Revising the World of Darkness

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 19, 2008 7:28 am

So why not make them distinct through abilities, I personally am in favour of the overlap(but then, I'm also in favour of there being more than just Were-wolves, were-tigers and whatever that third type you decided on was)

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon May 19, 2008 8:45 am

Less is seriously more.

In a pure fantasy game, it's perfectly fine to have every single province and village you ever go to be filled with new strange and exotic creatures. But in modern horror, that's totally unacceptable. Having a reasonably identifiable "modern world" takes up a lot of conceptual space, and if you try to cram in all the mythic elements it all falls apart. The World of Darkness requires the amount of supernatural crap in it to be small enough that it can all stay fairly secret.

So while the world can accommodate Polynesian shark shifters or Inuit seal women or Mayan jaguar warriors or Central Asian raven people, it can't support all of those. Teen Wolf was fun, but the amount of werewolves in the world has to be small enough that his abilities make him markedly good at basketball or the story doesn't work. If one of the bigger kids turned out to be a wereboar and the hero was just the second or third best guy on the team, the story would not happen.

But on the flip side, there have to be enough "werewolves" for there to be politics involving those werewolves or the whole social dynamic the World of Darkness wants to have comes crashing down. That puts you in a severe bind. If there aren't enough "vampires" to have "vampire politics" then you can't do the vampire politics. But if there are enough supernaturals that every vampire doesn't feel special, the story also does not go. And the only possible way to reconcile those two opposing demands is to heavily limit the number of types of supernaturals in the world.

Or just go the other way, drop the idea of supernatural "types" altogether and just make every supernatural be a "chaos spawn" where they are unique and have a non-overlapping power set. But that seems like a non-starter for a game whose core conceit is to hang around in opera capes doing vampire politics.

-Username17

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon May 19, 2008 9:05 am

I suppose it could be cool in the right method of presentation.

A "werecroc" appearance and behavior would be somewhere between Croc of the Batman mythos and the swimming creature in Alien: Resurrection.

As stated it just doesn't work in, for example, the middle of New York City. It's all about context.
But as a general rule for 'thropes it might be ideal to at least be on top of the food chain.

Wereplanaria are outright unworkable.

Or are they?

http://www.scifijapan.com/Host/96.jpg

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 19, 2008 2:09 pm

wait, if the politics are "you are vampire, you will do what we say, or you can do what you want on your own" or whatever or all about being a werewolf, why not flip it a bit were all that matters in the politics is your broad type, as opposed to your narrow type, say Werething politics or Leviathan politics, with, maybe, the werewolf faction or the yuan-ti faction?

there's over 8 billion people on earth, and I think I've heard that we actually inhabit a very small percentage of the globe, I think there's plenty of room both for all manner of monster to lurk within society and for all manner of monster to lurk in the dark places people never go.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Mon May 19, 2008 2:39 pm

there's over 8 billion people on earth, and I think I've heard that we actually inhabit a very small percentage of the globe, I think there's plenty of room both for all manner of monster to lurk within society and for all manner of monster to lurk in the dark places people never go.

This is a picture of earth at night. It shows where people live, and literally gives you the dark places where things can hide.

However, I still agree with Frank that having snake people and snake vampires and were-snakes doesn't work, in addition to it simply being stupid.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon May 19, 2008 4:41 pm

The mythology behind witches, werewolves and vampires is intolerably tangled. In some traditions, a werewolf is a person who bargains with a pagan god/a spirit/the devil to put on a wolfskin and become a predator. People wounded by that person become accursed to be part of the witch-pack, changing when the bargainer puts on a wolfskin and unwillingly preying on their own community. And then a vampire is what you get when you kill one of those guys the wrong way.

Then again, in some traditions, a vampire is a ghost that chews on the fingers and toes of its corpse and in so doing kills its descendants. It's wacky, but it's actual folklore, not postmodern syncretist crap.

