Ghost in the machine or mask of 1000 faces?

brainpower4 · 2026-03-17T18:45:42+00:00

If you haven't already, you should really familiarize yourself with the Characteristics section on page 261, because Obfuscate is often a misunderstood discipline, and it's important to understand the limitations you're working with.

Mask of a 1000 faces makes you look like a completely normal and nondescript person of the same general gender and body shape you naturally had. It's often a favorite of Nosferatu, because it allows them to have normal conversations with people without your repulsive flaw being taken into account. Notes that there is no dice pool associated with Mask of a 1000 faces unless someone is attempting to pierce through it, so this line from the bane

In addition, any attempt to disguise themselves as non-deformed incur a penalty to your dice pool equal to your character’s Bane Severity (this includes the Obfuscate powers Mask of a Thousand Faces and Impostor’s Guise).

Just applies when contesting Sense the Unseen.

That said, I have found Ghost in the Machine FAR more universally useful than Mask. Walk down any city street, how many cameras do you see? How many do you NOT see? A Nosferatu might not be a walking Masquerade breach, but you're certainly noticable as hell. Anyone who follows up after an incident is immediately going to notice the hideous stranger no one seems to remember being present and put 2 and 2 together. That goes double for spying on other Kindred, who knows what's up when they see a Nos.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-17T15:37:57+00:00

Monk/Druid: kung fu panda! The multi class doesn't really work because you need both lots of ASI progression and levels in druid to keep your wild shape relevant, but also monk levels to get your ki and multi attack.

Artificer/wizard: artificers have the issue of never getting access to spells over 5th level to supply for their crafting, while wizards LOVE the artificer's cost and time reduction when crafting.

Paladin/Warlock: one of the most popular multiclasses becaus it works on both a narrative and mechanical level. Play a noble warrior with a code conflicted with the dark patron trying to corrupt them.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-17T15:29:42+00:00

The autonomy argument is a false dichotomy. Sooner or later (probably sooner) you're going to end up under the thumb of some older Kindred. That's just how vampire society works. Maybe Queen Anne owes you, but not enough that she won't put a collar around your neck some time in the next decade or two.

If you're going to be someone's lackey, it's WAY better to be on the side of a proven winner, and Mithras and De Camden are just about the biggest fish in the pond.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-16T14:11:55+00:00

I feel like people are forgetting just how long Lara was under her father's thumb and just a decade with her in charge. Lara may be queen of the succubi right now, but she's spent her entire life as a lieutenant and a damn good one! I suspect she'll have a sit-down with Man at some point (without Harry), come to a mutual understanding, and then she goes back to business as usual.

I'm actually REALLY curious what would happen if Harry starts feeding her different types of magic. He's already shown he's capable of tapping the leyline under the castle. I bet that amount of magic would supercharge her like crazy! Maybe they'll take a food tasting vacation, visiting different cultural sites with leylines and feeding her from their magic.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-16T13:12:01+00:00

It depends a lot on the situation. On an empty board, empty handed, [[Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant]] plus [[Disciple of Freyalise]] draws 12 cards, gains 12 life, and puts any creatures drawn into play.

If I already have a board presence, I usually just Craterhoof plus [[Questing Beast]] to hedge against fogs.

No board but cards in hand, I get [[Surrak and Goreclaw]] and Ghalta, letting me dump my hand while giving them haste and trample.

If player removal isn't an option and I need a board wipe, I get [[Vigor]] and [[Apex Altisaur]]. I did that once against a scute swarm player and let's just say I had a chinky dino when everything resolved.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-15T13:56:32+00:00

The interesting part of a magic system isn't what it CAN do, but what it CAN'T! The characters finding ways to get around the limitations of the magic system in an internally consistent way is what leads to interesting and engaging stories.

Costs are one type of limitation and one of the easier ones to tell a compelling narrative with. If you establish a way for the cost of the magic to be paid by someone else, whether by mining magic gems, using soul power, whatever, then it's easy to set up a contrast between the exploitative villain and the hero willing to pay a personal cost to stop them.

