The State of the Chronicles of Darkness

[Sammi]

@HelloRaptor said:

And... so? You're unlikely to ever be in the same situation. Changelings taken by a Keeper aren't just fighting for survival, they're fighting to not be completely obliterated and overwritten by something Other.

How is that different from survival? Yes, "fate worse than death". In the moment, you're choosing between existing and not existing. It's a fairly binary choice in my mind, unless you have the leisure time to contemplate existential modes of being that are less attractive than oblivion (a changeling in Arcadia should not have that luxury).

Your Seeming represents who you were in a transformative, supernaturally charged moment that represents the most extreme of extremes. In most cases that is likely very reflective of who a person is, but people are not wholly defined by a single moment or even a single choice in their lives.

Wholly defined? Certainly not. But they should have to live with it. The Darkling should have to live with the knowledge that, when the shit hit the fan, she threw her potential ally into the shit-covered fan in order to make good her escape. She might have a strong ethical code that she lives by, but she knows that she's capable of betrayal if it looks like it's going to be her or somebody else.

This is in contrast with first edition Lost where you could be a highly social person who gets taken and made into a Darkling and feels cursed with the shadows through no fault of her own. In second edition, you make your own bed and then have to sleep in it.

Your Seeming is what it is because at a time when the very essence of your existence was being made malleable and shaped to the liking of something Other, you (the character, obviously) made a choice, took agency and acted. That choice, those actions, acted as a supernatural mold to finish you off and your Seeming is the shape you hold because of that choice.

Yes. We'll see if there's a theme-based explanation for why there are six archetypes. It seems like something they would have written into the lore, even though the actual reason is that they're keeping the splats of the previous iteration.

[HelloRaptor]

@Sammi

How is that different from survival?

I can't even begin to formulate a response to this question in the context of a character's story without choking on my own laughter, so I'll just leave it at: lolwut

Wholly defined? Certainly not. But they should have to live with it. The Darkling should have to live with the knowledge that, when the shit hit the fan, she threw her potential ally into the shit-covered fan in order to make good her escape. She might have a strong ethical code that she lives by, but she knows that she's capable of betrayal if it looks like it's going to be her or somebody else.

Who said anything about not having to live with it? You can't believe it didn't happen, but you can pretend it didn't. You can want to believe that whatever you did wasn't who you are. You can try to live in a fashion other than how that choice supernaturally defined you. There's nothing in any of these writeups that says the characters must accept what those choices say about them, or that they can't rebel against them.

Most people won't. The stereotypes for the Seemings certainly won't, because they do seem to be generally written from the perspective of the characters accepting what they've done. But people have complained as if your Seeming must define both who your character is and that you have to play it like that, and so far it's not true even if that's not really the norm.

I went back to read the Fairest post, and its accompanying forum thread, again and I'm reminded that my bit about the tyrant thing before was based not on the Fairest writeup itself but later comments by the author clarifying that what someone said earlier in the thread about how the curse was specifically supposed to be unexpected harm (and thus a Fairest can totally send people deliberately into harm and injury, but only suffer the Clarity break when it's an outcome they didn't intend or account for). I'm hoping that gets added into the writeup, as the one there really is a bit too shining beacon of hope, despite mentioning how easy it is for that light to fall to corruption.

All of this stuff is still really rough, which is only more reason for people to look at them as how they can do things, instead of how they feel they're being told they can't.

[Thenomain]

@HelloRaptor, re: kith examples.

Fairest are lovely, elegant.
Wizened are patchwork.
Ogres are rough.

Taking the examples as a whole, this pattern emerges. Sure, you don't have to use the descriptions exactly, because only a jerk would enforce that, but I think you are reading too much variance if you are saying that a Wizened can be perfectly formed and graceful and elegant.

I'm not going to anywhere near saying that an Ogre can't be pretty or a Beast can't be rough-hewn, as long as they are also fill in blank for their Seeming. I would want the Seeming to be dominant, but then I'm a jerk.

