The State of the Chronicles of Darkness

[Thenomain]

@Sammi said:

Something else to say: You were talking about how you couldn't think of any concepts that would fit the new Seemings, but Vera would have made a fantastic 2nd Ed Ogre.

I had thought of that, except there's something about these things are being written that bothers me. Part of the point of Vera was that her anger and hate came in part from wanting to fall into being a Fairest. Under the new system, she would be Just Another Self-Hating Ogre, and after skimming the Kith document there's nothing pretty-pretty-princess an Ogre would have to fight against. Boring boring boring.

At the end of Vera, she had come to terms with this, or as much terms as she was going to come to, which was a perfect time for Vera to end.

I don't mind the Ogre write-up itself, but I am disappointed that the options for the new Changeling seem to backslide on how easy the game could be a game of Fighting Fate, at least as presented so far. In nChangeling, you could be a killer flower, but what you did with that was up to you. Now, if your agency is a fair-hearted leader, you have to be a Fairest. If your agency is bully, you have to be an Ogre. You might disagree, but if you read the OP threads on these you'll find out that I'm not alone in reading it this way.

Or present it the other way around. If you want to be an Ogre you must be secretly sensitive. If you want to be a Fairest, you have to be super-concerned about those you order around. These are their curses, their breaking points. Boring boring boring.

I'm going to chalk this one up to these write-ups being first drafts, and therefore wishing they weren't. I'll hold on to some optimism, but much more cautiously now.

[Sammi]

@Thenomain said:

In nChangeling, you could be a killer flower, but what you did with that was up to you.

Still true, except that part of "what you do with that" is incorporated into your changeling nature as a Seeming.

Now, if your agency is a fair-hearted leader, you have to be a Fairest. If your agency is bully, you have to be an Ogre. You might disagree, but if you read the OP threads on these you'll find out that I'm not alone in reading it this way.

How much does escape agency define a character? If I want to make a fair-hearted leader, he's probably Fairest, unless he escapes Arcadia by defying a cultural taboo, ripping out his weakness, or making a dark choice to save himself. If you escape Arcadia by going savage, you're a Beast, but you still might have a "might makes right" attitude and push around weaker people. If you escape by backstabbing someone, you might try extra-hard to be good to your crew even though you can never really trust any of them. They shouldn't trust you, but for some reason they do and you don't want to let them down (even if you're convinced that you will eventually).

Or present it the other way around. If you want to be an Ogre you must be secretly sensitive.

Ogres aren't any more sensitive than anybody else. The curse is that they try to hide their sensitivity and risk Clarity if they can't maintain the façade. You know, like a lot of guys.

If you want to be a Fairest, you have to be super-concerned about those you order around.

So no expendable henchmen as a Fairest. I agree that that's a bit odd, especially since the curse is about regretting failure and sometimes plans might succeed because underlings get hurt.

[Thenomain]

@Sammi said:

Still true, except that part of "what you do with that" is incorporated into your changeling nature as a Seeming.

And this is where I roll my eyes and sigh. With the decision now out of my hands once I choose a Seeming, it limits exactly the kinds of things I like to RP. "Then don't play Changeling" is the logical conclusion.

How much does escape agency define a character? If I want to make a fair-hearted leader, he's probably Fairest [...]

What if I escape Arcadia by being an unfair-hearted leader, not by defying cultural taboos etc etc.? Someone who had to Get Shit Done, and Shit Got Done, and because of me we made it out alive. Like I said, I believe, or at least hope, that Seemings are optional.

That is, the stereotypes presented so far are much more limited than I'm used to. We'll see how the chips fall at the final draft. I'm frustrated at the constraints.

[Arkandel]

@Thenomain said:

@Sammi said:

Still true, except that part of "what you do with that" is incorporated into your changeling nature as a Seeming.

And this is where I roll my eyes and sigh. With the decision now out of my hands once I choose a Seeming, it limits exactly the kinds of things I like to RP. "Then don't play Changeling" is the logical conclusion.

I think any line of thought where you need to play a certain way because it's the right way, and other ways are wrong, is less about what the game's creators intended and more what self-appointed purists want.

