aWoD: Continued

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:58 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Other real possibilities would be Tianwang (Chinese) or Shitenno (Nipponese), who are the Buddhist heavenly kings of Earth Guardianship and also the evil generals from Sailor Moon.

I'd like to formally vote against Shitenno as a name for anything.

But Sidhe sounds fine to me. If someone can come up with something better, great. But otherwise, no big deal as far as I'm concerned.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:59 am

What about just plain Tenno or Tenjin?

EDIT: Are Ideologies meant to have any mechanical effect? Currently, there's nothing...

A Hammer · Post by **A Hammer** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:47 pm

Orion wrote:Some sorceries do active things without dicepools. Beast Form, for example.

If a Ventrue turns into a bat and flies away, what happens when you shoot at him with a Salt Shotgun? does even 1 hit negate the Beast Form?

Actually, I'm pretty sure that under the current ruleset Bat-true wouldn't be affected by counterspelling at all, in the same way that a recipient of Blood Bondage couldn't cure his blood addiction by stuffing some live grain into his mouth.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:51 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: Other real possibilities would be Tianwang (Chinese) or Shitenno (Nipponese), who are the Buddhist heavenly kings of Earth Guardianship and also the evil generals from Sailor Moon. Tianwang is unfortunate because it contains the word "wang" and Shitenno is unfortunate because it implies that there are only four (also, there are already a bunch of groups with Nipponese names). Going that way, it would probably be better to use the Hindi name for the Negaverse Generals: Lokapala.
-Username17

How about the Japanese Oni?
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni ups thats german
English Version

But I got my main impression of Oni from here

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:01 pm

Oni are pretty much the Akuma. In that "Akuma" is a Nipponese word for an evil spirit that is frequently used interchangeably with "Oni."

Now as far as that goes, for the American audience, the only "Akuma" they know is the Street Fighter character who is totally cheap (and who is named after the folkloric monster). Which means that actually going in and renaming the Akuma to be something like Asura or Rephaim or whatever and then renaming the Sidhe to Akuma would be possible. Enough people think of This when they hear "Akuma" that it would probably work.

-Username17

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:52 am

So admittedly I've forgotten what's been going on in this debate, but remind me again why we don't make the Sidhe fey and have Succubus/Incubus be the sexy demons? I don't think it takes up a ton of extra conceptual space to have both Succubus and Incubus there, especially since people are, by and large, pretty familiar with the words.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:15 am

This is the first google hit for Nephilim that actually depicts one, except for a Magic Card.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:14 am

Hilariously, that link is marked as "fey" in its elfwood account. Also, that has no scale. Here is a picture with scale:

The Nephilim are giants. Depraved giants. I would be willing to rename the Akuma into Nephilim if for some reason I felt there needed to be more Hebrew names in there. But under no circumstances would I name anything that was not, well, giant to "Nephilim." If I thought that any language was really underrepresented, it would be Chinese (Yaoguai would be pretty good if it wasn't for Fallout 3), or Yoruba (Abiku would be OK).

The thing is that in actual folklore there is absolutely no difference between "fey" "demon" and "ghost." We come from a post-enlightenment period and play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, so categorizing these things is natural for us. The word "Sidhe" is Celtic. And we associate Celtic crap with "the fey" - but we do so for no reason. Those things could just as plausibly be demons.

-Username17

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:44 am

I don't dispute that Nephilim were considered to be giants by a great number of both ancient and contemporary writers. But there are absolutely pop-culture portrayals of Nephilim and sexy demon-types.

In other words, it's exactly the same case as with "Asuras." If one's acceptable, the other is.

----

But enough of that. I'm perfectly happy with Asuras. Your statement that Ghost, Fey, and Demons are interchangeable in the folklore is true but disingenous. In aWoD, "Fey" are earth natives who were driven out by iron age peoples. "demons" are otherworldly beings.

"Sidhe," literally people of the *mound*, pretty clearly fall under "fey" in that classification. Nephilim are the offspring of explicitly otherworldly powers, and I believe Asuras are also often portrayed as otherworldly.

That makes eithe rof them more acceptable as aWoD "demons."