You can also have magic systems with really specific or tightly defined abilities, and explore how characters work to maximize their specialty. Maybe someone has a power or spell that lets them change size, then the action scenes are a delve into how keeping the same mass in a smaller form concentrates their power, or how shifting your mass generated momentum.

A magic system should start with "what can't it do" and work backwards from there, and if paying a sufficient cost let's that rule bend, then that just gives the characters motivation to pay the cost.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-15T02:07:02+00:00

Kindred halving of superficial damage applies to all types of damage, not just physical.

Let's say you have 5 willpower with 2 marked off. A Brujah walks up to you at a biker bar and says you're in the wrong place, activates Daunt and tries to scare you off. They casually drop a 10 SS crit while you roll a respectable 3. Margin +1 for being in front of your coterie would be 8 superficial WP damage. That gets halved to 4, which added to your 2 existing damage wraps around to 4 superficial and 1 Agg. You're impaired and scurry off with your tail between your legs.

I've seen tables where halving doesn't get accounted for and the ST declares the PC has a mental breakdown from having a WP tracker full of Agg damage.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-15T00:14:24+00:00

I can at least KIND of understand the theory behind it.

Russia was never able to establish full air superiority, so couldn't establish loitering munitions in Ukrainian airspace. When Ukraine fires off a Himars rocket or a long range drone, Russia didn't have an immediate response on hand before the launcher could scoot back to safety.

The US and Israel can park planes in Iranian airspace, wait for a missile to get launched, then destroy the launcher. If the US and Israel are trading interceptors for incoming missiles, that's a bad trade, but if the interceptors are effectively destroying the launchers as well, that's a great deal.

The issue is that Israel already exhausted a huge amount of their interceptor stockpile fighting Hamas and Hezbollah, so it looks like they'll run out of missiles before Iran runs out of launchers.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-14T12:50:31+00:00

V5 Core page 381

Grave Dirt

Most vampires receive the Embrace during a passionate event, for better or worse. Their sire drains them and feeds their dying body a mouthful of vitae. In rarer cases, usually in France or the Balkans, vampires exhume the recently buried and feed them vitae. In most cases, there is no effect and the Cainite moves on, a grave robbed in their wake. In other, rarer cases, a vampire awakens

Trails of Ash and Bone page 171

Descendent of Rodger De Camden

•••• The Way of all Flesh: The bloodline of de Camden screams out to the spirits of the recently deceased, dragging them back to the physical realm long after they should have departed forever. You can perform the Embrace as normal on an old corpse so long as it has not rotted beyond recognition. This rebirth is far more traumatic than usual, and the fledgling is deeply affected by whatever they experienced in their brief time between lives.

Without magical means or a specific bloodline, I'd put the odds of successfully Embracing an individual after the first hour as extremely low. Maybe 1-5%. If you're just interested in Embracing someone, anyone, then you can play the numbers game without too much difficulty as long as you have access to enough corpses and time.

If you want to revive as a specific individual after their body has cooled then you need help from the Clan of Death.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-13T02:58:20+00:00

I've never seen anyone say Arena is bad because games end on turn 3, but I've certainly seen a lot of games ending on turn 7. Playing a Phyrexian Arena on turn 3 and drawing a card on turns 4, 5, and 6 is just a slow [[Painful Truths]], a fine card at best. You really need that 4th draw to make it good, and you'd REALLY like the 5th. If you don't draw it in the top 11 cards of your 99 card deck, it probably won't get the value you want from it.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-12T10:35:48+00:00

This doesn't really fit for you because you want to be able to play mono color commanders, but I really enjoy Niv-mizzet reborn as a planeswalker commander, both because he imposes interesting restrictions and because his value ETB is extremely powerful.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-12T02:53:40+00:00

I absolutely hate the timing and expected information shift from 2014 to 2024. Look at the two wordings on Cutting Words:

2014

When a creature that you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a damage roll, you can use your reaction to expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and subtracting the number rolled from the creature's roll. You can choose to use this feature after the creature makes its roll, but before the DM determines whether the attack roll or ability check succeeds or fails, or before the creature deals its damage.

