know that! I only ever read a couple of the Hunter source/splatbooks, and they were all from early on in the game's publishing cycle, so the metaplot was still more on the mysterious side. Is there some online resource that describes the metaplot, and maybe lists the connections to the other games? I remember sinking a lot of time into the Unofficial White Wolf wiki, but although all of the VtM articles on there are super-detailed, the ones related to the other games tend to be more spartan.
There's a lot of stuff in here that a) is wild supposition, b) arbitrarily picks one gameline's version of The Truth over another's, or c) completely makes stuff up.
For me Changeling was the, out of the main lines, the most different from the original. Like, vampire and werewolf and mage are all functionally the same. You still are the thing you are. Changeling is waaaay different in how it defines what you are as a thing.
Was there ever a nWoD version of Wraith, or was that just to weird to bring forward?
There was Geist, which I think might theoretically, on some level, be maybe remotely similar? Sort of?
Geist had some interesting ideas, but the presentation was really bad, even for a White Wolf book. It did identify and correct the one main problem with Wraith, though - classic WoD games were about being a monster hidden among normal people, but Wraith separated you from normal people and put you in a weirdo fantasy underworld. You could absolutely tell stories focused on trying to interact with the mortal world, but they were much more strained than stories focusing around Stygia's weird politics and economy, and it was harder to evoke the kind of emotional necessity that would drive a Wraith to spend all their time and energy on that, instead of having crazy adventures with all their powers that were much more potent in the Underworld. As a result, Wraith felt really disconnected from the greater themes of the WoD. It was like the problem Umbra-focused Mage and Werewolf games or Dreaming-focused Changeling games ran into, but it was all the time, and clearly the default most players settled into.
Geist gets around this by having you play as a Revenant instead of a Ghost, with a weird symbolic archetype-spirit bound to you that tells you to do stuff and manifest powers through you. And your actual visits to the underworld are by necessity brief and temporary because it's a dangerous place bound by weird nightmare-logic rules that change from one domain to the next.
Desert Leviathan on
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
Was there ever a nWoD version of Wraith, or was that just to weird to bring forward?
There was Geist, which I think might theoretically, on some level, be maybe remotely similar? Sort of?
Geist had some interesting ideas, but the presentation was really bad, even for a White Wolf book. It did identify and correct the one main problem with Wraith, though - classic WoD games were about being a monster hidden among normal people, but Wraith separated you from normal people and put you in a weirdo fantasy underworld. You could absolutely tell stories focused on trying to interact with the mortal world, but they were much more strained than stories focusing around Stygia's weird politics and economy, and it was harder to evoke the kind of emotional necessity that would drive a Wraith to spend all their time and energy on that, instead of having crazy adventures with all their powers that were much more potent in the Underworld. As a result, Wraith felt really disconnected from the greater themes of the WoD. It was like the problem Umbra-focused Mage and Werewolf games or Dreaming-focused Changeling games ran into, but it was all the time, and clearly the default most players settled into.
Geist gets around this by having you play as a Revenant instead of a Ghost, with a weird symbolic archetype-spirit bound to you that tells you to do stuff and manifest powers through you. And your actual visits to the underworld are by necessity brief and temporary because it's a dangerous place bound by weird nightmare-logic rules that change from one domain to the next.
It sounds rad but believe me the presentation was just absolutely awful. The thing just dripped pretension and high-school-kid-trying-to-be-cool. The writing was ridiculously bad and repetitive and the "culture" the geists had would have made every single one of them get beaten up repeatedly.
Demon and Orpheus re-did Wraith much much better. They were both really fantastic games.
Demon was pretty cool, I'll have to look into Orpheus. Is Mummy any good?
Mummy is just weird. I like what Prometheus did with that idea better than what Mummy did. If you're heavy into Egyptian civilization you'll get into it more.
Orpheus tho. Orpheus is Aliens set in the Shadowlands and it's amazing.