In oWoD, they had to come up with all kinds of mumbo-jumbo middle-forms and spirit stuff for the Garou because turning into a wolf was something they gave the Gangrel, and it wasn't enough to be someone's whole schtick.

I really think if you want to re-do the WoD, you should unify all the types into one type: Witches, those who contact the Umbra and make questionable deals with the beings there. Some of them make deals to come back from the dead and drink the blood of the living, and some of them make deals to put on animal skins and take the shape of locally-reviled animals, and some of them ride through the night skies in a mortar and pestle powered by the death of any babies that their shadow falls on. Then there's room for all the varieties of werefolk you want, because each one doesn't need a separate gene-pool to not die out. You can keep the 'types' by having there be only like 5 big entities to make deals with, but people could bargain with more than one entity and get picks off more than one menu. At the same time, it supports hanging out in opera capes doing politics, because everyone has a similar origin and a common frame of reference, and the theme of metaphysical rebellion plays into the teen issues WW loves to tap into.

On the other hand, if what you care about is the vampire politics, why do there have to be anything but vampires? In fact, if the politics are the important part, why do vampire clans need to be anything but social cliques and political parties? Everyone can just be a Stoker vampire with the same powers, because the powers aren't the point.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:14 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:On the other hand, if what you care about is the vampire politics, why do there have to be anything but vampires? In fact, if the politics are the important part, why do vampire clans need to be anything but social cliques and political parties? Everyone can just be a Stoker vampire with the same powers, because the powers aren't the point.

Because modern folklore on the subject is Monster Squad, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and Underworld. Vampire politics don't "feel right" unless the other horror movie monsters are available.

In other news, I'm thinking that the Leviathan insects could be a lot like This. And Mothman of course. They are from Virginia.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:19 pm

Precisely, Angel, the only reason you even need were things, leviathans, witches, etc. is if you want the game to be about more than vampire politics, so if you just want that, why not make a game called "Vampire: the Eternal Douchbaggery" and have fun circle jerking. You can use the same system as "Leviathan: the World Ruining" and "Werething: the Ecoterrorism", but it's really a separate game that honestly needs very little in the way of mechanics, hell, your circle of influence could seriously be tied to how withered your cock is, or how your stream of ash goes when you try to to piss and then you can make the game what it really is, whipping out your cock and seeing whose is better. Leviathan and Werething are more combat oriented games, while Witch probably devolves into "the oldest game"(I'm thinking that prose game that Morpheus plays with the demon that has his helm in Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes) rather quickly.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:59 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:Precisely, Angel, the only reason you even need were things, leviathans, witches, etc. is if you want the game to be about more than vampire politics, so if you just want that, why not make a game called "Vampire: the Eternal Douchbaggery" and have fun circle jerking. You can use the same system as "Leviathan: the World Ruining" and "Werething: the Ecoterrorism", but it's really a separate game that honestly needs very little in the way of mechanics, hell, your circle of influence could seriously be tied to how withered your cock is, or how your stream of ash goes when you try to to piss and then you can make the game what it really is, whipping out your cock and seeing whose is better. Leviathan and Werething are more combat oriented games, while Witch probably devolves into "the oldest game"(I'm thinking that prose game that Morpheus plays with the demon that has his helm in Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes) rather quickly.

Necrocock? I'll walk.

A note about vampires turning into wolves and other supernatural powers; this may or may not be common knowledge, but Dracula was a sorcerer. He was trained by The Devil as part of a pact in which the best student gets Faustian powers, while the rest are devoured.
Obviously, he passed. But in doing so lost his humanity.

I find it odd that so many vampire fans push the fad that many vampires have Special Powers but it really comes down to what the individual is capable of, not the race.
So we can have the "anyone changes into wolves" but it would not be a product of species as much as it is a magical skill, as with the legends of wolfskin (or other predator) shamans becoming the beast.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon May 19, 2008 6:15 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Because modern folklore on the subject is Monster Squad, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and Underworld. Vampire politics don't "feel right" unless the other horror movie monsters are available.

