Urban Arcana is an amazing setting - drow running trendy night spots, orcs as gangers. Getting to reimagine D&D monsters in modern era is a really fun exercise.
I used to play OWOD back in the day - how does the New compare anyway?
Cheers.
The books are much less lippy, but as far as the feel goes you're probably better off reading the Demon:the Descent blog and feeling it out for yourself because there are so many opinions on it all.
Urban Arcana is an amazing setting - drow running trendy night spots, orcs as gangers. Getting to reimagine D&D monsters in modern era is a really fun exercise.
I have been using Urban Arcana as one of the sources of inspiration for my 13th Age + modern era mashup, and yeah, it's pretty great.
3DS: 2466-2307-8384 PSN: bssteph Steam:bsstephanTwitch:bsstephan Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e Occasional words about games:my site
Heya, too much Urban Fantasy in my life is making me want to play something.
But what are Urban Fantasy alternatives to NWOD?
I prefer something not too transgressive - I find it tiresome rather than shocking.
I suppose Dresden Files? Unknown Armies I know the name only?
I used to play OWOD back in the day - how does the New compare anyway?
Cheers.
General consensus:
OWoD >>>> NWoD for setting
(Flip that if you're talking gameplay.)
The only exception, IMO, is New Mage. I really enjoy it. Old Mage is extremely daunting. New Mage streamlines it nicely, and I think the Seers of the Throne make for much better antagonists than the Technocracy.
I was just comparing Changeling old and new. I liked old Changeling. It was twee but, being into my heritage, it was nice to see so much of it in a game.
New Changeling had me pretty irritated with the 'a game of beautiful madness' tag line, and then it went downhill.
At the moment, it's looking like either Old Changeling or Dresden Files. I am going to start looking at some more of the NWOD books - I bought the core and some books years ago and haven't looked at them since - but which of the NWOD games would anyone recommend, for someone who has seen far too much real trauma in his real life to enjoy romanticized trauma?
I liked the angst of the old books because it was trauma about unreal things - the lure of vampirism, the call of the wild. Do all these new books just skip the metaphors and catharsis and go straight to the 'fun' of playing real-life pain?
I figure I could take a bear.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
I don't actually own a copy, but Iv'e skimmed a friend's, and Geist is apparently when the designers realized, "Y'know, if everyone just plays our monsters as superheroes/villains anyway..."
+1
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Not every NWoD game is grim-dark. Heck, none of them have to be. That said, Mage is probably the least of them, since the PCs are still human, just made immensely powerful. And they have some of the most fearsome antagonists. (The Seers, Banishers, Scelesti, Abyssal Entities, etc.)
Heya, too much Urban Fantasy in my life is making me want to play something.
But what are Urban Fantasy alternatives to NWOD?
I prefer something not too transgressive - I find it tiresome rather than shocking.
I suppose Dresden Files? Unknown Armies I know the name only?
I used to play OWOD back in the day - how does the New compare anyway?
Cheers.
General consensus:
OWoD >>>> NWoD for setting
(Flip that if you're talking gameplay.)
The only exception, IMO, is New Mage. I really enjoy it. Old Mage is extremely daunting. New Mage streamlines it nicely, and I think the Seers of the Throne make for much better antagonists than the Technocracy.
Wow, that is absolutely not the consensus.
+2
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I don't actually own a copy, but Iv'e skimmed a friend's, and Geist is apparently when the designers realized, "Y'know, if everyone just plays our monsters as superheroes/villains anyway..."
And Demon is the game where half of the playtesters are playing Burn Notice and the other half are playing Scanty and Kneesocks.
Heya, too much Urban Fantasy in my life is making me want to play something.
But what are Urban Fantasy alternatives to NWOD?
I prefer something not too transgressive - I find it tiresome rather than shocking.
I suppose Dresden Files? Unknown Armies I know the name only?
I used to play OWOD back in the day - how does the New compare anyway?
Cheers.
General consensus:
OWoD >>>> NWoD for setting
(Flip that if you're talking gameplay.)
The only exception, IMO, is New Mage. I really enjoy it. Old Mage is extremely daunting. New Mage streamlines it nicely, and I think the Seers of the Throne make for much better antagonists than the Technocracy.
Wow, that is absolutely not the consensus.