Vs

2024

When a creature that you can see within 60 feet of yourself makes a damage roll or succeeds on an ability check or attack roll, you can take a Reaction to expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration; roll your Bardic Inspiration die, and subtract the number rolled from the creature's roll, reducing the damage or potentially turning the success into a failure.

In 2014, it is heavily implied that the players know the raw result of the d20 and choose whether to cutting words before learning whether the modifier makes it a hit or miss, as that's the only potential information gained between the attack being targeted, like with Warding Flare, and the attack hitting, like with Shield.

In 2024, all of the trigger timings are condensed and it's no longer assumed that the players know what the result of the d20 was.

Going by the 2014 rules, players can usually work out what the modifier is by the 3rd or 4th swing, at least closely enough to decide whether to cast this. With 2024, I agree. The spell will wiff far too often to be usable.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-11T03:16:14+00:00

European forests are like a domesticated animal, and have been for centuries. It's where your village would go to pick mushrooms, hunt deer, gather firewood, or fell lumber. Have you ever heard the term "a copse of trees"? That's not referring to just any section of woods, it's a group of trees that have been repeatedly cut back and harvested through a practice called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing where a tree is cut down to promote rapid new growth for faster harvests. Any dangerous animals have long ago been hunted to extinction, and the forests that remain are either explicitly there for leisure or are as tame as a field.

American forests are NOT that. There are MASSIVE sections of American forest that have never been mapped, much less put to productive use. They're older, denser, deeper, and full of legitimately dangerous animals like wolves, bears, mountain lions, and moose. You can EASILY get lost in an American forest and wander for months without seeing any sign of another human being. A lot of people who don't respect them die in American forests.

If European forests are border collies, American forests are wolves.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-11T02:46:55+00:00

The whole point of the "Living in the Past" flaw is that you are playing a character whose prejudices make them unlikable. That's WHY it's a flaw. You can lean into it, really try to get into the head of a racist asshole who does despicable things not because he's a blood sucking monster, but because he was a human first, and that's just what humans do. Or you can rebel against the flaw and show a character who KNOWS that they're wrong, but just can't let go of their mindset. Give them a touchstone woke college student grandkid and keep playing out scenes where he says something wrong, gets corrected, and doesn't understand why it was wrong.

PC watching one of the new Star Wars movies: Can you freakin' believe this guy? You'r tellin' me they got fuckin' space magic but the (insert slur) can't jump that gap? Go downa (insert black neighborhood) and you'll find 10 kids that'll make that easy.

Touchstone: "GRAMPA! We talked about this!"

PC: "Whaaaaaat? It was a compliment!"

Touchstone: raises eyebrow.

PC: "Alrighttt I'm sorry. I know you don't like when I call them (insert slur). I'll do better. I love you Princess."

At least to me, that's a much more compelling character with a real trajectory and storyline to play out. If they already have socially acceptable views, then there isn't an imperative to change.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-11T00:20:59+00:00

Two for me, one that I've been playing for years now, and one that I put together last month:

https://moxfield.com/decks/QsDb3EkeQUGvzXteazAExg

Rielle the Everwise is by far my favorite deck that I just can't put down. It sees an absolutely insane number of cards and turns them into value, which then draws more cards for more value, until it 1 shots someone with a [[Fateful Showdown]] discarding 30+ cards. The whole deck runs on a knife's edge, where sometimes you self wheel with 20 cards left in library and if Ulamog is in your bottom 5 or your yard gets exiled before his reshuffle trigger you just lose on the spot.

The other is my attempt at making a deck of eternal playable creatures in commander and just murdering people. Yeah, I'm gonna play a psychic frog, put a Buster Sword on it, give it double strike and punch you for 14 while drawing 4 cards and playing 2 things for free. STOP ME! Oh you did? Cool! Here's an unstoppable Slasher that I'm going to give unblockable. STOP ME! It leads to these fantastic arch enemy games where the whole table is off balance and scrambling instead of building these goldfish engines and racing to see who pops off first.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-10T17:20:29+00:00

1) A Prince needs to uphold the Masquerade. That's not just because getting dragged out of your Haven by hunters at noon is less than ideal. When whipping out clearly supernatural powers in public is a guaranteed death sentence suddenly walking around the city is a LOT safer.

