Posts made by Thenomain

Before I get into the next section, I want to encourage people not to review text this way. I'm trying to keep it mildly entertaining but my main goal is to delve into what this version of Changeling is about.

I am pretty aware when this Changeling is doing things that are being done all across Chronicles of Darkness, but there are many parallels between CtL2e and CtD, too many for me not to point out.

This is even more notable if you watched the development posts on Onyx Path's web site; this game was looking to be a lot more like oChangeling, and the fact that it isn't is very refreshing to me. But there are elements of the old Changeling (and old World of Darkness in general) that weren't bad, such as Archetypes, or Clarity's damage track compared to the old Glamour/Banality struggle.

A good remake takes old concepts and applies them in a better way. I'm not convinced that the new Changeling is a good remake, but it almost never falls into any of the original's infamy.

---

Oneiromancy

I still don't know how to pronounce it. Still in Chapter 4.

Dreamwalking is explained in greater detail this time around, how you get there, how to get from Point A to Point B, that Contracts work in dreams (thank you!), and re-enforcing what stats are what: We're using the Spirit/Ghost/Etc. summary of Attributes but it's not your highest Power, Finesse, and Resistance, it's your Social traits.

*ominous music at making Social this important for Changelings*

A changeling can take other individuals with her [...] as long as they’re asleep. She must be in physical contact with all potential guests and spend one Glamour point per guest [...]

One of the things I'm liking about this pass of Changeling and Chronicles of Darkness in general is that if there's a chance someone doesn't want any certain effect the book is careful to say how to resist it.

Once again, you can be stuck in dreams. Yeah, you can drag someone into dreams and leave them there. I'm almost sad that the book doesn't have a side-bar here simply saying "Muahaha!"

[[ASIDE: I'm very frustrated that the book will talk about concepts without introducing them. Perhaps the writing direction was that people could always hit up the glossary near the beginning of the book, but even saying that a Bastion is any one person's particular dreamscape before talking about how the Bastion affects these rolls would've been nice. The book is filled with this disconnect. The term "Hedgeway" is used a lot, but not explained anywhere at this point, not even the glossary.]]

Speaking of Hedgeways, the realm of dreams also connects to the Hedge. This was heavily implied if not said without explanation in CtL1e, but here we go. Entering dreams this way is your physical self, not your dream self. Enjoy the danger!

Dreamweaving

You know that aside just two paragraphs above?

An eidolon is a dream actor, a character that is part of a dream and doesn’t exist outside that context.

I'm prescient! Either that or we're seeing an author shift mid-section. Page references to the Bastion section are explicit. I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but a well-written RPG book would never have this problem.

That doesn't make this a bad game, just not well-written. I should note that this is better written than any other expansion book from the first edition, and maybe better written than CtL itself.

So each Bastion (dream) has eidolons and props, actors and things. How you change dreams is no longer just "roll this to find out that" but a series of systems and rolls and—hold onto your hat here—role-playing. Dreamweaving is a scene system in its own right. A++.

Dreaming Roads

I just want to put this here:

The Hedge is the barrier separating stone and water from the fabric of unbound desires

If anyone wonders why I get excited about Changeling, this right here is it. A lot of people focus on the survivor/abuse victim angle, but for me Changeling is a game of the allure and horrors of want.

A Dreaming Road is a thing, a pathway between dreams. People who've read Dancers in the Dusk have been introduced to most of these concepts. I've never delved too deeply into this aspect, so I'll just say: It's here, and there are rules about what happens to someone in a dream (Bastion) if the dreamer wakes up.

I find this section, even with my complaints, to be very complete and compelling.

---

... Next up, TOKENS (which I can pronounce just fine thank you).

@insomnia

Don’t you know that nothing changed except for technology starting 1943? No new clothes, no new songs. Except for “Take Me Home, Contry Roads” for some reason. I guess John Denver crosses all timelines. He saw all the doors and what’s behind all the doors.

Really he’s just given up our reality to sacrifice himself to save a very young Jim Henson from his under sea prison with Frank Oz.

—

It pays to never, ever look closely at Fallout.

