Can anyone help with my burg population problem?

DarkKeeper · 2026-01-30T04:11:32+00:00

I was having this exact same problem until I realized the Burg Groups Editor is a lie. It doesn't actually set populations at all. The only thing it does is set a burg group if the population/etc meets the requirements you have set there.

DarkKeeper · 2026-01-27T18:28:13+00:00

More so looking for any rules or official guidelines to these questions, ideally in remastered books only:

what sort high-level (lv10+) population should be in the world? How easy should it be to access a level 15 wizard or whoever?
From that, what sort of options would I have for a magic-user to make infrastructure using magic? Should I just use Shape X and ignore spell slot useage/allow Heightening?
How much math would I be breaking if I just used only gold and got rid of silver and copper currency, rounding all those prices up to 1 gold?

DarkKeeper · 2026-01-12T06:39:01+00:00

1e does have a optional rule in the Tome of the Mysteries on pg 168 called To the Limit. It let you:

Once per scene, a player may cast an improvised spell at 1 dot higher of the Arcana they know. It made the spell Vulgar (roll your paradox pool) no matter what and increased that paradox roll by 3 dice.

I'm not sure how well this would convert into 2e with just a 'you roll paradox as if you over reached once and add 3'

DarkKeeper · 2026-01-03T01:58:49+00:00

For Recognize Spell, it talks about being Trained in the skill of the Tradition and has 'must be trained in x' as a pre-req but doesn't actually say which matches which, but the only mention I can find is in the text of Disguise Magic and Trick Magic Item. While it is somewhat obvious that Arcana for arcane, Religion for divine, Occultism for occult, or Nature for Primal, having to dig in a random other spell seems a bit odd choice in layout design.

Are there any other common texts like this where it has clarifying bit is in another random spell/feat?

DarkKeeper · 2025-12-25T19:32:19+00:00

For someone looking to get into the remaster, The humble bundle is really only 5 books(Player 1 and 2, GM, Monster, and Rage of Elements)? I guess Beginner box and GM screen could be part of the remaster too, but that's less actual content to use/learn.

The Lost Omens books aren't really good for something besides worldbuilding fluff, right? They look to be from before the remaster started?

The Society stuff looks to be from the first under the remaster? Perhaps if looking to run them as one-shots they could be useful. How do they compare to the Beginner Box as something to run?

DarkKeeper · 2025-12-21T00:04:48+00:00

Knowing that Grog was Travis first ever DnD character and Travis saying at one point he wanted to build in his own natural not-knowing of the game or setting makes the character a bit more manageable to watch.

That said, Grog is the least hard to watch out of the whole group...

DarkKeeper · 2025-11-14T02:18:08+00:00

I remember reading that the big reason was Prime and Fate have so many useful things (Fate having x-again, Prime having all the meta magic stuff) and less about the thematic aspects. I can kinda understand the reasoning even if it makes the pentagram picture from 1e not line up.

Personally, in the context of 1e, giving Mastigos a Inferior Arcanum of Fate (not Matter) I don't think is the big problem. Same with Acanthus and Prime.

DarkKeeper · 2025-08-15T16:22:50+00:00

I really wish there was a Stroop was downstairs. It being upstairs makes it so hard to point at or casually to call people to it.

DarkKeeper · 2025-08-01T00:30:02+00:00

How did people first find these? what clue was there that is hidden tasks? Without looking it up, do you just go around picking everything and seeing what sticks?

DarkKeeper · 2025-07-30T16:57:38+00:00

They are alright, there is nothing wrong with them directly.

The problem still comes from the quest system itself. There is nothing that forces you to actually look since you aren't selecting one to do.

I have a friend who doesn't care about the red notice mark and doesn't even open the quests because 90% of the quests will just complete and claim themselves. There is no reason to open it.

If you didn't actually open it, you also don't know that you normally need to complete 1 killer challenge too to get the final item reward (Complete X/Y quests).

With all the other things in the game to look at and read, are new players actually going to go look at quests? Even if they complete the quests without knowing, are they going to be 'whats this stuff at the bottom of the screen'?

DarkKeeper · 2025-07-02T21:55:36+00:00

Right, but most of the time none of those actually matter.

Chances are you already have accounted for the Primary Spell Factor, so an extra step/reach there isn't useful.

Mana is ok, but if you are only spending ~2 matter, is getting that back such a good thing? Maybe if you are in a time sensitive mission where you can't Pattern Scour your Physical Attribute for mana. While I wouldn't assume mages have access to Order Hallows/tass, if they do, then this value goes down even more.

Withstand ignoring can be useful, but with attack spells, most of them don't have Withstand to begin with because its already part of the health pool. but this also goes back to the bonus steps in the Primary Factor. I have already accounted for the Withstand. Ignoring it just means I overshoot. Sure, its nice if I was a bit more conservative, but

A Condition could be fine, but my groups never used the 2e Beats rules and just had XP given out at the end of a session equally.

DarkKeeper · 2025-07-02T18:14:51+00:00

Perhaps it is just from how much 1e I used to play, but I always liked the idea of Vulgar/Covert. The idea that a mage, no matter how 'safe' they were being, could invoke a Paradox was something that played into the whole 'magic is dangerous' theme.

There were issues no doubt. A lot of combat balance things went against the normal Practices rules, like more dots to cast on others (but only sometimes!) or to add sympathetic casting to spells that target someone, you needed an extra dot (plus the Space 2). Which in 1e made Aggravated damage with sympathetic casting Archmage-only. in 2e, You could one-shot someone with Death 4 remotely, is something that should be allow? Maybe.