[Miss Demeanor]

I'm hesitant to enforce 'you have to be pretty' or 'you have to look like a Frankenstein' on any Seeming based on a first draft of a few Kiths. The Seeming write-ups that I've seen so far say your pattern is wrong. Fairest don't have to be pretty or elegant, just leaders (whether by choice, fate, or whatever). Beasts don't have to be wild, twigs-in-their-hair, mud-splattered people.. they just have to identify with an animal in some way. I would love to see the writeup for Wizened, but I'm going to bet that you don't have to be some lurching, terrifying amalgam of jury-rigged parts. For that one, even the Kiths aren't necessarily calling them 'patchwork', they're noting particular attributes as having mechanical components but a smoothly running machine is every bit as capable of being lovely and elegant as a Fairest. Ogres don't have to be hard-edged, rough-hewn brutes... but they -seem- much bigger than they are. That whole thing of someone swaggering around with an air of being ten feet tall and bulletproof comes to mind. They're noted as being tough more than rough, and capable of great violence (albeit not necessarily physically violent). They aren't delicate by any means, but I could see an Ogre being anything from a somewhat reptilian, scaled being with an acerbic tongue to leather-skinned cowboy sort (Jack Palance comes to mind), to a marble-hard, not-a-hair-out-of-place, stone cold bitch. Actually... thinking of it... Vera would have been amazing as a 2E Ogre (and I'm fairly certain that's something that's been remarked upon earlier).

TLDR; There seems to be a disconnect between the brief suggestions of appearances in Kiths and the more thorough suggestions in Seemings. I would hesitate to apply generalizations and stereotypes (especially ones that hearken back to 1E) to any of the Seemings in 2E.

[Arkandel]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

TLDR; There seems to be a disconnect between the brief suggestions of appearances in Kiths and the more thorough suggestions in Seemings. I would hesitate to apply generalizations and stereotypes (especially ones that hearken back to 1E) to any of the Seemings in 2E.

Agreed. The book simply offers suggestions as to what some typical specimens of each kind might be or look like so that readers can have a feel for it, but they're not restrictive or exclusive otherwise. That way a player who's unsure or inexperienced can easily follow the guidelines to create a perfectly thematic character (after all, a graceful Fairest is hardly a risky pick) while someone else can go into more complex interpretations of the same guidelines.

[HelloRaptor]

@Thenomain

Taking the examples as a whole, this pattern emerges. Sure, you don't have to use the descriptions exactly, because only a jerk would enforce that, but I think you are reading too much variance if you are saying that a Wizened can be perfectly formed and graceful and elegant.

'Perfectly formed' is pretty vague. Perfect by what criteria? The common theme for Wizened from what I can tell is that they are obviously artificial, not that they can't be graceful or elegant, so if you're going to define 'perfectly formed' as naturally so then no. But there's no insistance that any of the Wizened examples be ugly or unattractive.

The attractiveness thing is emphasized for the Fairest in the kiths document, which is cool because honestly it was a little weird to not see it mentioned in the Appearance section of the Fairest writeup.

Honestly I think the Beast and Ogre examples are the worst since they do reinforce a very specific physical stereotype that the actual Beast and Ogre writeups absolutely contradict, and I'm generally a fan of 'specific trumps general' when it comes to RPGs so I'll take the variance clearly allowed by the Seeming writeups over the general trend expressed in the Kith document.

As for reading too much variance, I'm not sure how much more variance you could ask for than the Kith document itself saying 'Here are examples but players are free to work with their ST to come up with their own expression for the Kith that fits their Seeming.', and the Seeming documents giving only the vaguest outlines of actual appearance.

From what I can tell, the overarching appearance of Kiths has less to do with attractiveness or absence of the same and more with an emphasis on how that appearance is expressed.

• Fairest - Harmony and symmetry. This is the closest to just being flat out 'attractive', and the word gets used repeatedly, yes.

• Wizened - Artificial. Wizened never look like strictly natural creatures, whatever their specifics.

• Darkling - Disturbing or unsettling. A couple of places there's an emphasis on deformation, but not overall.

• Beast - As mentioned, this is one of the poorly represented ones, since the Beast Seeming makes it pretty clear that appearance varies wildly based on the particular animal affinity represented. In the Kiths document there doesn't seem to be an overall theme aside from 'animal', which is super vague.

• Ogre - Here the Kiths document is completely contradicted by the Seeming document pretty much 100%, whether you're talking the overall approach (all Ogres are hulking brutes - wrong) or specific examples (the Ifrit ogre having shiny hairless skin marked by burn scars, when the Ogre writeup indicates no skin shows at all, and while they might have meant entirely covered by burn scars calling out the shiny hairless skin seems dubious). From the Seeming document, all Ogres should have an appearance that could be described as 'imposing' and 'armored', or the like.

Finally: Frankly, some of the differences between which Seeming a character is are going to come down to just calling them out as such. The Seeming of a character is supposed to be pretty obvious judging by the Seeming documents repeatedly calling out how you'll know a blah by its blah, but a lot of this shit is in the eyes of the beholder: I'm willing to bet that if you asked whether the following is a Beast, a Darkling, or a Fairest, you'd get different answers from different people (we know what Chime would say):

As a player of a Changeling that's a perfectly awesome image to use, and all you can do is call out which Kith-Seeming it's being used as, and people will fill in the blanks as to what that means to them.