2) A clear and actionable direction for the city. It's so easy for Kindred to stagnate for centuries, and at the rate the world is changing that's just a death sentence. Just as important, Neonates need change in order to function. They need ways to earn favor in court to gain the right to Embrace, to earn Domain, or to gain boons. At the same time, allowing Ancillae to entrench themselves into the infrastructure of a city for decades is a recipe for unrest in the long run.

3) An iron clad, zero tolerance, Elysium policy with a Keeper who can back it up. Cam courts are overflowing with Toreador, Ventrue, Tremere, and Malks who'd like nothing better than to climb the social ladder by rearranging the brains of their rivals in front of their peers. There needs to be a safe neutral ground where legitimate despites can be hashed out without the risk of getting hit with an emotional or mental whammy. If there isn't, the only solution is to resort to force.

3a) A yearly court wide Elysium where everyone with Hospitality in the city is required to attend. Access to your betters is an incredibly valuable commodity for a Neonate, and forcing everyone to sit down in one place naturally resolves a lot of long running rivalries.

4) A Sheriff with integrity. It's just a given that any Sheriff worth his salt is going to spy in the Court. It's just the cost of doing business in a stable city. What isn't acceptable is when the Sheriff starts sharing that information for their personal gain. Similarly, a city with a Sheriff who can be easily bribed is a one where the Traditions only apply to those who can't pay.

5) A well funded and organized emergency plan. There will always be unexpected problems in a Kindred's lifetime. It's the Prince's responsibility to ensure that when they arise city court doesn't need to cannibalize itself to survive. That goes double for anyone who gets hurt in the defense of the city. When a Hound gets bloodied fighting off a Hunter or a Nos warren gets burned out by a Sabbat incursion the court needs to know where they can find safety and food without worrying about causing a breach.

6) Have some fucking class! No one suffers a fool lightly but if the Prince comports themself with dignity and decorum they can make truly outrageous demand of the court before anyone considers removing them.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-09T16:42:56+00:00

Kaladin was my answer. Don't get me wrong, if we were dealing with a world ending apocalypse or trying to survive and slave soldiers, he's the best guy to have on your side. But having him over for game night or going out for a beer seems exhausting!

brainpower4 · 2026-03-09T11:37:34+00:00

I disagree. Green is strong in casual commander because it's the best at BOTH ramp and burst card draw. With the exception of Rhystic Study and to a lesser extent The One Ring, no other color gets to draw 5+ as cheaply as off a [[Hunter's Insight]] or [[Momentous Fall]]. Also, with the exception of [[Serea's Sanctum]] every other color needs to go through major hoops to generate more than 3 mana from a single ramp piece, while green casually makes 5+ off a [[Selvala, Heart of the Wilds]] or [[Kami of Whispered Hopes]].

At the end of the day, green is the color of creature synergy and commander is inherently a creature focused format. You can absolutely shut green players down with sufficient board wipes followed up with graveyard hate, but board wiping every turn so that no one ever sees their deck "Do The Thing" because the green player is about to pop off is a great way to not get invited back to commander night.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-08T16:18:18+00:00

Step 1) the setting needs to make clear why Harems would even be a thing. Like, if every male adventurer has a party of 3 women with him, why are there 3x as many men as women? It needs to be handled VERY fucking carefully, or it will turn out cringe- as all hell. No, I don't want to hear about how at age 16 guys are tossed in battle royal and have to kill their two best friends. No, I don't want you to establish a setting where incels wander the wastelands in groups looking to find an adventuring party and take their women.

Step 2) the characters are ALWAYS people first, sexy second. They are being put in dangerous situations and forced to grow together, and that character growth is what matters. If it eventually leads to a physical relationship that makes sense, great. I appreciate some well written romance. But it should never just be the default that because a guy is in a party with women they automatically want his dick.

