Hybrid cWoD/CoD Games (ie Changeling: The...Drost? Werewolf: The Forsacalypse?!)
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What would people think about a game that used the new systems and themes from Chronicles of Darkness but merged certain setting elements from the Classic WoD? What kind of "hybrid" settings and themes do you think would work, really work, or really really not work?
To get the ball rolling, I really like the tight personal focus of CoD games but at the same time some of the cuts they made seem a little ham-fisted to me. This was a fever that started with Werewolf -- for a while I was batting around the idea of a Forsaken game that incorporated the 14-ish Tribes from Apocalypse (revised to broaden, enrich or outright avoid some of the more embarrassing stereotypes) and restructured the 5 Tribes from Forsaken 2.0 and their sacred prey into something more like Lodges, which they feel like anyway to me. This just sounds like a richer game to me, with more culture, options and playstyles, buuuuut maybe I'm insane?
The other idea I've been kind of liking is a hybrid Dreaming-Lost game; Dreaming with a much bigger dollop of horror and adversity -- the Chrysalis basically ruins your life, rather than leading to endless pretty princess tea parties...and while the Dreaming is a beautiful, desperate escape from reality it can also be as dangerous and as terrifying as the Hedge, maybe even moreso because it's everywhere. The Tuatha de Danaan are returning from Arcadia and hunt other fae for sport, like the True Fae from Lost.
There are ideas in Dreaming that just seem so absurd, and they play them straight instead of taking advantage of that absurdity -- one of the old sourcebooks states that when the Sidhe came back they essentially possessed human bodies and "swapped" the human souls into Arcadia, and then made it sound like this is a delightful and pleasant exchange rather than the horrifying shitshow it would really be. Why not play this up instead? It mentions some freeholds in the Dreaming overlay condemned buildings but never really explores this idea to its full creepy potential. What happens when the Baron, surrounded by his Court, goes to take his seat at the high table during the Feast of Beltane and falls through a rotted floor, gutting himself on some exposed rebar? Also he was supposed to be at his mundane son's soccer practice but decided to go play magical dress-up pretendy time instead so his wife leaves him while he's in the hospital, SHIT LIKE THAT YAKNOW
I could go on and on but I would like input and see other "hybrid" ideas, if this is something that seems interesting to you guys.
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In all honesty your Changeling ideas sound like nWoD Changeling, where it did get darker and less pretty tea-parties and where everyone is basically a PTSD victim who are in mortal fear of going back. Why decide on oWoD instead of nWoD?
Keep in mind I am biased. I love nWoD but loathe oWoD.
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I can't speak to the Changeling hybrid since I never played Dreaming... I do like the idea of meshing crunchy rulesets and mechanics from CoD with themes and settings from cWoD. I miss Pentex. I miss having a very prominent Big Bad that united people under a single cause. The Wyld, Wyrm, Weaver triad was interesting, but not nearly so much as the more visceral Good vs Evil struggle of Werewolves vs Pentex. The fact that Pentex was the Umbrella Corp. of its day made it all the better. It was EVERYWHERE, the Taint permeated almost everything to some degree. You had a tangible enemy to struggle against. Whether you won or lost, there was something that needed to be done!
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@Cadi said in Hybrid cWoD/CoD Games (ie Changeling: The...Drost? Werewolf: The Forsacalypse?!):
In all honesty your Changeling ideas sound like nWoD Changeling, where it did get darker and less pretty tea-parties and where everyone is basically a PTSD victim who are in mortal fear of going back. Why decide on oWoD instead of nWoD?
Keep in mind I am biased. I love nWoD but loathe oWoD.
That's intentional, the theme would be a lot more Lost than Dreaming, but the setting would be a lot more Dreaming than Lost. Changelings as humans that are sort of...spiritually hybridized with (or arguably possessed by) actual Fae spirits, rather than humans abducted and warped by actual Fae spirits. The Dreaming is a reflection of our imagination run rampant, rather than the borderlands of a mythical realm, and Changelings are escaping reality in an attempt to reach Arcadia, rather than escaping Arcadia back into reality.
In this hypothetical game though, The Dreaming damages the real world, rather than redeems it. This escape is not a joyous celebration of the power of creativity or whatever, it's running away from your life. Changelings are damaged people already, who suddenly have the power to make their illness real or hide in it entirely, not the shell-shocked survivors of an alien kidnapping.
@Miss-Demeanor said in Hybrid cWoD/CoD Games (ie Changeling: The...Drost? Werewolf: The Forsacalypse?!):
I can't speak to the Changeling hybrid since I never played Dreaming... I do like the idea of meshing crunchy rulesets and mechanics from CoD with themes and settings from cWoD. I miss Pentex. I miss having a very prominent Big Bad that united people under a single cause. The Wyld, Wyrm, Weaver triad was interesting, but not nearly so much as the more visceral Good vs Evil struggle of Werewolves vs Pentex. The fact that Pentex was the Umbrella Corp. of its day made it all the better. It was EVERYWHERE, the Taint permeated almost everything to some degree. You had a tangible enemy to struggle against. Whether you won or lost, there was something that needed to be done!
