RPGs you want to try but you doubt you'd get your Real Life Group to try.

[meikle]

There's ways to do it outside of E.... ;) Map sites, etc...

There certainly are!  Most of my gaming doesn't happen on Elliquiy (if it did, I imagine I'd never play anything! :p)

But I was responding to MasterMischief mostly -- the population of people on Elliquiy who are interested in the kind of games I'd run seems to be staggeringly low (and I'm not really sure why that is, but c'est la vie.)

[Plot Hooks]

Meikle, I've had a simlar experience with E.    E really isn't set up mechanically for system games either, at least in terms of groups.    I wish it had some of RPOL's features to facilitate that sort of thing.

My list?
Wraith: The Oblivion is my favorite RPG that I've never played.
Nobolis
In a wicked age.
Iron Kingdoms
Cthulutech
Midnight (whose modules I have actually run in an Exalted game with a little tweaking)

[meikle]

I'd love to play or run Wraith, too.  I mean, it grinds on me a lot of the time -- there's only so much patience I have for starting chapters off with Nine Inch Nails lyrics, for example -- but I love the idea behind it.  Unfortunately, back when I had a group that was actually interested in the World of Darkness, they all had complaints about Wraith -- "it's too depressing" was a big one, and "I don't want someone else playing my character!" was another (regarding the specter? part of every character that is played by someone else.)

Bummer, because those parts were why I liked it.

[Plot Hooks]

Yea, same here!

Re: the nWoD stuff...

1.) I didn't know that there was an intellectual property thing between old owners.   As far as I can tell, the old guys still own it.

2.) System wise, I respect the new WoD.   It seems pretty solid and well suited for the types of stories that it wants to tell.   This is in comparison to say, Exalted, whose mechanical failures I could rail on about for pages.    That said, I will forever hate the nWoD with THE BRIGHT RADIOACTIVE FURY OF A THOUSAND GREEN HATE-FILLED SUNS!!!!!! for their treatment of Mage.   

Mage Is possibly my favoritest(tm) game of all time.  It was deep and tackled descartian conundrums head on while boasting interesting antagonists whose motivations were sensible, and whom I would probably side with in RL.  Maybe.   It was about the innate power of the individual to change the world, if only she could display the proper force of will.   I loved the theams of clashing ideals and belief and all that entails.


nWoD Mage gave me a bunch of special people who were granted powers by mystical light-houses in Atlantis.  I can't even really remember who the antagonist is, it was so bland.  After I had read through my eagerly awaited Mage book, I nearly calcified from banality on the spot. 

I had expected better.   Vampire got a decent new treatment, IMO.   It had many elements of the old, with enough new stuff and rearrangement that it was both familiar and exciting.

Mage: The Awakening took away everything that was familiar and gave me a big bowl of feces in its place.

[Callie Del Noire]

PH,

Don't feel bad.. I've yet to meet ANYONE who really had fun with the old Mage that likes the new one. I've seen folks who enjoyed both versions of vampire and werewolf but not anyone I can think of who likes both versions of Mage. The whole paradigm of the first one was so fun.

You could respect the Technos for their goals. Protect Reality from the Nephandi and Maruaders.. but it's a case of sometimes having to burn the village to save it in their approach. One of my players had a few contacts with the Technos.. their deals and meetings came across as a pair of spies in old Cold War Berlin meeting each other on a park and giving them info. Sometimes they would be doing it to show the rot in the organization they worked for, other times it might be to put the other side at a disadvantage. You never knew.

[Plot Hooks]

It's kinda hard to top oMage.

I have been told that nMage can be fun, and that they've since done a lot to remedy the setting.   However, it took 2 complete supplements in addition to the corebook and the WoD core, so that's way too much buy in, waaay too late, after being burned way too bad.

[meikle]

I've had a lot of trouble taking the old world of darkness seriously in a lot of cases -- Mage and Werewolf were a big part of that, because of how strongly they villified progress and technology.

