Posts made by Bobotron

@thenomain

The Neil Gaiman thing is because they reused some of his stuff from a Vampire tarot, I think?

I love my friends. When talking about our upcoming V5 short chronicle:

Me, as ST: Well, that's also why Session Zero includes a group chargen session; because you guys will be building a functioning (even if it's not a HIGH functioning) coterie. Plus the Relationship Map and everything.

Just as a clarification, Humanity isn't how 'good' you are. It's how much you cling to human existence in the face of the Beast. It's about remembering what it is to be a normal human, rather than letting the Beast chip away at what makes you, you, and let it take you over and make you a wight.

Humanity is rejiggered in this system as well. The system is built from 3 pieces:

• Chronicle Tenets, which are 'humanity rules' that are game-wide that apply to everyone.
• Convictions, up to 3 tenets you personally keep (such as 'I will only kill in self-defense' or 'My family must not know' and such)
• Touchstones, humans who embody that Conviction for you and allow you to mitigate Stains on your soul, which is how you lose Humanity. It is trivial to alter Touchstones to be places or things, and the talk about the Sabbat book talked about things, and even your Pack Priest being your Touchstone, but nothing is set in stone there.

If you violate a Chronicle Tenet, you get Stains. If you violate a Chronicle Tenet in defense of/accordance with the Conviction, your Stains are reduced by 1, to 0. And as you lose Humanity you don't gain Derangements or go crazy; you become more monster than man, incurring penalties dealing with Humans and lose the ability to use Blush of Life, among some other penalties.

@misadventure

I feel like its' because they had to address SO MUCH BULLSHIT because of the OH GOD NAZIS! controversy.

@seamus

Assuming a game would use a tier system. It all depends on what the person that makes that game ends up doing with it.

@admiral

This. It's going to require walking some of the 5e considerations back (like coterie creation, adding back in purchasable Generation and then balancing that, trying to make sure some of the attendant powers that allow you to mess with the narrative are consistently enforced) and added house rules (how to handle relationship maps, for example) to do on a MU*.

Eventually there will be LARP rules (per the AMA) but I wouldn't expect them anytime soon. The licensees still have to pitch it, and they want the existing BNS stuff to 'move towards' the V5 metaplot, but I doubt it'll be 'and next year, V5 LARP by By Night Studios'.

@zombiegenesis

Apparently GameKastle was under the impression Mophidius was sending the PDF codes directly. The link to submit their preorder stuff was supplied to them by at least 3 people I know, so I would expect to see it in soon.

I have the PDF and have been reading, and was going to post a full review once I was done. I have liked everything I've been reading so far. To touch on a couple of things in the first post:

• When you buy a Discipline level, you choose one power from that level OR an earlier level. So if you don't like any at that level, you can choose one you didn't take from a lower level.
• Amalgams require other prerequisite Discipline powers. So, to have Unerring Aim you need to have Auspex 2 when you buy Celerity 4 or 5 and want to take that power.
• Rouse checks are a bit of a luck thing, but in practice (mock tests so far) they have not been as intrusive as speculated in the OP. It's also assumed that, at least in play narrative, a lot of your feeding will be done shortly after awakening. So even if you incur a Hunger when you awake, if your schedule is 'wake up, eat 'breakfast' and attend to business' in a lot of instances. Obviously not every time, but it's a consideration.
• Agg damage is much rarer now, but your concern is appropriate. It's limited a lot to the Banes of the Kindred and Potence 5, or damage upgrading. Notably, Gangrel claws now do Superficial damage, BUT they ignore the vampire's natural resistance to Superficial damage which cuts it in half (which is blunt trauma, stabbing, etc.), and it grants +2 raw damage. It is an easy way to run a guy through his health boxes. And I feel like the agg healing is intentional; that it's meant for vampires to consider their risk (most of the system is risk management rather than resource management), and if they can go for a couple of nights with aggravated damage sitting on them while they build up blood stores to heal.
• The minimum number of dice on a Remorse check is 1, per pg. 239. Also, remember that doing bad things in defense/upholding/accordance with your Convictions reduces Stains by 1, to a minimum of 0.