@admiral

Why can't we remove the stupid humanity bullshit and let people RP what they want to RP?

You can. It’s called Not Playing White Wolf’s Version of Vampire.

It’s an easy game. You might want to try it out.

@skew

It was @Chime who created it. I broke it and fixed it a few times.

Unlike multi page, which I broke once and never fixed.

She still reminds me sometimes.

@admiral said in Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (VtM 5E):

They might come out with LARP rules soon, though. I'd wager on it.

Yeah, but traditionally LARP rules are horrible for MU*. We need something in between.

@shelbeast

About sex: In the nWoD Werewolf book, there is a note about how werewolves can’t have sex in Crinos because they are raging combat machines and also their pee-pees are very small.

Why did this book bring it up? Because you know it’s going to come up. ... er, so to speak. You know the fans will want to know and be rather vocal about it. And as a literature note, Dracula is very much about sex, and vampire stories are classically about sensuality.

I honestly don’t care if vampires can have sex. The original Vampire RPG was very clear that it’s pale in comparison to feeding. Dracula walks around in daylight too. But this is their game, and if vampires don’t have sex then that’s fine too.

How you’re going to enforce that on a game will be interesting. If 5e is that focused on coterie play, it would be interesting how to Mushify that to begin with.

@rizbunz said in Fallout: Montreal:

@thenomain There's a thing about Vault 1A...you'll have to wait and see why it be so small!

It’s a vault...FOR ANTS!

It doesn’t bother me. I mean, Vault City and Las Vegas’s vault we’re represented as small but clearly had quite a large population. Hell, Vault 13 wasn’t very many rooms itself.

I am now imagining a fight between Vault Tec and the Canadians over the pronunciation of Vault 1Z.

@rizbunz said in Fallout: Montreal:

Vault 1A - 15 Rooms

So you're going for the Bethesda version of a Vault where about maybe 15 people live there?

@sparks said in Diana Jones Award, 2018:

@thenomain said in Diana Jones Award, 2018:

I listen to an actual play podcast based on one of my favorite sci fi stories, run by the creator for many of his actors.

Out of curiosity, which one is that?

Liberty. Each season (or two) is one story, punctuated with a Twilight Zone series set as if produced in their own universe called "Tales from the Tower". And the Actual Play of their D&D 5E setting: Liberty A.F.T.E.R. (Oh look, there's Ashley Burch right on the cover. Mrowr.)

--

The other Sci-Fi Podcast I am loving the everloving crap out of is Edict Zero: FIS, a police procedural on another planet cut off from humanity. It starts strange and gets amazing, as all the little bits are tied together as often as new things are introduced. It's entirely possible to work out what's happening before the characters do, but to the writers' credits, they don't insult your intelligence. Sound production needs some work but the story is epic.

The Diana Jones Award represents the most important in tabletop gaming for the year, from board games to role playing games and occasionally and rarely card games. The nominees have always made a difference to our collective hobbies.

In the past it has gone to luminaries such as Board Game Geek, a WotC CEO (when they first bought TSR and expanded D&D in ways we didn’t expect or imagine), to the entire Ireland gaming community for their outstanding and at the time unprecedented charitable donations.

I feel that paying attention to our cousins in the more established areas is critical for us to learn and grow, so knowing what it is pretty firmly affects what we love.

This year’s winner surprised me. On the list was Charterstone (an amazingly good board game) and Harlem Unbound (a sourcebook for Cthulhu that faces Lovecraft’s outrageous racism head-on).

This year’s winner, tho, was Actual Plays.

Yes, watching people play RPGs really has taken off, and they are funny, and the best are well edited. I listen to an actual play podcast based on one of my favorite sci fi stories, run by the creator for many of his actors. Having seen enough of Harmon Quest, yeah, this is amazing.

What does this mean for us? I don’t know. We’ve known for a long time that sharing our RP logs is pretty damn funny. Maybe it means it’s time to put our voices to these logs, either figuratively or literally? Maybe we’re ahead of our time, just as much as we’re behind it.

