/cofd/&/wodg/ Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness General

>oWoD shit in the OP

Thread ruined

>>47565839
I just can't get behind endless, grimdark bullshit.
Shit's still horrible and the supernatural world is full of crap that wants to eat you alive.
But really, it could be oh so very much worse, the world isn't realy THAT bad, and not everyone in it's a total shitcunt.

>>47565839

I usually end up playing/running kind of a sample platter because my group's heavily character-focused.

The events intended to sing to a character's strengths feel more upbeat and thrilling while the ones that prey on their weaknesses or challenge their morals end up feeling more grey and horrific.

I don't really consider it tone whiplash, but maybe I'm broken, idk.

Why is everyone getting so salty when Mage's rules get picked apart?

>>47565882
>trying to start shit again

Back to whatever shit-heap you crawled out of.

>>47565921
Because they know OPP/WW can't into rules, and don't want it pointed out.

>>47565946
But OPP/WW has been getting really good at rules lately. CofD is really well written and Mage 2e is a rules masterpiece.

>>47565921
I would imagine mostly because many of us expected it to be far weaker than 1e, and while there's a lot less bullshit with regards to spending 3 days casting a gigantic ritual, and the most horrible abuses are flagrant breaches of Wisdom, there's still a lot of broken crap.

I'm going to run a demon game (hopefully) soon. It's going to focus on the players investigating this black market that has been selling and installing gadgets to people, in a kind of underground cybernetics business. It is clearly backed by demons somehow, but it is bringing a lot of unwanted God machine attention to the area, which is interfering with their agencies plans.
Anyway, what I need help with is ideas for good implanted gadgets/cybernetics for them to have been selling, and why people would buy them.

>>47566029

Maybe you should buy a cybernetic life lol

>>47565958

I withholding judgment on just how much of a rules "masterpiece" Mage 2e really is until the incorporation of the errata in the final PDF and publication of the desperately needed FAQ.

I'm cognizant of the fact that a free-form magic system and limited page space will inevitably lead to some questions, ambiguities and complaints, but they still no doubt exist in ample proportion in the advance PDF. How Dave resolves these issues will ultimately be determinative of whether Mage 2e meets or exceeds the multi-year hype.

>>47565965
All the "broken crap" is just idiots who aren't reading the rules and don't have a good ST to slap them down.

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>>47565882

>>47566147

I'm a mage, I can do whatever the fuck I want

>>47566173
Not with a good ST.

Is all the whining about "B-B-But Mage isn't broken, it's just filthy ROLLplayers who don't have the mindset for Mage!" all Aspel?

>>47566147
This. cWoD or CofD, players need limits. I have two optimisers at my table and my job is basically to say "no" to them.

>>47565921
Because the complaints are dumb complaints that no ST would ever allow and are only supported by a spurious reading of the rules. They're by and large not actual picking apart.
Much as with 1e, it's usually people not understanding how things work.

>>47565839
I run my games in a GrimLight sort of way. Everything is shit and the world is terrible. But you've got allies and you've got convictions, and if you stand your ground and keep your friends from falling apart, you might just make the world a little less dark.

Essentially I try to go for Dresden Files. Most of my jokes and humour are references and shout outs in my narration. I like slipping Beatles lyrics into my dialogue.

>>47566197
Mage is broken. That's the point. But "Fate can do this because I misread this part of the book" is not true. Also if you think it's just one person, you're an idiot.

>tfw still no word back on my freelancer submission

>>47566243
>misread
kek

>>47565921
because some people think balance is important and some people don't give a shit and they will never agree

>>47565882
seriously
whiny owod sjws have to get their way or they just shit up everything

>>47566225
Aspel please go.

>>47566243
>i never looked up 'blessing' in the dictionary: the post

Not even Touhoufag. You're wrong.

>>47566370
>owod
>sjws

How are these things compatible at all?

>>47565839
I tend towards the realistic, in the case of almost everything. As least, as long as there's a way for me to ground a situation in reality, I'll try to do so.

I also slip in references here and there, to shit I've watched in the past or am watching as I run the game. Most recently, I had a time-travelling robot that I was going to have leave scorch marks on the floor at the spot he arrived, as a reference to Terminator. I forgot to mention, it, though, so the reference was entirely him arriving completely naked and killing someone for clothes.

>>47565882
That art is great.

>>47566558
Shitposting. Also some people are really invested into their pet cause and tend to ruin everything for everyone.

>>47566630
>pointing out shitty rules is trolling
Lemme guess, we should all bow down to our lord and savior Onyx Path? Their writers can do no wrong.

>>47566762

No, our lord and savior is DaveB may he reign in komodos for all eternity

>>47566762
No, but trying to warp the rule to something thats does no work then thats trolling.

>>47566558
>How are these things compatible at all?

What was considered "SJW" of the 1990's is not the same today.

For instance, the exoticism prevalent in the cWOD, wherein "inclusion" and "diversity" were demonstrated by rank stereotyping and token minorities (and anti-science, government and corporate views), was de rigueur among the progressives and the left during the period of the publication of most of the books.

On a broader and comparative level, consider how the somewhat heavy-handed cyberpunk ideas and perspectives of the 80's and 90's have evolved to the transhumanism and post-humanism of the 00's and 10's.

>>47566804

DaveB, ʿalayhi as-salām

>>47566481
We're not reluctant to admit things. Half the comments of this type have been met with "so? Good job, you turned someone into a baby and murdered them, good for you". Almost every real argument for how the system has been broken is met with, at best, people being told that it's not as easy as they think, and much like many things you can do with magic, there's probably an easier way that is less time consuming.

The rules for Creative Thaumaturgy do not allow for any Arcanum to do anything. That's why people are annoyed. Because no matter how much of an explanation that the book spells out what blessings are, no matter how much pointing out why in one specific case the Arcanum allows "manipulation of brain chemistry", that's all ignored in favour of drawing ridiculous conclusions that are clearly not RAI and a really sketchy reading of RAW. Specific Arcana can raise specific Attributes. Matter can raise Durability. Death can raise the Attributes of a Ghost, Spirit can raise the Attributes of a Spirit, and Mind can raise both human and Goetia Attributes. Life can raise a living creature's Attributes. Fate could raise the Attributes of a Moira or maybe a True Fae or hobgoblin or Huntsman. It cannot raise a human being's attributes. "B-but the dictionary definition of blessing!" doesn't matter.

There's also a failing to understand what the mechanics represent, and ignoring that because of what they represent, they are not all encompassing. If you run through 400 scenarios through prophetic visions and none of them end in success, guess what? You don't succeed. It's not an instant removal of Doors, it's learning the right solution. The one solution that is sure to succeed might also not even be a solution that you *want* to try in the first place.

>>47567219
None of this addresses how you can use Fate to negatively impact a human's body with blindness and shit. That Fate can negatively impact someone's physicality means it can positively impact it, too. It's bidirectional; you can't have one without the other in this game.

If they didn't mean "blessings" in the normal (see: dictionary) sense of the word, they should have used another word entirely, or at the very least capitalized it and gave it a special definition in their lexicon. They didn't. So we go by the dictionary definition. Deal with it.

>>47567219
Im assuming your Aspel right? Since I know your also a Mage fan I got a question for ya.
Would Death be used instead of Life to heal and boost the physical attributes of vampires and mummies?
I know it pretty straight forward but I wanted someone elses opinion on it.

>>47567305
You could be blinded by blood or sand geting in your eyes. Or a bad fall can snap your spine in such a way to make you unable to walk for a little while. Neither of these have control of the body and can be done by fate.

>>47567341
Then you can be "smarter" because you keep getting lucky guesses. QED.

>>47567356

That's boosting an Intelligence roll, yes. Not boosting Intelligence.

>>47567356
That would be done with a blessing by boosting you dice pool for intelligence. You know like how the books tells you.

>>47567305
>a beneficial thing for which one is grateful; something that brings well-being.
You can give dictionary-definition blessings with Fate. That's what Boons are, generally.
You cannot give someone another sort of blessing unless you're doing a conjunctive spell. Wanna make someone stronger? Fate+Life. Or, hell, just Life; Fate would make it conditional, such as 'as long as they're working to help me'.

Making someone blind and all the other things you can do with Fate is directly manipulating probability to make those things more likely to happen indirectly.
Fate does not literally strike you blind. Fate makes a random synapse in your brain misfire and short out your eyes, or a bottle of acid tip over and splash in your face, or a few grains of sand fly into your eyes and scratch your corneas, purely by manipulating the odds.
There is no way for someone to become stronger by chance alone.
There are ways to, by chance, do something that would require you to be stronger normally, and that's what adding a bonus to Athletics(or Brawl, or any other skill) gives you.

>>47567356
That'd be a Boon that boosts Academics/Science-based rolls, or Intelligence if your ST allows it.
Not a straight-up extra dot in Intelligence.

>Hunter: The Vigil is a game that can be played by anyone, anywhere, regardless of how they identify, or where they live. This was the intent for the first edition, back when it debuted in 2008, this is true for all Onyx Path games, and it’s even more true now — especially given the fact that we have the technology to instantly deliver this game to fans around the globe. Even more exciting, is the fact that we have the means to hire a stellar team and conduct better research than we have before, too, so we can avoid problems or cultural inaccuracies as best we can that interfere with your ability to play Hunter.
>To me, this means that the material in this 200,000 word corebook must reflect the experiences of diverse writers who can write, with authority, about their experiences.
>the [writer] I want to hear from will tell me she’s the daughter of an Italian immigrant, she’s well-versed in Italian culture, she has performed a lot of analysis and research for her projects, and she writes a lot of alternate history

Hunter fluff confirmed fucked edition. God, I hope the mechanics are smooth. Does anyone know what else "Monica Valentine" has done for OPP or WW?

How does /tg/ feel about "mass games" for WoD/CoD like Fallcoast or Wanton Wicked?

>What tone do you run your games with? Do you go with the "no good deed" attitude that some would agree CofD/WoD are all about? Or do you try to make things more light-hearted, or realistic?

I literally wrote a superhero legacy in the last thread. I think you can figure it out.

That sort of leads to a few more questions: how would the various supernatural splats respond to someone publicly declaring themselves a superhero, and going around using their superpowers in an obvious fashion?

Let's say that they're claiming to be an alien from the planet Xenon (a name that they'll claim to be a loose translation into our language), and that they possess powers of contact telekinesis and biokinesis as a result. In actuality, they're an Obrimos mage with a Superhero-themed Legacy with Life and Forces-themed Attainments that give them obvious superpowers - and remember, Attainments aren't spells, so Sleepers can remember you using them (and if it's publicly known that you're a superhero with non-magical superpowers, then it's entirely possible for Sleepers who see you using actual spells to rationalize them away by saying "He's a superhero; he's using his superpowers").

>>47567305
You act like games aren't always using real world terms for specific game terms. And Fate can positively impact someone's body, through Conditions and Tilts (like Informed, or bonuses to rolls), or through directly increasing dice pools in the form of a "luck bonus". You're also ignoring that as >>47567341 points out, these are literally not happening in a white room. In fact, Fate cannot function properly in a closed system without intricate moving parts to effect. The dictionary definition of "blessing" also does not mention boosting Attribute dots. What with that being a specific Chronicles of Darkness mechanic, like the Fate Arcanum. If you've ever played Uncharted or the Tomb Raider reboot (or really seen Indiana Jones), you've seen Fate bonuses at work to increase their Athletics and allow them to jump, cause something to fall, and make it so that it forms another bridge or ledge for them.

>>47567319
I am. That's very much in "take it up with your ST" territory. The Theory, Practice, and Crossover sidebar on page 91 spells it out in regards to Mage Sight, but just hearing Dave talk, he's very much of the "Crossover is whatever works for you" school of thought, especially in regards to a corebook. Personally, there are three ways:
>Death can be used exactly as Life
Simplest, but also kind of the most boring
>Death can be used to heal Vampires if you have Life
One of those "Add X Arcanum: Additional effect" type things. I'd say Life 2.
>Life can be used to heal Vampires if you have Death
Same thing as above, but with Death as the side effect.

For some reason Exorcist's Eye and Channel Essence and Ephemeral Shield and so on can do Ghosts and Goetia as a default, but the only Death spell that's like that is Exorcism adding Goetia with Mind 1. Honestly I'd allow them all to be cast exactly the same as different Arcanum with a different focus as the primary.

>>47567434
>abloobloo
She wrote for Mortal Remains

>>47567469
They're shitty and cliquish.

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Fate and Time are probably the most useful of the Arcana in Mage 2e judging from the sheer flexibility, effectiveness, and, in some cases, irresistibility of their example spells (e.g. Fate 1's Serendipity with a Rote, Fate 2's Exceptional Luck with a Rote/Praxis, Fate 2's Shifting the Odds, Fate 4's Chaos Mastery, Fate 4's Strings of Fate, all of the Time 1 sample spells, Time 2's Choose the Thread, Time 3's Shifting Sands for literal time travel, Time 3's Temporal Summoning, Time 4's Present as Past, Time 4's Prophecy, Time 4's Temporal Stutter when combined with Space 2 for teleporting across the world) and the literal history-rewriting of Temporal Sympathy. Path Acanthus is probably the "golden child" of Mage 2e.

Mind and Space are good runner-ups thanks to their own standout spells (e.g. Mind 1's Know Nature, Mind 2's Incognito Presence, Mind 2's Psychic Domination, Mind 3's Augment Mind, Mind 3's Gain Skill, Mind 4's Psychic Projection, Space 1's Correspondence, Space 1's The Outward and Inward Eye, Space 2's Break Boundaries, Space 2's Scrying, Space 3's Ban, Space 3's Co-Location for teleporting across the world). Mastigos mages are clearly in second place.


Right now, I would like to focus on Mind. What can a 0 XP mage with Mind 3, Gnosis 3, a single Skill at 5 (under a relevant Rote specialty) do with a Augment Mind Rote, without resorting to any infinite loops?