Two of your examples don't involve intra-monster politics, and the third one works fine if the Lycans are just a different strain of Vampire. At no point are the abilities of the two tribes in Underworld meaningfully distinct. One of them is bear and one of them is goth, and that's it.

Most of the modern source material is not about 'vampires,' it's about 'Dracula,' and Dracula isn't part of a lineage of similar beings that secretly run the world, he's a kickass motherfucker who stabbed a cross and drank the blood that flowed forth to become an undead abomination. He's a distinct and unique entity, and he thematically stops existing once there's half a hundred vampires. That path leads to Anno Dracula, where vampires aren't special anymore.

The theme needs narrowing. Taking everything the World of Darkness tried to do and doing it right is possible, but it's a distraction if the object is the much simpler 'producing a game which gets more overcleavaged women to interact with geeks.' Survival horror and superheroes don't really fit that mission plan.

If the focus of the game is politics, then the bad things hiding in the dark corners of the world are irrelevant; because you live in Washington D.C., where important things happen and they live in the back woods of Montana picking off militias one-by-one. Those two groups don't interact.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon May 19, 2008 7:47 pm

Well, in the actual setting...

2) Human participation is largely limited to being eaten, or being turned into one in the case of vampires, or being one in the case of mages. But normals are fodder across the board.

4) No real central focus. The actual games tend to break when you combine them, and there isn't much overlap, except a sort of vague, handwav-y one in the case of Werewolf and Mage and 'magical sites' (by whatever name).
But mage in particular is a cross-game breaker since the Mages can either transform the werewolves' blood directly to silver, or not, and the battles are pretty much won on that basis.

Same with mages and vampires. Except its even easier, since all you have to be is a forces specialist and conjure actual sunlight, or be a matter specialist and (since the vampires are dead matter) turn them directly into lawnchairs and not even care. (In the werewolf case, the mages would be need to be good at matter and life to pull the silver blood off).

But generally, the different games don't interact unless the GM wants them to. And it usually gets pretty stupid when it does, because the various 'superpowers' subsystems don't interact well. Or didn't, anyway. New world of darkness stuff is bad enough that it isn't worth trying to figure out. So it can range from 'cross-group diplomacy' to 'don't even know those other things really exist'. When they all exist, it becomes difficult to justify the idea that normals don't know about them, and you get stuff history changes, where, for example, everyone but actual normal humans were responsible for WWII.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 19, 2008 10:53 pm

Angelfromanotherpin wrote:Stuff

Yeah, the vampi politics is a much different game than werething and leviathan, because even when werethings have politics it's more about who gets to smash the big baddies, and Leviathan politics are more about who's plan for world ruination gets inacted, and the various supernaturals' politics don't interact. Vamps seriously could just be a new set of baddies for werething unless you actually want the supernaturals to be arguing amongst one another and then you've got the fucking senate from Star Wars Episode 1 with a building full of ambassadores acting like spoiled two year olds. I'll be honest, if vamps and werewolves are going to be interacting in my games, I want it to be a very simple friend or foe relationship, not have the wolves dragged into court intrigues, with the exception of the odd chapter where elaborate court intrigue is an obstacle they have to go through to get to the friend or foe interaction. Politics can be fun, but's more fun when you have supernaturals trying to sneak one of their own into humanity's politics and fucking with them than when you have a bunch of Lestat wannabes moping about how the tzimisce won't trade slaves to them or the brujah punched out their prince's heir.

well, that's my view anyway.