And if any person ever pages you to say, "You suck, that is clearly a X, not a Y, you don't know how to play Changeling." then reach through the internet and stab them right the fuck in the face. FaceStabber app pending.

[Insomnia]

@HelloRaptor You haven't made your FaceStabber app yet?

[HelloRaptor]

@Insomnia said:

@HelloRaptor You haven't made your FaceStabber app yet?

It's a delicate process involving a lot of hardware variables. I am confident I will some day manage.

[Thenomain]

As soon as Bash.Org comes up with a solution, HR can steal it and let everyone give him credit for it.

[HelloRaptor]

@Thenomain said:

As soon as Bash.Org comes up with a solution, HR can steal it and let everyone give him credit for it.

For the cheap seats, Thenomain's not-at-all-bitter-because-I-think-he's-being-an-obstinate-turd-about-changeling-2.0 sarcasm is because my old WORA signature used to be derived from this, or if you're not in the mood to click a link:

<[SA]HatfulOfHollow> i'm going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet

And everybody knows that pointing out how an occasional in-joke between forum posters derives from a more than a decade old IRC quote from someone else is the best way to put them in their place.

Woe is me, however will I show my face again.

[tragedyjones]

Back on topic dorks:

It looks like the Neolithic Chapter for Mage in WoD: Dark Eras is also going to heavily cover some Werewolf Material, since it is an important time in that gameline as well

http://theonyxpath.com/the-end-is-the-beginning-is-the-end-mage-the-awakening-dark-eras-werewolf-the-forsaken/

[Sammi]

@HelloRaptor said:

@Sammi

How is that different from survival?

I can't even begin to formulate a response to this question in the context of a character's story without choking on my own laughter, so I'll just leave it at: lolwut

Formulate a response. You're stuck in Arcadia. You have a choice between giving in and staying there forever - oblivion of the self - and escaping to live your life. That's a pretty binary choice between metaphorical death, and life. It is a survival situation, pure and simple. You think the changeling in that situation is going to sit around to contemplate the existential horror of their body living on without free will? No, they're really not. It is no more or less extreme than any other life-or-death choice.

Who said anything about not having to live with it? You can't believe it didn't happen, but you can pretend it didn't. You can want to believe that whatever you did wasn't who you are.

That's not what you said earlier. You said that a character can make that choice even if the choice they made in Arcadia has no connection with their personality, because it's somehow more extreme than life-or-death. You implied that they wouldn't have to live with it if they didn't want to, because that was a one-off thing and they'd never do it again.

But people have complained as if your Seeming must define both who your character is and that you have to play it like that, and so far it's not true even if that's not really the norm.

People have probably complained about that for every splat in every game line since the first edition of Vampire: The Masquerade.

I went back to read the Fairest post, and its accompanying forum thread, again and I'm reminded that my bit about the tyrant thing before was based not on the Fairest writeup itself but later comments by the author clarifying that what someone said earlier in the thread about how the curse was specifically supposed to be unexpected harm (and thus a Fairest can totally send people deliberately into harm and injury, but only suffer the Clarity break when it's an outcome they didn't intend or account for).

Well that's hugely important.

For those of you who don't want to dig through 23 pages of thread, MachineIV addresses the curse and Fairest warlords here and here. He backs up my assumption that playing with breaking points is supposed to be a regular part of the game, offers reassuring words for @Thenomain indicating that Seemings are optional, and also has something to say about the Seeming writeups being less flexible than in the first edition.

All of this stuff is still really rough, which is only more reason for people to look at them as how they can do things, instead of how they feel they're being told they can't.

Exactly.

[HelloRaptor]

@Sammi

It is no more or less extreme than any other life-or-death choice.

If you believe that life or death situations are equal simply by virtue of being life or death, and that all forms of oblivion are equal, and that if you're going to suffer any one of those forms what happens (to you, to others, etc) afterwards is meaningless, then no there's really no reply I can formulate that's going to mean anything to you.

That's not what you said earlier. You said that a character can make that choice even if the choice they made in Arcadia has no connection with their personality, because it's somehow more extreme than life-or-death. You implied that they wouldn't have to live with it if they didn't want to, because that was a one-off thing and they'd never do it again.

Again, if you actually believe all life or death situations are absolutely equal, I can see why it wouldn't make sense to you.