I love the Diana Jones Award. I love how it always gets me thinking about what’s important in tabletop gaming. I love it’s insane history, that it pretty much happened on a lark, and the fact that the committee is anonymous, or as anonymous as possible. We can focus on the event, not the people, and celebrate influential moves.

So I share. I hope this inspires others.

@coin said in Staff Needed!:

@arkandel said in Staff Needed!:

If this is off topic please let me know.

What's City of Shadows planning to do differently than other nWoD MU*? What would you say - in terms of gameplay, features, direction etc - should make someone excited to staff on this game specifically?

Your mom!

No, wait...

I learned it from watching you!

@skew said in How to use Potato MU Client:

@derp @faraday Yes, the say command uses angled, fancy, open/close quotes. Whatever they're called.

Typographic, curly, curved, book, or smart quotation marks.

Converting straight quotes to smart quotes is sometimes called “educating quotes”. This board does this as you type. It would be nice if every system did, as they are far easier to read.

Chapter Four, Continued: Oh Just Pledge Me a River!

Pledges. Ple-d-ges. Pllleeeeedges. A funny word, pledges. I never understood why people got stuck on "add + and - elements until they equal 0 and you're done". A lot of people complain that CtL pledges are hard. Speaking as someone who gets increasingly frustrated with WoD/CoD Chargen because I feel compelled to minmax across four books (minimum) and shitty page references, I have to say: What crack are you on and maybe you should get help.

Anyway. Pledges. There are now entirely different kinds. Let's look at them, shall we? (I mean, that's why I'm writing this summary, so yes, lets.)

Sealing Pledges

No, this is not how to finish them, it's a type of pledge. I'm going to get confused on that. This is a fae creature sealing the accidental promise. I like their example: “I swear, next time you come home late, I’m kicking you out.”

Fae creatures (including Changelings) can undo this attempt against them. Ha-ha. It's a trust thing. Their example: “Yes, truce, I’m not going to hurt you, now get in here.”

Like Chapter 3, I really like the writer of this section.

There are no benefits other than keeping someone to their word. Punishments start from basic (one bashing, two-die penalty for one skill for a scene) to more severe for Glamour (one lethal, loss of ability to spend Willpower for a scene).

Another sweet example: “I’m going to kick his ass.”

Sealing Pledges seem like the Cantrip of pledges. Gotchas. They require one Glamour; they're not entirely freebies. They apparently can be escalated by the ST if two Sealed Pledges are at odds. Neat.

There is a specific system for Sealing Pledges on Huntsmen. You know, we really haven't covered Huntsmen. Maybe I skimmed it as a part of the setting/theme/fluff chapter, but I don't think I did.

For now: Huntsmen are who the Gentry send out to hunt down Changelings. They are not machines and not without compelling sympathy. I mean, why else would you hold them to their word if they had no word to hold them to. This system even makes it look like you can force them to accept it.

Maybe Huntsmen are not entirely faerie creatures?

*obligatory chinrub*

Oaths

Only fae creatures can create Oaths, tho others can be involved. Here Huntsmen are included. Okay then!

Oaths are permanent. They may be changed but never ended. Oaths include: Joining a Court or Freehold, Eternal Love, Eternal Enmity.

Here's a rule that's going to be forgotten if it's not elsewhere:

For a freehold, the changeling becomes a recognized part of the local supernatural landscape; the player receives a +1 to all rolls to navigate the Hedge wherever the freehold controls it.

Seriously heavy juju. The book does say that someone breaking an Oath does not leave it, merely changes their conditions in it. It does not go on to explain them here.

More Huntsman notes:

When changelings swear oaths with Huntsmen, hos- tile oaths are the most common. It’s a gamble, but many changelings would rather take the odds of a knock-down, drag-out fight or duel than the odds of escape from a single-minded captor. Likewise, some Huntsmen would rather take the odds of blessed destruction over returning to the Gentry’s service, but getting at that desire buried beneath the Fae Title to convince the Huntsman to agree to the oath is a difficult prospect.

*more chin rubbing*

Yeah, Huntsmen are slaves.

