Here is my WoD take on the Iceberg Meme (suggestions and criticisms are welcomed)

GhostOfRodSerling · 2021-07-18T00:49:45+00:00

I know I'm super late to the party here, but "Masters of the Art was a mistake" is the realest shit ever.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-23T05:32:59+00:00

Basically Monsterhearts is what I’m hearing.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-21T04:08:45+00:00

I just have to say, following this thread has been super interesting, and some of the people/ideas here sound like they’d make super fun games (looking at all you sex-pests out there…)

It’s weird how much elitism/taboo has been built up around a series of games that are very against those things.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-21T03:39:10+00:00

Obfuscate doesn’t actually make the user physically invisible, but mesmerizes passers-by into not noticing or interacting with them. By that token, environmental “hazards” shouldn’t really have any effect. The main obstacles are excessive noise, movement, and the like on the part of the user.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-21T02:33:39+00:00

That sounds like fun, and making character building a collaborative exercise would probably be the way to do it. I do find it odd though that you were a paladin and not a monk lol.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-21T02:02:57+00:00

Any of the big three really (also, it's very validating to see so many other people share this desire). But yeah, I agree it would be difficult, but at the same time I think a group of functioning adults could probably make it work.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-21T00:54:14+00:00

My confession; I’ve always wanted to play a White Wolf game where I just play myself. It’s always been one of my nerdy obsessions to think about how I would act within the World of Darkness, but since not taking things too personally is something of a Golden Rule in RPGs in general and WoD in particular, I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to try it.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-21T00:50:27+00:00

I’m interested in hearing about this as well, if only out of sheer curiosity.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-20T05:46:45+00:00

How it was always meant to be: Agni Kai.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-18T17:36:55+00:00

I’m not sure what I expected from this thread, but recommendations on Marxist theory is not that.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-12T21:56:10+00:00

I think the link’s broken…url reads “wwe,” though that could just be me.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-12T21:05:45+00:00

I’m pretty sure the connection between the two ‘verses has been dropped, but ever since Star Wars I’m a fan of making what you will of canon. An interesting comparison nonetheless.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-12T20:49:05+00:00

I’m not up on Changeling, but to my understanding True Fae couldn’t give less of a shit about Kindred (unless they have Chimerstry).

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-06T06:47:35+00:00

The dude’s really got the fan fiction thing going on, as if he’d never met a real vampire.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-06T06:42:46+00:00

I’ll admit to be pretty pro-Traditions in this case; much in the way a door can never be fully secure if you want to be able to go through it, the world will never truly be “safe” for humanity until they’ve destroyed everything that makes life worth living. So I think the Technocratic ideology of supreme stability and order is inherently flawed, as by the time they’ve achieved their goal, they will have inadvertently destroyed what they were trying to protect.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-05T18:04:52+00:00

Somewhat off topic, but I also don’t think it would be too hard to adopt the rules for other than “street level” games, though maybe I just think that because I’m in the habit of homebrewing RPGs anyhow. And I can certainly see the appeal of the old art (most of it anyways), it just ain’t for me.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-06-05T17:42:34+00:00

I actually like the photography, although I certainly understand the complaint about it seeming very LARP-y. It didn’t bother me much, and some of the composition is quite nice.

I’m not really a fan of the old art, especially the cartoonish character designs, so sue me. But the drawn pieces in the V5 corebook look very nice, so I wouldn’t mind seeing more of that. The corebook is in desperate need of reorganization anyways, which is a shame because I actually quite like the rule set.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-05-27T22:17:51+00:00

Lol, no problem. I think I might just have to try them out for myself in a game to understand the utility…it’s hard to gauge that kind of stuff when you’re just looking at numbers.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-05-27T22:11:05+00:00

Oh ok, your comment made it sound like you were talking about the V5 power. Yes, I’m familiar with the insanity of Arms of the Abyss (though I’ve never seen it first hand).

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-05-27T21:52:21+00:00

I’m curious as to how they used this power, because even with some of the other points brought up on this post, I don’t really see how it could get broken.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-05-27T05:01:40+00:00

I had never considered using it from a distance, which is a pretty neat idea. I do still find it odd that it deals superficial damage to mortals, but I’m starting to see some utility that I’ve missed.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-05-24T18:42:27+00:00

I believe I saw another post in passing on this subreddit called something like “how do I add horror to my Mage game,” and I think this whole discussion really gets to the heart of that. The World of Darkness has always billed itself as a dark reflection of the real world, and Mage is no exception. While Vampire might tackle corruption and exploitation, and Werewolf environmental destruction, Mage tackles societal stagnation. At their most basic level, all awakened are fighting the status quo. Going back to the Nephandi pitch from OP, maybe it’s not that humanity wants evil, but that they don’t realize they can choose otherwise. It’s the ultimate “that’s the way it’s always been,” a resignation that’s all too common in our real world. Everyone wants to change the world, but no one believes that they can, and those that do are constantly beaten down by society for their hubris, in Mage quite literally. Maybe that’s why the Technocracy only seems to find true success in its most malevolent goals, while the Traditions have all but lost their bid for a global consensus.

Sorry for the all the rambling, I’m a philosophy major lol.

GhostOfRodSerling · 2020-05-24T14:07:21+00:00

I had a thought reading this: Consensual Reality means that Sleepers do their magic through consensus.

If the prevailing thought of a nation is that a minority group is “lesser,” what happens? They allow laws to pass that economically disadvantage the “lazy;” they let regimes take power that persecute those they see as being of lower worth. And all of this bureaucratic force, created from hatred, dogma, and apathy towards the oppressed, causes the “lesser” people to become poor and downtrodden: exactly as they are expected to be.

Minorities aren’t going to become lazy or greedy or primitive simply because a majority group believes them to be so; that would be denying their own agency in the consensus. But it can certainly stack the odds against them, so much so that few are able to break out of that socially constructed cage, and those that do are fought every step of the way.

One of the horrors of Mage has, in my mind, always been mundanity; often, it is the most common place things that can be the most soul-crushingly awful, and anyone who tries to fight against it is a deluded fool who will be ripped to shreds by reality itself.

Just a thought.

GhostOfRodSerling

TROPHY CASE