And yeah, it looks like their PDF export fucked their bookmarks up. I've been redoing them; if anyone knows how to export them into something that can be imported, let me know!

I'm still reading, but I had thought about doing a review like Theno did. I probably will once I'm done.

I will note some other major changes:

• The core conceit of the game is that the players will be playing an established coterie, as the game is predicated on that, including coterie generation and bonuses.
• Generation is combined with Blood Potency in a pretty elegant method. Gen determines your starting and maximum Blood Potency, and BP dictates how much you heal, blood buff, Discipline bonuses, and feeding restrictions.
• Generation is no longer purchased as a Background. It is part of the character creation process, but it's more part of the narrative, which is written in the book as 'the players and ST decide, as a group, what Gens are appropriate; it's recommended that everyone play the same Gen, but if the players are good with it, play a variety'.
• Loresheets are the best addition to the game.
• Disciplines are a bit more... broad. It's probably not going to be to everyone's tastes, but I like what they did with them. Some powers were moved around to places where they thematically and mechanically make sense. For example, Blood Sorcery (which is Thaum Path of Blood essentially) also has powers from Quietus (as the power is all about manipulation of the Blood). Protean talks about changing into snakes, and one of the Protean 5 powers is the Serpentis 'move the heart' power. I like it, but it will probably be contentious for different people.
• The core book has the Cam 7, Caitiff and Thin Bloods as play options. The others get a 2-4 sentence write up, but aren't playable. The Sabbat is mentioned in a more 1e setting style as dangerous packs and such, which fits with the narrative established.

@seamus So essentially what we were planning, with the 'a color can pilot the zord of another team of the same/stylistically similar color'. And by stylistically similar, I mean a Green Ranger on a team with no Black Ranger could sub into that slot, and vice-versa.

@popes

Right, I'm familiar with how the Shattered Grid setting works. And if you can find a way for incomplete Ranger teams to meaningfully work with each other when MOTDs break out (because let's be honest, I'm going to want to fight in a Megazord as much as someone playing Superman wants to punch Darkseid on a DC game), then more power to you.

PDFs drop tomorrow. I am planning to devour this over the weekend (god, it's my gaming weekend AND a new game drops? I may have to skip BESM to read Vampire!) and will post a more meaty review and rundown.

Some of the things that have been spoiled, though, really make it seem like a large chunk of it may be more easily automated (like, healing; you just rouse, and your Gen/Blood Potency determines how much you heal, rather than 'I spend 3 to heal 3').

@popes

Some of us tried this back in the early 2000s. The problems were threefold:

• The cast. We were doing the kitchen sink thing, and were trying to come up with ways to allow multiple Ranger teams to help each other (like stuff like 'all Reds can control all Red mecha).
• Setting. Planets? Space travel? Many cities on Earth?
• Interest. Most of the people who were interested in playing PR already had their crazy multi-theme games they were doing it on, and there was some resistance to the attempt.

Will their be options to play within the concepts of Team Rocket or other antagonist groups? Because I sorely miss my cowgirl Rocket, Annie Oakley.

So how much of this game is going to be 'let's do Pokemon minigames like breeding and HMs and TMs and Contests' and how much is going to be 'okay, there's plot and such'? Or is this just an attempt to make a MU* for people to Pokemon Battle on?

@auspice

My only real experience with Alolan Pokemon has been me playing PoGo, so... yeah. Such Tresemme hair on the Dugtrio though!

@auspice

DARK TYPE MEOWTH!

@admiral
Right, which is what Convictions represent. You seem to have missed part of it, or not fully understood what I attempted to articulate. V5's Humanity isn't 'one size fits all' like OWoD or NWoD morality attempted to do. It's made up up 2 parts: Chronicle Tenets and Convictions.

Chronicle Tenets are societal 'concepts' that are built by the troupe, both players and STs, based on anything from genre emulation, dramatic irony, to personal taste or real-life player concerns. There's some writing there about avoiding things that may come into contact with a player's real-life trauma.