Bargains

This kind of pledge helps Changelings hide from Huntsmen, so it's pretty necessary. That's the carrot. Now for the stick:

To make a bargain with a person, the changeling has to reveal her true nature. She doesn’t have to be honest with the mortal about the particulars of her situation, but she has to appear to the person without her Mask and propose the terms of the agreement.

This. Changes. Everything.

You know how when you play on CtL Mu*s people are all, "Ensorcellment is evil because they will forever remember and be risks!" etc. etc.? Well here we are saying that risk has a reason, a purpose, and probably critical.

What it doesn't do is give a mechanical benefit, which I would sincerely consider house-ruling or pushing into, e.g., chase rules with Huntsmen. Here's what the book says:

A bargain gives the changeling a place among mortals, and tricks the Wyrd into assuming that she should be there. Huntsmen and Fae, therefore, see her not necessarily as human, but as a natural part of the landscape, a faerie fea- ture that is and has always been. A bargain isn’t foolproof, of course — the fae are persistent and powerful, and have many ways to ferret out the Lost.

That's it.

I don't even see 'spend one Glamour' in here anywhere.

So benefits: No longer a breakable system. The only thing that can be abused is that what the human promises and what the Changeling promises don't have to be anywhere close to one another. Another benefit: No free Resources.

Drawbacks? It's vague as fuck.

My ambivalence: There's no punishment for breaking or ending the Bargain.

... Next up, Oneramanancy.
One-er-man-cy.
Dreamwalking.

Chapter Four: Shall We Play A Game?

I'm not sure about this decision. The chapter starts by describing Attributes and Skills but saying "for more information read the core book". Then it proceeds to go into great detail for the systems. All the systems. Hey, book, did you want us to read the core book or not? Could you have used this space to, I don't know, give us more Kiths, or an Index? (Yes, I'm capitalizing that word. It's my Victorian Nature, Wot.)

The Hedge: A Hive of Scum and Villainy

Gateways are no longer permanent. Changelings can still create one out of any "closable portal", but we no longer have to fall to the inevitable forgetting or thinking that the Hedge has ten million million doorways in one city alone.

Gateways can also be opened by humans using their Vice. 'Near' a gateway, a human using Vice rolls Wits + Composure. Failure means the Gateway opens and they can walk through if they want, gaining more Willpower and a Beat.

This is fuckin' neat.

More rules that will be forgotten:

A changeling’s player reduces the dice pool for all Clarity attacks by one inside the Hedge unless something within the Hedge itself caused it, such as abrupt scenery shifts or a hobgoblin terrorizing her.

You want to fail, so the Hedge...allows you to be stable? Thenomain, are you going to stand for this when you went all Quasimodo on the Ogre thing?

Well as Arkandel said, "Be more like whatever that chick from Frozen's name is." (I haven't seen it.) The explanation is (paraphrased): The Hedge, like Changelings, are neither Reality nor Arcadia and the Changeling has a lot more control over it, which is calming.

Okay. Sure. It's a nice rules perk.

Because misery loves company, hey @Wretched: Page 160. Wings. Ha-ha.

Trods n' Stuff

I'll start with a quote of another rule that will probably be forgotten, but answers so much about the new Hedge:

Navigation inside the Hedge works just like a chase, using the rules on p. 195. Even if the characters are unopposed, the Hedge itself works as an “opponent,” representing the myriad dangers and temptations that face all travelers there.

First you must have a goal. The chase ends by reaching that goal. Either "go somewhere" or "escape something".

Trods are now specifically maintained paths. (Maintained by whatever Hedge denizen you want to define.) They have dot-ratings and rules. I'm jazzed.

The Thorns are "metaphysical representations of the Hedge’s greed" and don't have to be plants. One example has Detroit's Hedge Thorns looking like people.

Icons: What We Left Behind

Shards of humanity and bits of memory of Changelings from who they were before. They're found in the Thorns. They can raise their owner's Clarity, or be used against them in a minor way.

That's it. Thank god there are no hints that gathering all your Icons can turn you back into a Real Person.