[Plot Hooks]

Werewolf certainly did that.

Mage not so much.  Two of the traditions were completely about technology.    What it did vilify was the 'there is only one true way' style of thinking that has almost always been present in society, and the trends towards facism that western society was/is leaning towards.

[Callie Del Noire]

I've had a lot of trouble taking the old world of darkness seriously in a lot of cases -- Mage and Werewolf were a big part of that, because of how strongly they villified progress and technology.

For that it would come down to what the GM wants to do with it. I know my Mage game had two Order mages who used tech to help them out. (Cutting edge flatpanel to draw their sigils and such), a Rogue HiTMark (acutally an Orphan with a couple 'implants, actually talismans) and a virtual adept.

The rogue was the one that killed the T-Rex at the end of my old game. (A five dot talisman.. a MAJOR forces weapon/Rail gun)

[Plot Hooks]

I never got to play my verbena hacker, who worked his magic through strange animalistic rituals performed on his hardware, such as throwing blood-sacrifices into the sharpened whirling blades of his CPU fan.

(I spent five years recovering from surgery, but it was worth it...    I got these super-circuits.   Synthetic Saliva... Biogenetic tounge drivers with inertia... Endurance booster implants designed to hurt ya!)

[meikle]

Mage not so much.  Two of the traditions were completely about technology.    What it did vilify was the 'there is only one true way' style of thinking that has almost always been present in society, and the trends towards facism that western society was/is leaning towards.

By superimposing those complaints against scientists.

It reminds me of that stupid Miracles song.  I don't wanna talk to a scientist!

I guess it's the right way to go in oMage, though, because the scientific method doesn't really function in a world where your results change based on what people think should happen.

[Plot Hooks]

Again, I have to defend the Virtual Adepts and Sons of Ether.   Those guys were scientists as well, certainly no less so than anyone in the technocracy.  It's just that their ideas of science lead to decentralized power that was not easy to control, which put them at odds with the Technocratic Union.    And the Order of Reason wasn't uniform.   Big hunks of it were mafia and Illuminai types that controlled government agencies.   

I will give you that you could be left with the impression 'Science is Bad' from giving the book a quick once over.   However, I'm not sure I'd rank it on the same tier as Werewolf, which I too had trouble taking seriously.

[meikle]

Werewolf was maybe more overt (the weaver is everywhere!  corporations turn you into a monster!), but I think that the decision to superimpose fascism over a conglomerate of scientists -- as opposed to, say, something more traditionally despotic -- is an important thing to consider.

It doesn't help that in the process, they're making the Technocracy wrong -- not just the people who want to edge everyone out, but the people who want to edge everyone out and also who are wrong about the universe (ie, science is wrong.)

Unfortunately, this means that Virtual Adepts and Sons of Ether, insofar as they treat technology as the result of scientific process and not just fancier talismans, are also wrong: science doesn't (or rather, can't) exist* in a world with consensus reality.  They're just aligning themselves more closely with the winning team (that is, they play friendlier with consensus.)

* Arguably, you could make the case that there might be science regarding how consensus reality works ... unless that quality is open to modification by consensus as well, and I don't know how that's handled by Mage.

edit: I'm not arguing that mage is bad.  I love the way it handles magic.  I just hate that the bad guys are a bunch of scientists.

[Callie Del Noire]

It depends on the bad guy of the campaign.. mine were the Nephandi.. the Technoarchy were more 'guys in power armor/men in black' types than evil scientists.

I used the Syndicate and Men In Black more than anything else. And they weren't science types.. with a bit of 'fire support' from the Interation Xers for the 'super-tech' feel.

The hinge point was that everyone was wanting to stop the resurrection of a centuries dead Nephandi lich..

He got to live for all of five seconds..then the building collapsed on him as the reality storm that a four way battle for the local reality of downtown Charlotte fell apart. It was messy, nasty, underhanded and not many folks from ANY group walked away.