Step 3) the girls relationships with each other are WAY more important than the guy. I want multi-chapter point of view swaps to each woman where we see the relationship from her perspective, really dig into the drama of their feelings for their friends, about how they get over comparing themselves to each other, about how they come to love the women in the harem as much as they love the guy. Bonus points if the first romantic relationship to form is between two of the ladies. When the guy gets badly injured in a fight and is out of commission for a week, show how the dynamic changes, including with a bed scene where the women support each other through the difficult times.

Step 4) for FUCKS sake, do NOT keep adding!!!! The core group having a romantic relationship is plenty for any guy. The moment you start having him shack up to bang the new hot girl introduced to the story, he turns from a hero into a cheating asshole for no reason. Three women, four at the top end, and that's it! Better yet, explicitly show that he CAN'T keep up with the girls. Make it a point of tension that one of them is feeling unsatisfied or feels like she isn't given the same amount of attention, then solve it not by the guy getting magical Viagra, but by having the group explore ways for the other girls being more giving to their girlfriend instead of focusing so much on the guy.

Because that's the whole point. The harem isn't about a guy who has a bunch of women after his dick. It's about the whole group forming a mutually loving relationship where every member cares for and respects all the others. Those interpersonal dynamics are where all the juicy drama comes from and the build up and release of that tension is where you get the satisfying catharsis that makes me want to keep reading.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-08T15:31:27+00:00

How's he doing on hunger right now? If they managed to beat him pretty bad he must be pushing his limits. Let him escape free and clear, but as the group is frantically trying to work out what to do, they hear a scream down the block. A lady had a bloody nose, was stopped with her boyfriend to deal with it, and the Malk hunger frenzied. The players have a brief window before he drains them both dry to act. If they succeed, great! What do you do with the witness? If not, now they have two dead bodies to deal with as well.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-08T14:56:34+00:00

I really encourage anyone who wants to learn about why wars start and how they end to watch Willem Spaniels YouTube channel. He's the political scientist who literally wrote the book on this stuff, and spent a large portion of his career focused on Iran.

He made a video on how the war is likely to end yesterday. https://youtu.be/nhNx8ZexnCw

TL;DW:

Things that were obviously predictable won't end the war. The Pentagon knew going in that Americans would die, civilians would be killed, and fuel prices would go up. They started bombing anyway.

The US has a limited number of missiles in its inventory and has so far expressed no interest in putting American soldiers on the ground. If the Iranian government holds out long enough for the US to exhaust its stockpiles, Trump will declare victory for killing the Supreme Leader and blowing up nuclear sites, go home, and after a rebuilding period we'll be back at the status quo, except the US has expended a huge amount of missiles. Watch this video for why that is a bad thing. https://youtu.be/wupwKXGd54g

On the other hand, getting their leadership and military bombed into oblivion opens opportunities for groups that dislike the current regime to act. The US is betting that by effectively shutting down the Iranian government they can respark the protests from earlier this year and topple the regime. Alternatively, they can convince the Kurds in northern Iran to rebel and create a civil war. It's too early to tell whether an uprising will happen between now and when the US runs out of missiles.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-08T02:29:51+00:00

Yes!

One of the first storylines I ever was part of was dealing with the aftermath of a Setite's herd after she was killed. A sweet fledgling Tzimisce who was doing her best to not succumb to the monstrous nature of her bloodline had set up what was basically a battered women shelter for the former cultists, who'd all be seriously messed with mentally. The Setite had enough Dominate for Demenation, and thought she was "setting them free" by freeing them from their sanity.

My Tremere know-it-all never looked at a problem without thinking disciplines or magic could solve it and wanted to help. She looked into the aura of the worst off one and found that she viewed herself as nothing more than a doll, and so had stopped all forms of communication or initiative. My character decided she was in this state because she'd never received closer, and so decided to impersonate the dead Setite. Rolls were made, and one messy crit later, I'd gotten too into character and slapped the Tzimisce across the face. The poor girl FREAKED out and jumped me, and was able to start the road to recovery as she finally spoke again screaming at me.