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:23 am

FrankTrollman wrote: Other real possibilities would be Tianwang (Chinese) or Shitenno (Nipponese), who are the Buddhist heavenly kings of Earth Guardianship and also the evil generals from Sailor Moon. Tianwang is unfortunate because it contains the word "wang" and Shitenno is unfortunate because it implies that there are only four (also, there are already a bunch of groups with Nipponese names). Going that way, it would probably be better to use the Hindi name for the Negaverse Generals: Lokapala.

I'm probably biased but Tianwang (天王) is right out for me. Not so much because of the religious connotations (which are pretty minimal from my knowledge) but because Tianwang was, at least for a while, a position in the Chinese bureaucracy and both words (Tian and Wang) have really strong connotations in their own right. Also, not to weaken my case but, wang is pronounced with the "a" sound that starts the word "are" so penis jokes shouldn't follow. As for implying that there are only four of them...there are only four of them. Also they are supposed to be good guys (at least if you're a Buddhist).

If you want to go Chinese-y go with Shen (神). It is morally neutral and pretty much means "really powerful thing" or Gui (鬼) which is a ghost or demon (depending on who is doing the translation) and is pretty much always evil. Both are specific in that they describe powerful supernatural stuff but ambiguous in that they do not refer to any specific powerful supernatural stuff.

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:33 am

Yes, but China actually still exists in aWoD as a place you might go. Common and ambiguous words like gui should probably be reserved as a general word for "supernatural creature" or "unknown supernatural creature" or even with no specific meaning.

Asura would work for me.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 7:55 am

IGTN wrote:Yes, but China actually still exists in aWoD as a place you might go. Common and ambiguous words like gui should probably be reserved as a general word for "supernatural creature" or "unknown supernatural creature" or even with no specific meaning.

Asura would work for me.

This feels like a valid concern only if you intend to play the scenes spent in China in the Chinese language. That doesn't seem probable.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:03 am

I've put up a session report on ITT. It's pretty short on detail but I can elaborate.

Questions: are there mechanics for flashbangs or other attempts to victimize people with Super Senses?

What benefits does Super Senses actually do? -2 to the threshold of perception rolls, or so?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:52 pm

I'll keep rules discussions here. Though I am greatly enjoying those game notes.

Orion wrote:I've put up a session report on ITT. It's pretty short on detail but I can elaborate.

Questions: are there mechanics for flashbangs or other attempts to victimize people with Super Senses?

It's currently under Overstimulation in the Danger Chapter. Super Senses knock up the threshold to 4 to identify targets visually after getting flashed. Do you think that's too opaque? Should I throw in some pointers, maybe in Super Senses itself?

What benefits does Super Senses actually do? -2 to the threshold of perception rolls, or so?

Well, the biggest advantage is that you can straight up see without any light at all. Similarly, you can put on the super hearing and then you can hear super quiet shit like heartbeats. But I really need to wargame up some stealth modifiers for shadows and shit and give some concrete examples of super senses.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 7:16 pm

Ok, I hate to stretch this on with something I should have brought up earlier, but....

Why can't we just call them Succubi and have the ones that are actually male get a bit pissed off when idiots use that term rather than Incubi?

Seriously. Makes sense to me. Why won't that work?

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:01 am

Hey Frank,

Venture Description wrote:Sunlight (and probably any sufficiently strong UV radiation) is harmful to Ventrue, and it renders their powers weak.

Can you really just point UV lamps at vampires and disable their magic?

EDIT: Also, can someone tell me what the Expression skill is supposed to do? Is that acting or what?

EDIT2: Elder Lure of Destruction, Death Knell, should be called something else, possibly Exorcism. It doesn't kill anything except zombies, and it banishes ghosts and disables orphic creatures. If I'm an extra, I am significantly safer standing next to someone using Death Knell.

EDIT3: Also, why do we call some things core disciplines and some things basic disciplines, when characters of the appropriate races get all of them anyway?

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 1:59 am

In the short description of Maya, it still describes that as being the place where "fairies" go; that should probably be updated at some point since the Fey were moved.