Hedgespinning

It's now about shaping the Hedge. That's all. No magic items here. #sorrynotsorry

(edit: Actually this system is pretty cool. I welcome our Hedge-Combat character concepts.)

Goblin Fruit & Oddments

No change here. The number a Changeling can carry maintain outside the Hedge has grown. I'm going to read that word as: Sure you can keep them at home in the fridge.

.. Next up is pledges. It's still part of Chapter Four, but that's going to be a whole long discussion.

@jibberthehut said in MU Things I Love:

I AM GETTING BAR RP THAT IS NOT ABOUT FACTION HEAD STUFF!

:squeals:

Wow. That's pretty reverse of the usual complaint. Congrats!

Chapter Three, Continued.

Kenning

As previous. Does not penetrate hidden anything, so no contest of wills needed.

I just noticed that 'Success' is being listed first under 'Roll Results'. This is a great decision.

Mask & Mein

Fae beings and other supernatural creatures with mystical senses can see through the Mask.
[...]
Characters using sensory magic can oppose [strengthened Mask] with a Clash of Wills (p. 126).

Welp, that answers that!

(My 'Mages are to be 100% Avoided' philosophy as a Changeling is renewed. Sheesh.)

While her Mask is [scoured], treat each success- ful rolled Contract use as though you rolled an excep- tional success, regardless of the actual successes rolled. If the number of successes is important, use whichever is greater from among your rolled successes, your char- acter’s Wyrd, or her Mantle rating.

Well, that's a thing!

The act of tearing away the Mask also opens any gateways to the Hedge within 10 yards or meters per dot of Wyrd she possesses. Additionally, she leaves a magical trail, making it easy for fae creatures to track her in the mortal world. Gentry and Huntsmen automatically succeed on rolls to track or follow her within the same range while her Mask is down there.

Again, being found out is a major point of this version of Changeling, but damn that's an amazing benefit.

Portals: This Was a Triumph

(Hah, take that lack of downvotes!)

"Portalling" is what they call giving every Changeling the level of Contracts of Separation that allowed escape from handcuffs and other bindings, only now every Changeling can pass through any door, window, handcuffs, rope, or grapple with a dot of Glamour. Clash of Wills may apply with no retry limit. None. Just the number of Glamour you've got.

Oh, and iron. You can't escape iron.

Hedge doors must now be 'closable portals' instead of just 'archways'. Sorry, Czcibor; no more using the archway of a bedframe to escape captivity!

Bedlam

I never liked Bedlam, but with CoD's Conditions it's a little more understandable and makes Bedlam a different way of tagging people with Conditions.

Merits

What I've called "Location Merits" are now "Motely Merits", those merits that are shared among the group. There are a few new twists.

1. If you don't add to the merit pool you don't get any benefits.
2. While a merit can have more than 5 dots this way, the effects are never higher than 5. (Or, I imagine, if a merit goes to 4 the greatest effect would be at 4 dots, etc.)

There are a few new Seasonal Court merits (reflections of Vampire 2e), and building a Hollow has changed again, but there's nothing surprising in this list.

Contracts

This is probably the change most Changeling players were looking forward to: Contracts are now much more like merits. You buy the thing, you get the effect, the end.

Well, the end-ish. Some Contracts give certain Seemings free add-ons. Anyone can buy one of these benefits for 1xp.

Goblin Contracts are still a thing. Sight of Truth & Lies is still there. But to use a Goblin Contract, a Storyteller gets to mess around with your character later. The options are pretty weak (subtract dice, related tilt, related persistent condition) but hey, at least that puts some weight on some Contracts that were essentially 'Be A Dick For Free'.

Chapter Three: Character Building.

Regaining Willpower

I welcome the return of oChangeling's Archetypes, in oWoD called Nature and Demeanor, here called Needle (what you show the world) and Thread (inner self). For those who don't know, this replaces nWoD Virtue and Vice, which I thought was okay but not great.

I imagine a good storyteller could tint all Wyrd and Hedge with a character's Thread, but the idea that Wyrd is sociopathic is because what we want comes from our Id and Ego, not something that's under our control. If we gave into what we wanted in our deepest heart I imagine that we could find the Gentry buried in our own dreams.