There was one right around the changeover where the intro basically said something about the meek inheriting the earth and oh by the way that's not actually a good thing.
Was there ever a nWoD version of Wraith, or was that just to weird to bring forward?
There was Geist, which I think might theoretically, on some level, be maybe remotely similar? Sort of?
Geist had some interesting ideas, but the presentation was really bad, even for a White Wolf book. It did identify and correct the one main problem with Wraith, though - classic WoD games were about being a monster hidden among normal people, but Wraith separated you from normal people and put you in a weirdo fantasy underworld. You could absolutely tell stories focused on trying to interact with the mortal world, but they were much more strained than stories focusing around Stygia's weird politics and economy, and it was harder to evoke the kind of emotional necessity that would drive a Wraith to spend all their time and energy on that, instead of having crazy adventures with all their powers that were much more potent in the Underworld. As a result, Wraith felt really disconnected from the greater themes of the WoD. It was like the problem Umbra-focused Mage and Werewolf games or Dreaming-focused Changeling games ran into, but it was all the time, and clearly the default most players settled into.
Geist gets around this by having you play as a Revenant instead of a Ghost, with a weird symbolic archetype-spirit bound to you that tells you to do stuff and manifest powers through you. And your actual visits to the underworld are by necessity brief and temporary because it's a dangerous place bound by weird nightmare-logic rules that change from one domain to the next.
That.....that sounds kinda rad.
It really could have been, with better oversight. I seem to recall that most of its development happened during the transition from White Wolf to Onyx Path, and the developer had never worked on anything near that scale before. It's a shame the 2E update may never happen, given that Paradox seems a lot more interested in the Classic WoD.
The book is a fucking trial to read, though. It's really laying on the heavy brooding atmosphere as thick as it can, and feels super repetitive because of it. I'd wager they could have trimmed the page count by a minimum 10% just chopping redundant stories about new Geists being alienated from their old friends and families, and disquieted by their Symbolism-Ghost companions. And the rules are even more haphazard than standard "Golden Rule it yourself lol" WW schlock. I'd actually be shocked to learn that any of it was playtested at all.
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
Was there ever a nWoD version of Wraith, or was that just to weird to bring forward?
There was Geist, which I think might theoretically, on some level, be maybe remotely similar? Sort of?
Geist had some interesting ideas, but the presentation was really bad, even for a White Wolf book. It did identify and correct the one main problem with Wraith, though - classic WoD games were about being a monster hidden among normal people, but Wraith separated you from normal people and put you in a weirdo fantasy underworld. You could absolutely tell stories focused on trying to interact with the mortal world, but they were much more strained than stories focusing around Stygia's weird politics and economy, and it was harder to evoke the kind of emotional necessity that would drive a Wraith to spend all their time and energy on that, instead of having crazy adventures with all their powers that were much more potent in the Underworld. As a result, Wraith felt really disconnected from the greater themes of the WoD. It was like the problem Umbra-focused Mage and Werewolf games or Dreaming-focused Changeling games ran into, but it was all the time, and clearly the default most players settled into.
Geist gets around this by having you play as a Revenant instead of a Ghost, with a weird symbolic archetype-spirit bound to you that tells you to do stuff and manifest powers through you. And your actual visits to the underworld are by necessity brief and temporary because it's a dangerous place bound by weird nightmare-logic rules that change from one domain to the next.
That.....that sounds kinda rad.
It really could have been, with better oversight. I seem to recall that most of its development happened during the transition from White Wolf to Onyx Path, and the developer had never worked on anything near that scale before. It's a shame the 2E update may never happen, given that Paradox seems a lot more interested in the Classic WoD.
The book is a fucking trial to read, though. It's really laying on the heavy brooding atmosphere as thick as it can, and feels super repetitive because of it. I'd wager they could have trimmed the page count by a minimum 10% just chopping redundant stories about new Geists being alienated from their old friends and families, and disquieted by their Symbolism-Ghost companions. And the rules are even more haphazard than standard "Golden Rule it yourself lol" WW schlock. I'd actually be shocked to learn that any of it was playtested at all.
