>>98807389
>what is your favorite splat
GTSE because you can play it as a mix of JSRF and a travelling carnival.

>>98807389
>what is your favorite splat
OWoD, probably Mage the Ascension.
CofD, probably Changeling the Lost.

>>98807389
Hunter (HH not HtR) because I'm a huge sucker for underdog stories and people slowly learning just how massive everything truly is. Also Mage the Ascension. I just like the war for reality bit even if it's more like the Cold War and not WW2.

>>98807457
CTL and HTV are fucking incredible

File: imgonline-com-ua-twotoone(...).jpg (1.75 MB, 3480x2400)

1.75 MB JPG

>>98807389
Vampire the Masquerade cause you get to 'pull back the curtain' and realize how utterly fucked humanity is on a fundamental level, how humans really don't stand a change against the supernatural, and realizing the masquerade was made for humanity's benefit, not the vampires.

Hunter the Vigil (and 5th ed Reckoning) are fun because you get to be one of those hopeless schmucks whose just being manipulated by the supernaturals before dying an ignoble death in service to someone else.

Mage the Ascension is amusing because it's probably the most nihilistic splat of all for humanity as a whole, but it's also the most personally empowering. Objective reality doesn't exist, you can do whatever the fuck you want, but 99.99% of humans are just NPCs and mages are actually responsible for all of humanity's achievements. It's even bleaker than Vampire because Vampire just says the vamps are responsible for all the bad shit that happened to humanity, Mage says that the mages are responsible for every good thing humanity has ever achieved.

>>98807389
>TQ
DtF and Vigil

>>98807627
Why is malfoid literally everywhere damn
>mages
To be fair Mages are still humans, they're just humans as originally envisioned by God. That said yeah it's very gnostic in how everyone but the mages is pretty much a literaly hylic golem

>>98807627
I'd personally like to think there IS an objective reality. After all, the Consensus existing at all is proof there is a fundamental rule

>>98807627
Mages are humans though, and a lot of science is done by random sleepers. Remember that the goal of the traditions is generally vaguely to turn as many people as possible into mages, which is sort of the only splat in WoD which wants to improve humanity as a whole.

https://strawpoll.com/bVg8B9ekbyY/results

https://strawpoll.com/X3nkPNaKVgE/results

https://strawpoll.com/X3nkPNbmBgE/results

Should I make fav kith poll? Seems slightly less obscure than fav ghost legion but maybe just because I like elves.

>>98807660
>After all, the Consensus existing at all is proof there is a fundamental rule
The fundamental rule is 'whatever people agree it is', and the mages manipulate society so that humanity agrees to whatever the mages say it is.

If the Masquerade fell, mages would become omnipotent god-kings unrestricted in their magical abilities (and the only reason they don't do this is because this would result in most of humanity dying), the Vampires would beat the absolute snot out of humanity and herd us into literal animal pens, and the Werewolves...would probably just enforce their views by eating people again.

Either way though humanity would be so utterly fucked if the Masquerade fell it's not even funny.

>>98807668
>and a lot of science is done by random sleepers
Only the very minor stuff that nobody really cares about. Name any significant scientist of note and he was almost certainly a Technocratic mage. And while yes, the mages would like to ascend humans, there's very little hope of that ever happening.

>>98807683
Georges Lemaître
Gregor Mendel
Marie and Pierre Curie

>>98807715
Likely Technocratic mages, the authors just haven't explicitly said so yet (they're not going to list literally ever scientist that ever existed even if the list is pretty extensive already)

>>98807683
>>98807726
Every scientist who isn't mentioned to be a technocrat, probably wasn't. Or they would have told you by now. Pretty sure the TU guidebook does say that a lot of breakthroughs are made by sleepers, which is all according to plan. Also the TU has only existed since 1851, or 1351 if you count the Order of Reason.

A coven of newbie vampires (nothing over 3) attempts to ambush a master mage (forces 5, life 5, matter 5)

Just how fucked are they?

>>98807748
Except it's also mentioned that humanity's technological progress has been slowing down because humanity can't imagine new stuff anymore, meaning anything new such as AI or drones that's been developed must've been made by mages.

>>98807765
All turned into chairs.

>>98807676
Anon, what facilitates that though?

>>98807770
>humanity can't imagine new stuff anymore
Hmm, I wonder which organization of banality mongers could be responsible...