They spend their three free Reaches on Advanced Duration, Advanced Potency, and the ability to split up the bonus from Augment Mind. Since the primary factor of Augment Mind is Potency, it starts off at Potency 3.

Gnosis 3 and Mind 3 give them a base dice pool of 6. They can spend Willpower to increase this to 9; do not worry, because Willpower is easy enough for a mage to replenish by scoring exceptional successes on Praxis spells.

>>47565921
In many cases, a Mage that focuses on something will tend to be better at it than a different splat that also focuses on it while also being more versatile. It's literally just sour grapes.

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>>47567535

They spend three turns deploying a Mudra Yantra (+6), a Mantra Yantra (+2), and an Order/Path Tool Yantra (+1), then take a -10 penalty to raise Potency to 8, a -4 penalty for a week-long duration, and a -2 penalty to change the area to "a small room." Their final dice pool is 2.

Thus, over the course of the hour-long ritual casting, they have a roughly 50/50 chance of succeeding at the spell. Good odds. The mage in question is absolutely sure to gather as much of their friends, allies, retainers, and so on into the small room.

Once the spell inevitably succeeds, the mage has granted all recipients of the spell a +4 increase to two Mental or Social Attributes, not to exceed their natural Attribute maximum. This can turn a character from a Wits 1, Resolve 1, ADD-addled mess into a Wits 5, Resolve 5 paragon of mental acuity! This lasts for an entire week, and the spell has a total of Withstand 5 to resist dispelling.

A day later, the mage can try again with another casting of Augment Mind with the same parameters, affecting another two Mental or Social Attributes. This works out just fine under the spell stacking rules, because those rules concern multiple spells affecting the same aspect of a character (in the example given, trying to stack Strength increases). As long as the two instances of Augment Mind affect four different Attributes, it should work fine.

It is possible for a mage to start off with Intelligence 5, Wits 1, Resolve 1, Presence 1, Manipulation 1, Composure 5 and then max that out into Intelligence 5, Wits 5, Resolve 5, Presence 5, Manipulation 5, Composure 5. Best of all, the mage gets to bring friends who benefit from the same buff!

Remember that this is consuming two out of three of a Gnosis 3 mage's spell control slots.

It is also possible for a 0 XP mage to Mind 3's Gain Skill as a Rote to perform Elder Scrolls-style loops of becoming progressively better at a Skill they have a Rote for, though this can be quite Mana-intensive.

>>47567469
They're shitshows - 70% of the venue will revolve around cybersex, always, no matter the site or the policies, the girls are mostly divas, the guys are mostly embarrassing, and the four good roleplayers will generally be crushed out to irrelevant venue-corner concepts by the two effective powergamers and the entire list of people cybering the ST.

Also, the venue will constantly die out and be forcibly returned to a mockery of life every 3-12 months, no exceptions ever. You live and die on your ability to verbally fellate the ST into staying active, because managing those goddamn abominations is an inhuman nightmare even the depths of the average ST's layered primadonna/OCD mashup will not allow them to weather indefinitely.

One out of every two players will be mentally ill enough to complicate OOC interactions and the other player will be at best just too weird to maintain a normal social life.

It requires either a lot of interest in lewds, an almost complete comfort with alienation and isolation, or else a very aggressive social Darwinist playstyle where you treat other players like NPCs both in and out of character and the ST as a metagame puzzle you need to keep solving for good results. Everyone else burns out or fades into the grim purgatory of lobby ghosts, endlessly thinking about 'going IC' (they don't) and mumbling incomprehensible mundaneities about their work or their kids or the spouse they don't know does daily locked-room scenes with ~Changeling ST~ TentaclesBlackman or some shit.

But it's a good whiteroom to test out setting-wrecker concepts, PVP builds, or other once-and-done experiments you won't be attached to.

There ARE good people and good games to be had, but it's like how if you try REALLY hard, you actually can cup a little bit of smoke in your hands - for a moment. If you can make real friends or start a club anywhere IRL by any means, do that instead.

>>47567502

Vampires would orchestrate a smear campaign do belittle, denounce, and disprove of the superhero. All the while trying to find a way to use the hero to their advantage.

Werewolves would belive the hero is some sort of claimed attempting to generate massive amout of essences for its court and hunt the superhero down.

Changelings would belive that it's either some True Fae plot or creatures that escaped from the hedge. The response would be to hide from it either way.

Prometheans would do the same thing as always. Try to apply the superhero to becoming human. Either by exploring whats not human are finding out what exemplify humanity.

Hunters would investigate if it's truly an alien or not. But more prominently Division Six would be tasked to hunt them down, while Task Force Valkyire would do as the vampires would above.

Sin-Eaters would not care, and maybe use the hero as an chance to their powers more openly.

Mummies would question what is a super hero. Then run after a sacred urn.

Demons would try to determine if its a God Machine plot, and upon finding out its not try to use it as s massive distraction or tool to fight the God Machine.

Mages would send the Guardian of the Vail to capture the Hero. Use the astral to turn the people against him and most likely attempt to execute him.

>>47567533

Bit more than that: http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Monica_Valentinelli

She's also one of the GenCon Industry Insider Guests. Either way, Hunter was a pretty diverse splat to begin with, so I don't really see any red flags there. I'm a little worried that Vigil might lose a bit of its blue collar feel, but that has nothing to do with diversity and everything to do with modern day urban fantasy trends.

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>>47567219
>>47567305
>>47567341
>>47567386

The Fate arcanum can also render someone spontaneously Insane, Informed, Inspired, or Steadfast.

The first two purview elements of Fate are "blessings" and "hexes." As I have elaborated on in >>47552635, Fate can grant blessings and hexes, but it can bless people in ways other than granting one of the listed boons (exactly what Forge Destiny does), and it can hex people in ways outside of the listed hexes (Chaos Mastery goes well outside of the realm of the listed hexes).

Fate 5's Forge Destiny can confer Supernatural Merits like Biokinesis and Psychokinesis onto a mortal. If that is not a direct manipulation of bodies and minds, I do not know what is.

>>47567533
Mortal Remains tells me nothing, unfortunately. Big combined project, lots of names. I guess if she wasn't good they wouldn't have handed her Hunter; I can understand how Matt got Beast given how long he'd been around but I figure she can't be benefitting from the same "yeah okay fine just don't fuck it up and make it about spiritual rapists who only traumatize bad people OH SHIT MATT COME ON" effect.

>>47567502
>how would the various supernatural splats respond to someone publicly declaring themselves a superhero, and going around using their superpowers in an obvious fashion?

>Vampires
Fucker's breaking the masquerade, gank him!
>Werewolf
Nobody's actually gonna remember shit anyways, because Lunacy
>Mage
Free Council would love it, Guardians would hate it, Arrow might be okay with it

>Demon
Well, that's just asking for the God-Machine to nuke the city.

>>47567569
Congratulations, you read the book.

>>47567671
Forge Destiny and Chaos Mastery are not Boons or Hexes.
Supernatural Merits are, as the name implies, Supernatural. They don't come from your body or mind, they come from your soul. Hence why, when a Sleeper gains such a merit, they also cast out the piece of the Abyss that resides in their soul.

>>47567569
Expect the part where the spell effects an area not targets. So once they leave the room they lose the benefit of the spell.
Also its rather sad to replay to yourself. The only thing I have found useful from you are the pictures, could you just idk, leave.

>>47567569
>They spend three turns deploying a Mudra Yantra (+6), a Mantra Yantra (+2), and an Order/Path Tool Yantra (+1), then take a -10 penalty to raise Potency to 8, a -4 penalty for a week-long duration, and a -2 penalty to change the area to "a small room." Their final dice pool is 2.

No, their final dice pool is 18, because they have one dot of Fate, they know Quantum Flux as a Rote, and they cast it a couple times at Instant Speed beforehand, with each additional casting negating bigger penalties and allowing it to be recast at a higher Potency each time, until they get a Potency 10 monster and can negate all the penalties your actual Mind spell possesses.

>>47567671
My God your a broken record. We have told you why repeatedly why those effect happen and why its not directly life or mind. Fuck off.

>>47567655
The part where she's openly admitting to hiring practices based on diversity of viewpoint. Ideally that combines and does not overwrite talent, but realistically that passion for diversity tends to see depth in shallow ponds and turn aside from familiar lakes. I'm all for "more accurate cultural portrayals" but that shouldn't be important enough to take center stage, that stuff just comes up in the Storytelling chapter primarily, with some touches elsewhere. You don't need a lesbian on staff to include a lesbian reference in a couple examples. You don't need someone born in Tibet to have a throwaway monster that collects bowls of meteoric iron in which it traps the souls of those who have lost their mortal attachments.

I don't at all mind liberal/feminist inclusion and objectives in Chronicles of Darkness, but they really, really, really should not be front seat ahead of strong system designers and strong writers in general. Truth of the industry is that most of those are white guys, and truth of the consumer is that while everyone else getting experience is great, I'm happy for them to do so slowly - rounding out casting calls, rather than being focal above their actual skill - if it means not compromising the quality of my elfgames.

>>47567674

UNKNOWN ARMIES 3rd Edition
GHOULS & REVENANTS, Vampire: the Masquerade
DARK ERAS, Hunter: the Vigil “Doubting Souls”
DARK ERAS II, Geist: Sin Eaters “Forboding Lands”
Robert E. Howard’s CONAN RPG
CODEX INFERNUS
WORLD OF DARKNESS: GOTHIC ICONS
SKAA TIN AND ASH, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn RPG supplement
Crafty Games GHOSTS IN THE BLACK, Firefly RPG Supplement
SMUGGLER’S GUIDE TO THE RIM, Firefly RPG Supplement
DREAD NAMES: RED LIST, Vampire: the Masquerade
THINGS DON’T GO SMOOTH, Firefly RPG Supplement
CROSSROADS DRIFTERS, Geist Ready Made Characters
ECHOES OF WAR: THRILLIN’ HEROICS, Firefly RPG supplement
BUCKING THE TIGER, Firefly RPG Episode
MORTAL REMAINS, Hunter: the Vigil supplement
FIREFLY RPG COREBOOK
FREEDOM FLYER, Firefly RPG Episode
FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES, Firefly RPG Episode
SHOOTING FISH, Firefly RPG Episode
WEDDING PLANNERS CORTEX PLUS, Firefly RPG Episode
SERENITY CREW, Firefly RPG Characters
WEDDING PLANNERS CORTEX CLASSIC, Firefly RPG
GAMING IN THE ‘VERSE: GenCon 2013 Exclusive, Firefly RPG Preview
SCION: EXTRAS (Supplemental Yet Can Be Useful On Occasional Scions)
War Echoes (Miniatures Game)
FALLING SCALES PART II
RIMWARD
STRANGE, DEAD LOVE for Vampire: the Requiem
INSTANT ANTAGONIST: THE CREEPY COTTONTAIL
SCENES OF THE EMBRACE
THE DEVIL’S NIGHT: Storytelling Adventure System (SAS) One Scene
EXQUISITE REPLICAS
ALETHEIA
NOUMENON
CURSED EMPIRE: Warrior-Priest Class Book
NINJA BURGER 2nd Edition (Editor)
ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN: Worlds of the Dead
OBSIDIAN: the Age of Judgment LARP Quickstart

>>47567569
you can only ever get a +5 from all yantras combined.

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>>47567744

>Forge Destiny and Chaos Mastery are not Boons or Hexes.
Of course not. They still operate under the purview elements of "blessings" and "hexes."

>>47567747

>Expect the part where the spell effects an area not targets.

Page 113 says: "If using Area of Effect for Scale, the factor instead determines how large the area covered by the spell is, applying the spell effect to anyone or anything within."

This should allow the spell to buff everyone within the area. Alternatively, the mage could instead take a -2 penalty to increase the number of subjects to two anyway.

>>47567752

This is also a good idea. I should have included Quantum Flux in my list of outstanding good Fate spells earlier. That brings the list to: Fate 1's Quantum Flux, Fate 1's Serendipity with a Rote, Fate 2's Exceptional Luck with a Rote/Praxis, Fate 2's Shifting the Odds, Fate 4's Chaos Mastery, Fate 4's Strings of Fate.

>>47567801
You can get a max of +5 from Yantras *after penalties*.
He's getting +9 from Yantras, then taking -16, which offsets the Yantra bonus completely.

>>47567777

Except immediately after that paragraph there's an example about how it's not enough to just say, "I'm a woman, plz hire me, Onyx Path." She's looking for folks with life experiences and academic knowledge they can bring to Hunter, and if they're from backgrounds that aren't common in the industry, that's even better.

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>>47567801

Page 119 tells us: "after offsetting any penalties, the maximum bonus from all her Yantras combined cannot exceed +5 dice."

Thus, you can gain as high a bonus from Yantras as you can muster, so long as you take enough penalties from spell factors to bring the bonus down to +5 or below.

>>47567801
Thats after off setting penalties. What I don't understand is how it got a skill above 5.

>>47567836
As I said when they leave the area they lose it.

Im pretty sure this is >>47567752 (you)

>>47567555
I LIKE Mage. I don't like people implying that Mages are capable of things that they're not. A Fate Mage is ridiculously powerful, and you shouldn't cross them unless you want a frozen turkey to crush your skull. But they can't give you bonuses to Strength. That is not a thing they can do within the standard Practices.

>>47567569
>It is also possible for a 0 XP mage to Mind 3's Gain Skill as a Rote to perform Elder Scrolls-style loops of becoming progressively better at a Skill they have a Rote for, though this can be quite Mana-intensive.
No, it is not. That literally does not function the way that you think that it does. Most of what you say doesn't function the way that you think it does. More than that, no ST would ever allow it in the first place, so it honestly doesn't matter whether "b-but the book says".

>>47567589
>All of that and you don't mention the cliques that will OOC collaborate to fuck anyone's shit that gets in their way.
Moderated chat games are PVP shitholes where the only people who talk about ICA=ICC are the people who do whatever they can out of character to avoid in character consequences.

>>47567655
Well, one of the things she brought up was the Union as a global thing, so I doubt it'll lose it's blue collar feel.