I dunno, it even seems to be the majority opinion around here, and we can't even agree on whether to have lunch.
Heya, too much Urban Fantasy in my life is making me want to play something.
But what are Urban Fantasy alternatives to NWOD?
I prefer something not too transgressive - I find it tiresome rather than shocking.
I suppose Dresden Files? Unknown Armies I know the name only?
I used to play OWOD back in the day - how does the New compare anyway?
Cheers.
General consensus:
OWoD >>>> NWoD for setting
(Flip that if you're talking gameplay.)
The only exception, IMO, is New Mage. I really enjoy it. Old Mage is extremely daunting. New Mage streamlines it nicely, and I think the Seers of the Throne make for much better antagonists than the Technocracy.
Wow, that is absolutely not the consensus.
I dunno, it even seems to be the majority opinion around here, and we can't even agree on whether to have lunch.
In the circles I travel in, people like the changes to Mage and Changeling, are pretty equal between oWerewolf and nWerewolf, and prefer oVampire. When we play, we tend to play nWoD since most of the group started gaming around nWoD's release.
PSN|AspectVoid
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk positively about nWerewolf. Even Requiem has its share of defenders.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Of the new world of Darkness the one I really loved was Promethean. That captured my imagination quite firmly.
Heya, too much Urban Fantasy in my life is making me want to play something.
But what are Urban Fantasy alternatives to NWOD?
I prefer something not too transgressive - I find it tiresome rather than shocking.
I suppose Dresden Files? Unknown Armies I know the name only?
I used to play OWOD back in the day - how does the New compare anyway?
Cheers.
General consensus:
OWoD >>>> NWoD for setting
(Flip that if you're talking gameplay.)
The only exception, IMO, is New Mage. I really enjoy it. Old Mage is extremely daunting. New Mage streamlines it nicely, and I think the Seers of the Throne make for much better antagonists than the Technocracy.
Wow, that is absolutely not the consensus.
I dunno, it even seems to be the majority opinion around here, and we can't even agree on whether to have lunch.
The Meal Triad is a regressive Eatist concept superimposed onto consumption from the Massively Meatloaf On-lines Cafeteria world that ruins Savorist efforts at enjoying a meal's unique combination of flavors and turns consumption into a table-based parody of a creative medium.
Anything that does superheroes already has some degree of urban fantasy baked in.
D20 Modern + Urban Arcana is a great set of rules. Kind of like Saga for that setting.
The core nWoD rulebook can do a great "humans discovering the weirdness of their world" game all on it's own. I haven't tried Mage yet, but Hunter could be run in a similar way, I think. "There's weird shit out there, and we're trying to figure it out."
This has been very interesting. And the wikipedia articles on NWOD are excellent, and detail the changes very well.
Are there any other big Urban Fantasy games? Or just some indie gem I've never heard of?
If you like Storyteller and are willing to muddle through some hiccups, Scion is urban fantasy in the vein of American Gods and The Iron Druid Chronicles.
This has been very interesting. And the wikipedia articles on NWOD are excellent, and detail the changes very well.
Are there any other big Urban Fantasy games? Or just some indie gem I've never heard of?
If you like Storyteller and are willing to muddle through some hiccups, Scion is urban fantasy in the vein of American Gods and The Iron Druid Chronicles.
It's kind of like those, except in the many fundamental ways in which it's not. Scion is thematically muddled and mechanically broken on nearly every level that matters, the setting as written doesn't really support any type of chronicle other than "war with the Titans", and the individual gods and signature characters are ludicrously one-dimensional and have goofy names and concepts that make American Gods' "Low-Key Lyesmith" look clever and understated. There are many other games out there that succeed at doing what Scion tries and fails to do, especially if you're willing to go with a more rules-light narrative-based system like Nobilis.
This has been very interesting. And the wikipedia articles on NWOD are excellent, and detail the changes very well.
Are there any other big Urban Fantasy games? Or just some indie gem I've never heard of?
If you like Storyteller and are willing to muddle through some hiccups, Scion is urban fantasy in the vein of American Gods and The Iron Druid Chronicles.