>>98807770
Your claim is completely nonsensical. Because humanity's technological progress has been slowing down... it must have all been mages? Slowing down doesn't mean gone, mages are humans. Your claim could be equivalently true if mages have been slowing down, actually.

>>98807765
“As a Life 5 mage I turn into a giant tapeworm and thread myself through their mouths and anuses like a beaded necklace” -anonymous

are life mages incapable of defending themselves in non-gross ways

>>98807808
If sleepers can't imagine new technology because we're bound by the laws of physics, then the people inventing new tech must be the people who can bypass physics

>>98807815
Yes.

>>98807765
What sort of mage? A powergamer that uses his abilities to some degree of efficiency (ritual buffs, magic items, strange and unfathomable fuck you spells as a first response) or retarded crayon munchers? If it is the first, mages are basically unbeatable. If it's the second they can easily kill him, but a quick-cast fireball may very well eliminate them.

>>98807815
If you could casually manipulate biology at the drop of a hat why would you want to turn into a giant bear rather than a giant maggot with the face of Hillary Clinton that also spits acid? You uninspired faggot

>>98807818
If technocracy mages believe they are bound by the laws of physics, they throw away their power to edit reality like mages, and thus are as good as normal sleepers at finding new interactions. SInce sleepers outnumber mages, sleepers now produce the majority of breakthroughs.

>>98807822
I like crayon eating wizards. Whether they are a true danger or not depends on the day, or their mood… and they may not even realize how much of a danger they are, until it’s pointed out to them.

Reminder that the technocratic union is only superficially scientific. It thinks the 90s is the “coolest” decade for science. It fundamentally does not want to advance.

Ironically enough the Hermetics are more scientific since they managed to discover the spheres and replaced the pillars that came before. A successor theory.

>>98807842
I think there should be a balance between "why the FUCK are they not doing lliterally anything with their powers" and "why the FUCK are they not running around with 300 soak, all stats maxxed and a hung time spell prepared at all times to have actually, really and truthfully fucked the mother of whatever enemy attacks them.

>>98807835
Technocratic mages don't believe they're bound by physics, that's what makes them mages in the first place.

>>98807849
I remember reading a passage in a mage book (I don’t know if it was old or new mage) that mentioned most mages having hung spells on them “at all times”, unless it was during a mage meeting or mage gathering, since every mage there will be able to sense a spell, and when everyone is sporting contingency effects everyone is on constant edge and alert.

I thought this was retarded.

>>98807852
Yes they do. They don't think they are mages. They are brainwashed. They believe it's sufficiently advanced science, but it adheres to physics. Only the super mega high up technocrats know they themselves are actually reality deviants aka mages. To say anything else is tantamount to heresy and subject to reinforcing your conditioning. They are literally mentally blocked from recognizing themselves as mages.

>>98807770
that's actually because of mages. the technocraty was trying to slow down the Inventium (umbra dimension related to the concept of invention) so that items that don't fit into the timetable wouldn't be invented by sleepers

but they lost control over that dimension with the avatar storm which is why invention of stuff like smart phones speed up in the early 2000s

>>98807832
I would pick a bear over Hillary Clinton.

>>98807672
https://strawpoll.com/7MZ0kvMLwgo

NEW

>>98807835
>If technocracy mages believe they are bound by the laws of physics, they throw away their power to edit reality like mages,
No, they just edit it and call it science that laymen have yet to understand.

So, wait, does the Celestial Chorus believe that God doesn't exist but they want him to by changing Consensus reality, or do they actually believe in God?

>>98807857
Hung spells or buff-spells with a duration? Hung spells technically take time 4. Buff spells, well.. You can cast them once a year/month/week and forget about it. The problem is that mage explicitly gives you the mechanics for such rituals, and they are very, very easy to set up.

So why wouldn't a mage invest a single day each year to make himself vastly harder to kill? Seems foolish not to. But if you take this sort of thinking for granted, mages are now far more dangerous than they are portrayed in fiction. Those buff spells easily take on astronomical proportions by the mechanics of mage.

What Mage needed was a way to cap the running effects on yourself. There used to be concentration before that was essentially removed in M20. Or otherwise make it clearer that yes, mages are supposed to run around with actually insane fucking buffs and shit on everybody else without effort if they try. But Mage NPCs are not portrayed like that, with a few exceptions.