That said, what you quoted isn't really what I said, which was that just because you made a choice to initiate your escape from Arcadia doesn't mean you must continue making that choice. A Fairest who stepped up and took on the abuse of its Keeper and inspired an uprising, where she then led as many of the others to escape as possible, will always be marked by those actions. It certainly says something about who they were in that moment, and what sort of person the right circumstances might turn them into again.

Supernaturally, you are a Fairest. There's nothing you can do about that. But if during that uprising you lost good people, or those closest to you, even if you understand that you stepping up was the best thing for the most people, you might swear never again do you want to be responsible. That somebody else can be the shining beacon of hope, but you're done. That doesn't change the fact that you're a Fairest, and supernatural forces have imprinted on you with their mantle and inclinations. People will still look to you to step up, and you'll refuse and look the other way, and maybe things turn out fine or maybe they don't and you'll have to live with either. Or maybe you'll step up, and realize along the way that stepping up and having the people looking to you and up to you feels good, that controlling people's destinies feels good, that the whole thing is a rush and maybe you like it all too much. Right up until something falls apart, and people get hurt, and that absolute control slips and you're confronted with your plan falling apart. Maybe it hurts because people in your charge got injured, but you tell yourself the pain is anger because it's their fault, that they must have not understood or deviated from your plans or somehow screwed up and the solution is to crack down even harder with your control.

The Fairest writeup flat out says that Fairest can fall to corruption, after all, and that couldn't be the case if Fairest were incapable of being anything but the sheep-coddling-super-leader-hope-beacons people otherwise complain about them being. What a Fairest did in Arcadia was surely bound to their personality, and how they took agency to escape. It put its supernatural stamp on them, cemented them as Fairest with a set blessing and curse in kind, but what you did in that moment in Arcadia does not determine the sum total of who you end up as once you are out living in the real world. It will for many Changelings, perhaps even most since that's the default, but the assumption that it must for all and there is no alternative, that you cannot possibly play against your archetype, seems like nonsense.

offers reassuring words for @Thenomain indicating that Seemings are optional

What he said was:

• "Playing without Seeming is an option. I don't know if it's specifically mentioned in the outline, but it's been discussed numerous times."

That's not the same thing as saying that seemings are optional. When something is optional there's nothing lost by not using it except for opportunity. For all we know it could be optional like an Order in Mage is 'optional'. Sure, you can choose not to be part of one, but you lose out on free High Speech, get no Rote abilities, etc. Hell, he might just mean a way to run a game without Seemings, but not that some people will have one and some won't.

and also has something to say about the Seeming writeups being less flexible than in the first edition.

He certainly has something to say about not thinking 1e was as flexible as people give it credit for:

• "I absolutely disagree that Fairest in 1e were particularly broad. I feel that many of the concepts presented were very overlapped, many of them were too focused on who they were and what they looked like, and not enough about what they're like now at the table."

All I really saw him say regarding flexibility otherwise was that he disagreed with what the person he was quoting termed flexibility (see above) or limitations (see below).

The A_Newfie person he's responding to even tries to claim Fairest are just locked into being leaders, period, with such nonsense like "Here it is lead or don't play fairest." and he says pretty much flat out exactly what I've said, which is:

• "As far as those things go, Fairest aren't leaders. They're people who their peers prop up as leaders. They're perceived as leaders. That's a million concepts."

Two of that million would almost certainly be 'Fairest Tyrant' and 'Not The Leader' characters who play exactly contrary to their Seeming despite the choices they made in escaping Arcadia, and the expectations of others who think that because you did something once you'll be willing, ready, and able to do it again.

[Miss Demeanor]

I will totally agree that a LOT of 1E Fairest Kiths were overlapping and stigmatized with an overabundance of emphasis on looks and appearances. For fuck's sake, multiple Kiths were made with the EXACT SAME bonus applied to 2-3 different skills based on what Kith it was. It was rather annoying because I liked the overall scheme of Fairest in 1E.

[Wizz]

@tragedyjones said:

Back on topic dorks:

It looks like the Neolithic Chapter for Mage in WoD: Dark Eras is also going to heavily cover some Werewolf Material, since it is an important time in that gameline as well

http://theonyxpath.com/the-end-is-the-beginning-is-the-end-mage-the-awakening-dark-eras-werewolf-the-forsaken/

Holy shit this will be cool.

[Sammi]

@HelloRaptor said:

If you believe that life or death situations are equal simply by virtue of being life or death, and that all forms of oblivion are equal, and that if you're going to suffer any one of those forms what happens (to you, to others, etc) afterwards is meaningless, then no there's really no reply I can formulate that's going to mean anything to you.