That Bonus Attribute Dot

Changelings also get a bonus Attribute, putting them in parity with the rest of the Chronicles of Darkness. Did you know that from core CoD rules, normal humans get only 7 dots of Merits, but all supernaturals get 10? It's things like this that people don't even register when you quietly give M+ their 10 dots. I know that Humans are largely considered bit players in the greater world, but two more dots of Merits is barely enough to start risking power imbalance.

Touchstones: The Bane of Some People For Some Reason

And we also have Touchstones. Ah, Touchstones. In Promethean I get them since the system pretty much relies on them. For ghosts I get them because something like them has been in World of Darkness since very early on. For Changelings?

I suppose I'm okay with this because faerie tales and ghost stories have been greatly intertwined for millennia, and Changeling has always had an element of being grounded to it, tho the original Changeling was very much that being grounded was bad. Honestly, I think this is the better option, though not the best.

Touchstones give you bonuses to resisting Clarity loss. Not having Touchstones give you penalties to resisting Clarity loss. That's it. Nothing exotic. Moving on.

Wyrd

Wyrd, the power stat, has a few little changes.

The biggest one: Wyrd is added to the dice pool of fae creatures trying to track them (max +5). Whhhaaaaaaaaat? I'm sure this is covered in great detail later on, but the biggest retooling for this version of Changeling is to give Arcadia teeth, and that means no more handwaving the risks to your escapee, give Freeholds and Courts meaning.

The lesser one: You start gaining Frailties a lot sooner. At Wyrd 2, in fact. I'm rather terrible at coming up with these, but I could see "cannot let an insult go un-answered" for a(n in)famous character I once played.

Clarity As Health Track

Hello, oChangeling! How've you been? I saw you looking around the corner with Archetypes. Don't be shy. Come on in. What's that you have with you? Is that your old Glamour/Banality track? Oh that's okay, you still have a place here. Come in, sit down, get comfortable.

So when you lose enough Clarity you gain a Persistent Condition. Oh hi, Fate Core, I didn't see you there. Come on in, grab a drink and stay a while.

-- Out of time -- More later.

@derp

And I think your reading is bizarre for a rather unthematic mechanic. Why I think that way is not about players having 100% control of their characters (and said so), but this is what you chose to focus on. That's why I'm done; it's frustrating to begin with, and worse when people are not really disagreeing on the current point at hand. And that's when I'm watching two other people aggressively agree. I have no idea how to react to it when someone is doing it to me.

Thus: Done.

@derp said in Changeling the Lost: 2nd Edition:

@thenomain said in Changeling the Lost: 2nd Edition:

It only starts to work when you apply the guilt onto the character's foundational personality (where The Wyrd's psychoactive nature taps into), which seems to me to be a silly act of an RPG reducing player agency over their character.

No, it works when you take into account that it's in their very magical nature to do this.

Please define "this". We are getting into Pronoun Trouble territory.

Nevermind; see below.

Look, no player has 100% control over his character.

Just so you know, this is where I'm going to stop replying, because you're getting very adamant to prove me wrong starting with something that we agree with and I have said I agree with and given examples where I agree with this.

Which means I don't think you know what my point is.

Which means I am not going to argue trying to get you to understand.

Because this is no longer a discussion.

--

More Changeling news as I read it.

@arkandel said in Changeling the Lost: 2nd Edition:

@thenomain said in Changeling the Lost: 2nd Edition:

Buffy wasn't very good.

How dare you sir.

Like this:

While the whole season with Dawn was pushing the Scrappy Doo Effect (which thank god they admit), I think once Buffy's mother died the whole series could not transition into adulthood. It was quite painful for me to watch, and painful to remember as mainly all I do remember is Spike and Buffy fucking being a plot point. And the robot. Dadist Buffy Robot was funny. I come back too around Lesbian/Dark Willow segment because damn Amber Benson was a breath of fresh air for the series, and the resulting plot had weight. And "The Zeppo" was a better episode than "Hush". Sorry. Not sorry.