>>98807931
They believe in God but want to change Him by changing the Consensus, very kabbalistic.

>>98807770
The unable to accept new things is the technocrats getting eaten by their own creation since the people they conditioned to reject magic are now rejecting their magic.

>>98807389
Wraith, because I am lonely and like to be abused

>>98807389
I might be eating well in V6.
>like Mage
>like Changeling
>like Vampire

>>98806093
Where does it talk about Verbena and dogs? I thought that was a Revenant thing.

Isn’t the whole technocracy/traditions divide kind of pointless anyways as long as humans are still sleepers? It basically just comes down to “humanity is ruled by god-kings (explicitly)” vs “humanity is ruled by god-kings (secretly)”.

>>98807957
I can't wait for Mage Rudi and Changeling Rudi.

File: om9b9rcuehj91.png (283 KB, 889x592)

283 KB PNG

>>98807627
You find a lack of object reality depressing. I find it hopeful. Interesting.

>>98807914
i believe sidhe are going to win this. it's kinda unfair how they have subsplats (houses) and the other kith don't
>>98807931
yes! or rather it depends on the mage traditions aren't that uniform

some cloisters think that the one is everything in the world

some cloisters believe in real life religions(christanity, jewish, muslim, mithraism, gnositms etc)

some cloisters believe that all of humanity is the one and they need to change consensus to bring back God

and so forth. There was a subfaction that wanted to make them more uniform as in their specific angelic focused interpretation of christian being the only religion allowed in the back then it was called fellowship but they got kicked out and then joined the order of reason and then got purged when the order of reason reformed into the technocracy

>>98807960
Traditions have better aesthetics. Also in Tradition world if you don't like the local mage you can move to the neighboring country where laws of physics are different.

>>98807960
if you look at it from the pov of sleepers and hunters yes. if you are looking at it from the pov of mages then no and there are mages that would be very offended by you saying that because their way is far more true and better than all others

>>98807960
The goal for the Traditions is to eventually change consensus to allow for magic again. Awakening/Ascension for everyone. We could all purposely shape reality together, even if we aren't all casting spells. Consensus being a known thing so people can be aware of it's power.

File: wizard peace.png (419 KB, 750x617)

419 KB PNG

Nightmare dimension according to technorats.

>>98807960
Kind of. In that case, note however that the traditions nominally want people to awaken, and the technocracy does not. However, a traditions consensus is also unfathomably more dangerous - the fundamental question of Mage is dangerous freedom vs safe oppression. Except the Oppression is getting worse and worse, whilst the safety isn't really worth the squeeze anymore. But there was once a time when the Order of Reason was completely in the right to kick the Order of Hermes in the nuts.

>>98807969
please we seen the tradition world it's the dark age books

fuckers weren't changing the laws of phisics in countries the only thing that really was different from now is that in some areas the gauntlet was too thin

>>98807963
I find 99.99% of humanity being subjected to the subject reality of .001% of humans depressing.

>>98807979
That's why the Traditions fight the Technocracy. To get rid of that .001%. Isn't it good and cool to be a part of something actually trying to make the world better, instead of sitting at home doomscrolling?

>>98807978
I ignore Dark Ages books because the writers are from United States and all United Statesians are incapable of understanding Middle Ages.

>XII century
>Dark Ages

>>98807975
>The goal for the Traditions is to eventually change consensus to allow for magic again
Source?

>>98807957
Oh, they're gonna ruin it

>>98808000
What. Anon, this is the most basic thing about the traditions. Google City of Pymander for the hermetics for what their ascension war ideal outcome is. And they're basically the mythical europe posterboys and most powerful faction in the traditions, they sort of set the agenda.

>>98807989
that's fair, but it's still the canon turt of the setting that a tradition ruled world just wasn't different on a laws of phisics level and we are also told in the convention books tthis was the time of the hermetic influence over the consensus by the technocrats so it's not limited to just dark age mage

people really overestimate the amount of changes consensus does it's mostly just about magic and what is vulgar or not

>>98808010
I remember one STV Changeling book that included complaining about people complaining about drag queen story hour and seethe about Trump. Forgot the title though, something about winter.

>>98807985
The traditions want the same thing the Technocracy wants, they're just more explicit about it. The Technocracy wants to rule humanity from the shadows by determining what humanity knows is 'real' in a static way that serves their interest. It's a subtle way of controlling humanity from behind the shadows.