>>47567883
>What I don't understand is how it got a skill above 5.

If a Rote's mudra falls within your Order, you get a +1 bonus, a la 1e's rote specialties.

>>47567777
Oh no, someone wants diversity. It's been explained in previous threads that diversity is not antynomous with merit. In fact, diversity can be a merit in and of itself. The example that Monica herself gave was someone who knows a lot about Italian culture. We get that you think that you can totes write the lesbian experience. Chances are, you cannot, and it would be cringey, just like 99% of the other times a heterosexual male writes a lesbian character. Even beyond that, she says "if you don't think you're diverse enough, send it in anyway and even if you're not what I'm looking for for Hunter, you're still in the slush pile". The notion that she's ONLY looking for black queer women is ridiculous, considering one of her stated goals is to make Hunter more global.

That you can't understand what differing voices can add to a project--and that you think "differing voices" simply means "no white dudes"--is a flaw with you, not anyone else.

Plus, let's be honest, white dudes write everything else.

>>47567898
Ok thanks

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>>47567752

The more that I think about it, the more Quantum Flux essentially allows a mage to cast spells of arbitrarily high Potency, Duration, and Scale.

Quantum Flux alone is a game-breaker for any mage.

>>47567883

>As I said when they leave the area they lose it.
Have you any rules source on this?

>>47567894

>No, it is not. That literally does not function the way that you think that it does. Most of what you say doesn't function the way that you think it does.
What makes it not function in such a way? Doing such a thing is fully RAW, as far as I can tell.

>>47567894

All mages should never be crossed because we are the most powerful

>>47567881
>>47567856
I'm not sure what the distinction is between "after offsetting penalties" and "can only give you a maximum of +5" that's really confusing.

>>47567927
Fuck off, Hippy. The reason the term diversity sets people off is due to the fact that it is so widely abused for dodgy bullshit.

>>47567940
This is literally not a game that can be constrained to RAW, for one. But beyond that, yes, they are only affected when they're in the area, it's an area of effect spell. Beyond that, you can't just fucking loop shit.

>>47567964
Order of operations. You subtract before adding Yantra bonuses.
I mean, it's the same either way, but hopefully that helps explain it. It can never be more than +5 at the final tally. It could be a total Yantra bonus of +10, but if you've got -5 in penalties, you're fine.

>>47567982
And people who bitch about it widely do so because they don't want diversity, regardless of who's best for the job.

>>47567982
it's more because you're a whiny sjw baby

>>47567982

Lmao fuck off shitlord, your race is doomed

>>47567964
Basically it just means that after all your penalties, the max amount of bonus dice you can get to a spell from Yantras is 5.

So, EG, if you have a 5-dot rote skill, and you take 5 ritual durations, and stack up any other yantras you can get you hands on to get a total max cap of +14(+9 Yantra from Rote+Persona, +5 Ritual) at Gnosis 1, you can then take 4 dice of spell factor penalties to lower your Yantra bonus down to just a +4

I'm not sure if the bonus from extended rituals counts as a Yantra bonus or not. Probably not.

>>47567883
>Thats after off setting penalties. What I don't understand is how it got a skill above 5.

Magically boosted skills, maxed skill with order rote bonus, and gnosis 6+ are all possible reasons.

>>47568008
You should be talking to this person. >>47567994

>>47567994
Sooooo.... just from reading my statement, you've determined that I "don't want diversity, regardless of who's best for the job."

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>>47567994

>But beyond that, yes, they are only affected when they're in the area, it's an area of effect spell.
I could still use a rules citation for this. All I can find myself is: "If using Area of Effect for Scale, the factor instead determines how large the area covered by the spell is, applying the spell effect to anyone or anything within."

>Beyond that, you can't just fucking loop shit.
There seems to be little stopping such a thing. Quantum Flux is perfectly loopable to enable spells that would otherwise have penalties in the literal hundreds.

>>47567964
Basically, you cast a spell with a +10 modifier to Potency, incurring a -20 modifier to the dice roll.

Due to horrendous bullshit you have +26 Yantra dice.
This offsets the -20, leaving +6, which is limited to +5.

>>47568049
>Sooooo.... just from reading my statement, you've determined that I "don't want diversity, regardless of who's best for the job."
Just because Monica's you've decided that she's "only gonna hire you if you're some weirdo, your qualifications don't matter, homeless illiterate trannies please apply"

>>47568076
>the factor instead determines how large the area covered by the spell is, applying the spell effect to anyone or anything within."

That IS the citation.

Once you leave the area, you're no longer inside the spell, and thus no longer have the spell effect applied to you.

>>47567927
> It's been explained in previous threads that diversity is not antynomous with meri

Wow, and I even acknowledged that! Can we dump the snark now? Thanks. I am not anti-diversity. I am merely voicing a concern that the very pro-diversity crowd tend to be shit at selecting for talent because they get all worked up over seeing an exotic last name and imagining the beautiful halfbreed children they could write fanfics about. I guess that's still snarky, sorry. People very excited about

>you can totes write the lesbian experience

I DO think it's breathtakingly narcissistic to imagine your life experience is so special it can't be captured routinely by decent writers, of which there is an ever-increasing number, but let's put that aside and cede to the idea that there is something about lesbians a straight woman will just never be able to put on a page convincingly the way she can men, firefighters, and talking cats. Okay? Lesbians are unwritable at length.

Fine.

Why the fuck is the lesbian experience happening in Hunter?! THIS is the game-devouring escalation I fear. An NPC or two who are lesbians, a few lesbians in the example italics, ditto for a bunch of cross-sections (including whites and straights and guys, I don't need them to have any kind of primacy, fuck, I don't even care if they're the new minority). No one's EXPERIENCE should be appearing anywhere except maybe in the chapter fiction, and EVEN THEN background to the game-showcasing subject matter, like, I don't know, BEING A HUNTER.

>the notion that she's ONLY looking

I fucking hate you. You're not even reading any of this, are you? You identified a negative reaction and shat yourself. I don't have any such notion, but whatever, I also don't have to buy if the leak doesn't look good.

>white dudes write everything else

They really don't. Jenna Moran is as close to a one-name industry titan as you get, and she is not alone. Writing is pretty equal opportunity ALREADY.

>>47567964
Well you determine all your penalties first for casting the spell.
So lets say a Gnosis 1 Force 3 mage wants to use Gravitic Supremacy at potency 6.
At base his dice pool for the spell is 4 (1G+3F) and each potency cost a -2, so thats a -12 to the dice pool.
From here his dice pool is at -8, so now lets add yantras.
So lets say he uses high speach for +2, and he has the spell as a rote for +4. Bring his dice pool to -2 now with a expenditure of willpower it brought up to 1.

Thats a general run down of spell casting. If yantras only gave a total of +5 then this spell would be at a chance die. I hope this helps.

>>47568094
Jesus fuck, 'teej. Your shit is weak.

You made a rdiculous blanket statement. I merely reminded you as to why that term freaks people out: Because it's often used as a cover for batshit insane identity politics.

For the record, I think Valentinelli actually understands the proper use of the term. Not because I've "decided that she's "only gonna hire you if you're some weirdo, your qualifications don't matter, homeless illiterate trannies please apply" You really should wait for a hundred posts or so before you try and put words in someone's mouth.

t.guy who baits /pol/ into apoplectic fits for fun.

>>47568132
>You made a rdiculous blanket statement.
that wasn't me, I was just pointing out that you whining about not being given a fair chance because of your skin color is whiny
>I merely reminded you as to why that term freaks people out: Because it's often used as a cover for batshit insane identity politics.
then you're going to have to get some extra diapers, because you're going to keep being freaked out

>>47568049
I've determined that you seem to think that diversity is not a positive.

>>47568114
You're voicing a concern that's stupid.

>I DO think it's breathtakingly narcissistic to imagine your life experience is so special it can't be captured routinely by decent writers, of which there is an ever-increasing number, but let's put that aside and cede to the idea that there is something about lesbians a straight woman will just never be able to put on a page convincingly the way she can men, firefighters, and talking cats. Okay? Lesbians are unwritable at length.
Do you not understand what the adage "write what you know" means? Or why so many characters in novels are also writers? It's not that lesbians are somehow different than firefighters and men and so on (talking cats are fictional and therefore everyone is on even ground, that's a stupid example). It's that 99% of all writers cannot write outside of what they have experienced or have intimate knowledge of.

Yes, I would very much prefer the person who is Italian and has Italian heritage and Italian family members to be writing about the Lucifuge over some guy who can write really pretty prose but gets all of his information off of Wikipedia.

>You identified a negative reaction and shat yourself
Dude, you or others have repeatedly acted like there's some "whities need not apply" warning on the submit button.

>>47568132
It freaks people out because people are fucking stupid whiny dumbasses. Normal people don't see "diversity" and start flipping their shit thinking that white people are banned.

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>>47568076
If you even bother to read the spell it only applies to mundane instant action. Spell to not benefit. I even highlighted it for you sence it so hard for you to read the book.

>>47568114
Responding to my own post to note that apparently there are a bunch of "fuck diversity lol" people, so they can go get fucked too. My stance is that neither the beauty of the Aryan white woman not vanishing from the earth nor the wonderful rainbow of new and exciting breeds of exotic lewd are important.

Only the fidelity of my elfgames. Monica's casting call does not give me confidence that she values elfgames above hiring and providing a (bizarre, unhelpful, reverse-effect if it turns out badly) platform for oppressed minorities to speak. OPP is already incredibly supportive, and it needs talent to survive. Extraordinary talent, because of its extraordinary industry circumstances and position. Monica doesn't win if Paradox decides OPP is an embarrassment and has Dracula Whiteguy fold their ideas into expansions for his new new old World of Darkness.

>>47568194
The bonus from aiming an action only applies to mundane instant actions. The penalty-negation applies to everything.

>>47568177
>that wasn't me, I was just pointing out that you whining about not being given a fair chance because of your skin color is whiny

That wasn't me either.

>>47568187
>I've determined that you seem to think that diversity is not a positive.

Wow, you're dense. Did you not notice the implication of that in the statement "I think valentinelli is using the term correctly"

>It freaks people out because people are fucking stupid whiny dumbasses. Normal people don't see "diversity" and start flipping their shit thinking that white people are banned.

No, they just roll their eyes.

>>47568222
>No, they just roll their eyes.
You're clearly flipping your shit. You've been whining about this for hours, and you've been whining about similar subjects for days.

>>47568217
Your full of shit and you know it. Their is no such thing as an extended action for aiming. That last sentience is referring the entire spell not just the aiming part.

>>47568234
That's not me either. I'm also not the person that's convinced that they can tell who someone is on an anonymous Cambodian stamp collection database.

>>47568254
>That's not me either. I'm also not the person that's convinced that they can tell who someone is on an anonymous Cambodian stamp collection database.
You seem to have some self esteem issues. Did your boyfriend break up with you?

>>47568268
Is that really the best that you can do?

>>47568187
>Do you not understand what the adage "write what you know" means?

Was Tolkien an elf? Is Jenna Moran a Primordial? Mary Shelley, was she a mad scientist perchance? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - detective or nah? Was Shirley Jackson a paranormal investigator?

Write ANYTHING is the correct adage. Sure, doing your homework helps, but you can absolutely capture the essence of someone else's experience - or invent an essence for an experience no one has had - even if you're quintessential white guy Shakespeare.

>I would very much prefer Italian over talent

You see what I fucking mean, now you're just saying it openly. Italians! Italians are not fucking racially qualified to write anything, let alone the Lucifuge! What about the Lucifuge requires or improves based on authenticity, it's one INDIVIDUAL fucking woman in Milan and an entire covenant of children of the Devil! We should be talking to tieflings, not Italians, they don't know shit that's useful.

>you or others
It's others. If you're responding to one of my posts, try actually fucking reading it and not KNEEJERKING, but given that shallow surface impressions seem to be how you personally work, maybe that's impossible. Maybe you're illiterate, and that's why you think "write what you know" applies to personal experiences and not OBSERVATIONS (the traditional use) in the first place and is not a stupid adage in the second place because we are talking about an entire genre that COULD NOT EXIST if everyone wrote what they know, INCLUDING by observation.

>>47568214
Diversity increases the fidelity of your elfgames.
>>47568222
You or not, clearly there are people flipping their shit and I'm getting tired of hearing "woah is me, I can't write for Hunter because I'm white!"

>>47568278
Just trying to get to the heart of your problem, bro. You've been acting out for days now. Is it because your application to write hasn't been accepted?

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>>47568097

That is but one possible reading of how an area spell would function. Little prevents it from resolving in the "buff a cluster of people" fashion.

>>47568194
>>47568247

Quantum Flux is divided into two separate functions. The second function applies only to mundane instanct actions. The first function has no such restriction.

Let us see just how absurd Quantum Flux can get with a mage with Gnosis 3, Fate 1, a Rote for Quantum Flux, a singe Skill at 5, and a relevant Rote specialty.

Quantum Flux with a rote has five free Reaches. One is spent for instant action casting, and the other four are spent on sensory range, Advanced Potency, Advanced Duration, and Advanced Scale, because the mage may as well be considerate and buff their friends while they are working.

Taking a -8 penalty to improve the Potency of Quantum Flux to 5, the mage has a dice pool of Gnosis 3 + Fate 1 + Mudra Yantra 6 - spell factor 8, for a total of 2 dice, roughly a 51% chance of success.

On a success, for one hour, the mage can negate -5 of penalties to their next four actions within the next scene/hour. This does affect spellcasting rolls; the "mundane instant actions only" restriction applies only to the other function of Quantum Flux.

With this in mind, the mage now recasts Quantum Flux with the same Reaches, taking a -14 penalty (offset to -9) to improve the Potency to 8. The mage has a dice pool of only 1, for a 30% chance of success, but they can keep retrying. Once they inevitably succeed a success, the mage now has a new Potency 8; the mage then dismisses the old casting of Quantum Flux.