On a tangent: My experience with purists - mileage makes a difference here though - is that they're way more likely to sit in a room and vocalize their strong opinions about the flaws in what other people are doing than getting on the grid to do something themselves.

To each their own.

[tragedyjones]

From one game I.never really played to another: Hunter the Vigil Dark Eras preview http://theonyxpath.com/dark-eras-hunter-edo-jidai-preview/

[Misadventure]

I see the Curses as being confronted with the idea that what you used to escape your Durance might not be strong enough to keep you free.

[Ganymede]

@Thenomain said:

You might disagree, but if you read the OP threads on these you'll find out that I'm not alone in reading it this way.

I don't agree with your interpretation or the interpretation of others, but I do concur that the new system seems to rein in the creative-freedom that existed in C:tL 1e.

[Thenomain]

@Arkandel said:

I think any line of thought where you need to play a certain way because it's the right way, and other ways are wrong, is less about what the game's creators intended and more what self-appointed purists want.

I'm reading the previews, slowly and twice, and letting it settle before I go to see what the wider reaction to it is. I'm reading it very much as "x because y" and "p therefore q", because that's how it's being written. If you want to be a Fairest, you're going to be hurt if you don't treat your charges like precious little ducklings. This isn't a question (save my hyperbole), it's the curse; it's fact.

I can see us (i.e. me) missing key information. Like: You're supposed to balance the curse with the blessing, as both allow you for losing and gaining points of Clarity. The only way I can think of getting around it looks a bit like this: Vera the Angriest Fairest would not have any charges, therefore no risk of curse and no benefit of blessing. I do feel kind of bad for people who would love to be a manipulative, deviant, nasty Fairest, who throws people around like resources because that's what must be done. (Or because they can, because that's what people do.)

Neh.

[tragedyjones]

Seems like a major bummer that so many of you are down on CtL 2nd Edition. Is that a consensus in general or even here?

I never really got Lost, so I don't have a major opinion. But I know I loved damn near everything in Requiem 2.0 and almost all of Forsaken 2,0

[Silver]

@tragedyjones Honestly everything I've heard about CtL 2.0 sounds cool to me. I do not share the grim opinions.

[EmmahSue]

I don't have any opinion other than that I want mage NOW.

ES

[Misadventure]

Eh, I liked the build a character part being separated from build a trauma.

I am sad that the escape being allowed by your Keeper because they no longer care about you (or they are sending you out as an unwitting agent). My Lost was that, so broken that she had to take a dead Losts name just to have one as she drifted out of Arcadia.

[tragedyjones]

What are the thoughts on Mage 2nd, also? I never really played Mage on a MU so I dunno more than just the basics of 1st ed.

[ThatGuyThere]

My issue is that to me it completes a lot of the story for me before I make a character.
For example my orge idea that I would love to play is basically the guy who was shaped into a brute by the Gentry and then managed to escape but is scared of using his strength and struggles to control it. I do see that as possible given how the seemings are no set up if he used his strength or became harden to escape there goes a bunch of the growth that I would want to rp through on a MUSH, and on a MUSH I would delay that growth until he had another direction to go it. With the inital conflict resolved in char gen I am not sure why I would go out on grid.
Part of this is the difference between Tabletop and Mush play. Table top the story is primarily external so the internal resolution taking place in c-gen works because the game focuses on the events set up by the ST. In a MUSH the story is primarily internally focused, how does the character adapt and change, mainly because an external focus is impossible. Plots both PRP and Staff get started but never resolved all the time, so the only complete story available is the internal one.

[Thenomain]

I'm only down on Changeling because I can't entirely figure out why I'm down on Changeling, and frustratingly struggling with that in trying to make it discussion.

[Sammi]

@Thenomain said:

And this is where I roll my eyes and sigh. With the decision now out of my hands once I choose a Seeming, it limits exactly the kinds of things I like to RP.

Your Seeming is supposed to be a representation of your character's personality. If you make morally grey choices, you're a Darkling. If you hide your weakness, you're an Ogre. If you lead by example, you might be Fairest.