Pentex was a little too Captain Planet Villain most of the time for my taste, but when they played it subtle it was awesome. I actually do miss the Triad a whole lot...not so much the whole "all-encompassing cosmic war" aspect, but a Forsaken game where they had cultists or something would be really cool. I've seen a conversion for the Wyrm on the Onyx Path forums that was bad-ass.
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@Wizz That was the thing about Pentex, though. To the world at large, they were simply yet another all-encompassing global conglomerate. They made your cars, your clothes, your diapers, your utensils... but a lot of it was done through subsidiary companies (Umbrella Corp's predecessor!). It wasn't a world of all things Pentex stamped on the label. They were being sneaky and underhanded about it. When it became the 'Captain Planet Villian' is when it became Werewolves fighting against Pentex. Largely because the Werewolves were the chosen protectors of the Wyld (Planeteers of Gaia, anyone?), and Pentex was Dr. Blight, Verminous Skumm, Duke Nukem, Hoggish Greedly, Zarm, Looten Plunder, and Sly Sludge (yes I'm that goddamn nerdy) all rolled into one, slowly trying to corrupt the world for the Wyrm. So yeah, your pack would run off to try and put a stop to Some Subsidiary LTD. that was dumping toxic runoff into the local water supply because it made the company more money (Hi Hoggish!). But then you maybe got a clue, that there was some further evil superpower behind Greedly Enterprises that was really running the show for some as-yet unknown reason. I mean the entire premise of pretty much anything cWoD can be summed up using 80s/90s cartoons and teen-oriented tv series. I could make a case for it being too 'X-Men', too 'Transformers', too 'Insert 80s/90s Cartoon Name Here' based off a broad glance at the theme. Its a game meant for teens and young adults that was concocted in the 90's, it draws the vast majority of its influence from the pop culture of the day. Its going to have very obvious similarities to the popular shows of the day that influenced its creation. All the cWoD splats have them. Even Mage of the day was basically Shadowrunner if everyone in the game was capable of using magic to enhance themselves and their surroundings. Changeling was very Fraggle Rock/Zelda: Adventures of Link/Gummi Bears/etc. Vampire was Beverly Hills 90210/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel/etc. You can't really get away from it themewise in cWoD. Its a game of its time.
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I think it would be an interesting idea, after all I prefer NWod mechanics for the most part to OWoD but OWoD's world is so much more compelling to me.
A lot will come down to the implementation decisions. After all WoD Fandom is a fractious lot. The things one person loves about OWoD is the thing another hates. For example I hear a lot of people clamour for something like the Cammie/Sabbat war in NVamp, while as much as a love OWoD the Cammie/Sabbat thing holds no interest for me helps make NVamp the only new version I prefer to the old. (I like both versions of Changeling equally since they are to me mirror image games, Dreaming is about trying to cope with being both human and fae, while Lost is about trying to cope with being neither human nor fae.) -
I could see the Dreaming-Lost hybrid working well as a setting. Have aspects of the Hedge and things like that manifest as parts of Chimerical Reality, playing up the 'fantasy land is not happy knightly quest land' all the time angle. Which way would you do the changeling splats though? In OWoD, you had the Seemings as the 'age group' and Kiths as the 'type of fae,' but I could see a combo (as much as I loathe the concept of Childings).
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For from a mechanical standpoint, I tried doing Masquerade in the nWoD system back in the day. Lots os little merits and unique discs in the clan pages. http://wiki.finalnightsmux.com/wiki/Main_Page
BUt I would love the idea of adapting Apocalypse to Forsaken systems and playing that. I even did a Get of Fenris sheet for WoD once upon a time!
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I would love Mage: The Ascension done in Mage: The Awakening (v2), but I think @EmmahSue got burnt out on the idea after so long. I don't really blame her.
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Along those lines when I started a Dreaming campaign a couple of years back one of the PCs printed out a sheet before the game then during c-gen he realized it was one for a hybrid of Dreaming and Lost. No idea where on the net he found the sheet but that likely means rules are out there somewhere.
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Mr. Gone, maybe?
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Also:
https://mrgone.rocksolidshells.com/pdf/NWOD/Silent_Hill.pdf
WoD Silent Hill hybrid is slightly off topic but still boss.
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Less burnt, and more understanding that the new mechanics are just... not a good match for what I wanted to run. They're too granular and crunchy, alas.
ES
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Generally, I kind of hate the old themes of Classic WoD, with a few exceptions. Vampire is okay and I actually don't hate on Mage, alone. But Werewolf is something I will never be able to go back too.
That said, never mix the themes. It'd be shit.