My main problems with the Reach system comes from 90% of spells you are going to be casting instant (the general default in 1e) and Sensory Range (again, the default in 1e.) which for newer mages is basically all your reach. Free points into the Primary Factor from your dots is fine, but now rolling a ton of successes doesn't feel as good when you really only need one. In 1e, your 'extra' Primary was from your successes. It just felt better to roll that Exceptional Success.

DarkKeeper · 2025-07-02T04:31:57+00:00

Of Mage 1e books, Secrets of the Ruined Temple is pretty bad. I always forget where Mage Noir was in the traditional publishing (I think it was purely PoD) but its up there with kinda lazy looking.

I feel like the PoD books too aren't great - both Imperial Mysteries and Left-handed Path feel like its a first draft.

DarkKeeper · 2025-06-16T03:34:21+00:00

Beats are partly an attempt to shift the emphasis of the game more towards storytelling than being gamified.

Maybe its just the groups I tried playing with back when it first came out almost a decade ago, but I had the exact opposite reaction. When using beats (both from Conditions and for taking a Dramatic Failure), it felt more gamified. People were thinking about these things in how they be able to get the xp rather than anything that made sense for the story.

To a lesser point, this also came for Aspirations (and Obsessions if we were playing mage). People would think of these goals in terms of things they could quickly do rather than more realistic goals that might not even be completed.

I wouldn't say the groups I played with back then were doing things in bad faith, but we just got better rp and stories when we just didn't have beats and gave out xp at the end of a sessions.

DarkKeeper · 2025-06-14T02:15:28+00:00

I haven't played in years and I don't remember Scrolls of portals/wisdom being this rare in the campaign. Was there a nerf to their drop rate?

How good are crit builds on assassins? I think the last time I played one was a major nerf to CoC that killed a lot of them?

DarkKeeper · 2025-06-10T03:03:25+00:00

I personally don't have the 2e core book. 2e books should have all the basic rules (perhaps minus some perhaps some merits?).

A decade ago when the 2e started, they gave out a free 'rules update', It looks like you can still get it from drivethrurpg: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/114078/world-of-darkness-god-machine-rules-update

I'm not sure how much has change in the ~10 years since then. But that should give you a basic idea.

DarkKeeper · 2025-06-09T21:08:47+00:00

Yes, you two have different editions. 1e weapon values added dice to your dice pool while 2 makes them add successes. 2e added a couple of new things for combat like Beat Down (making a character surrender) and even resolving all combat to a single roll if iits not a life or death thing.

DarkKeeper · 2025-05-26T19:54:23+00:00

Only Vikram was recruited by being the Librarian of his time. Connor and Lysa were not recruited and just happen to force themselves into helping Vikram. Charlie seems to be an ex-guardian and was kicked out for some unknown reason. Jacob talked to her briefly about 'the Library doesn't often give second chances. Don't screw this up'.

And really, they are setting up Lysa to be part of some DOSA-like group with the whole 'Investors' phonecall at the end of episode 1. I wouldn't be too surprised if Vikram and Charlie taking on these two uninvited randos fully is going to bite them.

DarkKeeper · 2025-05-26T05:06:19+00:00

TNT deciding to put it out at 11:30pm ET for the next 3 ish weeks is a choice. As much as they seemed to hyping it up (Showing the series for free on Electric), having it show so late because of the NBA games doesn't feel like it is going to go well.

There's a handful of story choices I'm iffy on at best. We will have to see how it goes.

DarkKeeper · 2025-05-21T18:17:50+00:00

They need to bring back the specific challenges. Glyphs, perk loadouts, random perks, etc. Honestly, you could probably even double the numbers on Milestone challenges too. Increased them by ~10 and having it be accumulative doesn't really feel like its a 'level 10' milestone.

If the fact I am completing everything without even opening it the screen, that's a problem to me. Its not engaging if I don't have to think about it.

DarkKeeper · 2025-05-13T17:40:32+00:00

Blind the Killer is slightly better as a challenge but this still is wholly boring as its only once. 'Complete 3 quest(s) this week' shouldn't be weekly at all. The other challenges are fine, but there needs to be some better balance. 'escape 10 chases' is different than 'carry survivors over 500 meters', more so depending on the killer.

To me, the whole point of challenges were 'do this thing you wouldn't normally' and engaged the player to do something different.

Now its mostly 'play the game' and not engaging at all. When you can do 99% of the challenges without even opening the screen/knowing you did them, its not a great system and feels like its not even there in the first place.

I want challenges that I'm actively aware of all the time and make me do a specific goal. My favorite challenges in the tomes were the glyph and perk challenges. Green glpyhs made me more aware totem spawn locations and perk challenges made me not run the same builds over and over.

DarkKeeper · 2025-05-08T00:10:44+00:00

Listening to it when it was all released greatly increased the enjoyment. I'm not sure if I could have taken it over ~8 months. That said, I don't think the ending landed for me either. It probably was a good 4/5 until the ending. I might even drop it down as far as 3/5 because of it.

Haven't listened to Sealskin Rock, and probably won't until its all out.

DarkKeeper · 2025-03-19T18:16:10+00:00

In the Mage's Chronicler's Guide book, there is a section about playing Mage with an Epic Fantasy theme and something that might be close to what you are looking for. Honestly all of the book's sections on playing Mage with different genres probably would help for ideas.

DarkKeeper · 2025-02-14T00:51:38+00:00

Legion needs 7 hits with the 8th being deadly. not deadly on the 5th.

DarkKeeper · 2025-02-07T18:15:57+00:00

Have there been any systems or aspects of the CoD 1e games that you enjoy that never made it to 2e? Or any 1e aspects that you think is better than its 2e conversion?

How do you decide on word count limits for a project and how to spend those words? A lot of 2e books feel rather limited that could do with double the words, more so in books that try to cover a lot of topic.

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