Disregarding the extent that every splat ever serves to limit RP in some fashion (they all do, by design), I don't believe that Seemings limit RP any more than "having a consistent personality" limits RP. What's limited is the fact that your character has to wear part of their personality on their skin.

What if I escape Arcadia by being an unfair-hearted leader, not by defying cultural taboos etc etc.? Someone who had to Get Shit Done, and Shit Got Done, and because of me we made it out alive.

That would fit both Darkling and Ogre very well.

@Thenomain said:

If you want to be a Fairest, you're going to be hurt if you don't treat your charges like precious little ducklings.

If you're Major Winters, you know that your men are in a dangerous situation. You put them there, and you're responsible for getting them out safely. Any failure reflects badly on you. If you're Henry V, it's expected that many of your soldiers will die, but every one of them will weigh on your conscience. You are the fearless leader and you carry the burden of the wellbeing of those who follow you because they willingly put their lives in your hands. This is not a requirement for coddling, this is ethical leadership in a combat situation.

[Arkandel]

@tragedyjones said:

Seems like a major bummer that so many of you are down on CtL 2nd Edition. Is that a consensus in general or even here?

I've never played Lost in all the years I've been doing the nWoD thing. I might this time, when it's out. I like what I'm seeing.

[HelloRaptor]

@Surreality & @Thenomain

So no expendable henchmen as a Fairest. I agree that that's a bit odd, especially since the curse is about regretting failure and sometimes plans might succeed because underlings get hurt.

You can absolutely have expendable henchmen as a Fairest. Fairest have problems with unintended harm. You can still be a fucking tyrant as a Fairest, you can still throw underlings at a problem with the expectation that they'll suffer even grievous harm in the process, if it's necessary to succeed. You can't just not give a shit who gets hurt, ever, no but there's nothing that says your breaking point is some kind of angst over 'precious little ducklings' getting hurt. You could just be the ultimate control freak and somebody getting hurt unexpectedly represents a factor you didn't have proper control over, thus threatening your Clarity. Clarity you probably recover pretty quickly given how a character like that would play into their Blessing.

@Sammi

If you're Major Winters, you know that your men are in a dangerous situation. You put them there, and you're responsible for getting them out safely. Any failure reflects badly on you. If you're Henry V, it's expected that many of your soldiers will die, but every one of them will weigh on your conscience. You are the fearless leader and you carry the burden of the wellbeing of those who follow you because they willingly put their lives in your hands. This is not a requirement for coddling, this is ethical leadership in a combat situation.

Or that, yeah.

I've been at this with Thenomain in the past, and my conclusion is still that the problem has far less to do with there actually being a problem and far more to do with him and others just refusing to read things in any way that doesn't support their gloom and doom.

C:tL 2.0 so far looks pretty much hands down better than 1.0, and unlinking the Kith and Seeming has so far been pretty awesome. I've been tossing ideas for both as they've been getting posted, and so far I haven't had any trouble coming up with pretty much any concept I might like to play. The fact that people (not just Thenomain) keep saying "You totally couldn't play a X as Y." and I can immediately think of multiple examples of exactly that sort of character fitting exactly so, suggests to me that the problem isn't in the (admittedly not very well edited and occasionally lacking clarity, if you'll excuse the pun) writeups but in the people reading them having come to a decision on what it means and refusing to consider an alternative that doesn't depress them.

[HelloRaptor]

@tragedyjones said:

What are the thoughts on Mage 2nd, also? I never really played Mage on a MU so I dunno more than just the basics of 1st ed.

It looks like it's handling a lot of things better than it did. The whole 'Reach' mechanic seems like a way better way to handle a lot of the wiggly bits of mechanics than the way it is in 1.0, and a number of spells becoming innate abilities gained at a given Arcanum level (with their own discrete rules instead of using the general spellcasting rules), is awesome.

[Thenomain]

@HelloRaptor
I still can't see your reading in the write ups. Then again, I also think they are in dire need of rewriting. I'm starting to wonder if their idea of throwing first drafts out there was a good one.