It's kind of like those, except in the many fundamental ways in which it's not. Scion is thematically muddled and mechanically broken on nearly every level that matters, the setting as written doesn't really support any type of chronicle other than "war with the Titans", and the individual gods and signature characters are ludicrously one-dimensional and have goofy names and concepts that make American Gods' "Low-Key Lyesmith" look clever and understated. There are many other games out there that succeed at doing what Scion tries and fails to do, especially if you're willing to go with a more rules-light narrative-based system like Nobilis.
I agree, but if the goal is simply to play the game and the player is familiar with Storyteller, then you may choose that as a solution.
I generally dismiss ALL Storyteller games as third tier because the engine itself is pretty garbage. Some redeem themselves on the strength of the setting, but it's all ripped off from somewhere. You can probably piece together your own if you've really got time to dedicate.
Edit to add: while both cited materials are capable of far more subtlety and tact, they're also both fundamentally "against the titans," which is to say "gods I don't like."
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I had to push back my EotE beginner game.. hopefully next week works better.
I swear, half the problem with roleplaying is just getting a set, regular schedule. I guess that affects board games too.
So I just keep skimming over EotE. I gotta admit, it's probably the best implementation of a cinematic, "theater of the mind" style game I've seen. One of the things I've always had trouble with in Shadowrun is making sensible structures, because I suck at internal dimensions. Everything in that game is measured in meters, but I tend to work in 5/10/15 feet and all that. I know that I shouldn't care about that kind of specifics.. but.. well.. *looks at the 5th edition thread*
The rules for nWoD hang together far better, and they aren't the mishmash of competing systems of oWoD. Though I haven't seen the God Machine stuff.
The oWoD fluff I'm most familiar with was Vampire, and that was really cool if you wanted to read a big meta-history of a fictional world. Which I totally did. But it's kind of like Rifts; I can be entranced by the setting and it's detail without ever wanting to populate it with players, because I know my head will explode.
they're both similar enough that I've never really seen how people could honestly argue that one is great and the other's bad. there are some really awful parts of oWoD and some bland and uninspiring parts of nWoD, but even so, it's almost trivial to adapt elements from one into the other to cover for what's lacking in each.
I would argue that much as oWoD has some better elements than nWoD
nWoD beats it in two major ways, firstly the old stuff could be at times really problematic, and secondly because as a setting, the new stuff is far more playable. A lot of oWoD stuff was very self-indulgent and not really made for the players.
A problem which a lot of White Wolf stuff used to have. Though actually the most notably disliked element of that was Divis Mal, and I never had a problem with Divis Mal, mostly because Divis Mal is super cool, but also because Divis Mal was actually supposed to protect the players agency from Caestus Pax and the like, even if that was inexpertly explained.
it's so tongue in cheek and you are all standing around saying"oho our characters are so silly and emotional haha" and then you realise that you are totally into it and revelling in playing someone like that, in a game that really wants you to let out those emotions and do stuff with them.
Scary, sexy stuff! Playing my Angel and watching him flit between being a terrifying prince of infinite light and a depraved, self-serving predator of dark beauty is the most fun of things.
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The books are much less lippy, but as far as the feel goes you're probably better off reading the Demon:the Descent blog and feeling it out for yourself because there are so many opinions on it all.
I'd definitely recommend it though.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
General consensus:
OWoD >>>> NWoD for setting
(Flip that if you're talking gameplay.)
The only exception, IMO, is New Mage. I really enjoy it. Old Mage is extremely daunting. New Mage streamlines it nicely, and I think the Seers of the Throne make for much better antagonists than the Technocracy.
These guys tried:
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
New Changeling had me pretty irritated with the 'a game of beautiful madness' tag line, and then it went downhill.
At the moment, it's looking like either Old Changeling or Dresden Files. I am going to start looking at some more of the NWOD books - I bought the core and some books years ago and haven't looked at them since - but which of the NWOD games would anyone recommend, for someone who has seen far too much real trauma in his real life to enjoy romanticized trauma?
I liked the angst of the old books because it was trauma about unreal things - the lure of vampirism, the call of the wild. Do all these new books just skip the metaphors and catharsis and go straight to the 'fun' of playing real-life pain?
Wow, that is absolutely not the consensus.
Not hard at all if you buy the 20th anniversary books.
And Demon is the game where half of the playtesters are playing Burn Notice and the other half are playing Scanty and Kneesocks.