"It's not about death, it's about life, it's about LIVING."
Literally over and over and over in every chapter.
And all geists drink rum because rum equals living. God it was so stupid.
Was there ever a nWoD version of Wraith, or was that just to weird to bring forward?
There was Geist, which I think might theoretically, on some level, be maybe remotely similar? Sort of?
Geist had some interesting ideas, but the presentation was really bad, even for a White Wolf book. It did identify and correct the one main problem with Wraith, though - classic WoD games were about being a monster hidden among normal people, but Wraith separated you from normal people and put you in a weirdo fantasy underworld. You could absolutely tell stories focused on trying to interact with the mortal world, but they were much more strained than stories focusing around Stygia's weird politics and economy, and it was harder to evoke the kind of emotional necessity that would drive a Wraith to spend all their time and energy on that, instead of having crazy adventures with all their powers that were much more potent in the Underworld. As a result, Wraith felt really disconnected from the greater themes of the WoD. It was like the problem Umbra-focused Mage and Werewolf games or Dreaming-focused Changeling games ran into, but it was all the time, and clearly the default most players settled into.
Geist gets around this by having you play as a Revenant instead of a Ghost, with a weird symbolic archetype-spirit bound to you that tells you to do stuff and manifest powers through you. And your actual visits to the underworld are by necessity brief and temporary because it's a dangerous place bound by weird nightmare-logic rules that change from one domain to the next.
That.....that sounds kinda rad.
It really could have been, with better oversight. I seem to recall that most of its development happened during the transition from White Wolf to Onyx Path, and the developer had never worked on anything near that scale before. It's a shame the 2E update may never happen, given that Paradox seems a lot more interested in the Classic WoD.
The book is a fucking trial to read, though. It's really laying on the heavy brooding atmosphere as thick as it can, and feels super repetitive because of it. I'd wager they could have trimmed the page count by a minimum 10% just chopping redundant stories about new Geists being alienated from their old friends and families, and disquieted by their Symbolism-Ghost companions. And the rules are even more haphazard than standard "Golden Rule it yourself lol" WW schlock. I'd actually be shocked to learn that any of it was playtested at all.
"It's not about death, it's about life, it's about LIVING."
Literally over and over and over in every chapter.
And all geists drink rum because rum equals living. God it was so stupid.
That's always the most baffling thing to me about WoD groups - how these customs and traditions and lexicon get spread super uniformly. Every specific example of character creation is always about the ways you can personalize the rough themes at the core of the group to fit your interests as a player, but then all the other broader descriptions are all like "The [whatever the hells] are all 100% into [stupid bullshit] and have big regular gatherings to celebrate it." And how these cultural descriptions seem to assume a large stable population of every character type within easy reach and constant social communication, when the actual demographic descriptions make it clear that most WoD supers are spread so thin that one could easily go their entire existence without meeting another.
Anyway, yeah, default Geist "Culture" is aggressively stupid. It's like a high school goth read wikipedia articles on Dia De Los Muertos and Voodoo and decided to make these the core facets of their identity without doing any further research.
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
Mummy is awesome once you realise that being a Mummy is actually kind of a pointless middle management existence and start trying to fight against the cycle. It stops being "go on a series of fetch quests which are imparted unto you upon high" and starts becoming "subvert the fetch quests by doing your own shit on the sly." It's very much a side-line game, there's not the very wide breadth and depth of characters that Mage, Vampire and such have, but there's a lot to do with it. The core book doesn't explain that too well, though, not that there's anything new in a WW/OP game there.
So hey, C20 is the last thing I worked on with Onyx Path and everyone on this book brought their fucking A-game. I don't even like Changeling that much, but this is gonna be something else. Like, I really wish I could post spoilers for some of the cool shit we did and the answers we have to some of the game's buy-in problems (I can promise 99% less Peter Pan Complex, if nothing else).
c20th being 4th in disguise confirmed
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I dig Geist a lot. It's like Dead Like Me meets Persona. Or something.
