Re: Werewolf the Forsaken (Was Re: The group (was Re: Guild Wars MMORPG))

On Thu, 01 Dec 2005 21:57:53 +0000, Robin Low wrote:

> In message <pan.2005.12.01.20.55.31.329054@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Loz Hensel
> <lozhensel@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>>On Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:57:00 +0000, Robin Low wrote:
>>
> I was very impressed by The Shoah. There was some discussion here a few
> years ago, I recall, which you could google for if you were interested.

I might just do that when I have the time - I'm trying to write a novel
and two roleplay setings at the moment, alongside other real world stuff...

> I asked for The Great War for my last birthday - Amazon is a very good
> place for getting stuff that's long out of print. Just a shame the Anansi
> book is something daft like 80 quid.

Blimey! I'm not convinced any single rpg supplement is worth that. A
complete set of core books maybe, but one supplement? Obviously enough
people disagree with me to make it sell at that price though...

>>> I'm currently frowning as some rules that don't work the way I think
>>> they should, because they don't properly gel with traditional views of
>>> magic.
>>
>>Sucha as what? I haven't actually read or played the new Mage yet...
>
> I've only just started reading the magic section and it's only one
> specific instance, so far. It's a bit complicated to explain all the
> details, but the upshot is that a mage who lacks a target's true name
> suffers dice penalties. My argument is that knowledge of the true name
> should provide a dice bonus.
>
> The baseline roll should assume *lack* of knowledge of the target's true
> name. Gaining knowledge of true names or some other symbolic connection
> to the target should improve the chances; their lack should not penalise
> the baseline dice pool. I can see what the aim is (to make it harder to
> affect the target at a distance), bit it just jars badly with the way
> correspondences are supposed work in traditional magic.

I can see why they've done it that way. It means that if you don;t have
enough to go on then you can't do it at all, or are reduced to a luck die.
If the base roll presumed a lack of the true name it would have to be a
reasonable roll without the true name, otherwise people would go "oh,
mages are underpowered, look how bad this roll is before you take any
modifiers into account!". By making not having the true name a penalty
rather than actually having it be a bonus they can get exactly the same
result without having the first impression be that mages can't do anything
with Correspondence. Either that or they're presuming that people bandy
their true names around like nobodies business, so the default state is to
have the true name. That last seems a little unlikely, but...

>
>> Of course froma plain rules viewpoint Metis were
>>stupidly overpowered in a lot of ways, but of course they were totally
>>shafted (and not in a good way) in RP terms.
>
> Again, depends on the game - our GM played Werewolves as a lot more
> tolerant. My Silent Strider Ahroun, Susannah, was a literal combat
> monster, with silver immunities and a ridiculously powerful grand klaive
> (I think they toned it down in later editions). She was killed by some
> long-time allies(!) when she/I made the mistake of trying to fight
> defensively, and without her sword. Our GM was adept at giving us a lot
> of power, but at the same time making life difficult for us without his
> NPCs looking stupidly powerful.

Fair enough. Sounds like you had a good GM then. Getting per levels right
is always difficult, and something Ive never been very good at. Thats one
of the resons I prefer running very low-combat games - you can fudge the
stats and people reactions a lot more easily when you are rolling less
dice!

>
>>Lupus I just couldn;t get my
>>head round properly. Probably because I'm actually a Virtual Adept (or
>>possibly Glasswalker) at heart....
>
> I played a Lupus, often very badly. On the plus side, he was a great
> character. He was a good example of the character taking over. I never
> intended him to be an idiot, but I regularly managed to place him in
> front of hails of bullets. It earned him the name Rushes In. After
> surviving near-death encounters with HIT Marks and helicopter crashes,
> he actually managed to get himself embraced by a PC vampire - entirely
> accidentally and by the book, I might add. Unbelievable, but it
> happened. After that, he was renamed as Won't Lie Down. Our GM had a
> knack for Garou names.

In a game I ran a glass-walker ragabash ended up being called Kills With
Trucks after the SECOND time he took out most of a crowd of fomori in one
turn by driving an articulated lorry into them. I seem to remember the
first one involved a handbreak turn and swinging the trailer through the
crowd... That was the same session the get of fenris picked up a fridge
full of beer shook it up, then drank the beer out of the bottom corner...
I hasten to add I planned none of this, and was using published scenarios
at the time!

>
> Regards
>
> Robin

.

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