The mage now casts Quantum Flux yet again, taking a -16 penalty (offset to -8) to improve the Potency to 9. The mage has a dice pool of 2, enough to succeed after a few tries. Once the new Potency 9 Quantum Flux is up, the mage dismisses the old Quantum Flux.

It goes on.

>>47568298
>You or not, clearly there are people flipping their shit and I'm getting tired of hearing "woah is me, I can't write for Hunter because I'm white!"

Then why are you taking it out on me?

Writing classes, rule discussion and Touhou, this general has everything.

>>47568305
>acting out for days

That's impossible. I'm the shovelhead ST from last thread. This is my second oWoD general.

As for your accusations? Did you ever wonder if maybe this is why you guys make people cagey? So far, I've been accused me of having a bad breakup with my boyfriend and that I'm a bitter, rejected writer looking for a scapegoat based upon no evidence. That's /pol/ tier.

>>47568330
don't forget that at least two of the "social justice at all costs" posters are probably known traps with cute butts that they wiggle in their computer chairs when they get worked up and angry

speaking of, is monica valentine a trap? that's a very trap name. is she cute? rose bailey is not cute but she is fucking amazing. if monica cannot be amazing she should at least be cute

>>47566197
I mean, I am of that opinion, but I haven't actually posted it in any prior thread so maybe it is just Aspel.

I've had a lot of discussions with my local group over this shit and the general consensus we reached is that it's better that Fate and Time be OP than Fate and Mind from 1e. Because both Fate and Time tend to be part of the same Mages repertoire, and the same method of GM-side control can be used for both where previously it only worked for Fate:

You either use your arcanum's spells only as narratively appropriate (IE Forge Destiny only to make 1-5 heroes for a specific purpose, despite it being ludicrously useful for other stuff), or you gain the ire of the Wyrd itself and end up in a Final Destination style deathspiral.

Such as for instance, you use Exceptional Luck provide Charmed so you can survive falling out of a plane, but you hit a bird on your way to the ground.

And messing with timelines excessively and frivolously, well, good luck not creating a horrible butterfly dystopia for yourself.

>>47568360
Now you're just shifting blame.

You don't have to hide who you are, you don't have to be ashamed of your posts. Even if people disagree with them they're still your beliefs.

>>47568291
>Was Tolkien an elf?
What part of "when people are on even ground, it makes for a shitty argument" do you not understand? Tolkien wasn't an elf, but he did fight in the war, and he did research Britain's history. Mary Shelley also did research. Arthur Conan Doyle did research.
All of those were also exceptional writers. When you get people writing about shit that they don't know, you end up with oWoD's cartoonish parody of foreign culture.

>What about the Italian Catholic Hunter group based in Milan would benefit from someone having first hand knowledge of Italian Catholic cultural traditions or what Milan is like!
If you think the people who live in a different country and speak a different language and have a different culture aren't more qualified to write about that country, language, and culture...

Also, have you ever even written? Do you actually know how to write? Because one of the biggest reasons for "write what you know" is to, yes, get people to learn, but also to discourage people from writing about things that they have no actual knowledge about. That's how you get Kindred of the East, that's how you get Saturday Night Fever (which has little to do with actual disco), hell, that's how you get Shakespeare's ridiculous depictions of Denmark and Verona. There's currently a 7th Sea thread all about how John Wick's depictions of Fake!Italy and Fake!Spain are cringey.

Also, "write what you know" does not mean never write about elves. If you want to get all "you must be illiterate", I've already explained to you, twice now, and yesterday, why arguing from absurdism like "but what about writing about cats and werewolves!" is not at all relevant.

>>47568360
You have joind are general at a bad time. But how are is your plans for your "recruits" chronicles? Need anymore ideas?

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>>47568368

>>47568377
Hmmm... no, sorry. Still not that guy. Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, your beliefs are unpopular and people find you a bit obsessed?

>>47568377
Hi, different guy, you haven't (I don't think) been responding to me, I wrote three long posts in this general including the one that started things off. This is my first time posting in like a week and a half. Someone is definitely conflating me with the people writing the shorter posts, who are probably also not all the same person. This is why going specific on anon is retarded. You're retarded.

>>47568315
Because you're defending it? Again, normal people don't flip their shit about this. They don't suddenly gird their loins that all the characters will be polyromantic pansexual hijra. Although a covenant of transgender Indian prostitutes would probably be cool.

>>47568368
>known traps with cute butts
I wish!

>>47568393
Have you considered that maybe they don't care and they're just trying to piss you off?

>everyone's first time posters
>go instantly to shitposting
well you're at least not new to 4chan

oh shit that's right, its summerfag time

>>47568393
When you feel comfortable, you can tell us. /tg/ is love.

>>47568440
What the hell is summerfag time? I joined 4chan during winter, so I honestly have no clue what your talking about.

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>>47568308

Let us continue this Quantum Flux loop.

The mage now has a Potency 9 Quantum Flux. The mage casts Quantum Flux once more, taking a -18 penalty (offset to -9) to upgrade the Potency to 10. With a dice pool of 1, the mage can still try again and again, until they succeed and throw up a Potency 10 Quantum Flux. The old Quantum Flux is dismissed.

Unfortunately, this is as high as we can go with merely Gnosis 3 and Fate 1, at least not without resorting to Willpower and/or chance die rolls. With higher ratings in those, however, the mage could very well push Quantum Flux even further!

... However, with Fate 2's Exceptional Luck and a Rote for that spell, we can push this to even higher heights, because Exceptional Luck can grant bonuses to spellcasting rolls. The chain becomes much more complex then, but I am sure the results will be quite spectacular.

>>47568380
>exceptional writers
>did research

Points I acknowledged! So you ARE illiterate,

>Italian Catholic Hunter group

They're not Italian. They're based in Milan because the single, individual head of the Lucifuge is there, not because they have any connection to Italian culture outside of her. And she's just one woman (and a daughter of a demon) so you don't need an Italian to write her, you just need to not fuck up SO badly that she can't fit within the entire spectrum of Italian culture. In the core book, her lore is going to be, what, half a page aggregate? If that? It's a Tier 3 global conspiracy, not a fucking new wave of 1900s immigration.

They're not really Catholic, but they're definitely more Catholic than they are Italian. Catholicism wasn't mentioned in the casting call, though - why was the racial thing that they are NOT mentioned and not the religious thing that they are a LITTLE?

They're children of the Devil who hunt demons and struggle not to become like them. They're elves, first and foremost, and everything else is just background tinging. You need Tolkien, not an authentic Italian. An authentic Italian adds nothing but their last name to the Lucifuge.

>have you ever written

All your favorite books. Yes, of course.

>one of the biggest reasons for "write what you know" is to, yes, get people to learn, but also to discourage people from writing about things that they have no actual knowledge about

Honestly, this is just a lie. It's a crutch for novice writers and a drug for shitty writers. Nothing more, no greater implication.

>yesterday

I wasn't here. Fucking god. Just assume every post you respond to is a new anon if you have to, you're making an idiot out of yourself trying to develop a tapestry out of a very short thread.

>>47568438
You're the one flipping your shit here.

remember?
>t. Guy who baits /pol/ into apoplectic fits for fun

>>47568383
Yeah, I know. Two thirds of it is two guys arguing about how badly they can stretch a power in Awakening.

Anyway, the PC's were a mass embrace on October 30th. They regained consciousness after they were used to hit an objective and are being transferred back in a van. That van was hit and rolled by a muscle car and the drivers (a pair of sabbat flunkies.) Were killed by the occupants of said muscle car.

The players handled them because vampires soak up bullets.

Now they've retreated to the redneck's house up in the San Gabriels where they learned the importance of sun-proofing!

If they put their heads together, they can figure out that they're now vampires. Additionally, they have some items from the objective that they hit in their possession and they were able to see a road sign on their way to the mass embrace. Which of these they choose to pursue will determine whether their first interaction will be with the camarilla or the sabbat.

>>47568368
Hot

>>47568391
unf. okay.

she can stay

>>47568383
It's now the morning of November 1st. And the Sabbat have noticed that that van load of shovelheads were never brought home for their first Palla Grande.

>“I’m going to be reviewing submissions over the next 60-90 days or so. I’d give yourself a month to apply, but I wouldn’t sit on this until Labor Day. Thanks!”

Don't think you've been rejected just because you're white and haven't gotten a response yet.

>>47568542
>They're not Italian
Well clearly Monica wants to make them more Italian, in which case people who've at least been to Italy will be more beneficial than a fucking wiki page!

>Just assume every post you respond to is a new anon if you have to
I don't usually say this, but lurk more.

>>47568542
>They're not Italian. They're based in Milan because the single, individual head of the Lucifuge is there, not because they have any connection to Italian culture outside of her. And she's just one woman (and a daughter of a demon) so you don't need an Italian to write her, you just need to not fuck up SO badly that she can't fit within the entire spectrum of Italian culture. In the core book, her lore is going to be, what, half a page aggregate? If that? It's a Tier 3 global conspiracy, not a fucking new wave of 1900s immigration.
They've been using people who have actually lived in areas to write the locations in each core book. This is because the oWoD writers didn't do that and the resulting books are stupid.

I wouldn't hire someone to write the Lucifuge just because they were Italian, but I would hire someone in Italy or experience there to write the City of Milan section.

So if you've traveled extensively, or lived all over the world, you've got a leg up (at least for writing locations). They've been relying on military for a lot of this so far.

>>47568628
Yeah, it's kind of obvious that even if the Lucifuge thing was just an example, the diversity they want isn't just "not white". They want people who can actually write shit that's not a theme park. If someone has strong Italian heritage or even just a love of Italy, then that means Milan (or any other city outside of this one example) is more likely to show up in the book's section on places to set your game. There's also the fact that the Lucifuge didn't have much in 1e, but that doesn't mean they won't in 2e.

And the Lucifuge are really just an example. I can think of several others. Like "I have experience with real world unions". Or "I'm actually a content creator on Youtube". Or "my family are all Presbyterian". Or "my grandfather was a nazi".

I love spaghetti, can I write Hunter?

>>47568308
>>47568484
>The magic casting dice pool is modified by Yantras and spell factors. The penalties to spellcasting can exceed the normal –5 penalty cap to dice pools. In cases where the penalty would reduce the dice pool beyond 0 — and thereby a chance die — by an additional –5 even after including bonuses from Yantras, the spell is too complex for the mage to cast and it automatically fails.(Page 111)

You can't roll a chance die to cast a spell if you're at a total pool of -6 or less. Each time you fail, you take a -1 to the next attempt.
You cannot attempt a spell ad infinitum until it succeeds.

>>47568739
Yes you can shut up! Don't shut down theorycrafting, it's totally viable in a real game!

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>>47568739
>>47568755

Please read the posts you are quoting. At no point is a chance die ever rolled.

>In cases where the penalty would reduce the dice pool beyond 0

The dice pool in the examples above is always at least 1.

>>47568869
And when they fail--as rolls with a 30% chance of succeeding do 70% of the time--they're at a -1 for the next attempt, and you're out an hour of your time.

>>47568869
>Please read the posts you are quoting. At no point is a chance die ever rolled.
>With this in mind, the mage now recasts Quantum Flux with the same Reaches, taking a -14 penalty (offset to -9) to improve the Potency to 8. The mage has a dice pool of only 1
this wouldn't work (-9 doesn't allow for casting) and that dice pool of 1 is a chance die in your situation

you also did the math wrong, the mudra yantra bonus can't get above 5

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>>47568967

This is not how successive attempts work in Chronicles of Darkness.

>Successive Attempts: When you fail a roll, you may be able to try again. If time is not an issue and your character is under no pressure to perform, you may make successive attempts with your full dice pool. In the far more likely situation that time is short and the situation is tense, each subsequent attempt has a cumulative one-die penalty — so the third time a character tries to break down the door that’s keeping her inside a burning building, her roll has a two- die penalty. Successive attempts do not apply to extended actions.

As long as time is not short and the situation is not tense, you can retry at no penalty. In fact, if there is no tension...

>When to Roll Dice
>For many actions, you don’t need to roll dice. If your character isn’t in a stressful situation — nobody’s actively trying to tear his throat open, or demolish the building as he works — you don’t need to roll.

You could very well automatically succeed.

>>47568968

>In cases where the penalty would reduce the dice pool beyond 0 — and thereby a chance die — by an additional –5 even after including bonuses from Yantras, the spell is too complex for the mage to cast and it automatically fails.(Page 111)

The dice pool is *not* being reduced to 0, let alone -5.

The dice pool is being reduced to 1 or 2, which is most certainly not a chance die.

>you also did the math wrong, the mudra yantra bonus can't get above 5

With 5 dots in a Skill and a Rote specialty, it can.

>>47568869
Please read the post you are quoting.
>Each time you fail, you take a -1 to the next attempt.
As >>47568967 said. After the 6th attempt, you can't attempt to cast it anymore, that scene.

>>47568968
He has a dice pool of 10. -9 reduces him to 1.
The Mudra bonus can go above 5, to a max of 6 until Gnosis 6+. As was said earlier in the thread, the +5 limit to Yantra bonuses is specifically AFTER penalties. -9 is what he's left with, after penalties. Far below +5.

>>47569023
Considering you're doing the math for rolling, it's assumed you're doing this in a situation where you're under pressure, otherwise you just flat out aren't going to roll. In such a perfectly white-room scenario, why bother? It's not like you need to offset penalties, anyways.(See: Down & Dirty Casting)


Again, congratulations. You've figured out that, in a white-room scenario, where you have the time to do things and the luxury to not have to worry about any problems with it at all, you can do some pretty insane shit.
It's too bad that's absolutely never going to come up in a game.

>>47569023
>This is not how successive attempts work in Chronicles of Darkness.
That is literally what I just said. You fail and the next roll is at -1. Dave himself has said this always applies with Magic.

>>47569023
>With 5 dots in a Skill and a Rote specialty, it can.
No, it caps out at 5. Mudra doesn't get you past that. You can still cast QF the first time with 1 die (that isn't a chance die).
But your second spell has a penalty of -9 that brings you to a chance die.

