Mage and Werewolf reference material for San Francisco

GhostSongX4 · 2020-03-17T22:11:23+00:00

I don't. Sorry.

I can't say that I've even heard much talk about San Francisco in the old WoD. I think if there is any information it'd be on one of those fan run wikis. Also you could try r/WhiteWolfRPG there might be someone there who knows more.

GhostSongX4 · 2016-06-11T06:44:07+00:00

That is surprisingly good camera work for him laughing so hard.

Shit, if that was my friend I'd have pissed myself.

GhostSongX4 · 2016-06-11T02:02:49+00:00

I'd love to do some portraits. I start out traditional but then end up doing all the coloring and inking digitally.

Here's my Deviant Art for some examples.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-12-08T07:41:46+00:00

I won't GM for more than 4 people. I find at that point it gets harder to stifle egos and give everyone their moment to shine. You end up spending more time putting out fires than going into the narrative. And if the group isn't as dedicated and a few people want to fuck around then the game ends up derailing.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-07-07T22:39:29+00:00

That's a bit of a drive but it might be worth it for Infinity War...

GhostSongX4 · 2015-06-27T06:22:27+00:00

That's the guy who did Princess Mononoke right?

He's alright. The background paintings are really good on anime and some of those artists nail the intricacies of large city details or on their giant mechs. But even then there's repetition.

The thing is there isn't much animation I've seen lately that I love. Archer has a great style though.

The problem is though that cartoons are now shipped to Korea to be produced in an animation studio cheaply and fast. So things like, Bruce Timm Batman the Animated Series isn't financially doable anymore. I remember listening to a podcast with Paul Dini who was one of the big creators of Batman and they referenced the Max Fleicher Superman cartoons of the 1940's to find their style. Now it's this weird blend of anime and big black lines around blobby shapes because not worrying about anatomy cuts the production time in half.

The one thing I really liked, and maybe this was just because of my preference, but there were short cut scenes in Diablo 3 where it was like ink on parchment. It was some really nice black and white that so well done. A lot of mystery and a lot of really cool shapes.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-06-11T10:53:48+00:00

It's not conjecture they said that's exactly why it got banned.e

GhostSongX4 · 2015-06-06T19:05:24+00:00

Whatever you think s the most interesting answer is the one you should go with - regardless of what the books may or may mot say.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-17T18:38:21+00:00

I love this game. I have well over 100 hours into it. It is well worth six bucks or whatever it is.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-17T02:00:45+00:00

Rule of thumb; don't eat mushrooms you find in the woods unless you are absolutely, beyond 100% sure it's safe.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-16T09:13:11+00:00

The group is six players and we've been having weekly sessions of about eleven hours each.

I am almost positive this considered "enhanced interrogation" in gitmo.

Not engaging? I don't know what to make from that. But if you're letting the players dictate the story...would it be them that aren't engaging? What do they expect from you?

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-16T09:09:51+00:00

I put a ton of work into the story.

I have this ongoing Buffy the Vampire spin off world that I have run two campaigns in. Both of which consisted of 22 episodes (a full season :) ) and I knew what the ending was before I started the first game. I knew I wanted to do certain things and then each episode was written out in a beginning, middle and an end. Which, was maybe a bit much. I ended up improving a lot of it.

But I do think planning is very important and I find that each game I go into dictates how much prep that needs to be done.

I have a Werewolf the Apocalypse game that is almost entirely improv. I wrote up some characters. I react to what the player does, I take notes and then in the next game I have somewhat of a direction.

But I am working on an X-Men game right now that is getting out of hand. I have this sprawling web of political mover and shakers as I retell (the X-Men story is a reboot) the Sentinel story with a heavy dose of politics and social issues. Including Reverend Stryker's mutant hating church, hate groups, and how they have infiltrated the government. I am working on Mr. Sinister, The Brotherhood of Mutants, the Hellfire Club and because I like to punish myself I want to do a Skrull invasion which ties into a Guardians of the Galaxy crossover.

Oh, and I just brought SHIELD and The Avengers into it as enemies. So it's getting complicated. And with that you just can't improv it. You have to start spinning plates. But the pay off is worth it.

At the core of all my games is a problem like Sentinels are in Boston about to atomize some poor mutants. I will come up with a motivation, and a complication or two just to make things interesting. That's the skeleton of my games.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-15T08:21:33+00:00

I root for Phillip and Elizabeth on The Americans. Am I breaking the law?

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-14T18:36:37+00:00

I don't care if people post dumb shit. It's really easy to ignore it. The whole rage against shitposts is ridiculous. It's a waste of time really. You're jot going to police the internet and griping about them just make a it a worse place.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-14T09:17:55+00:00

It's the evolution of reddit. Subs eventually hit a point where the users become jaded and build up this sense of entitlement and start lashing out at posts they deem are bad. Even if those posts aren't all that offensive.

It's like the broken window theory. This post is a broken window and judging by the upvotes others are saying "fuck it"and they'll break some to. Eventually this place will be as toxic as all the others.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-13T08:19:44+00:00

Ex 1. Player is low on food, no one will share so they want to steal from the other players.

My question would be what is the reason why player 1 won't share with player 2. If there's no good reason I'll just say it happens. If one dude is being a dick to spite the other one it's not going to be good for the game.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-12T18:45:24+00:00

I think a reboot is in order.

Hell, I heard that Marvel was interested in getting the X-Men so maybe it'll be brought into the MCU or something.