As to the multitudes of monsters hidden from humans... to be fair, we haven't discovered every species there actually is, and there is a species of fish that we thought was completely extinct until some research scientist was wandering through a second world country's fish market and said "WTF?" I think it's perfectly plausible for societies of supernatural creatures to hide out from humans in the dark/inaccesible places of the world(ie, there is no real reason that mages cannot have literal sky castles hidden by magic and only accessed by teleport, or why the fishy leviathans couldn't maintain entire societies in the deep crevices of the ocean.) and lets not forget that a number of the supernaturals we're discussing would be right at home in what could essentially be the underdark, which is both dark AND inaccesible. Lets see... Snake vamps, they're fine. Bug-viathans. check, werebats and bat themed vamps? perfect. and so on and so forth.the ocean hides an entire species so well, that we only think it exists because of carcasses, so we could seriously have all manner of were-sea things and leviathans down there who are very careful with carcasses. Then there's the fact that vampires are basically human shaped super predators who are traditionally good at stealth and bluffing, so they can seriously hide a good number of clans in regular human society, especially since any relatively minor breaking of the masquerade will seriously be dismissed by humans as "oh, it's one of those goth [EDITED] playing dracula." Hell, major breaks on the litany well be dismissed as "oh, he's a psycho like dahmer or ramierez." Don't underestimate the human mind to rationalize things into the little box that is "reality."

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 20, 2008 6:54 am

The needs of a role playing game put substantial constraints on the overall dynamic. First of all, there needs to be a multilayered supernatural social organization that has places for every kind of supernatural. You're the villains from Monster Squad, and you need a reason to stick together as a "party" and accomplish goals. Otherwise the game falls apart.

The social organization also needs to be powerful relative to the players or the modernity of the setting breaks apart. If the supernatural society is weak or nonexistent then the players are no longer playing in a modern setting, they are playing superheroes or even iron age gods. If the masquerade is not enforced by something powerful, the players will just make themselves vampire armies or conquer countries or start religions or something. The setting won't survive contact with the PCs unless it has inertia, and setting inertia can only come from social forces.

It doesn't need to be as repeatedly facially cock slapping as the original V:tM (I'm 4th generation, suck my nuts!), but it does have to have an established and powerful secret magical social order that is highly resistant and reluctant to change. It is for this reason that I suggested the 3 tier social order:

Coterie - this is the collection of Player Characters. They band together to watch TV, smoke weed, and hit on women. Or to try to change the world. Or to fight villains. It can be a group anywhere from Harold and Kumar to Doc Savage.
Cults - this is an organization which an individual character might be a member of. Like a religious group or a corporation, membership has its privileges, but if you decline to join one that's also OK. Characters being members of different ones can be a source of conflict or synergy, but in any case is a catalyst for character interaction.
Covenants - this is an organization that is like unto a nation. It "owns" whole cities and you are subject to its rules whether you like it or not. The covenants provide a metric against which you can measure social goals, and provide a much needed setting inertia that keeps people on a similar page.

All levels of social organization need to have a place for every kind of supernatural. At the very least, they need a place for Imhotep, Dracula, Talbot, Gillman, Griffin, and Frankenstein's Monster. They need a place for those because people want to and should be able to play those kinds of characters. They are the monster list from Monster Squad and Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein.

So for example, if you were playing the Monster Squad group, you'd have five players. One of them would be a vampire. One a sorcerer. One a Leviathan. One a lycanthrope. And one a Promethean. That's your five person coterie. Now one of them can be a member of The Black Hand and one of them can be a member of the Tremere, and still another can be a member of the Giovani. Because frankly player characters having side jobs and the like isn't a problem. And finally, if these guys are operating in World Crime League territory or Camarilla territory, they have to at least pay lip service to those rules.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue May 20, 2008 7:29 am

I'm not so concerned about the organizations being facially cock slapping in their enforcement, I'm concerned about the fact that politics seems to turn into a pissing contest.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 20, 2008 7:57 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I'm not so concerned about the organizations being facially cock slapping in their enforcement, I'm concerned about the fact that politics seems to turn into a pissing contest.

Political and Espionage goals are the only goals worth achieving in a modern setting. You can attain the support of your peers, push agendas, garner power and information, and you can undermine the activities and goals of other persons and groups. And that's it. Fighting monsters only matters in the context of political agendas. It doesn't matter how many drug dealers you put away, taking them down is just a tactic to influence the social position of the drug cartels. It doesn't matter how many terrorists you kill, killing terrorists is just a tactic to influence dominant ideology in the social order (just as terrorism is just a tactic to do that as well).