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So has anyone here actually used Cult shit?

after GMC (arguably mummy) cults seemed to pop out everywhere but I don't think I've heard anyone talk about their particular cult or cult stories.

>>47569089
Nothing in the book says Mudras are special in that they can't go above 5. Look at the text for Yantras, fuccboi.
>after offsetting any penalties, the maximum bonus from all her Yantras combined cannot exceed +5 dice.

>>47569107
I had a player in my Demon game take the Cultists merit at 2 dots. He only got to use it once before he had to drop out of the game, sadly.

>>47569086
>When you fail a roll, you may be able to try again. If time is not an issue and your character is under no pressure to perform, you may make successive attempts with your full dice pool.

You're not casting it in combat, and you're not under any pressure. You're just casting a some spells as a part of your morning routine. After the first time, your GM probably won't even be asking you to roll; you'll just be assumed to have cast your Potency 10/1 day duration Quantum Flux spell (the last spell adds another couple Yantra to counteract the penalty from adding a point in Duration if you don't have Fate 2+ to make it increase automatically).

>>47569132
Taking -10 in Spell Factor penalties does not count as "not under pressure". That is the equivalent of attempting a large and difficult project. When you are rolling a single die, that counts as pressure. That is not something that you can reasonably handwave.

>>47569107
The Mystery Cult merit's really strong, so I've definitely made characters with ranks in it. It's really useful for making up unique martial arts schools; you can use it to distinguish Wu Tang Blade Style from Iron Dragon Sword Style.

>>47569178
>Taking -10 in Spell Factor penalties does not count as "not under pressure".
Is the fate of the world at stake? Is someone shooting at you? Are people relying on you to cast this particular spell? No, of course not. You're sitting in your house, meditating and relaxing while your cabal has breakfast in the morning.

This is why 2hou should be banned.

>>47569067
>>Each time you fail, you take a -1 to the next attempt.
Literally not in the rules.

>>47569202
You're not meditating and relaxing. You're taking a -10 penalty to something. You are by definition undertaking a difficult task. That is what a -10 penalty represents. It is not within your easy to achieve potential. It is a difficult, time consuming, potentially dangerous effort. One that at minimum takes an hour's worth of complicated spell work. If you're going to argue that you aren't under pressure, then we're so far outside of theorycrafting and white room wankery that you're into magical Christmas tree land.

>>47569225
Technically Adslahnit is permabanned. Three times, if I recall.

>>47569241
Yes it does, and the developer has confirmed as such.

>>47565839
Wtf is Chronicles of Darkness?

>>47569192
>Wu Tang Blade style
Is your cults goal to understand the mystery of chessboxing?

>>47569258
>One that at minimum takes an hour's worth of complicated spell work.
Unless you spend a Reach to cast it as an Instant spell, which of course you did, since you're casting a Rote of a 1-dot spell and you get five free Reaches.

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>>47569067

>>Each time you fail, you take a -1 to the next attempt.
Cumulative one-die penalties apply only in the event "that time is short and the situation is tense." This is in the core Chronicles of Darkness rules.

>The Mudra bonus can go above 5, to a max of 6 until Gnosis 6+. As was said earlier in the thread, the +5 limit to Yantra bonuses is specifically AFTER penalties. -9 is what he's left with, after penalties. Far below +5.
The rule in question is, "In cases where the penalty would reduce the dice pool beyond 0 — and thereby a chance die — by an additional –5 even after including bonuses from Yantras, the spell is too complex for the mage to cast and it automatically fails." At no point is the dice pool being reduced beyond 0.

>You've figured out that, in a white-room scenario, where you have the time to do things and the luxury to not have to worry about any problems with it at all
Each casting takes an instant action. This takes three seconds. This is not a long time at all.

>>47569089

Nowhere is it stated that a Mudra Yantra caps out at +5.

>But your second spell has a penalty of -9 that brings you to a chance die.
1 die is not a chance die.

>>47569286
http://theonyxpath.com/announcing-chronicles-of-darkness/

White Wolf got sold again and (New) World of Darkness had to have a name change so that the new corporate overlords could keep the (old) World of Darkness name.

>>47569313
>>47569308
Spellcasting doesn't count. You roll it. You fail, you take a -1. This is Word of God.

Doesn't matter if it's an hour or a turn.

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>>47569258

>You're taking a -10 penalty to something. You are by definition undertaking a difficult task.

You are also taking only three seconds to do so each time, and offsetting the penalties using the spell itself.

>>47569340
>Spellcasting doesn't count. You roll it. You fail, you take a -1. This is Word of God.

>Doesn't matter if it's an hour or a turn.
A rule that isn't in the book or the official errata is simply a houserule, nothing more.

>>47569300
Taoist Wuxia martial artists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudang_Sect

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>>47569374
You're missing on a great opportunity here friend

>>47569354
That is not how it works.
>>47569362
Doing something that no ST will allow doesn't matter.

If you were gonna make a Dark Eras style book except each chapter is a city/location in the modern age, which would you choose for each splat?

Mine:
>Vampire: Melbourne
>Werewolf: Kathmandu
>Mage: Edinburgh
>Geist: Seoul
>Changeling: Las Vegas
>Hunter: Johannesburg
>Promethean: the Trans-Siberian Railroad
>Beast: Nuuk
>Demon: Phoenix
>Mummy: Lima

>>47569389
Wikipedia says that they named themselves after the martial arts movies that some of the original members of the group enjoyed watching together.

>>47569396
Not arguing which came first.
Just an optional "cult" for a lighthearted game.

>>47569393
I'd actually do Demon in Las Vegas, with a bunch of casinos being God-Machine infrastructure. Have the Demons organize an Oceans' Eleven.

>>47569340
Oooooh. Ok. Thanks.

>>47569445
that's not a bad idea actually. maybe a crossover...

My DM got us thinking

In a world where vampires exist and are overwhelmingly violent murdering sociopaths, why does nobody in 1st world countries note multiple people dying of complete blood loss every night? That'd be extremely bizarre to discover during an autopsy.

>>47569536
Because vampire society is completely built around keeping vampires from being violent murdering sociopaths.

>>47569552
Unless you are in the Circle of the Crone.

>>47569552
...U wot m8?

>>47569536
Read the core book.
People notice, but due to the various Supernatural faction's coverups, and the fact that people geuinly don't want to know, it's still a "secret".

>>47569536
There's a great, tiny little throwaway line in Hunter that mentions a pathologist who joins Null Mysteriis after deducing that vampires MUST be real based on the way that bloodborne illnesses spread. I love it a lot and it's stuck with me for some weird reason.

>>47569586
>>47569604
>What are the Traditions?
Even the Crone abides by them. They are not, actually, murderous unrestrained sociopaths who kill violently and at every opportunity.

>>47569536
Most vampires don't kill people, and humans grossly outnumber them. Those who do kill people usually cover it up.

>>47569393

Vampire gets Rome, because of its absurdly long histor and importance to the Kindred, its the power base of the Sanctified, and its absolutely crawling with powerful hunters.

Werewolf gets Hong Kong, where Renown takes the form of guanxi and local packs tend to either look like bloodthirsty triads or bloodthirsty corporations.

Mummy would get Istanbul if Demon hadn't already called dibs on it and if Dark Eras hadn't somehow wiped out all of its Arisen, so instead we either go with Alexandria (continuous occupation for a good 2500 years, actually in fucking Egypt) or Tangier (thriving Mediterranean port city renowned for eccentrics and artifact salesmen).

Demon screams for a London setting, due to it being the most surveilled city in the world and with all the fun you get out of MI5, MI6, GCHQ, and a legacy of spies dating back hundreds of years.

>>47569739
Rome already had its whole own splatbook, wouldn't it be better with something new for Vamps?

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>>47569739
Hay Atamajaki here something for you.

>>47569779

I think there's merit in seeing how the city is 2,000 years later, don't you?

Vampires = shit

Worst splat

>>47569859
Your opinion doesn't matter.

>>47569814
Oh, for the "fire a male figure out of clay and then smash it" part. The part about Sympathy wasn't really necessary. And it's not like you couldn't just link Many Faces.

>>47569819
Oh, yeah, my bad, missed the modern era. Carry on.

>>47569859
>one of the only games that remembers to be about personal horror
>shit

Yeah, nah.

>>47569923
It's far from the only

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https://vindae.tumblr.com/post/145298175000/the-whipping-boys

Tell me what you think. I still need a Fifth Attainment. I'm not entirely sold on my own way of doing the Initiation or Session mechanics, either, but I hadn't realized at first that the Dream merit was no longer rolled, so a bonus to it wasn't really viable.

>>47570220
>Image
Yare yare daze.

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>>47570243
I didn't actually realize that was a FemmeJojo.

>>47570220
>>47570316
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puFKPPftM5g

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Quantum Flux (Fate 1) and Exceptional Luck (Fate 2) are confirmed to create an infinite loop, thereby allowing a 0 XP mage who can reduce penalties by X and gain a X bonus to rolls that matter, where X is an arbitrarily high number. This costs 0 Willpower and 0 Mana.

Chronicles of Darkness, page 31: "When you fail a roll, you may be able to try again. If time is not an issue and your character is under no pressure to perform, you may make successive attempts with your full dice pool. In the far more likely situation that time is short and the situation is tense, each subsequent attempt has a cumulative one-die penalty — so the third time a character tries to break down the door that’s keeping her inside a burning building, her roll has a two- die penalty. Successive attempts do not apply to extended actions."

Mage: The Awakening 2e, page 111: "The magic casting dice pool is modified by Yantras and spell factors. The penalties to spellcasting can exceed the normal –5 penalty cap to dice pools. In cases where the penalty would reduce the dice pool beyond 0 — and thereby a chance die — by an additional –5 even after including bonuses from Yantras, the spell is too complex for the mage to cast and it automatically fails."

We have ourselves a mage (any Path will do) with Gnosis 3, Fate 3, Order Status 1, and a single Skill of an Order Rote specialty at 5.

We have rotes for Quantum Flux (Fate 1) and Exceptional Luck (Fate 2).

Step #1: Use three turns to cast Quantum Flux, with Mantra (+2), Mudra (+6), and Dedicated Tool (+1) Yantras. Spend a Reach for instant action spellcasting, a Reach for Advanced Duration, a Reach for Advanced Potency, a Reach to switch the primary factor to Potency, and a fifth Reach on whatever pleases you.
We take a -14 penalty for +7 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 1 (a regular die, not a chance die), enough to succeed given a few attempts. Average of 9 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 10 Quantum Flux.

>>47570824
We were all aware the first time, you can stop now.

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>>47570824

Step #2: Use three turns to cast Exceptional Luck, with Mantra (+2), Mudra (+6), and Dedicated Tool (+1) Yantras. Spend a Reach for instant action spellcasting, a Reach for Advanced Duration, and two Reaches to affect spellcasting.
We take a -24 penalty (offset to -14) for +12 Potency. Final dice pool 1. Average of 9 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 15 Exceptional Luck, granting a +15 bonus to our next 15 spellcasting rolls within the hour.

Step #3: Use three turns to cast Quantum Flux again.
We take a -38 penalty (offset to -28) for +19 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 2. Average of 6 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 22 Quantum Flux. Dismiss the Potency 10 Quantum Flux.

Step #4: Use three turns to cast Exceptional Luck again.
We take a -50 penalty (offset to -28) for +25 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 2. Average of 6 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 28 Exceptional Luck. Dismiss the Potency 15 Exceptional Luck.

Step #5: Use three turns to cast Quantum Flux again.
We take a -64 penalty (offset to -42) for +32 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 1. Average of 9 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 35 Quantum Flux. Dismiss the Potency 22 Quantum Flux.

Step #6: Use three turns to cast Exceptional Luck again.
We take a -76 penalty (offset to -41) for +38 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 2. Average of 6 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 41 Exceptional Luck. Dismiss the Potency 28 Exceptional Luck.

Step #7: Use three turns to cast Quantum Flux again.
We take a -90 penalty (offset to -55) for +45 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 1. Average of 9 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 48 Quantum Flux. Dismiss the Potency 35 Quantum Flux.

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>>47570840

Quantum Loop alone is *not* an Infinite Loop. Under this setup, it is.

>>47570845

Step #8: Use three turns to cast Exceptional Luck again.
We take a -102 penalty (offset to -54) for +51 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 2. Average of 9 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 54 Exceptional Luck. Dismiss the Potency 48 Exceptional Luck.

This is an infinite loop. It keeps going.

>>47570824

You realize that you gain additional Paradox die for each spell cast per scene, yes?

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>>47570940

None of the actions undertaken in the sequence above actually incur any Paradox dice, because they are not extending past the free Reaches granted by the Rotes.

>>47565394
>>47565494
Social maneuvering and doors don't work like that. You can only use them to make people do things they could reasonably be persuaded to do.
Quoting from rules:
>It is not always possible to get someone to do what you
>want. For instance, no amount of social maneuvering is going
>to convince the chief of police in a large city to hold a press
>conference and admit to murder, even if the player has a dice
>pool impressive enough to make it happen.

>>47570851
>This is an infinite loop. It keeps going.
Why would you want to do it though? How long is that Potency going to last once you stop juggling the spells?

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>>47571009

In other words, as long as there is any chance of them being convinced through mundane weapons, Present as Past or Prophecy can immediately open all doors with no chance of resistance.

Either the person in question is completely impossible to mundanely convince, or they can fold to a single irresistible casting of Present as Past or Prophecy. That is how the RAW on Social maneuvering and those spells currently work.

... eh, okay. I'll make Quantum Flux not work on spells.

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>>47571191

There is still a non-infinite loop possible with Exceptional Luck for spellcasting.

Step #1: Use three turns to cast Exceptional Luck, with Mantra (+2), Mudra (+6), and Dedicated Tool (+1) Yantras. Spend a Reach for instant action spellcasting, a Reach for Advanced Duration, and two Reaches to affect spellcasting.
We take a -14 penalty for +7 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 1 (a regular die, not a chance die), enough to succeed given a few attempts. Average of 9 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 10 Exceptional Luck.