The traditions by contrast would see consensus reality break down into something much more subjective. Mages would still rule over humans of course, but they wouldn't need to hid anymore. There would be no laws of physics at that point, no consensus of any kind, mages would have no need to limit themselves at all.

>>98808025
That is the Technocracy propaganda, yes.

>>98808012
I had a brainfart and thought your post said Technocracy. I think I should go to bed.

>>98808029
The Traditions and the Technocracy are just the magic equivalent of NERV and SEELE fighting over who gets to play with the future of all humanity regardless of what humanity itself would want.

>>98807959
Verbena are white women.

>>98808029
Is it wrong tho? I know mage morality bar is at the center of the earth buf I'm never gave enough if a fuck about the counsel to read their deeper motivations.

>>98808039
No, they are British, so they are even worse.

>>98808025
There's always gonna be consensus. All humans get a vote in determining what the world is like. It's a pretty obvious metaphor for democracy. Early capitalists and socialists ran into the same problem. All their theory and praxis to make the world better didn't make a very convincing argument to Joe Serf who loves the King because he was told to since he was a child. So, both of them work to trick people into improving their lives and fighting oppression. Eventually, once the current system falls, the window of what is good shifts over. Now, Joe Capitalist hates kings and loves CEOs because that's what he was taught. Eventually, Joe Socialist will hate CEOs and love the council. The traditions are radical, and can often look down on sleepers as sheep, but there is a genuine desire to make their lives better.

>>98808038
Just because both have a grain of truth does not mean one is not currently more right. The technocracy started out in the right, and has lost the plot and is now leading to the soul-death of humanity. Back in the middle ages, the hermetics had lost the plot and were decadent sorcerer-kings, leading to the Order of Reason.

The march of reason perpetuated by the technocracy has damaged metaphysical systems of the world because of their ignorance and denial of any mysticism, even as it got rid of dangerous monsters preying on humanity. Mostly. But clarity blinds the most able technocrats, making them literally unable to understand any viewpoint but their own.

>>98808041
The core conceit of World of Darkness in every iteration is that humanity has no control over their own fate. Hunters are manipulated by Messengers, and everyone else gets manipulated by Mages, Mummies, Werewolves, Wraiths, Fae, and especially Vampires. Your free will is an illusion.

File: froog.png (118 KB, 258x245)

118 KB PNG

>>98808054
>socialists
>improving lives

>>98808068
T. Sleeper

>>98807765
Potence 3 or Celerity 3 could let a vampire ambush and potentially one-shot a mage. Animalism 3 could let a vampire hide while the dogs attack. Basically they have to be sneaky, otherwise "three neonates" sounds a lot like "zero witnesses"

One thing I don't understand is how are mages even killable? Just...imagine yourself not dying?

>>98808094
>you imagine yourself not dying
>I imagine you dying
>whoever gathers the least paradox wins

So between Mages and Hunters, who is the bad guy?

>>98808107
i am

File: IMG_6343.png (554 KB, 1242x2208)

554 KB PNG

>>98807872
>Yes they do. They don't think they are mages. They are brainwashed
That’s only the retarded technocrats who drank the kool-aid. The top technocrats aren’t stupid and know it’s all the same reality working shit, just their brand of it.

It’s no different from the Church in history. Priests and monks and bishops practiced legitimate fucking black magic and demonology behind closed doors, arguing it was “totally okay”, because “it’s god sanctioned, it’s different!”. Only a retard thought miracles were different from magic. Same way only a retarded technocrat wouldn’t think their reality working isn’t reality working. The very image of the classical, stereotypical wizard stems from past natural philosophers into hermetic theory poking at nature; there was just a split between lofty hermetics and those of soulless materialist reason. The technocracy values structure over soul. The traditions value soul over structure. Hermetics are not blind to all the wonder(magic) in the world. Technocrats HATE wonder’s association with magic.

“Most often the greatest magic trick of all, is to trick others into thinking it’s not magic”.

Even today, we’re living in an Atlantean period, with the internet acting as the Akashic records, our cellphones are wands, apps are spells, etc, we just use different words to describe them. Occult infrastructure is everywhere. Black boxes are everywhere.

I once told my own physics professor: “if you don’t consider nature and science to be magical or divine, then you don’t truly love or appreciate nature and science, do you?”, and he fucking LOST it on me.