Without a political structure against which to act, you can't do anything in a modern setting. For your goals to be accomplishable, there have to be a set of starting values for you to attempt to influence. And this is also why the total number of "kinds" of supernaturals has to be kept manageable.

The players have to be able to understand what the Sabbat's position on fly people is and what the fly people lobby thinks about water rights if they want to change the water-use infrastructure of the Sabbat. If the number of groups and magical types becomes large enough that players and storytellers can't keep track of them, it becomes impossible to have any real discussion about the ramifications of actions, and thus goals can't even be set, let alone achieved.

Having more stuff in the setting is cool, but if the amount of stuff becomes too large it becomes paralyzing. It's a delicate balance. Already I think my projections may be erring on the side of too much setting bloat, but I think that can at least partially be accounted for by having regional distribution (since Wererats come from the Far East, you can largely ignore them in a campaign set in Africa or South America). To whit:

Eighteen distinct playable supernatural types. 6 categories, 3 divisions in each.
Twelve distinct non-playable supernatural types. 6 categories, 2 divisions each. Remember that while these non-playable types don't take up inter-player dynamics, they still are going to be interacted with on many levels and thus affect the game.
Thirteen cults. That's just an arbitrary number I chose because it's cool. I have nae even decided which ones make the cut.
Four world-spanning covenants that players may act within and against.
Three antagonist organizations to be at war with.

I mean, that's already a lot. Making plans of action to attain progress is already going to be difficult. And not just because two of the proposed world covenants are explicitly anti-progress.

-Username17

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue May 20, 2008 6:57 pm

What are the three 'promethean' types? I can think of Frankenstein's Monsters, Robots, and Golems. But do robots fit in the genre at all? 'Brains In Jars' seems a little too much.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue May 20, 2008 7:30 pm

well, the actual promethian book has five types, Frankensteins, Galateas, Golems, Riven(shamans torn apart and then put back together by spirits) and Osirians.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Tue May 20, 2008 7:37 pm

So, puppets, statues, mummies, corpses and... other corpses (who at least get to be re-assembled from the same body)

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 20, 2008 8:15 pm

Look, Promethean was the worst book that World of Darkness ever made, and that includes Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. Of it we shall speak no more. The early 20th century gave us three movies of relevance to this discussion:

Der Golem (1915)
Metropolis (1927)
Frankenstein (1931)

They include a man made of clay, a robot made to look like a woman, and a man sewn together out of body parts respectively. The three types of Promethean seem fairly easy to wrap one's mind around.

It's cutting it down to 3 vampire legends which is bad. Cutting things down to 3 sorcerer legends is even harder.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue May 20, 2008 9:40 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Look, Promethean was the worst book that World of Darkness ever made, and that includes Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. Of it we shall speak no more.

Wait, what? I thought Promethian was a great book, fuck, it's what got me to consider trying nwod out... or are you talking more about some of the core mechanics in the book?

The early 20th century gave us three movies of relevance to this discussion:

Der Golem (1915)

Metropolis (1927)

Frankenstein (1931)
They include a man made of clay, a robot made to look like a woman, and a man sewn together out of body parts respectively. The three types of Promethean seem fairly easy to wrap one's mind around.

I'm not sure I like the Metropolis thing... although I suppose it includes the thing I always think of for Promethian, Edward Scissorhands, so it works.

It's cutting it down to 3 vampire legends which is bad. Cutting things down to 3 sorcerer legends is even harder.

Yeah, especially since you want absolutely no overlap... Well, I suppose we need someone to make promethians, so one of the mage types should probably be "Artificer" so that frankies and eddies don't pop up out of no where. I think Harry Dresdan should be looked at for one of the types of Mage, as I kinda consider that to be the entire point of mage, to emulate Harry Dresdan. So we've got a blaster with divination.