Step #2: Use three turns to cast Exceptional Luck again.
We take a -24 penalty for +12 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 1. Average of 9 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 15 Exceptional Luck.

Step #3: Use three turns to cast Exceptional Luck again.
We take a -28 penalty for +14 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 2. Average of 6 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 17 Exceptional Luck.

Step #4: Use three turns to cast Exceptional Luck again.
We take a -30 penalty for +15 Potency. Our final dice pool should be 1. Average of 9 turns to succeed.
This results in a Potency 18 Exceptional Luck.

You can now have a +18 bonus to your next 18 spellcasting rolls within the next hour.

The Fate Arcanum's author should have thought this through further. As it currently stands, Fate is superior to Forces for actually devastating an area, and it is also superior to Prime for making oneself better at spellcasting (particularly since Fate makes it *much* easier to score exceptional successes, which can regenerate Mana).

A mage with Fate comes dangerously close to obsoleting an Obrimos.

>>47571191
Thank fucking God (you).

>>47570220
So, how does someone who only Doms get initiated into the Legacy? Do they have to try to "break" an existing member during and S&M session?

>>47571447
I would imagine you can't.
The Whipping Boys are all about being the person who IS whipped, and finding a special state of mind in the afterglow.

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>>47571380

Additionally, you may wish to cast Exceptional Luck again, and spend a Reach for instant action spellcasting, a Reach for Advanced Duration, and two Reaches to affect spellcasting.

Choose to gain the Steadfast Condition (because, you know, the Fate Arcanum can manipulate your brain chemistry so that you become more resolute, or something like that).

>STEADFAST
>Your character is confident and resolved. When you’ve failed a roll, you may choose to resolve this Condition to instead treat the action as if you’d rolled a single success. If the roll is a chance die, you may choose to resolve this Condition and roll a single regular die instead.
>Resolution: Your character’s confidence carries him through and the worst is avoided; the Condition is resolved as described above.
>Beat: n/a

This way, you can safely push your dice pool down to -5, default to a chance die, turn that into a regular die, and safely attempt the spell as needed.

A mage with Fate is *recursively* good in this game.

>>47571053
Like that scene at the end of the Worm web serial, where the antagonist used his precog to figure out the most efficient way to defeat a major hero, and proceeds to say four words, in order to get him to commit suicide.

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Moving away from the trio of Fate, Time, and Mind, let us have a look at one of Space's standout spells.

>Ban (Space •••)
>Practice: Weaving
>Primary Factor: Duration
>Suggested Rote Skills: Intimidation, Science, Stealth

>By means of this spell, the mage inverts an area of space, such that nothing inside the space can get out and nothing outside the space can get in. Try to step in and you find yourself on the far side, carried in a single step. Try to get out and you’re just stepping right back in again. Magic that manipulates space, like a teleportation power or the ability to step from one world to another, provokes a Clash of Wills to allow ingress or egress.

>Even light and air can’t pass through: From the outside, the space appears to “lens” as the observer approaches it, as light jumps directly across the Ban. From inside, it’s an island of light in a vast sea of darkness.

>Add Any Arcanum ••: Either exclude one or more phenomena under the Arcanum’s purview from the spell (for example, to let air or light through) or create a Ban that only prohibits phenomena under that Arcanum’s purview.

>Since We Know You’re Thinking It…
>The average adult human being at rest consumes about one cubic foot of breathable air every four minutes. Have fun.

A 0 XP mage with Ban and Space 3 can spend a Reach on instant action casting, a Reach on sensory range, a Reach on Advanced Duration, take a -2 penalty to increase the Advanced Duration to a whole day, and take a -2 penalty to increase the area to a small room. (They will most likely have plenty of dice to assure a success even with that penalty.)

The mage can then trap a small room's worth of living enemies in what amounts to a D&D 3.5-style Forcecage. Unless they can cross worlds (provoking a Clash of Wills) or dispel Awakened magic, they will inevitably run out of air and perish. If they happen to be undead, at least the mage has them under lockdown.

There is no Withstand against this.

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>>47571053
>>47571727

>mundane weapons

I meant to type "mundane methods." I am not sure how that was corrupted into "mundane weapons."

If there is even the slightest chance, however unlikely, that the target could be mundanely persuaded to do something, Present as Past or Prophecy will take care of it in a jiffy with no Withstand rating.

This creates a profoundly unsavory scenario for the ST.

Yup. that one's working entirely as intended.

So's the exceptional luck loop (with the caveat - a big one - that magic does, in fact, have the penalty for repeat tries).

And the Ban one. The Ban one's fine.

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>>47571857

>with the caveat - a big one - that magic does, in fact, have the penalty for repeat tries

Chronicles of Darkness, page 31: "When you fail a roll, you may be able to try again. If time is not an issue and your character is under no pressure to perform, you may make successive attempts with your full dice pool. In the far more likely situation that time is short and the situation is tense, each subsequent attempt has a cumulative one-die penalty — so the third time a character tries to break down the door that’s keeping her inside a burning building, her roll has a two- die penalty. Successive attempts do not apply to extended actions."

Fortunately, that penalty only applies when "time is short and the situation is tense."

I am a little doubtful that this was thought all the way through.

>>47566558
Someone hasn't read Mage20

If time is not an issue and you are under no pressure to perform, you should be using down and dirty spellcasting anyway instead of pixelbitching for dice.

It's just the corebook having different language. Same way it is no longer entirely clear that beings on virtue and vice as their anchors regain willpower by sleeping (mages do, vampires don't).

I'll see about finding room for a note in the basic dice mechanics that the penalty counts for spells.

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>>47571978

>If time is not an issue and you are under no pressure to perform, you should be using down and dirty spellcasting anyway instead of pixelbitching for dice.

This creates the strange situation wherein Yantras are mysteriously unusable in any situation wherein time is not an issue and there is no pressure.

Either way, even without Yantras and pure Gnosis + Arcanum, it is still quite feasible to cycle through Praxes (especially a Praxis for Exceptional Luck!) in order to score exceptional successes and subsequently recharge Willpower and Mana.

Even with the "down and dirty spellcasting" rule (read: no Yantras for you), it is still trivial to replenish important resources (Willpower/Mana) and string together loops upon loops of spells like Exceptional Luck.

>>47568722
The Compact has been infiltrated by a shapechanging impasta. You need to uncover them, but udon know how.

>>47571978
Question: if a Mage has a Superhero-themed Legacy, and he's become publicly known as a local superhero, will Sleepers who see him using Spells go "Oh, he's an alien/mutant/science experiment gone wrong, he's just using his superpowers"?

I'm assuming that canonical Superhero-themed Legacies are something that you're shying away from due to tone issues, right? I mean, it's not like the World of Darkness isn't lacking in people well deserving of a few righteous face punches, and given the potency of the Superhero Archetype in Western culture, and the Adamantine Arrow's focus on service, and the Free Council's focus on looking for Supernal imagery in Sleeper culture, you'd think that someone would have made one or two by now.

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>>47571978
>>47572014

Consider a mage with Gnosis 3 and either Fate 4 and a Praxis for Exceptional Luck, OR Time 4 and a Praxis for Choose the Thread.

Even if the rules for "down and dirty spellcasting" are in play ("I was trained by my order to use these Yantras to aid with my spellcasting and to manipulate the properties of my spells, but since this is a lackadaisical scene with nothing heavy at stake, I just cannot bring myself to concentrate"), that still gives the mage 7 dice with which to cast either of those spells and try to score three successes to recharge Willpower and Mana. Such spells also make it easier to cast the same spell *again*, thereby recharging even more Willpower and Mana.

Also, bizarrely enough:
>If the player wanted to affect multiple subjects, or create a large effect with the spellcasting, then the number of success may determine the number of subjects or the size of an area affected by the spell effect. For example, if a mage wanted to revive all the dead roses in a garden, she could roll Gnosis + Life and each success would equal a 5 meter radius of revived roses.

"Down and dirty spellcasting" somehow causes a mage to become skilled at spontaneously adding targets to their spells, despite the fact that the mage does not have the brainpower to use Yantras or spell factors whenever the rule is in play.

Does Awakened magic operate under different principles depending on whether or not the mage is under time/pressure?

>>47572132
>Does Awakened magic operate under different principles depending on whether or not the mage is under time/pressure?

Well, given things like the Passive Nimbus, I'm guessing that the answer is probably "Yes." In this case, I'm guessing the test is "Does it really matter? If not, just roll a couple dice to determine whether or not it works and move on."

You know, like how there's rules to just incapacitate some random mooks with a single combat dice roll, rather than doing a full combat scene.

>>47572092
>Superhero-themed Legacy
Oh Jesus, I wouldn't expect to live longer than a week if I were you.
So many factions would be after your head it isn't even funny.

I would however assume that Quiescence works just as well for "oh, that's not Magic, that's just sufficiently advanced technology".

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>>47572181

Passive/Immediate Nimbus has nothing to do with time or pressure, and everything to do with whether or not a mage is actually casting spells.

Is that a rule, then? "If there is neither time nor pressure, mages are forced to use the 'down and dirty spellcasting' rules, thereby barring them from using Yantras and spell factors"?

>>47572132
>Such spells also make it easier to cast the same spell *again*, thereby recharging even more Willpower and Mana.
You could just sleep or meditate or scour yourself

>>47572242
Meant the Long-Term Nimbus; actually looking it up, the term "Passive Nimbus" doesn't seem to actually be a thing.

>>47572257
>You could just sleep or meditate or scour yourself
Oblations only work in a Hollow unless you've been initiated into a Legacy.

>>47572185
>Oh Jesus, I wouldn't expect to live longer than a week if I were you.
>So many factions would be after your head it isn't even funny.
Well, it's sort of hard to be a Superhero without having Supervillains to fight, so would that really be a bad thing?

No more so than d&d combat (and wow, okay, so never abbreviating that again) changes how characters fight, in the fiction, depending on how important to the story their opponents are.

The reason we don't give yantra bonuses on down and dirty rolls is that we don't take spell factors off either. Both are assumed to still be happening, but are glossed over because fully determining the outcome of the spell is just wasting play time.

Even when you're casting a big ritual safely in a sanctum, if it's important rough to the plot to be worth following the spell mechanics, it's important enough to not get infinite retries.

>>47572300
>so would that really be a bad thing?
If you're supremely powerful, I would guess not.
However most of them would be more "hunt you down and murder you in your sleep", or "mind control you into murdering a shitload of civilians and then suicide by cop".
And there are some REALLY powerful guys who're just happy with the status quo thank you very much.

Think less Dr Despicable and his Dastardly Destructo-Doom Dynamo, and more being kidnapping, executed, and your name slandered posthumously.

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>>47572257

Those require far more investment than leisurely spamming Fate or Time spells to arbitrarily energize yourself.

>>47572307

Okay, so that is a rule, then. Whenever a mage has time at their disposal and is under no pressure, they can use neither Yantras nor spell factors; in-universe they are still "using" Yantras or "modifying" spell factors, but they just do not have the Supernal adrenaline or whatnot to put them to good use. Is that correct?

It certainly fixes a good deal of the breaking points of Mage 2e, although it still fails to address Praxes being used to recharge "down and dirty" spells, such as with Fate 2's Exceptional Luck at Fate 4, or Time 2's Choose the Thread at Time 4.

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>>47572364

Oh, here is an interesting side effect of mages being forced to use "down and dirty spellcasting" whenever they have time at their disposal and are under no pressure. Since they are completely unable to use Yantras or spell factors, they cannot use Space 2's Sympathetic Casting Attainment or Time 2's Temporal Sympathy Attainment, which both require a sympathy Yantra.

Apparently, if a mage's adrenaline is not pumping, they simply cannot bring themselves to scry someone from afar (Space 2's Scrying) or view the distant past (Time 1/2's Postcognition).

Wait, so the section on Sleepwalkers says "The truth is, technically, anyone with a sympathetic tie to a mage can carry spells for her".
But I don't remember anything being said of Mages being able to hold another's spells for them.

>>47572478
>Since they are completely unable to use Yantras or spell factors
>>47572307
>Both are assumed to still be happening, but are glossed over because fully determining the outcome of the spell is just wasting play time.

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On the slim chance that you are still here, DaveB, I request a few clarifications on Mage 2e:

1. Page 112 claims that Praxes and Rotes cost 1 XP each, regardless of dot level. The table on page 83 gives the absurd price of 1 XP per dot level. Which is correct?

2. If page 112 is correct (Rotes cost 1 XP regardless of dot level), then do mages receive six Rotes to start with, or six DOTS of rotes?

3. How does Fate 4's Chaos Mastery actually work? Do you cast it on yourself and then shoot out "useful patterns" against any subject within sensory range. How much lethal damage does each instance of "The mage deals lethal damage as a direct-attack spell. This effect is not Withstood" deal? Can the damage option be focus-fired on a single target?

4. If Fate 2 alone can directly create Conditions such as Insane, Informed, Inspired, or Steadfast at the drop of a hat, Fate 4 can explicitly "manipulate brain chemistry" or "manipulate a subject's body," and Fate 5 can grant Supernatural Merits such as Biokinesis or Psychokinesis, then would it take a Fate 3 Weaving spell to directly increase Mental/Social Attributes or a Fate 4 Patterning spell? What of directly increasing Physical Attributes? For reference, page 126 states, "Increasing a Skill or Merit is typically a Ruling (••) spell. Attributes can be increased by a Perfecting (•••) spell."

5. Can the minutes of Active Mage Sight usage be split up, possibly into turns at a time, or do they have to be contiguous?

>>47572638

If they are being glossed over, then they are not being used, hence Spatial Sympathy and Temporal Sympathy being impossible to activate under "down and dirty spellcasting."

>>47572307
Howdy Dave, first time mage-player here. I've been talking to my friends about getting a story started soon, and I'm really excited. My ST just wants to wait a bit until the errata is out.

