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What is your preferred system?

Any D&D/D20
Shadowrun
World of Darkness
Palladium
Other (feel free to post about it)

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Author Topic: Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: COBRA!!!  (Read 845667 times)

KingofstarrySkies

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5910 on: October 23, 2018, 05:24:52 pm »

vampires don't even need to drain humans to death is the thing and most vampire groups frown on doing that because it causes Problems and is another body to hide

hunter is about being a thin line against the night and the nature of the 'power' of the Messengers is that it will inevitably drive it's users more and more into the hunt until they're walking furious soldiers against the night with barely any person left in them

a full Zeal virtue is just a killing machine, stoic wall, or complete black-and-white judge (it's usually killing machine)

a lot of hunters in fact turn out as bad as what they fight after a while because they start to see the rest of humanity as a bit more expendable if in the long run it will destroy the supernatural
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Sigtextastic
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Rolan7

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5911 on: October 24, 2018, 01:00:10 am »

I really want to share my 2c about the WoD world but I have to point out I can't speak from authority.  The system is oddly open ended, with a liberal dose of Warhammer's "Everything is canon, not everything is true".  The NWoD and Vampire the Requiem books were... fairly consistent with each other, but the Mekhet/Ventrue/Gangrel clan books were dramatically not.  The edition I played (which I *still* don't know the official name for, ironically) has no canon backstory like Old WoD.  It's up the the Storyteller, if it even comes up at all.  Every clan and covenant have theories, legends, myths really.

Everyone claims Rasputin heheh

Or was that just an OWoD meme our group decided was canon?  It doesn't matter, NWoD avoids nailing such things down, leaving it to the Storyteller's discretion.  It's bizarre how they spent so many words on fluff without actually saying very much.

But enough rambling, I'm dodging the issue that my group - specifically, my group - cannot even begin to imagine a hunter and vampire working together.  Like, *maybe* a Blade 2 (3?) situation where they team up VERY temporarily, but a party?  Just... would never happen in the world we built.  Another multi-line NWoD game was discussed here a while back and, honestly, we still randomly bring it up occasionally to spark laughter.  No offense intended, it's that the idea is so insane to us.

And the idea of a werewolf tolerating the abomination against nature that a vampire represents...  It's somehow even more ridiculous.  There are even mechanics for that.  As vampires, werewolves were our bogeymen.  The reason we hide in our cities.  The two occasions we were forced (by the vampire elite) to travel, and we're talking merely a three hour drive, were nail-biting because the werewolves know.  I haven't read their book but they sensed us as rends in the fabric, based on our blood potencies (one of us was spiraling into diablery, so that went well). 

The only vampire character I lost was to a werewolf chasing down our car, ripping out a window, and reaching in to rip off my head.  Over the course of several rounds as we filled it with lead, and our driver floored the gas.

IDK I just want to second this:
Aren't humans way less powerful in general than vampires? Aren't werewolves like, scary powerful compared to vampires?
Though it's up to the storyteller *shrug*

And some humans did abduct us vampires at one point, when we took a moment out of deadly covenant politics to enjoy what little status we'd earned, at the local Rack (in this case, a vampire-run strip club in the suburb.  Still secret, but remote enough that any indiscretions were easily covered up.  We consumed a lot of drugs through our creepy ghouls, but Hunters had infiltrated the taxi network).

Humans have to gang up on vampires.  Vampires have to gang up on werewolves.  There are exceptions - elder vampires trump everything, and mages are so reality-warping absurd we basically banned them - but I just don't see how a mixed party could work.  Or, more importantly, would ever agree to work.

We were pulling some crazy powers towards the end of our Inferno (demon-possessed) game but balance wise it only seemed about equal to werewolves.  But the werewolves were crafted to terrify us so that's probably unfair.

And again it's much less concrete than in other systems, it's really up to the ST.
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KingofstarrySkies

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5912 on: October 24, 2018, 02:46:46 am »

i'm relatively sure my group is just shifters with me as hunter but i'm unsure and it's not impossible to be a vampire that isn't a scumbag
my hunter is specifically very much after the assholes who manipulate and run society into the ground
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Sigtextastic
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Rolan7

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5913 on: October 24, 2018, 03:01:57 am »

Oh definitely vampires don't have to be scumbags, but I was remembering the vampire adventuring in "daylight" in Ireland with a werewolf.
And being more amazed at the werewolf bit than the "it's cloudy and the vampire wears a robe" thing.

No the delicious bit about vampires is that nothing forces you to be a scumbag.  As a neonate vampire you start out mostly in control of your slavering beast, it only grows if you do the wrong things because you don't listen to your handlers.

Because there's a complex system of handlers, AKA the covenants, warning you to... take it slow.  You'll lose humanity, everyone does, but it should be a matter of years.  Don't throw it away - at least fight the beast.  That's basic survival, for the civilized vamps.  Other groups have other ideas.