Ok, what are we trying to allow with mages? Harry Dresdan, the Old Crone in the Woods and the Artificer? then we need Infliction(curses and damage), Divination and Artifice. But these are more disciplines than types, so how about:
The Technomage
The Shaman
and I'm not sure what the third type should be. I'm looking at methodology as the main difference, so when the Technomancer wants to divine something, he whips up a Sub-ether resonating device and gazes into it, when the shaman divines, he meditates and calls to spirits to bring him the knowledge. When the Technomancer wants to inflict damage or curses, he whips out a phaser, when the shaman wants to, he calls to spirits to inflame the skin or torment the foe's future. What does the third type do? Maybe the third type needs to be the traditional mage? When he divines, he whips out a crystal ball or scrying pool, when he wants to blast someone, he holds forth his staff?

Post by **fbmf** » Sun May 25, 2008 2:31 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
Wait, what? I thought Promethian was a great book, fuck, it's what got me to consider trying nwod out... or are you talking more about some of the core mechanics in the book?
No. Promethean s fuxxored from start to finish.

The worst sin is unplayability. You seriously get and cause penalties for trying to play at the same table as other supernatural creatures, which negates the entire point of them even existing in the World of Darkness as opposed to being a unique stand alone game. People want to play Monster Squad, but if you actually ring Frankenstein's Monster to the table with Dracula then both his and your position get screwed. That's totally unacceptable.

But from a flavor standpoint, the game misses the entire emo point of the Frankenstein concept. The creature is cast out and lonely because his creator is unlike him and unwilling to accept him, there are no others like him, and he cannot create more of his kind. The creature's angst comes from the fact that he is an individual, not a species and that the only person who understands him also rejects him. But the Prometheans in Promethean simply make themselves. Golems or Frankensteins in that book are true breeding. They have children just like themselves, meaning that the essential issues of parental abandonment and fear of a lack of legacy are gone. Your father is just like you and your son will be as well. Instead of being a raw look at generational rejection and fears of death and being forgotten it's just a model of an inbred family.

Promethean is an insult to the source material and is unplayable as a game. It is truly the worst World of Darkness product they ever wrote.

-Username17

Post by **fbmf** » Sun May 25, 2008 2:32 pm

Bigode wrote:OK, serious now: Frank, why no (according to you) succubi? I mean, people do want snakes, but you might as well shove them under "Promethean - Reptile".

Post by **fbmf** » Sun May 25, 2008 2:33 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:Maxus: fix your post

know what I like about you, Frank? you take a few simple facts and then make these stupid blanket statements as if they're also fact... rather than opinion, fortunately K is the one becoming a lawyer and not you.

Promethian may, yes, have some crappy bits, like the fact that it's debilitating to themselves and others to get into groups with other supernaturals, or the part where they demolish the whole point of one of the source materials to better unify the various types into the same game. But remember, that's only one piece of the source material, Frankenstein's Monster, you're completely looking past Rabbi Loew's Golem, Osiris, Galatea, and folk lore of shamans being torn apart by spirits then stitched back together. The golem was barely even sentient, Osiris bred true even though his dick was torn off, Galatea likely didn't have any trouble, and I'd bet the kibbles and bits of those shaman's worked just fine. The whole thing about debilitating presence actually makes sense when you look at them as unnatural things which should not be and thus disturb reality to the point where even vampires and werewolves can't function right around them. Hell, every game line of Wod is an insult to the source material, with possible exceptions for Mage and Demon.... Werewolf, if true to the source material, would be about running rampant through woods and rural towns killing everything. If Vampire were true to the source material, it'd be about cursing god and making a pact with Satan to become a murderous psycho of the night. If hunter were about the source material, you'd be a knowledgeable hero, chosen by fate to wield special powers and become a terror to the terrors of the night. Instead, werewolves are crying indians fighting Kali, vampires are whiney emo kids pissing and moaning in nightclubs, and hunters are scared mortals not quite powerful enough to actually have a 50/50 chance against all but the weakest supernaturals. Did you really expect Promethian to not crap on at least some of the source material?