Do you have an idea of when that errata will be released? Or better yet, are there any big spells or anything else I shouldn't get too attached to?

Thanks for giving us such a wonderful game.

>>47572700
>If they are being glossed over, then they are not being used
Yes they are, it's just the details of them are unimportant.
That's what glossing over means. It's still there, but not worth talking about.

>>47572335
>However most of them would be more "hunt you down and murder you in your sleep",

Fortunately, Life magic means that you no longer need to sleep, and you're automatically aware of every living thing in a decent area around you, so they can't sneak up on you. Justice never rests!

>"mind control you into murdering a shitload of civilians and then suicide by cop".
Dots of Fame increase the Withstand of Sympathetic Magic, and if they're doing it in person, you can just use your Life- and Forces-augmented fists to literally punch a hole clean through them.

Also, if you're fighting Vampires, you can just use Forces 2's Control Light to turn whatever light is available into full-fledged sunlight, and I think that they're the only ones with those sorts of broadly-applicable mind control powers other than Mages - other splats like Changelings and Beasts get some mind control powers, but they're all a lot more focused in what each power is capable of, compared to a Mage's Mind spells or a Vampire's Dominate.

>>47572700
>If they are being glossed over, then they are not being used, hence Spatial Sympathy and Temporal Sympathy being impossible to activate under "down and dirty spellcasting."
>Both are assumed to be still happening

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>>47572750
>>47572823

I would disagree with you on the count that "glossed over" and "still mechanical functional" are mutually exclusive, but it seems that:

>Down and Dirty Spellcasting
>Sometimes characters desire to cast spells or create effects that should be easy and require little risk or effort from the mage. Often these spells are effects that the mage creates on a regular basis, and the risk of failure is small and has little to no impact on the drama of the story. Determining spell factor penalties and Yantra bonuses for these kinds of spells is cumbersome. In these cases, just have players roll Gnosis + Arcanum. Success on the roll equals a successful casting. If the player wanted to affect multiple subjects, or create a large effect with the spellcasting, then the number of success may determine the number of subjects or the size of an area affected by the spell effect. For example, if a mage wanted to revive all the dead roses in a garden, she could roll Gnosis + Life and each success would equal a 5 meter radius of revived roses.

"Down and dirty spellcasting" abrogates Yantra BONUSES, but not the Yantras themselves. Thus, a mage has absolutely no reason to actually use a Mudra Yantra, because a Rote's other benefits apply with or without the Mudra. On the other hand, a mage can and should use a Dedicated Magical Tool to stave off Paradox, and possibly a sympathy Yantra to activate the Sympathetic Range and/or Temporal Sympathy Attainments.

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>>47572700

>4. If Fate 2 alone can directly create Conditions such as Insane, Informed, Inspired, or Steadfast at the drop of a hat, Fate 4 can explicitly "manipulate brain chemistry" or "manipulate a subject's body," and Fate 5 can grant Supernatural Merits such as Biokinesis or Psychokinesis, then would it take a Fate 3 Weaving spell to directly increase Mental/Social Attributes or a Fate 4 Patterning spell? What of directly increasing Physical Attributes? For reference, page 126 states, "Increasing a Skill or Merit is typically a Ruling (••) spell. Attributes can be increased by a Perfecting (•••) spell."

To further clarify, this would be operating under the "blessings" purview element of the Fate Arcanum.

Fun Fact.
Fate 5 can temporarily make people Sleepwalkers, without downsides.
Or indefinitely, if you're good enough, and want to spend the Willpower.

>>47571191
You should also make sure to define what a Blessing is (currently only "boons" are defined, and you know how rules lawyers are), and make these infinite feedback loops against the rules. And state that Fate can't control the body except where minor probability situations are concerned. And that Time cannot solve a problem that has no solution.
Or just make a sidebar that says all of this stuff is stupid and for reasons of wordcount, spells have been left vague in some places and troupe judgement should be used.

>>47571892
It was. It just wasn't thought that it needed to be explained to you. Having a -10 penalty is not within your safe and reasonable means of achieving something.

>>47572014
You are literally arguing with the developer on how the rules are intended to work.

>>47572132
>>47572242
Down and Dirty spellcasting is meant to be simple and move the story along where the mechanics are simplified. You are aware that in Down and Dirty combat, a person is not "skilled at spontaneously murdering people with a single shot", right? Awakened Magic doesn't operate under different principles, the narrative does. And when there's no pressure but information beyond a simple pass/fail is needed, a quick roll of the dice and counting the successes works, instead of "pixelbitching" your dice pool.

>>47572364
It's almost as if you're being told that both mechanically and reasonably, leisurely spamming Arcana to arbitrarily energize yourself doesn't work.

>>47572700
This is why it's hilarious to me that you play narrativist systems like PbtA.

>>47572942
No it wouldn't, for the reasons that people have repeatedly explained to you.

Alternately! If you browbeat your ST into allowing it, anything is possible.

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>>47571447
As >>47571484 points out and the old saying goes, "no pain, no gain". I haven't really made any difference between apply and receiving pain as far as the Attainments go, but at least as far as the initiation and standard practices go, the Whipping Boys are all about masochism. The Session's benefits are something that applies to everyone, and that's what the Perverts are going for.

I should probably work in somewhere that they're not all, like, super submissive or anything. Ideally they're very much the person who has their subordinates dominate and beat them. To use some animu-y metaphor, they have their maid tie them up and drip wax on them.

I'm still not completely 100% satisfied with what I came away with. The Fourth Attainment used to be the Fifth one, with the Fourth being an Oneroi journey where both participants had a shared Oneros that got the better benefits of each. No paradox for either of them, even if a Sleeper was one of the two, and the best Amnion between them. Basically for some very "hands on" therapy. Punching out Goetia and such. But someone who knows more about the Astral than I do told me that's a pretty shitty Attainment and not that dramatic for a Fourth Attainment and definitely not for the capstone.

>>47573098
So can Prime 3.

>>47573265
That has some pretty major side effects.
"Any breaking points due to witnessing magic and Quiescence effects the subject would normally suffer are held in abeyance until the spell’s Duration expires, only to come crashing down all at once when the spell ends."

>>47573280
Make it Lasting and who cares?

>>47573289
But you can't make it lasting.
I guess you could get the quasi-sleeper to hold the spell for you though, so you wouldn't have to spend Willpower...

There's a thought.
Better hope nobody ever dispels it.
Or they'd likely go completely and utterly insane.

>>47569393
>>Promethean: the Trans-Siberian Railroad
there is actually allready made story for promethean on Trans-Siberian Railroad in 30s on russian cofd forums.
http://wod.su/forum/index.php?topic=4103.0

>>47573280
That sounds less like a side-effect to me, and more like what happens in general when someone who was a Sleepwalker due to a spell suddenly isn't any more.

Also, I was just rereading the examples of Breaking Points in the GMC book, and I saw this:

>What has Mallory forgotten? When Mallory was in the academy, she went out and got drunk with a few of her fellow cadets. One of her cadets gave her a ride home, but when they got there, the cadet got out of the car, took a few steps into the street, and fell apart. Arms fell off, and head tumbled back and rolled away. Mallory woke up in her bed, surrounded by vomit, and learned that the cadet had left the program. She assumed it was all a dream. The breaking point, though, is “see a person divided into pieces.”

Sounds to me like someone using Sympathetic Magic to whack a dude with Chaos Mastery, hitting him with four Arm/Leg Wrack tilts and a pile of Lethal damage.

My next Mage character is gonna be like a kid brother, you know the "mom says it's my turn to play the playstations" kind annoying, dirty, spoiled and no one can ignore me or treat me badly because I'm a mage and everything has to do what I say

I think it captures the Mage essence perfectly.

>>47574578
I'll personally run this for you if you app it here: http://thefinalcrossroads.com/

>>47573106
>You are literally arguing with the developer on how the rules are intended to work.
Nigger, if the rule isn't in the book, or the fucking errata, it's not actually a rule.

If I make a book and then say shit that's not IN the book is how it's meant to work, I'm a fucking idiot. Why the hell are you sucking his dick when the actual information on the paper is WRONG?

Devs are in no fucking way omniscient. This is why we have tests and people like Touhoufag and Chung to read the rules, find the problems, and actually work out goddamn fixes.

>>47574831

If anything, the discussion's an important reminder of the wide gaping space between RAW and RAI, no matter how you feel about it.

>>47575267
RAW and RAI should be the same thing, there's really no excuse for it. If the rules don't follow the intent and want for what they should be, they need to be reworked.

Any ideas for a Vampire Ghoul game set in Barcelona?

>>47575638
Are they on friendly terms with their masters?
Send them out to do stuff that their masters can't do themselves, for one reason or another.

Unfriendly terms?
Start the game with either them rebelling or them having recently rebelled against their masters. Whether their masters end up dead in the process is up to you and your group. They have a month to find a new source of Vitae, or they stop being Ghouls.

>>47574831
How about you stop being a little bitch and pretending your NOT touhoufag.

>>47575926
>I have literally no arguments, so I'll cry samefag

>>47566282
It'll be months before you hear something, if ever.

>>47572808
Well unless the vampire is extremely high in blood potency and low on humanity he should be fine. Frenzied but fine.

>>47575957
Im a different person actually who has knowdeced that you only appear when touhoufag does. Its obvious by your language.

Also its has been repeatedly explained what blessings do Touhoufag/you just don't want to except it.

>>47574831
>Successive Attempts(Page 214): When you fail a roll, you may be able to try again. If time is not an issue and your character is under no pressure to perform, you may make successive attempts with your full dice pool. In the far more likely situation that time is short and the situation is tense, each subsequent attempt has a cumulative –1 die penalty — so the third time a character tries to break down the door that’s keeping her inside a burning building, her roll has a –2 die penalty. Successive attempts do not apply to extended actions.

>Down and Dirty Spellcasting(Page 117)
>Sometimes characters desire to cast spells or create effects that should be easy and require little risk or effort from the mage. Often these spells are effects that the mage creates on a regular basis, and the risk of failure is small and has little to no impact on the drama of the story. Determining spell factor penalties and Yantra bonuses for these kinds of spells is cumbersome. In these cases, just have players roll Gnosis + Arcanum. Success on the roll equals a successful casting. If the player wanted to affect multiple subjects, or create a large effect with the spellcasting, then the number of success may determine the number of subjects or the size of an area affected by the spell effect. For example, if a mage wanted to revive all the dead roses in a garden, she could roll Gnosis + Life and each success would equal a 5 meter radius of revived roses.

Wow, look. There it is. Right in the book.

>>47574831
But most of it is in the book, but getting ignored. There's a specific mechanic for when you're not under duress. White room theorizing "I'll intentionally break the system in a way no ST would ever allow" isn't really useful, especially when it ignores rules that are inconvenient.

>>47575926
If that was Touhoufag, trust me, you'd know.

>>47576117
The argument of course is that because it's an instant spell cast at your sanctum that a -10 penalty and rolling a single die don't cont as "pressure".

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>>47576018
Oh no, I only speak up because I see you idiots shoving your fingers in your ears reallly hard.

But that means I'm him, because it's imposisble for two people to disgree with your retarded stance.

Nigga, your argument breaks down to this:
>Dev rulings that aren't in the book actually matter
>RAI is actually more important then RAW
>RAW shouldn't match RAI
>You just don't UNDERSTAND, MAN
>SHUT UP YOU AUTIST

All of these are literal garbage, whereas T2fag consistently points out rule problems.

So, no, go fuck yourself.

>>47576150
Oh, right, I forgot that argument.
>WHITE ROOM WHITE ROOM NO ONE WOULD EVER LET YOU

>>47569107
I use it all the time. For antagonists as well as NPC groups. It's been instrumental in running vanilla Mortals games.

>>47569393
>Vampire: Savannah
>Werewolf: Medellin
>Mage: Istanbul
>Geist: Detroit
>Changeling: Lisbon
>Hunter: Santiago
>Demon: Washington, D.C.

>>47576161
>>47576201
The ruling in question literally was in the book, twice in fact, and Adslahnit's theorycrafting entirely relies on ignoring the context of "may" and "under pressure". And considering the presence of "may" itself, that is entirely up to ST discretion to begin with.

>>47566558
oWoD was SJW as fuck for its day.

It's within the nature of progressivism to progress, though, so nowadays it looks backwards and racist while at its time it was shocking and progressive. Fetishizing other cultures was a step up from not even acknowledging their existence.

>>47576693
I thought Rage Across Appalachia was grossly offensive and marginalizing. But then, what do I matter? I'm just a white guy who was raised in poverty in the rural South, it's okay to make caricatures of me and casually insult my family and culture.

Bunch of fucking hypocrites.

>>47567836
>Page 113 says: "If using Area of Effect for Scale, the factor instead determines how large the area covered by the spell is, applying the spell effect to anyone or anything within."
>This should allow the spell to buff everyone within the area.
...For as long as they're in that area, sure. The spell effect is cast on the area, and provides its benefits to things IN that area.

>>47566370
Motherfucker, SJW types HATE oWoD. You can see them hating on it in this thread.

>>47566844
>What was considered "SJW" of the 1990's is not the same today.

That term doesn't even really apply. Speaking as someone who lived through the nineties, even with Mage's "Chuck your TV out the window and light some incense, Maaaaaaaaan!" preachyness, it wasn't even comparable to the madness that we see today.

>>47576726

Yeah but you're white and male, you don't matter.

>>47576726
It's wrong to make fun of people because they are poor and under-educated too. Unfortunately a lot of sjw tumblr types seem to care about that as much as the rest of society does.

>>47576726
Well by definition you can't be racist/sexist/whatever against white males, so I'm glad you've realized that!

>>47576693
The step up was from abuse.

>>47576726
It's less wrong to make fun of people from a demographic you're from. Also, hill people are creepy. I can only go North or South. To go West would mean crossing the Apps, and that's where the killer cannibals are.