Curious, no?

>>98808107
Mages are radicals
Hunters are centrists

>>98807985
>That's why the Traditions fight the Technocracy.
Have the traditions found a way to make sleepers mages? No? Then the traditions winning would be objectively horrible for humanity.

>>98808134
I mean, some would argue yes, just not consistently.

>>98808143
If it's not consistent then it's not useful, "I managed to make one guy a mage but it melted the other 99 people I tried it on" still results in the Earth being a hell for 99.9% of people if the traditions won.

>>98808134
Unfortunately efforts to lift the average human willpower above 5 are rarely successful.

>>98808146
So when the Technocracy melts 99 people is chill and cool, but when the traditions do it it's evil?

>>98808129
Load your phone.

>>98808149
Being melted in a factory aesthetic is just life, being melted in a magical aesthetic is fucked up and evil. Them's the breaks.

>>98808149
The Technocracy creates a reality where mages have difficulty melting people without experiencing paradox, the reality the Technocrats have created is the best-case scenario for a humanity where 99.9% of humans are sleepers. Unless the Traditions can find a way to make humanity consistently become mages then their entire aspirations are a nightmare scenario.

>>98808129
So because 1% of technocrats know they are mages, the other 99% are now also believe what they are explicitly brainwashed not to believe by the other 1% of technocrats? What? The very definition of the technocracy is expert kool-aid drinkers, all the way up until the absolute top.

>>98807962
>Mage Rudi be like
>Dreamspeaker Businessman who's in very tight with the NWO crowd and effortlessly commands the board room
>Also he's like an 7 foot tall wrestler and fucks a lot of twinks btw

Changeling Rudi be like
>Unseelie sadistic twink shota but he's totally kind to everyone and goes out drinking with the bros. He has a job as a stockbroker. How can he handle this without AYYY'ing? Ask him and he sends you to the ugly bastard hentai dimension

File: 1616987934976.jpg (370 KB, 850x1607)

370 KB JPG

>The most likely theory for what the Messengers are is that they are angels
>But becoming an Imbued Hunter permanently blocks you off from becoming a Mage
>Which means that God doesn't want Humanity to be mages
Who would win, the Mages or God?

>>98808166
Yeah, yeah. We live at the end of history and all that.
>those farmers are gonna starve if their crops ever fail! Us Hunter-Gatherers are the best case scenario.
>those city-states are gonna die if they lose a war! Our farm village is the best case scenario.
>those kingdoms are gonna die if they centralize power under a bad person. Our city state is the best case scenario.
>those companies are gonna die if they seek profits. Our kingdoms are the best case scenario.
>those socialists are gonna die if they invest in workers. Our companies are the best case scenario.
The world will aways change. There will be something better than our current system eventually. It'll probably be a rocky transition, but it'll happen.

>I once told my own physics professor: “if you don’t consider nature and science to be magical or divine, then you don’t truly love or appreciate nature and science, do you?”, and he fucking LOST it on me.
It’s not your fault an old ass boomer’s amygdala freaks the fuck out whenever it confronts a force of beauty

>>98808195
Socialists jobbed though.

>>98808195
Right but a plan that involves killing off 99.99% of humanity is a shitty fucking plan.

>>98808195
>First happened
>Second happened
>Third happened constantly btw
>Fourth happened fairly often
>Fifth sometimes happens because socialists actually hate workers

>>98808206
Yeah, we're still in capitalism. We haven't found the true winner yet. It's still fighting though. Just like Mages are still in the Technocracy, and the traditions are still fighting. Maybe the successor will be the one who finds a way to tweak their system so it works. Maybe the successor will be the one who invents a whole new system. There will be a successor though. It's just the nature of the universe things always change overtime, even if slowly.

“Um ackchyually, it’s not magic, it’s reality working”

>>98808208
That isn't any tradition's plan. That's your own self invented metaphor.

>>98808217
Okay but you realize you're making the Hunters sound right here, right? "99% of humanity may die but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" absolutely makes the Hunters the sane moral victors in this war.

>>98808194
we are already told in the umbra book that no archmage regardless of how powerful can open the doors to heaven and that they are instantly killed if they try with no ifs or buts

white wolf wanked the hell out of christanity. it's also really funny how shitty the imbued are but how powerful the watchers are implied to be in the mage st book you need up to 100 successes in a ritual involving hunter script just to talk to them

>>98808213
Yes. Exactly. Desire the bad thing happening, those new systems won out in the end.