And one of our party took no Mentor dots and so her sire was, well, of that other idea.
And the other in our party took no mentor dots and her sire walked out of an elevator into the daylight

And to survive the masquerade involves being jaded.  I learned that in the mouth of a werewolf.  My second and lasting vampire was much more careful.
Psychically destroyed, a mannequin of the Invictus, but careful.  Observant.
She liked cats.  That was the only thing she remembered, after literally ~60 years as a ghoul, and finally being rewarded with undeath.

She liked cats a lot, and struggled with basic human interaction.

I don't see playing such a character alongside a hunter, I just don't get it.  A fresh vampire I guess, but that raises questions of its own.  But again, I'm projecting my own group's interpretation of NWoD which is unironically as valid as anyone else's.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2018, 03:03:34 am by Rolan7 »
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KingofstarrySkies

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5914 on: October 24, 2018, 03:03:59 am »

man from everything i've read i think i would not like nwod at all tbfh it just seems so much

... lamer

like sure hunter being straight up regular people instead of superhumans is a bit better but nwod's whole lore is not nearly as good
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Rolan7

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5915 on: October 24, 2018, 03:12:12 am »

I miss the Cain stuff and especially the vague constant threat of the antideluvians.

But the idea that the architect of reality is a meaningless machine that nobody understands?  Which isn't aloof, but actually viciously hunts aspects of itself which rebel?  And presumably any normal people who know too much?

I still like the dead-eyed angels of Disgaea 1.  "Repent." "Die." Soulless automata.
The mechanics of existence trying to destroy every wrong thing.  But they can be avoided.  Even disrupted, maybe.
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Quote from: Fallen London, one Unthinkable Hope
This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

Kagus

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5916 on: October 24, 2018, 09:07:09 am »

Now, if there are bullshit magical predators out there eating humans all the time, that naturally means that said humans will experience some form of selection pressure. People with habits that get them munched by vampires die, and fail to spread those habits. Maybe innate magic works in a similar way, and Hunters are basically an adaptation to deal with the predators. This means that as vampires continue to kill normal humans are a rate faster than hunters (cause it's easy), the number of hunters will gradually increase until all of humanity are hunters.
This presumes a relationship of natural predator and natural prey. Whereas a relationship of shepherd and cattle, well... The tasty sheep haven't died out yet from all the eating.

Egan_BW

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5917 on: October 24, 2018, 10:58:09 am »

Hahahahaha. As if vampires are that smart.
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Rolan7

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5918 on: October 24, 2018, 11:41:14 am »

I mean, there's a specific merit (upgradeable feat) for keeping a "herd"...  Which can mean a lot of things depending on what your other powers are.  A Mekhet might just know a particularly secluded area where nobody asks any questions, while a Ventrue might literally have a herd of brainwashed abductees nobody will ever look for (thanks to dominate, possibly even rewriting memories).

Vampires kinda need to be smart, because they have to live in cities without angering the local law.  Both human law or vampire law.  Flaunting either gets them true-dead fast.
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This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

NullForceOmega

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5919 on: October 24, 2018, 11:55:51 am »

Meh.  The animate corpses aren't any smarter than normal humans, they just get to stick around longer and use silly special powers, if they aren't discovered and killed.
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scriver

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5920 on: October 24, 2018, 12:47:42 pm »

Idea for WoD adventure: Set in Florida, you need to clean up after Florida Man, who is actually a rogue vampire
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IcyTea31

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5921 on: October 24, 2018, 02:50:11 pm »

I wouldn't make him a vampire. I'd make him some sort of body-snatching spirit that possesses someone else in the state whenever he dies. The protagonists can temporarily inconvenience him, but cannot easily defeat him completely: as long as there is a Florida, there is a Florida Man.
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Rolan7

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5922 on: October 24, 2018, 03:01:07 pm »

There's actually a book for Slashers.  If they die but you take your eye off the body, they can come back :-X
It's basically "Humans can't generally reach 0 morality.  what if they could though"

It's sorta like a vampire reaching 0 humanity and surrendering to the beast, except there is no beast, it's just a human so evil they gain traditional horror movie powers.
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This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

Sirus

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5923 on: October 24, 2018, 03:05:37 pm »

I wouldn't make him a vampire. I'd make him some sort of body-snatching spirit that possesses someone else in the state whenever he dies. The protagonists can temporarily inconvenience him, but cannot easily defeat him completely: as long as there is a Florida, there is a Florida Man.
Run it. I'd play.
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scriver

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #5924 on: October 24, 2018, 03:08:20 pm »

I wouldn't make him a vampire. I'd make him some sort of body-snatching spirit that possesses someone else in the state whenever he dies. The protagonists can temporarily inconvenience him, but cannot easily defeat him completely: as long as there is a Florida, there is a Florida Man.
Run it. I'd play.
Yiss
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