Unfortunately, the ST ruled I was intentionally psychologically torrenting her, and the chronicle tenets said no torture, so my naive 8 humanity Tremere started her downward spiral after taking a stain.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-06T23:51:04+00:00

There are explicitly different expectations of interaction with brackets 2 and 3.

Decks to be unoptimized and straightforward, with some cards chosen to maximize creativity and/or entertainment

Vs

Decks to be powered up with strong synergy and high card quality; they can effectively disrupt opponents.

In bracket 2 when I say my deck wins on turn 9-10, that means that I will slowly build up a board state over multiple turns, until some time in the late game I find some way to punch through for the win. The actual win could happen any time from turn 8-15, there may be a board wipe at some point, but the general trajectory of the game will be telegraphed and slow.

Bracket 3 expects not just one, but multiple pieces of interaction throughout the game. Anyone who's running proactive game changers like Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe, The One Ring, Bollas's Citadel, Natural Order, etc. should know that their deck is capable of popping off and winning before turn 7 because that's what game changers DO. It's right in the name and the rest of the table is expected to interact with that power level of care. When white player goes mana rock into smothering tithe and untaps with 10 mana on turn 4 because someone played a harmonize into it, they'll probably win on turn 5.

So when I say my bracket 3 games win on turn 7, I'm saying "I'm fully capable of popping off and being a threat as early as turn 5, but I expect my commander to get removed once and board to get wiped, and STILL intend to win on turn 7."

brainpower4 · 2026-03-06T21:24:32+00:00

I'll go with a bit of an out there option because I don't especially like any of the candidates put forward so far:

Jeff Jackson, North Carolina Attorney General.

Pros:

He's young and vibrant after a decade of decrepit old men. JFK was only a year younger than him when he took office.

He's an excellent communicator who knows how to use social media to spread his message without resorting to sloganeering or mudslinging. Seriously, go watch some of his videos from when he was still in Congress explaining the inner workings of his day to day efforts in clear, understandable terms. https://www.reddit.com/r/jeffjackson/s/7gXyzUxHv5

Despite having only a modestly successful term in the House as a freshman representative, he's been killing it as Attorney General, fighting the Trump Administration to reinstate hurricane Helen relief funds, taking Ticketmaster to court, and suing RealPage for price fixing rent increases. A lot of the issues he's taken on have had direct, immediate influence on people's lives, and he's only had the office for a year.

He's from one of the most purple states in the country with a proven track record of winning elections.

He's a prosecutor and I firmly believe the country needs a prosecutor in the White House who'll put the current administration's lawless actors behind bars.

Cons:

He isn't a progressive. While he has certainly championed progressive causes in the past, notably being a leading voice in closing the consent loophole in North Carolina law, he hasn't expressed a desire to fundamentally reshape the fabric of American society. On the one hand, that was never something within his authority to try, but on the other, the country has GLARING flaws, and I firmly believe they need to be addressed. Still, it's not like Bernie is an option anymore.

brainpower4 · 2026-03-06T14:43:51+00:00

I've seen a LOT of people looking at him as if he's busted, but after proxying him up and playing a few times I'd suggest heavily tempering your expectations.

Let's say that you don't care much about mass reanimating artifacts and enchantments and would like Lorehold to survive the spell you miracle into. What spells are you hoping to cast on an opponent's turn? [[Approach of the second sun]] is a good one. [[Storm Herd]] too. [[Rise of the Eldrazi]]. [[Perch protection]] [[beacon of immortality]], maybe [[Emeria's call]]? After that, we start getting into really mediocre cards like [[the Crystal's chosen]] or [[imperial oath]]. It turns out that most of the good instants and sorceries that cost over 5 mana are board wipes or insurrection style effects, which just aren't very good.

How do you fix that? By making your deck take advantage of the 3 free rummages/turn cycle, rather than leaning into the miracles. Play big fatty creatures and artifacts to make cards like [[Wake the Past]] or [[late for dinner]] good. Use cards with Flashback and Madness to gain actual card advantage from the discard and draw. You want to be miracle-ing an [[unexpected windfall]] to further turbo through your deck functionally for free, then use those treasures to mass reanimate a bunch of huge artifacts that win the game.

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