Frank wrote:It is truly the worst World of Darkness product they ever wrote.
Gypsy.

Post by **fbmf** » Sun May 25, 2008 2:33 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
But remember, that's only one piece of the source material, Frankenstein's Monster, you're completely looking past Rabbi Loew's Golem, Osiris, Galatea, and folk lore of shamans being torn apart by spirits then stitched back together.
No. I'm not. Rabbi Loew's Golem follows the same general trend as Frankenstein's Monster. It can't possibly make more of its kind. And while initially Rabbi Loew accepts his creation and the Golem runs around Prague fighting crime and helping out, eventually society rejects it and the Golem and society have a war. The Golem grows bigger and more dangerous and eventually the Rabbi kills it with the whole word swapping thing. Galatea is actually quite a tragic story in which Pygmalion is already married and brings his statue to life with love only to return to his wife, leaving Galatea so rejected that she turns back into a statue. All follow a very similar pattern where the creator rejects the created, with the child eventually dying unloved and without a legacy. The only real difference is that in Frankenstein the creature outlives the creator and in the others the father stands over the body of the child.

Osiris isn't a Promethean story at all. Neither are Tupilaks. These are real living dudes with real ties to parents, families and children who are brought back from the dead using magic. They have no reason or basis to even be in the Promethean book because they are a completely unrelated story. Mummies are blessed/cursed with ever livingness. They are Vampires, Sorcerers, or Zombies depending upon which version of the story you are telling, but in no case do they stand in for Prometheans because they fucking well aren't children in a metaphorical sense upon their transformation into that state. For one thing, they aren't created, they are transformed. That's super important, god damn it.

Hell, in the actual other source material for this sort of thing (ex.: Metropolis, the Snow Child), the created never has children. Hell, even Frosty the Snowman fucking dies and his creators forget about him.

The whole thing about debilitating presence actually makes sense when you look at them as unnatural things which should not be and thus disturb reality to the point where even vampires and werewolves can't function right around them.
I don't give a flying rat's ass if it makes sense in the context of the game fiction they wrote, it's unplayable. And that means that it completely and utterly fails as game fiction.

You can't have a cooperative storytelling game if one of the players has the disadvantage that the other players don't function quite right. That's bullshit. The story is over before it begins. The game is built around the conceit that the players work together and hang out together, because otherwise there isn't a game.

If Vampire were true to the source material...
I'm going to stop you right there. Vampire source material is a lot... bigger than Promethean source material. It has a lot of variation in it. The Vampire Encyclopedia is over nine hundred pages long. There is a fuck tonne of vampire source material, and WoD, both new and old, seriously does cleave to some of it. Even the whole bullshit Jyhad thing they had for oWoD had strong ties to real source material.

Vampire has a lot of problems, but failing to get "the point" of vampirism is not one of them.

Gypsy.
Never read it. Seven and Dirty Secrets were both plenty awful, but not up to the shit storm that Promethean is.

-Username17

Post by **fbmf** » Sun May 25, 2008 2:34 pm

Koumei wrote: Are we talking "Worse than Orpheus"? I fucking hated that game even more than Werewolf and Vampire.

Anyway, I agree that the important thing about Promethians does seem to be "They were created. Made into existence. They are unique, and also not accepted." Even the precursor to the Buffybot had that problem, with the maker eventually deciding "Nah, I want a real woman." and the love-bot 2000 went batshit in attempting to track him down and kill off all opposition (women).

And I seriously wish Werewolf WAS based on the more common legends. "You're a werewolf. At night, you turn into a huge beast and go on a rampage. Because it's a game, we'll give you more control over when you turn into the beast and some ability to not rampage. But that's mostly what you have to do. Go for it, eat people."