Old news to some, I'm sure

[kingandy]

Ooh, tantalising.  White Wolf know what they're doing, leaking fragments of information that the fans can overanalyse and conjecture over.  So, obliging then.

I can see what they're doing, turning the statistics into a legitimate 3x3 matrix plotting power, finesse and resistance against mind, body and soul social.  It always used to almost fit into that pattern, anyway, and it's a model that works.  (Though Willpower should be accordingly less expensive now, if it's not being used as your social stamina.)  The other interesting change is the removal of the "Appearance" attribute.  It was always kind of an anomoly; being technically "physical" it was a bit of a grey area where some effects were concerned, and anyway different people find different things attractive.  I guess now some GMs will have to put a bit more effort into NPCs' personal tastes and such - with some it may be "High Composure", others may go for "Extreme Strength" or just "Bleached Blond Hair".  Players who want to be beautiful, too, will have to describe it in specific terms ("high cheekbones, ruby lips and long, blond hair" etc).  It's kind of a shame, though, I always enjoyed dumping all my points into Appearance and being otherwise vapid, dim and physically useless... on the other hand, yay, now I can play characters who are non unattractive while remaining effectual.

I don't see why initiative mod would be Dex and Composure though - I'd keep it as Dex + Wits.

Mental skills are harder to use unskilled than physical or social ones (another interesting redistribution from Skills/Talents/Knowledges)?  I would have marked them harder generally, give them a higher difficulty or lower returns or something.  As it is all it takes is one dot and you've offset the initial difficulty.  Though, on second though, maybe that's the point - anyone can throw a punch, but if you've not been given a basic grounding in Medicine you don't have much hope of performing an operation.  As in general knowledge quizzes it's easy if you know it, nigh-impossible if you don't.

Also available on the White Wolf site is a preview for Aberrant D20.  Um.  hum.  I'm not sure how well that will convert to a class-based system - most of the appeal is the modularity of the powers (And why does the Adventure! character sheet have a Race box?  Given the majority of characters are firmly human - I suppose you may have the odd dinosaur man or what have you, but seriously).  I think I will stick with my Storyteller version for now thank you.  Still, it does have a good picture of that reknowned Magus, Divis Mal, on the page for what I can only assume is a Prestige class, being but five levels.

Well, we'll see.  Back to work, I suppose.

Comments

[mrssshhh.livejournal.com]

I was never overly fond of the white wolf system - it just seemed to be taken too harshly by GMs and published "adventures"; one sucess means you've managed to do the task - just. So why did every bloody sample task in published stuff or in disciplines / magic require 3+ successes to work?

Also, why did each successive discipline power use some other bizarre skill that was of fuck all use to anyone apart from the effete goth-wannabes writing that shit?

Hopefully, they've gotten over all that now.

[ghostbritain.livejournal.com]

I'm less keen on teh new system. It looks as though they've really mired themselves in with the whole pretentious goth shit.

The old system, to mind, was flawed but servicable. This one smacks of D&D panic envy (oh no, we're not #1 anymore - the players want hack n slash, lets have AC and to hit stats).

The old system was a bit hard on mages and very easy on everybody else - and why was Intelligence never used as a base stat for powrz?

I'm buying the new WoD rules, but not V:tR. It looks shit...

[mrssshhh.livejournal.com]

It was stuff like;

Player: "Hahah! I've spent all my CCPs on Presence and social stats! I will rule you all! I invoke Majesty!"
GM: "Right, please roll Drama+Goth Posing."
P: "What, not Presence+Charisma?"
GM: No, they're not used.
P: "Right, who wants to play CP2020?"

[kingandy]

Are you trying to tell us something?

Would you like to play Cyberpunk?

[mrssshhh.livejournal.com]

What a fantastic idea.

But seriously, back in my old roleplaying group days of pre-1996, most rules/plot/game discussions usually ended with "Right, who wants to play CP2020?". It was a signal that the conversation was over, and that the game/plot/rule was pointless and stupid.

[ghostbritain.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I know.

Although wasn't most Presence stuff a Social Stat + Social Ability roll? I guess Goth Posing is an ability though :)

Once, when in a geek book shop in manchester, i listened to some hard core vampire players (rock goths, celtic tats and leather coats) talking about their game.
It involved storming Elysium with two k-47's each. absailing down into teh princes chamber and doing matrix stuff to each other.
I wondered why they weren't playing a super heroes game.

Another was pleased that the then new Guide to the Camarilla actually told you how much xp you needed to spend to buy high level disciplines. I told him that the core book did, although it just said 'current level x 5/6/7'. He didn't believe me.

I'm not sure what these stories illustrate, other than the system was ok, but attracted wankers...
Maybe that's why i own so much WW...

[kingandy]

I may do the same. Hopefully the WoD core rules may function as the Players Guide in d20. The part of White Wolf games that always pissed me off was paying £25 for the same core rules... it was nice that they stood alone but damn it discouraged me from picking up more than one line.

[ghostbritain.livejournal.com]

That's apparently the idea - teh WoD darkness core rules give you everything you need to play & run a mortals game, and then the Vammpire/Werewolf/Mage/Munchkin books give you a template to apply to your mortal.

That sounds ok.

However, the stuff they're publishing on the web-page for V:tR seems to be just wank.
They've taken the ground-breaking 'inspired by genuine folk-lore' stuff they had before and tossed it aside in favour of 'stretched powerz inspired by poor films and goths who think they know stuff about wicca'.
Not interested.

Hopefully the new mage book will be nice. But if it isn't, we've still got the old system....