I believe there is actually a conversion book out, for Vampire at least.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
20th is all of the shit from Noun:the Verb thrown into one book using the new rules.
The conversion books are about mixing oNoun with nNoun, rules or fluff.
Is NWOD really worth bothering with?
The 20th books DO NOT update to the nwod rules. They are pure classic Storyteller, with some very minor revisions here and there.
Vampire, Werewolf and Mage have Translation Guides for porting stuff between their counterparts.
Is it the settings or the rules that you preferred? Or both even?
It's a pretty good time to be playing either, though. Go with what you like.
In the circles I travel in, people like the changes to Mage and Changeling, are pretty equal between oWerewolf and nWerewolf, and prefer oVampire. When we play, we tend to play nWoD since most of the group started gaming around nWoD's release.
Are there any other big Urban Fantasy games? Or just some indie gem I've never heard of?
The Meal Triad is a regressive Eatist concept superimposed onto consumption from the Massively Meatloaf On-lines Cafeteria world that ruins Savorist efforts at enjoying a meal's unique combination of flavors and turns consumption into a table-based parody of a creative medium.
D20 Modern + Urban Arcana is a great set of rules. Kind of like Saga for that setting.
The core nWoD rulebook can do a great "humans discovering the weirdness of their world" game all on it's own. I haven't tried Mage yet, but Hunter could be run in a similar way, I think. "There's weird shit out there, and we're trying to figure it out."
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
It's kind of like those, except in the many fundamental ways in which it's not. Scion is thematically muddled and mechanically broken on nearly every level that matters, the setting as written doesn't really support any type of chronicle other than "war with the Titans", and the individual gods and signature characters are ludicrously one-dimensional and have goofy names and concepts that make American Gods' "Low-Key Lyesmith" look clever and understated. There are many other games out there that succeed at doing what Scion tries and fails to do, especially if you're willing to go with a more rules-light narrative-based system like Nobilis.
I generally dismiss ALL Storyteller games as third tier because the engine itself is pretty garbage. Some redeem themselves on the strength of the setting, but it's all ripped off from somewhere. You can probably piece together your own if you've really got time to dedicate.
Edit to add: while both cited materials are capable of far more subtlety and tact, they're also both fundamentally "against the titans," which is to say "gods I don't like."
both setting and rules
I swear, half the problem with roleplaying is just getting a set, regular schedule. I guess that affects board games too.
So I just keep skimming over EotE. I gotta admit, it's probably the best implementation of a cinematic, "theater of the mind" style game I've seen. One of the things I've always had trouble with in Shadowrun is making sensible structures, because I suck at internal dimensions. Everything in that game is measured in meters, but I tend to work in 5/10/15 feet and all that. I know that I shouldn't care about that kind of specifics.. but.. well.. *looks at the 5th edition thread*
The oWoD fluff I'm most familiar with was Vampire, and that was really cool if you wanted to read a big meta-history of a fictional world. Which I totally did. But it's kind of like Rifts; I can be entranced by the setting and it's detail without ever wanting to populate it with players, because I know my head will explode.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
they're both similar enough that I've never really seen how people could honestly argue that one is great and the other's bad. there are some really awful parts of oWoD and some bland and uninspiring parts of nWoD, but even so, it's almost trivial to adapt elements from one into the other to cover for what's lacking in each.
nWoD beats it in two major ways, firstly the old stuff could be at times really problematic, and secondly because as a setting, the new stuff is far more playable. A lot of oWoD stuff was very self-indulgent and not really made for the players.
A problem which a lot of White Wolf stuff used to have. Though actually the most notably disliked element of that was Divis Mal, and I never had a problem with Divis Mal, mostly because Divis Mal is super cool, but also because Divis Mal was actually supposed to protect the players agency from Caestus Pax and the like, even if that was inexpertly explained.
I'm really surprised I haven't noticed any except Monsterhearts, and I dunno if I want that much melodrama.
it's so tongue in cheek and you are all standing around saying"oho our characters are so silly and emotional haha" and then you realise that you are totally into it and revelling in playing someone like that, in a game that really wants you to let out those emotions and do stuff with them.
Scary, sexy stuff! Playing my Angel and watching him flit between being a terrifying prince of infinite light and a depraved, self-serving predator of dark beauty is the most fun of things.