[OSSR]Monte Cook's World of Darkness

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:52 am

Why not review something like the SR Grimoire?

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 8:54 am

I'd love to see a review of the First Edition Shadowrun core book. I can't find a copy of it anywhere and I'd like to see it get the treatment Earthdawn first edition got.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:54 am

Prak wrote: AH and Frank specifically, but anyone, really- Imagine you were at the head of McWoD, not necessarily designing, but you had the stick to beat people so they did the game you want.
What would you have wanted d20 WoD to actually be?

All anyone ever wanted was the d20 equivalent of GURPS:V:tM. They wanted a stripped-down but recognizable version of the World of Darkness with a d20 ruleset compatible with other d20 rulesets. Preferably actual d20 instead of Pathfinder or d20 Modern, but I think as long as it was consistent with one system, it would have been "That'll do, pig."

Emerald · Post by **Emerald** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 11:23 am

Ancient History wrote:
Prak wrote: AH and Frank specifically, but anyone, really- Imagine you were at the head of McWoD, not necessarily designing, but you had the stick to beat people so they did the game you want.
What would you have wanted d20 WoD to actually be?
All anyone ever wanted was the d20 equivalent of GURPS:V:tM. They wanted a stripped-down but recognizable version of the World of Darkness with a d20 ruleset compatible with other d20 rulesets. Preferably actual d20 instead of Pathfinder or d20 Modern, but I think as long as it was consistent with one system, it would have been "That'll do, pig."

Hell, I think even just providing a Races Of X splat containing remotely playable vampire, lycanthrope, and fey races (with associated monster classes and PrCs so you can be nothing but a vampire mechanically if you want), making a half-assed Verb/Noun casting class, putting in a few paragraphs of WoD fluff, and calling it a day would have been good enough.

People are willing to convert pretty much anything to d20 already and they can always use their own fluff, the main benefit of McWoD would be the ability to show a DM a vampire race in a published book with 0 LA and say "See, it's published, it must be balanced, can I play it?"

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 12:34 pm

I mistakenly assumed that's what it was before this review. A d20 version of WoD. A low bar to meet that could have found a lot of appeal both for WoD fans and also for people who wanted to mod DnD with better vampires or werewolves.

In retrospect I should've known they'd failed hard, since that would have had some traction.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 3:41 pm

Y'all should review GURPS: Reign of Steel.

It's proper post-apoc, world-spanning, endless campaign hooks and reasons to care, clearly gets everything right that this got wrong. Being GURPS, you could even play Vampires and Wizards and Werewolves and whatever the fuck else you wanted as well.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:43 pm

I am reminded of Monte Cook's rant about "writing for assholes." Basically, Monte is incredibly burnt out, but he keeps writing RPG stuff because it's what people will pay him to do. He hates the fans and doesn't want to read outside his own comfort zone to research other topics.

At the beginning of this book he talks about gushing like a fan boy at the Dotmeister and getting brushed off back in 1991. And I'm genuinely not sure how much of Monte Cook's absolute refusal to do any research into Goth culture or White Wolf game design theories in the subsequent 16 years was sour grapes at not having been taken seriously enough.

It's kinda weird. Monte Cook fucking hates us. And by "us" I don't mean "The Gaming Den," I mean pretty much all of the various flavors of nerd culture. He doesn't want to be providing services to people who have ideas about mathematics and literary genres. He' really burnt out. And is deeply resentful that in order to continue getting paid he has to continue interacting with people who have read books he hasn't read.

And that's how he ended up writing a new edition of World of Darkness without having actually read Interview With The Vampire. Because he "doesn't want to write for assholes."

-Username17

souran · Post by **souran** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:56 pm

Riddle of Steel or Blade of the Iron Throne might be interesting OSSR reviews.

If you want a ruleset that you destroy utterly, and leave no two stones atop each other in the wake of your righteous fury I would suggest doing a review of "The CrossRoads of Eternity." This was quite possibly the worst RPG I have ever read. I have never played it, and bought the core book at Origins one year while out of my mind.

angelfromanotherpin · Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:18 pm

souran wrote:Riddle of Steel or Blade of the Iron Throne might be interesting OSSR reviews.

Interesting in the Chinese proverb sense, perhaps. Riddle of Steel is a train wreck. Blade of the Iron Throne is merely a bus crash, but it still isn't good.

silva · Post by **silva** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:23 pm

Another vote for "Gurps: Reign of Steel" and for "Riddle of Steel". One is a great setting, and the other is famed as the "most realistic roleplaying combat rules ever".

I never had a group to play the first, and never had patience to learn the second.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:51 pm

How about the Game of Thrones RPG? The Wiki says it's Guardians of Order, but that's a Sword and Sorcery logo on the front, which was White Wolf's d20 imprint.

No clue how good it will be, but it should interesting. In the Chinese proverb sense, anyway, as angel says.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:10 pm

I only knew of the one that was published by Green Ronin.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:14 pm

I'd suggest a trainwreck like the D20 Immortals Handbook. If for no other reason than the absurd monster manual entries. It's the only suppliment I know that scales up size classes so that you can fight mountain-sized enemies, planet sized enemies, and eventually universe-sized enemies.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:22 pm

Man, now I want a Gurren Lagann d20 game.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:30 pm

I would suggest OGL Shadowrun Cybernet by Mongoose

* edit: on second thought the whole OGL line might be fun to OSSR.

souran · Post by **souran** » Fri Jun 12, 2015 2:08 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
souran wrote:Riddle of Steel or Blade of the Iron Throne might be interesting OSSR reviews.
Interesting in the Chinese proverb sense, perhaps. Riddle of Steel is a train wreck. Blade of the Iron Throne is merely a bus crash, but it still isn't good.

Well, Riddle of Steel is good at being a game designed to appeal to members of the society of creative anachronism. When I was in college I was on an intramural fencing team. The fencing master also owned a game store and was an SCA member. He loved to demo this game because his technical knowledge of fencing made him incredible at the combat and he loved that every little aspect of sport fencing was captured in some way. The authors really did consult fight-books, and do serious research...and the result is a game where combat lasting 35 seconds take 3.5 hours to roll out. Fighting more than two people at a time is...unadvised. The rest of the system similarly has a lot of detail that eats up a lot of time for every little gain. Indeed as I remember there was actually quite a bit of "this game is not for you" type descriptions in the marketing of Riddle of Steel.

So again good is relative, a game that is well researched, and with rules that are accurate reflections of that research can still be a head on collision of a truck full of dynomite and a honeywagon.