@Gelare: "Core Disciplines" are basics in a discipline that every member of a given type has two Basics in, and every playable type has exactly one. As far as I can tell, it doesn't have any more or less significance than that.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:05 am

What would you suggest for Death Knell? A Death Knell is a bell rung to announce that someone has died (as in, in the past). The fact that Death Knell actually kills people in D&D land is really weird.

And yeah, Core Disciplines are just there to mark off that your character gets 2 Basic and an Advanced Discipline from that Discipline. It doesn't actually mean anything save that presenting the information of what powers you get seemed to be easier to remember. Four Basic Disciplines and a Core Discipline was easier for people to repeat and keep straight in basic tests than six Basic disciplines, and it basically means the same thing.

Here's the Expression Writeup from New World of Darkness:

Expression reflects your character’s training or experience in the art of communication, both to entertain and inform. This Skill covers both the written and spoken word and other forms of entertainment, from journalism to poetry, creative writing to acting, music to dance. Characters can use it to compose written works or to put the right words together at the spur of the moment to deliver a rousing speech or a memorable toast. Used well, Expression can sway others’ opinions or even hold an audience captive.

And yeah, that's kind of incoherent, because dammit there's already a Persuasion skill.

Same book, 2 pages later wrote:Persuasion is the art of inspiring or changing minds through logic, charm or sheer, glib fast-talking.

So using the art of communication to change peoples' minds is Expression, but changing minds through communicating is Persuasion. What the fucking hell?

The way I think I am going to handle it is that you use Expression to write, dance, or sing, and you use Persuasion to lie to people. Currently you use Expression for the Appeal to Style and you use Persuasion to fast talk, impersonate, and subterfugiate.

Anyway, on Despair and Loneliness in SF:

One of the primary goals with the combat system is that characters with Edge should normally get away in major confrontations, and only actually go down later on in chronicle. It's based on supernatural movies and all that, so a Luminary should in fact manage to spend some edge and run off when confronted by an axe wielding psychopath (meanwhile an Extra goes down in a round or two).

Also, is the Golem getting his +1 Damage mod from dual wielding pistols?

-Username17

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:18 pm

Re: Death Knell

Gelare wrote:EDIT2: Elder Lure of Destruction, Death Knell, should be called something else, possibly Exorcism. It doesn't kill anything except zombies, and it banishes ghosts and disables orphic creatures. If I'm an extra, I am significantly safer standing next to someone using Death Knell.

Emphasis mine. (Well, the whole thing's mine, but y'know.) I think Exorcism would be good, since it banishes ghosts.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:30 am

Frank,

The Merits weren't up yet last time we played, so the golem was just getting damage 1 from a light pistol.

Also, bump on the discipline fixes. (And, incidentally, my question about monster progression from the other thread: if your game has "monsters" designed in a way totally separate from PCs, can't you put in monsters that the PCs will never be as good as?)

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:38 am

Orion wrote:(And, incidentally, my question about monster progression from the other thread: if your game has "monsters" designed in a way totally separate from PCs, can't you put in monsters that the PCs will never be as good as?)

In the case of aWoD monsters, the only way that could work is with things with the Continuous power schedule, because that's the only option the PCs can never have. Otherwise, there isn't any set of things that the enemies have that the PCs could not have eventually - except any "clan tells" that the enemies might have, if those end up with mechanical effects.

If that was something you specifically wanted, you could design it in, but not with the current system.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:40 am

I was referring to an argument from the Fighter thread about high fantasy RPGs actually. Not something necessary here.

Also, adding more PCs to Despair.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 4:21 am

Is getting drunk an effective way to combat involuntary werewolf transformation?

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 12:19 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Also, is the Golem getting his +1 Damage mod from dual wielding pistols?

Just wanted to mention that whilst reading this I got an image of a DnD Golem Dual-wielding handguns Woo-style whilst leaping in slow-mo through a crowded room.

Awesome.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:11 pm

Red_Rob wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Also, is the Golem getting his +1 Damage mod from dual wielding pistols?
Just wanted to mention that whilst reading this I got an image of a DnD Golem Dual-wielding handguns Woo-style whilst leaping in slow-mo through a crowded room.

Awesome.

I may have to steal that image...