TL;DR - nWoD is being renamed to Chronicles of Darkness, so to differentiate it from the oWoD. Because it was apparently a huge albatross whenever they went in for licensing deals.
EDIT: Oh shit, big news.
Onyx Path is still on Classic WoD and Exalted
4th Edition WoD will be developed in-house at White Wolf
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
TL;DR - nWoD is being renamed to Chronicles of Darkness, so to differentiate it from the oWoD. Because it was apparently a huge albatross whenever they went in for licensing deals.
Huh. Okay. I just hope they aren't ditching NWoD too much, looks like Paradox really want to capitalize on OWoD(not to say I blame them).
They just released the Chronicles of Darkness corebook and the plans for 2nd editions are all moving forward, so there's plenty to come for nWoD fans. Pretty much good news all around.
They just released the Chronicles of Darkness corebook and the plans for 2nd editions are all moving forward, so there's plenty to come for nWoD fans. Pretty much good news all around.
Yeah, they kept mentioning one world of darkness and talking about the oWoD. I was worried we might not see Mage 2nd Ed.
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MsAnthropyThe Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the RhythmThe City of FlowersRegistered Userregular
They just released the Chronicles of Darkness corebook and the plans for 2nd editions are all moving forward, so there's plenty to come for nWoD fans. Pretty much good news all around.
Yeah, they kept mentioning one world of darkness and talking about the oWoD. I was worried we might not see Mage 2nd Ed.
Which would be a shame given the final text, layout, and art are all in licensing review...
They just released the Chronicles of Darkness corebook and the plans for 2nd editions are all moving forward, so there's plenty to come for nWoD fans. Pretty much good news all around.
Yeah, they kept mentioning one world of darkness and talking about the oWoD. I was worried we might not see Mage 2nd Ed.
Which would be a shame given the final text, layout, and art are all in licensing review...
Bad decisions in the RPG industry? I would be shocked. Just shocked. I might die from the shock.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
They just released the Chronicles of Darkness corebook and the plans for 2nd editions are all moving forward, so there's plenty to come for nWoD fans. Pretty much good news all around.
Yeah, they kept mentioning one world of darkness and talking about the oWoD. I was worried we might not see Mage 2nd Ed.
Which would be a shame given the final text, layout, and art are all in licensing review...
My first edition could use updating, so I look forward to it. I've almost worn the spine out from running so many games with that thing.
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
Posts
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-classic-world-of-darkness/70549-a-brief-metaplot-of-cwod has some stuff in it
Demons are the biblical angels who rebelled against got and were banished to a place called the Abyss, but the Time of Reckoning shit broke open the Abyss and let them all out.
Hunters (of Hunter: the Reckoning) are ordinary humans who get imbued with unknown supernatural power to fight other supernaturals during the Time of Reckoning; it's eventually revealed that they're in fact being imbued by the angelic host that didn't rebel.
God damn do I love how convoluted the cWoD got, especially when you tried to reconcile the consensual reality of mage, the triat from werewolf, and all the biblical stuff from vampire/hunter/demon.
see also: Rasputin
They actually managed to explain that away in the last Wraith supplement, Ends of Empires. It was basically just one Wraith who was an expert at possessing people.
There's a lot of stuff in here that a) is wild supposition, b) arbitrarily picks one gameline's version of The Truth over another's, or c) completely makes stuff up.
Interesting, but I think it's one of the few that NWoD did better. I know people who LOVED it though.
Wow, that trailer guy needs a better mic.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
There was Geist, which I think might theoretically, on some level, be maybe remotely similar? Sort of?