>>47576804
See >>47576693. It's gross now, but back then it was so progressive. Now we're at the "let's actually ask minorities what they think, instead of just jerking off to how cool and foreign and NOT SQUARE they are".

>>47576726

I'm not saying you're wrong and don't let me interrupt the weekly circle jerk (>>47576804 >>47576864 >>47576880 >>47576921), but somehow I'm not surprised that a bunch of Georgians wrote a bunch of dumb shit about the Appalachians.

>>47576864
>Abloobloo

>>47576898
>>47576921
>Well by definition you can't be racist/sexist/whatever against white males, so I'm glad you've realized that!
Racialization is a technology used by sovereign power to control the unruly. It exists to make exceptions and protect its own continued existence. "Race" is used to single out populations by how they diverge from the ingroup and use those differences to disenfranchise them, while dangling the benefits of society if they fall in line and be one of the "good ones" instead of the unruly.

>>47569107
I used it against my hunter group. They had to deal with a freaky blood-cult that functionally worshiped three instigators of severe civil violence and unrest, at least their corpses which were preserved in a piece of GMC Infrastructure, it used them to produce some fucked up drugs they used when they themselves went to do cult shit.

>>47576960
>It's less wrong to make fun of people from a demographic you're from
That's moronic. Why not just stop using actual people's lives and hardships as fodder for bad writing and cheap jokes?

>Also, hill people are creepy.
Some people find transexuals creepy, doesn't mean it's an opinion I want to hear or think is valid. It's good see you're as much of a hypocrite as the rest of them, Aspel.

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>>47573106

>It's almost as if you're being told that both mechanically and reasonably, leisurely spamming Arcana to arbitrarily energize yourself doesn't work.

However, it *does* still work even in "down and dirty spellcasting," as the post in >>47572132 explains.


Consider a mage with Gnosis 3 and either Fate 4 and a Praxis for Exceptional Luck, OR Time 4 and a Praxis for Choose the Thread.

Even if the rules for "down and dirty spellcasting" are in play ("I was trained by my order to use these Yantras to aid with my spellcasting and to manipulate the properties of my spells, but since this is a lackadaisical scene with nothing heavy at stake, I just cannot bring myself to concentrate"), that still gives the mage 7 dice with which to cast either of those spells and try to score three successes to recharge Willpower and Mana. Such spells also make it easier to cast the same spell *again*, thereby recharging even more Willpower and Mana.

>>47576117

As it currently stands, however, DaveB would like for mages to take successive -1 penalties to spellcasting even when *not* under a time limit and/or pressure, yet also be forced to use the "down and dirty spellcasting" rules.

The former is currently *not* in the rules (the cumulative retry penalty does not apply if there is time at hand and there is no pressure), and the latter is quite poorly explained within those very rules.

As currently written, it *could* be said that mages are forced to used "down and dirty spellcasting" when they have time at their disposal and are under no pressure, but they would also incur no penalties for successive attempts by the same logic.

>>47576751

This is a case of poor wording in the book. This can be taken in one of two ways: "the spell affects everyone in the area, and then the people in the area can go their separate ways," or "the spell is spatially locked upon the area."

The rules currently do not clarify which is the case.

>>47576880
>>47576921
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/racism?s=t

Have fun arguing with the dictionary, hippy.

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>>47576117
>>47577040

To clarify, as currently written:
If time is at your disposal and you are under no pressure, then you take no penalty for retries (page 214), but you are forced to use the "down and dirty spellcasting rules" (page 117).
If time is short and/or you are under pressure, then you take a penalty for retries (page 214), but you are free to use the full breadth of the spellcasting rules.

HOWEVER, what DaveB would like to change this to, judging from >>47571978, is:
If time is at your disposal and you are under no pressure, you take a penalty for spellcasting retries anyway (disregard page 214), and you are forced to use the "down and dirty spellcasting rules" (page 117).

DaveB's position currently is *not* in the books, which is why if it needs to be official, then it should be part of the errata.

>>47576960

>It's less wrong to make fun of people from a demographic you're from. Also, hill people are creepy. I can only go North or South. To go West would mean crossing the Apps, and that's where the killer cannibals are.

Aspel, how is it that you're one the worst allies any person can have? How is it that you can be basically right about political topics and still be the most odious person when dealing with a bunch of people putting down tired old hot takes on stuff that doesn't matter to them?

What's it like to be the living incarnation of a Mallard Filmore comic liberal?

>>47576693
>It's within the nature of progressivism to go to ever and greater lengths of authoritarianism because when you're constantly one-upping each other, its kind of hard to put the brakes on that shit.

ftfy

>>47577108
>What's it like to be the living incarnation of a Mallard Filmore comic liberal?
>implying that that's a caricature rather than the default

>>47577036
>>47577108
>Being this unable to take a joke
You are aware that I'm from Virginia, right?

>>47577040
>>47577101
You keep saying forced. I feel like you don't actually understand how the rules actually come into play. The retry rules are entirely up to the ST, and you're ignoring the bounds of common sense. If you want to cast a spell with no spell factors, then fine, roll the dice. But when you're taking -10, you're suddenly under pressure and trying to do something that is not within the bounds of easy achievement. You are putting yourself under pressure, and your success or failure now matters because you've made it matter.

DaveB wouldn't "like to change that", he's pointing out that your understanding of the glorious unbreakable Rules As Written is flawed.

>>47577118
>>47577134
>Someone other than me is having their rights protected? AUTHORITARIANISM! FASCISTS!

>>47577140

>Can't you take a joke??????

It is absolutely breathtaking how you seem to have no self-awareness.

>>47577140
>You are aware that I'm from Virginia, right?
So that makes it okay to perpetuate stereotypes?

>>47577094

The dictionary is written by White Males so therefore it's not a valid defenition, it doesn't take minorities into account.

You can't be racist against White People, they hold all the power in the system and therefore it's impossible to be racist against them.

The formula is power + opression = Racism.

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>>47577140

>Sometimes characters desire to cast spells or create effects that should be easy and require little risk or effort from the mage. Often these spells are effects that the mage creates on a regular basis, and the risk of failure is small and has little to no impact on the drama of the story. Determining spell factor penalties and Yantra bonuses for these kinds of spells is cumbersome. In these cases, just have players roll Gnosis + Arcanum. Success on the roll equals a successful casting. If the player wanted to affect multiple subjects, or create a large effect with the spellcasting, then the number of success may determine the number of subjects or the size of an area affected by the spell effect. For example, if a mage wanted to revive all the dead roses in a garden, she could roll Gnosis + Life and each success would equal a 5 meter radius of revived roses.
This is to be used when mages are under neither time constraints nor pressure.

>Successive Attempts: When you fail a roll, you may be able to try again. If time is not an issue and your character is under no pressure to perform, you may make successive attempts with your full dice pool. In the far more likely situation that time is short and the situation is tense, each subsequent attempt has a cumulative –1 die penalty — so the third time a character tries to break down the door that’s keeping her inside a burning building, her roll has a –2 die penalty. Successive attempts do not apply to extended actions.
There is no penalty for retries, so long as the character is under neither time constraints nor pressure.

Going by the books alone, if a mage is under neither time constraints nor pressure, they must use the "down and dirty spellcasting" rules, but they take no penalty for successive attempts, just as the book says.

However, DaveB wishes to errata that to something like, "Even if you are under neither time constraints nor pressure, you still take a cumulative penalty for casting."

>>47577270

FYI, I wrote this to be sarcastic and troll a bit but I'm genuinly peeved that this arguments gets used by people honestly.

>>47577094
>I cannot detect sarcasm

>>47577140
>You are aware that I'm from Virginia, right?
Why the hell would we know what state you're from?

We don't exactly keep detailed notes on the personal lives of shitposters.

>>47577270
>The formula is power + opression = Racism.
No the formula is BOOKS = KNOWLEDGE = POWER = (FORCE X DISTANCE^2) ÷ TIME.

Get it right.

>>47577277
The argument is that "I'm taking a fucking -10 penalty to my roll" IS being "under pressure". Kindly stop completely ignoring it.

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>>47577327

Reconsider shitlord.

>>47577326
Wait, we don't?

All those hours...wasted

>>47577385
>not knowing about based Pterry.
Who did you donate you're sense of humor to?

>>47577327

No you fool, it's this:

loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding × guilt × shame × failure × judgment n=y where y=hope and n=folly, love=lies, life=death, self=dark side

>>47577299

It's actually a (heavily oversimplified) legit argument for the concept of Systemic Racism, it's just that people conflate Systemic Racism with the bigotry of individuals, usually because there's a very larger overlap between the two in many societies and one usually feeds into the other. Getting out of the shit hole we dug ourselves into is complicated.

>>47577445
>legit argument for the concept of Systemic Racism
Which is a academically debated concept, especially in how much we can actually attribute to it and how much we've simply drawn correlation to without proving causation.

>>47577153
No, that's you guys. If you're going to be control freaks, at least be honest.

For example, I have no problem with protecting the rights of other people. An easy logical leap to make when you believe in the concept of universal human rights. What we don't like is when you make up rights that require that we pay money.

I mean really, if you're going to strawman, at least make it not so obvious.

>>47577445
>Thinking Darkseid overrules Terry Pratchett
I don't want to live in your world.

Fear leads to racism
Anger leads to sexism
Hate leads to homophobia
Suffering leads to diversity

The WoD is trying to teach us to be better people

>>47577299
>>47577385
It's not an entirely untrue argument, but it really does require context. It's a specific academic way of looking at race. Its fine for using in an academic paper (ideally with references) or even on a personal blog where you bitch about the status quo, although lord knows those get taken out of context. But well meaning but ill informed people shout it on message boards or Youtube comments (or trolls say it), it really is a lot more contentious and out of context.

Much like above when I mentioned Michele Foucalt's version of "Race" as a tool of sovereign power that includes things like gender identity and sexuality within it's definition, it's no what people *mean* when they say racism, but at the same time it can still be a valuable conversation to have--provided everyone is on the same page.

>>47577277
As I have repeatedly explained to you, a -10 penalty constitutes a constraint. As such, retrying the roll means a -1 penalty. In fact, in general, what defines "constraint" or "pressure" is completely up to the ST. This is why it repeatedly says "may". I know that vague terms like that are hard for you to understand, but that means that you are not always given that leisure. Sometimes you are unable to continue doing something over and over until you succeed. If you cannot succeed an action within a reasonable time, you do not get to handwave it as succeeding. This is why someone with no dots in Science cannot simply keep rolling to solve differential calculus problems when they have only one die to roll.

It's clear now that the idea of Racism is a tool of the Exarchs to stymie the unity and support that Sleepers need to Awaken.

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>>47577345
>>47577516

"A -10 penalty places you under pressure" was never, at any point, my argument. Search all of my posts and you will not see it as my argument. You would do well to *not* misconstrue my argument.

Furthermore, even if taking a -10 penalty *did* place you under pressure, then suddenly the "down and dirty spellcasting" rules would no longer be in play, freeing you up to avail of Yantra bonuses and spell factors, which allows for the usage of astoundingly powerful day/week-long spells.

A mage with Gnosis 3 + Fate 3 + Mantra 2 + Mudra 6 + Dedicated Tool 1 - spell factors 10 = 5 dice still has a non-negligible chance of succeeding sooner or later anyway.

5 dice: 83.19% chance of success
4 dice: 75.99% chance of success
3 dice: 65.7% chance of success
2 dice: 51% chance of success
1 die: 30% chance of success

The chances of failing all five of those are ~0.21%, almost comically low.

The mage is still going to successfully cast that spell even with a cumulative penalty for failure "for pressure," if taking a -10 penalty counts as "pressure."

>>47577516
>>47577445

I'm aware that that's systemic racism, but the people who use it do not mean systemic racism. They mean regular racism and sexism, they don't understand the difference between academics and the real world, they just ape terms.

That's what irks me, that no these people aren't kidding or talking academically. They are actually serious and think and talk about it this way in real life too.

My facebook feed is filled with retards like this.

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How do free Reaches for combined spells from page 118 of Mage 2e work?

Suppose I have Fate 3, and I wish to combine Fate 1's Serendipity and Fate 2's Shifting the Odds. Do I have 3 free Reaches for Serendipity and 2 free Reaches for Shifting the Odds (and I must pay for instant action casting and sensory range for both, leaving me with one free Reach for Serendipity), or do I have only 2 free Reaches altogether (which pay for instant action casting and sensory range in unison, thus leaving with me nothing for Serendipity)?

>>47577489

Who is dead and who lives and reigns from his throne on Apokolips? Realize your error and know that DARKSEID IS.

...and fuck, I made myself sad about Pterry again. Welp.

>>47577560
>You would do well to *not* misconstrue my argument.
Oh, no, what are you gonna do, Theorycraft us?

Can we actually discuss the game instead of SJW shit? Like honestly, rule 0 of any RPG is "If you don't like it, change it." Just write off all the gay shit. Or hell, put more in if that's what your group wants.

And I hope Hunter is good. It's my favorite line.

>yet another "why does Promethean need to be about becoming human?" thread on the forums

I fall for the bait every single fucking time, man.

>>47577512
No, Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

>>47577489
Is it a world made of cardboard?

>>47577487
No one is requiring you to pay money, other than the federal government. Whether or not you feel health needs you don't believe in should be aided or not, you should really be more concerned with military spending, since that gets more than every social welfare program combined.

>>47577560
You cannot reroll at no penalty. Period. Stop arguing about it. Explaining WHY that is the case does not seem to be working, so all you need to concern yourself with is the fact that you have repeatedly been told that the game does not work that way, including by the person who created the game.

>>47577606
All of my friends are liberal hippy SJWs and even an honest to God "punk never died, it just has a reasonable bedtime" anarchist and my feed is only filled with anime memes and which 90s Disney princess they all are. There's the occasional BigThink or NowThis or Vox post. Maybe you should stop being friends with high schoolers?

>>47577790
With the current game ̶m̶o̶n̶o̶l̶o̶g̶u̶e̶ discussion going on at the moment, I would literally rather talk about ANYTHING else.