[Plot Hooks]

Yea, same here.   I always came away thinking of the technocracy not as scientists, but as an apparatus that happened to use technology as it's primary tool in subjugation.  Ie: Men in Black, Suited Mafia, and drugged-up super soldiers.   I also came away thinking that the technocrats were fundemetally right:   Magic is dangerous and can't go unregulated, lest they invite destructive forces on all of humanity.

That said, there is a strong anti-corporate, anti-monolithic-western-culture vibe going on, and that technology and science are tetramount to religion inthat culture.

But that's the beauty of Mage.   It is made abundantly clear that neither side is completely right or wrong, save for the Nephandi. 

Now, take all of this with a grain of salt and please realize that I probably have a skewed view of the game.   I had full buy-in with Mage from day one.   The first time I encountered the game, I spent a three day bender reading every supplement I could get my hands on.  I absorbed the game in an unhealthily fanatic way.  I have almost zero experience from the perspective of someone who just read the core-book and one or two supplements.  It is conceivable that someone less excited about the game could have a different and entirely correct and valid interpretation of the game.  It is almost definitely a YMMV deal.  After all, look at how I feel about nMage based on the core and a few supplements. 

[Black Howling]

Wow, old werewolf sounds less appealing now... I never played myself, though glad new werewolf doesn't have the weird technocracy crap. At-least, not in it's base form without variant and optional supplements to the setting/game.

[Callie Del Noire]

Wow, old werewolf sounds less appealing now... I never played myself, though glad new werewolf doesn't have the weird technocracy crap. At-least, not in it's base form without variant and optional supplements to the setting/game.

It did.. sorta.. there was a company.. Pentex I think, which was the 'big bad technology/industry' stereotype but not to the degree the Technocrats could be seen if played from certain ways.

[Black Howling]

It did.. sorta.. there was a company.. Pentex I think, which was the 'big bad technology/industry' stereotype but not to the degree the Technocrats could be seen if played from certain ways.

I haven't heard of it honestly, but again; I haven't read past the core and two supplements. Honestly, white wolfs supplements give very little other then plot seeds usually. So I don't bother with them all too much. Well, except on Exalted; but that's because each different Exalted had their own book. -_-

[meikle]

Wow, old werewolf sounds less appealing now... I never played myself, though glad new werewolf doesn't have the weird technocracy crap. At-least, not in it's base form without variant and optional supplements to the setting/game.

Werewolf doesn't have the Technocracy (that's a Mage thing); instead, it gets EVERYTHING MODERN IS EMPOWERING THE MADDENED FORCE OF STASIS!!! and CORPORATIONS ARE OUT TO TURN YOUR CHILDREN INTO MONSTERS and etc.

Werewolf also gets the Ratkin supplement, which is my favorite bit of any old world of darkness bit (because the PC options are all so contemptible that the fact that they're trying to blow up modern civilization doesn't annoy me quite as much.)

[Black Howling]

Werewolf doesn't have the Technocracy (that's a Mage thing); instead, it gets EVERYTHING MODERN IS EMPOWERING THE MADDENED FORCE OF STASIS!!! and CORPORATIONS ARE OUT TO TURN YOUR CHILDREN INTO MONSTERS and etc.

Werewolf also gets the Ratkin supplement, which is my favorite bit of any old world of darkness bit (because the PC options are all so contemptible that the fact that they're trying to blow up modern civilization doesn't annoy me quite as much.)

Ok, then glad new werewolf didn't inherit that too badly... Damn, OWoD sounds a little suffocating now.

[Callie Del Noire]

Ok, then glad new werewolf didn't inherit that too badly... Damn, OWoD sounds a little suffocating now.

Not really.. you could set the tone of your own games pretty good. :D
My vampire game was about city politics and a centuries old feud between a Giovanni Elder, his 'illegitimate' Childe (technically a Caitiff, but how many 8th Gen Caitiff are there) with a good side war of the Tremere chantry wanting both their grimoires.