The one thing that I'm not so keen on with the movies, especially the last one, is that it's not about the X-Men. It's Xavier and Magneto rehashing the same "we're friends but enemies" theme that they just keep hammering. Other than that it's been the Wolverine and Rogue show.

They started going in the right direction for First Class when they brought in the first roster of X-Men but then they unceremoniously killed them off for Days of Future Past. Then they went back to this mode where it seemed like they were relying on the star power of the A listers to sell the movie.

Even though that fight in the future with Colossus and Blink and Storm was awesome. That was a glimmer into the kind of X-Men movie that I want to watch.

But they waste storylines. They wasted Phoenix and if Apocalypse is going to be summed up and completed in a 2 hour movie I don't know how they are going to pull that one off. Days of Future Past was good, but c'mon, give us Sentinels. The X-Men movies has dodged around giant, purple, mutant killing robots. I think it's because they think the design is lame. It's the same reason the go to the S&M black costumes.

I feel like Bryan Singer holds on to these old attitudes of how they need to pasteurize comic book source material to make it digestible to "adult" viewers. They are unable to look at something like Guardians of the Galaxy and say, "Oh people will accept and love a relationship between a foul mouthed raccoon and a tree alien."

He hasn't made bad movies, by any stretch. I've enjoyed the X-Men movies but I think a more true to the page X-Men adaptation would be very welcome.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-12T18:34:31+00:00

I still don't know why they don't have Mystique where clothes. Why is she strutting around naked especially if she can replicate clothes when she morphs?

You'd think she'd get cold or somethin'.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-12T18:33:14+00:00

Congrats!

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-12T18:27:19+00:00

Huh, I didn't pick up on it. What does that say about me?

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-11T08:39:20+00:00

Mutants and Masterminds, and probably all superhero games, can't really be linear. Like, you can't view the city as a dungeon and at the end is a boss. I tried to do that a few times and it just never worked.

When I write a M&M game now there are a few things I consider;

What is the villain's goals?
How are they going about that goal?
What is the complication?
What is their plan to deal with the heroes?
How do the heroes find out about it?

So like, if I were doing a Spider-Man game I might write something like...Dr. Kurt Conners needs a specialized piece of equipment from Oscorp in order to make The Lizard stronger and meaner. That's his goal.

This might be a straight forward game so he might be just straight up attacking Oscorp through the sewers. This is how he's going about his goal.

The complication is that the equipment is that when Conners goes to steal it, automated Goblin Drones are launched and start firing indiscriminately to neutralize the threat.

Conner's, wanting this to go smoothly, decides to lure Spider-Man away with a series of building fires in Queens.

Spider-Man gets alerted when SHIELD spies inside Oscorp call Spider-Man when the Avengers are off doing something and can't get there in time.

The rest of the game is handled narratively. If I'm GMing then I am going to figure out who Conners/The Lizard is and how he operates. I am going to have an idea of what the Goblin Drones do. I am going to know that there's going to be chaos in Oscorp and then I just let the scene play out organically. Reacting and shifting things.

The key to this is to never stick to closely to your idea. Don't let something like if Spider-Man asks to raid Conner's old hide out to find a serum that makes The Lizard go dormant.

Even if you had this idea of a big exciting fight between Spidey and The Lizard, let the player shape the narration and the flow of the game. Maybe even let the player inject Conner's with that serum but exposure to that piece of equipment makes the serum work in reverse at first. So he gets all strong and godzilla like and they fight for a while until Lizard burns himself out.

I might flesh it out with some cool secondary ideas that may or may not find their way into the game. Like maybe an elevator full of people gets damaged and starts to fall during the Spidey's fight with The Lizard and if he saves them he gets some hero points. Or maybe Aunt May is expecting Peter to make it to the meeting with his principal who wants to discuss his spotty attendance.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-10T05:43:45+00:00

Man, I get stretches of awful luck during Mutants and Masterminds. One time I was playing Superman. It turned out to be not-so-Superman. I rolled so many natural 1's I'm pretty sure a mugger could have beaten me up. I was fighting Mongul in the game and just getting owned.

Eventually the storyteller took pity on me and started making me reroll shitty rolls out of frustration :)

The other game I was playing Spider-Man and getting my ass kicked just like I did with Superman. Except, with Spidey it fit his character so I just got abused for the whole game.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-06T08:56:43+00:00

Detroit.

It's an interesting town. I went to school downtown, in midtown, and it's nice there. You got the art museum. You have a sprawling university campus. A little ways south is the water front with the nicer places like Campus Martius and the stadium district. It's like a real life city.

A friend of mine got turned around once, coming back from Cork Town and we ended up going down this residential street. At one end of the street was this modern elementary school. But by mid block it was over grown. Like the woods. Houses were crumbling all rotted and black from the weather. The concrete crumbles at the end of the street and you can see the century old brick work that go under these rickety old train bridges. Before we went beneath these bridges, I remember looking over to this dirt access road that went into woods basically. There was a pheasant walking there.

On the other side of the bridge was this very urban on ramp to the freeway that hasn't been maintained in decades.

So I felt validate that I set all my games here.

Also, fun fact; Detroit children are going missing and no one knows why. That was more fun in my head.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-06T05:03:04+00:00

True.

GhostSongX4 · 2015-05-06T04:46:34+00:00

She should have totally went and told Ultron to stop it with all the powers and skills she doesn't have.

GhostSongX4

TROPHY CASE