And then players, individually, build the Convictions for their characters, typically 1 to 3 separate Convictions, which define their own personal code of ethics.

From the 27 page preview:

Some example Convictions might include:
■ Thou shalt not kill
■ Kill only the unworthy/unbelievers/in fair combat/in self-defense
■ Never expose children to violence
■ Love thy neighbor as thyself
■ Disobedience is dishonor
■ Protect the innocent from harm
■ Courage is the highest virtue
■ Always keep your sworn word
■ The truth is sacred; thou shalt not lie
■ Slavery is evil
■ Obey authority
■ My country, right or wrong
■ None may control me
■ Never do drugs (or drink alcohol)
■ Thou shalt not torture
■ The guilty must be punished
■ From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs
■ Rob from the rich, give to the poor
■ Reject wealth, for it corrupts
■ Never act against another (insert own group/faith/sect)
■ Always aid women in need
■ Stand up for the disenfranchised
■ Respect (insert religion here) as sacred and obey its moral laws

It's not built as a 'one size fits all'. That's the POINT of Tenets and Convictions: you build it to fit your chronicle and characters, unlike standard OWoD Humanity or NWoD Humanity.

The 'connecting to humanity' angle is, as stated before, less about 'connecting to humanity' in general and 'I have a Conviction of Upholding The Faith of Christianity'. Super simple, so the Vampire has a Touchstone that is the Priest they go to for a sort-of confession. And this keeps the Beast at bay, and reminds the vampire of what he used to be, the things he finds/found important in life that follow into unlife.

So yes, a hermit VAMPIRE will inevitably go crazy because the Beast is eroding at their ability to not be a Slavering Hungering Eating Monster without those personal morals, in this version of the system. That's the point. I get that it's not your cup of tea, but that doesn't make it a bad mechanic. It fits OWoD Vampire and the lore and the way things have been written about the struggle against the Beast since First Edition.

@admiral

Because Vampires actually have an alien intelligence making them do bad, awful, monstrous things and the struggle against the Beast has been in there since Day 1, written if not mechanically backed? It's not an issue of 'lack of human contact makes you a monster' it's 'you have ideals, and these humans keep you in touch with/remind you why you have those ideals, in opposition of the Beast, which tells you to feed and kill and debase yourself with its urges'.

I'm personally not super a fan of touchstones having to be a 'a dude,' since concepts are timeless and there are great examples of having 'things' that remind you of your convictions. Again, an easy house rule.

However, my ur-example of Touchstones is Maharet's Great Family from the Vampire Chronicles (which is even really explained in much the same way), so my view on it is very much in line with what WW is putting forth here in V5.

@admiral

Have you actually played any of it yet? I have, at least in the alpha. Assuming I'm reading your complaints right:

Re: Feelyweelys/Touchstones.There wasn't a complete Humanity rule in the alpha, so there's not really much I can comment on in actual play, but reading the 27 page preview and how you use Tenets (Chronicle-level Humanity things tailored to the game) and Convictions (personal-level Humanity things tailored to your PC) seems like it'll work out nicely, and help reinforce core themes for your game. Touchstones then tie into this being a person (but easily enough to rule into things/objects or organizations; one of the devs implied that for things like the Sabbat, your Pack Priest could be a Touchstone) that help you keep on that track by reminding you of it and reinforcing it for you.

Re: Hangry. Hunger System wasn't really that intrusive. You replace a die in a die pool with a hunger die for each Hunger level you have, which can cause a 'messy critical' where the Beast 'helps out' in its hunger. Plays well with the risk management system (and honestly, the level of bitching MU* players have about blood resource management, but then don't actually worry about it is hilarious). IMO it adds some dynamism to the Beast other than 'I'm low on blood/hungry but its not actually going to effect me unless I have actual bleeding people around me/am confronted with fire or sunlight'.

@tempest

Touchstones useless in MU*

I'm not sure why people act surprised about this. Like, at all.

Long review of V5.

https://teylen.blog/2018/07/27/vampire-the-masquerade-5th-edition-first-look/