What happens after will be meaningless to you, because you won't exist anymore. If you don't exist anymore, you don't have the opportunity to think about it. Beforehand, it's only meaningful if you have the opportunity to contemplate the existential horror of the possibilities (as I said previously). You haven't demonstrated that a changeling has the presence of mind before making the choice to contemplate the existential horror of remaining in Arcadia. You haven't demonstrated that because the text about what goes on during the Durance is not yet available to us, so you're making assumptions based on your interpretation of the first edition Durance process and not even having the decency to elaborate on your assumptions. You're just stating that I'm an idiot.

Again, if you actually believe all life or death situations are absolutely equal, I can see why it wouldn't make sense to you.

All life and death situations are equally binary. You don't get to compromise. You don't get options. You either continue existing or you cease to exist. If you have something important you need to do, like revenge, when you get out of Arcadia, sure, you might betray someone and become a Darkling and would never do that again...until you need to take revenge on someone and a personal tie gets in the way of your vendetta.

That said, what you quoted isn't really what I said, which was that just because you made a choice to initiate your escape from Arcadia doesn't mean you must continue making that choice.

Nowhere did I say anything of the sort. What I said was that your choice (and thus your Seeming) is based on your personality, so you have to live with it. We agree on this, so why the Hell are you arguing with me about it?

That's not the same thing as saying that seemings are optional. When something is optional there's nothing lost by not using it except for opportunity. For all we know it could be optional like an Order in Mage is 'optional'. Sure, you can choose not to be part of one, but you lose out on free High Speech, get no Rote abilities, etc. Hell, he might just mean a way to run a game without Seemings, but not that some people will have one and some won't.

No Seeming existed in the first edition. And yeah, it was a trade-off. You lost the shiny Seeming benefits, but also lost their baggage.

The A_Newfie person he's responding to even tries to claim Fairest are just locked into being leaders, period, with such nonsense like "Here it is lead or don't play fairest." and he says pretty much flat out exactly what I've said

He's an author of the book and you aren't, so for convincing people like @Mnemosyne and @Thenomain, his word carries more weight.

[Thenomain]

@HelloRaptor said:

@Thenomain said:

As soon as Bash.Org comes up with a solution, HR can steal it and let everyone give him credit for it.

For the cheap seats, Thenomain's not-at-all-bitter-because-I-think-he's-being-an-obstinate-turd-about-changeling-2.0 sarcasm is because my old WORA signature used to be derived from this

Man, you get tetchy when you're bickering with Sammi. Lighten up!

[Wizz]

Personally, I think the question of whether or not decoupled Kiths and Seemings give you more choices to play (...is...is that even what we're still arguing about?) comes down to math.

In 1st ed, each Seeming averaged a pool of about fifteen kiths, give or take. Your Kith choice was locked in unless you bought Merits, so out of the box that's 75 unique combinations. Out of the box 2nd Ed, each of the 100 initial Kiths can choose any of the five Seemings. Bam, 500 combinations. That's not even touching the element of roleplay that has been mentioned, that your Kith and your Seeming are just the marks of what you were used for and what you did to break away from Arcadia. That's like, the crispy skin of an onion. If that skin could fuck with the onion's shit from time to time.

As for the No Seeming thing, that merit didn't just take away Seemings, it took away Kiths too. Your Mien was basically the same as your Mask and you didn't have any blessings or curses from either. It's still a little vague whether it will be optional is what I'm gathering for 2nd Ed, but if they include it? It's also more choices, not less.

[silentsophia]

@Thenomain HR? Tetchy? HE MUST BE THE POD PERSON THAT ESCAPED FROM THE BLACK HOLE I THREW HIM INTO.

[HelloRaptor]

@Wizz

Out of the box 2nd Ed, each of the 100 initial Kiths can choose any of the five Seemings. Bam, 500 combinations.

Not to mention 2E says flat out that altering the specifics of a kith to create a new one is not just okay, but encouraged. Want to be a Phoenix kith but not a fan of fire? BAM LIGHTNING THUNDERBIRD! Change cosmetics and descriptors as necessary. Even mixing and matching shit to create new Kiths. You are encouraged to be as creative as you want, and to make the most specialist of snowflakes, all without the need for a merit just to get your cosmetics.

Meanwhile in 1E cue the eyerolls about how "Oh, everybody takes Dual Kith, it's so lame." and/or staff freaking out if you suggested modifying details of a particular kith.

I may be bitter because I had to take Dual-Kith to get my Elemental Quicksilver/Draconic changeling, once upon a time.