Geist had some interesting ideas, but the presentation was really bad, even for a White Wolf book. It did identify and correct the one main problem with Wraith, though - classic WoD games were about being a monster hidden among normal people, but Wraith separated you from normal people and put you in a weirdo fantasy underworld. You could absolutely tell stories focused on trying to interact with the mortal world, but they were much more strained than stories focusing around Stygia's weird politics and economy, and it was harder to evoke the kind of emotional necessity that would drive a Wraith to spend all their time and energy on that, instead of having crazy adventures with all their powers that were much more potent in the Underworld. As a result, Wraith felt really disconnected from the greater themes of the WoD. It was like the problem Umbra-focused Mage and Werewolf games or Dreaming-focused Changeling games ran into, but it was all the time, and clearly the default most players settled into.
Geist gets around this by having you play as a Revenant instead of a Ghost, with a weird symbolic archetype-spirit bound to you that tells you to do stuff and manifest powers through you. And your actual visits to the underworld are by necessity brief and temporary because it's a dangerous place bound by weird nightmare-logic rules that change from one domain to the next.
That.....that sounds kinda rad.
Demon and Orpheus re-did Wraith much much better. They were both really fantastic games.
Mummy is just weird. I like what Prometheus did with that idea better than what Mummy did. If you're heavy into Egyptian civilization you'll get into it more.
Orpheus tho. Orpheus is Aliens set in the Shadowlands and it's amazing.
It really could have been, with better oversight. I seem to recall that most of its development happened during the transition from White Wolf to Onyx Path, and the developer had never worked on anything near that scale before. It's a shame the 2E update may never happen, given that Paradox seems a lot more interested in the Classic WoD.
The book is a fucking trial to read, though. It's really laying on the heavy brooding atmosphere as thick as it can, and feels super repetitive because of it. I'd wager they could have trimmed the page count by a minimum 10% just chopping redundant stories about new Geists being alienated from their old friends and families, and disquieted by their Symbolism-Ghost companions. And the rules are even more haphazard than standard "Golden Rule it yourself lol" WW schlock. I'd actually be shocked to learn that any of it was playtested at all.
"It's not about death, it's about life, it's about LIVING."
Literally over and over and over in every chapter.
And all geists drink rum because rum equals living. God it was so stupid.
That's always the most baffling thing to me about WoD groups - how these customs and traditions and lexicon get spread super uniformly. Every specific example of character creation is always about the ways you can personalize the rough themes at the core of the group to fit your interests as a player, but then all the other broader descriptions are all like "The [whatever the hells] are all 100% into [stupid bullshit] and have big regular gatherings to celebrate it." And how these cultural descriptions seem to assume a large stable population of every character type within easy reach and constant social communication, when the actual demographic descriptions make it clear that most WoD supers are spread so thin that one could easily go their entire existence without meeting another.
Anyway, yeah, default Geist "Culture" is aggressively stupid. It's like a high school goth read wikipedia articles on Dia De Los Muertos and Voodoo and decided to make these the core facets of their identity without doing any further research.
A Geist 2nd would be so rad, that game needed some serious house cleaning. So does Mummy, though.
c20th being 4th in disguise confirmed
http://theonyxpath.com/announcing-chronicles-of-darkness/
TL;DR - nWoD is being renamed to Chronicles of Darkness, so to differentiate it from the oWoD. Because it was apparently a huge albatross whenever they went in for licensing deals.
EDIT: Oh shit, big news.
Onyx Path is still on Classic WoD and Exalted
4th Edition WoD will be developed in-house at White Wolf
Huh. Okay. I just hope they aren't ditching NWoD too much, looks like Paradox really want to capitalize on OWoD(not to say I blame them).
Hmmm, not sure how I feel about how blatant they're being here.
Fair enough
don't give a shit about the name, just so long as it gets publication support
oWoD and any further editions of that; don't care at all
Yeah, they kept mentioning one world of darkness and talking about the oWoD. I was worried we might not see Mage 2nd Ed.
Which would be a shame given the final text, layout, and art are all in licensing review...
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
Bad decisions in the RPG industry? I would be shocked. Just shocked. I might die from the shock.
My first edition could use updating, so I look forward to it. I've almost worn the spine out from running so many games with that thing.