Add in small things like the Sabbat trying to make an incursion, a 'small' invasion of redcaps (my own make based on the ones in Matt Wagner's Mage) and a few other things.

[Black Howling]

Not really.. you could set the tone of your own games pretty good. :D
My vampire game was about city politics and a centuries old feud between a Giovanni Elder, his 'illegitimate' Childe (technically a Caitiff, but how many 8th Gen Caitiff are there) with a good side war of the Tremere chantry wanting both their grimoires.

Add in small things like the Sabbat trying to make an incursion, a 'small' invasion of redcaps (my own make based on the ones in Matt Wagner's Mage) and a few other things.

So, just one of those things that sounds suffocating when you think to hard or aren't creative enough? Like Exalted's setting.

[meikle]

World of Darkness still seems stifling to me.

I mean, the default assumption of the game seems to be, to take Callie's example, that all of those kinds of things are going on ... and the PCs are playing 13th generation nobodies that can't meaningfully confront any of the major characters in the events unfolding.

Even the CRPG, Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines: Colons had this whole thing going on; the game was excellent, but the entire plot could be summarized as "sucks to be you, newbie."

There's one scene where you're dealing with the vampire in charge of the city.  If you try to tell him you're not willing to work with him, he literally just mind controls you so that all of your responses to his command are agreement.

That scene basically summarizes the old World of Darkness in my mind.

[Callie Del Noire]

World of Darkness still seems stifling to me.

I mean, the default assumption of the game seems to be, to take Callie's example, that all of those kinds of things are going on ... and the PCs are playing 13th generation nobodies that can't meaningfully confront any of the major characters in the events unfolding.

Even the CRPG, Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines: Colons had this whole thing going on; the game was excellent, but the entire plot could be summarized as "sucks to be you, newbie."

There's one scene where you're dealing with the vampire in charge of the city.  If you try to tell him you're not willing to work with him, he literally just mind controls you so that all of your responses to his command are agreement.

That scene basically summarizes the old World of Darkness in my mind.

Actually in my game the players weren't 13th gen nobodies, even the 13th gen folks.

We had a setite who was all about building up a network of contacts..she pulled it off. Started with the morgue and had a trio of ghouls in the morgue, blackmailed the new chief of police and hijacked the local bloodbank from one of the Brujah elders.. (actually she set up a new one and undercut the elders)

One of the players wound up being the 'Sheriff' of the city, after he killed the prior one when it turned out he was backing a Sabbat attempt to take the city. Another wound up being her Elder's rep in the city, after the current rep showed his true colors and ran during the same event.

The trick with Vampire is put the players in a spot where they can succeed as well.. then slowly reveal that the 'win' might not be as big as they thought.. or puts them in a position they have to defend.

The Gangrel wound up being the 'go to guy' for territorial beefs (Sheriff), the Setite had to make deals to keep her growing network (as well as stab her sire in the back during the Sabbat event to keep them for herself), The Toredor wound up having to spend more time in Elysium and learning what a roaring bitch the elder could be. (She was a prima dona of epic proportions) and the Catiff of the group had to defend his territory from a trio of Brujah Anarchs. (He was given six blocks around his dojo)

[meikle]

Just because you run your game contrary to what the game assumes doesn't change the assumption. :p

I didn't mean to imply that your game followed that outline; just that the game itself seems to assume that given your outline, the PCs would be characters who are not very important.  It does this by assuming that PCs will be fresh vampires in locations that are already established (like Chicago.)

If you're playing in, say, Chicago, the only way a 13th generation, freshly-turned character is going to become Sheriff is if the game is intentionally twisted in favor of that happening.

Anyone can deviate from the game's assumptions, and I'm not saying you shouldn't.  But the way the game presents itself is the basis of my criticism.