>>98808220
>That isn't any tradition's plan.
Just as killing millions of people isn't in the commies plans, it's just the natural result of starving your people and shooting anyone who disagrees with you. If your goal is to have a world of entirely mages, and you don't have a way to consistently make sleepers become mages, then your goal is effectively to kill the vast majority of the sleepers.

>>98808221
>>98808220

>>98808225
Killing millions is explicitly the current plan of the Technocracy. Which is better, to want to commit mass murder, or to risk doing it accidentally?

File: 1493606390406.png (1.54 MB, 2000x2000)

1.54 MB PNG

>>98808222
>white wolf wanked the hell out of christanity.
Good.

Humanity literally gets nothing else. Vampires control our economics and politics, mages control our technology, Werewolves control our nature, and Hunters are routinely used as cannon fodder by one of the supernatural factions.

God being so powerful is literally our only win. It is the SOLE thing humanity has going for it. It's the "World of Darkness", not the Heaven of Darkness, we should at least be able to fucking die and go meet our Lord without you supernatural shits constantly manipulating us up there too.

>>98808225
Retarded fucking take. And what makes you think they won't just try to eternally get the number higher and higher? No, traditions mages do not randomly murder people because they aren't mages. At least be realistic and say they neglect mundanity in search for ways to make people awaken. In fact, even the most evil chud hermetics are less killy than technocratic agents, which are the epitome of killing for the greater good. You're describing Nephandi at best, though those also do not want anybody to become mages in the first place.

What you really will see is far more people awakening, but also far more people getting eaten by dragons. YMMV on whether that's a good thing. More mages can also fix fundamental problems in the world of darkness better.

>>98808243
>And what makes you think they won't just try to eternally get the number higher and higher?
And in the meantime, humanity gets to be ruled over by mage god-kings who no longer have paradox stopping them now that humanity knows science is actually bullshit, and these mages can make life hell on Earth for them.

>>98808249
>describe problems with Technocracy/capitalism
>call it traditions/socialism
A classic tactic.

>>98808223
I'm going to KILL Chaos

>>98808257
If your plan is "we're going to give mages unlimited power over humanity don't worry though they're benevolent and nothing will go wrong" then you're maliciously naive.

File: 1791557898285194.jpg (741 KB, 2550x1650)

741 KB JPG

Can we talk about Achilli and how a single person could ruin all the splats he worked on?

>>98808272
>If your plan is "do exactly what the Technocracy is doing literally right now" then you're maliciously naive.
Yes, I agree.

>>98808166
>The Technocracy creates a reality where mages have difficulty melting people without experiencing paradox, the reality the Technocrats have created is the best-case scenario for a humanity where 99.9% of humans are sleepers.
Anon not even the technocracy believes that and they're genuinely unaware of half the drawbacks to their approach.

>>98808249
Okay. But why? Why would they make life hell? What difference is a technocratic council controlling reality versus hermetic masters? They're the same. Nobody is going to come and fireball your ass, or at least it's less likely than the men in black abducting you. The TU being worse than traditions and less ethical is one of the core conceits of mage. They're bad, really bad, even if they started out as good guys, they're now hopelessly authoritarian. Everything you say about traditions mages is equally true and confirmed about the TU.

>>98808281
The technocracy doesn’t have unlimited power over humanity because they’re also affected by paradox.

>>98808277
>tell a story with 3D characters
>make your fictional bad guys a metaphor for real bad guys
>sometimes the unoptimal option is more fun than the minmax white room option
HOW AWFUL! THE HORROR! IT'S RUINED!

>>98808286
So are traditional mages. That's how consensus works. It's not possible to get rid of consensus.

>>98808285
Anon, see the vampires for what happens when you give a portion of humanity free reign to rule humanity how they see fit

>>98808293
If you tell everyone “the laws of physics are bullshit and mages can do whatever they want” then there’s no rules left for humans to have a consensus with

>>98807389
>TQ
Hunter the Vigil. While VtM might be the most iconic bar none and VtR is underrated , I think HtV is the best designed as a game. It's a WoD game that someone who doesn't even like WoD could enjoy. It manages to hold its own in a niche that has games designed from the ground up for nothing but being humans hunting the paranormal.

It has an impressively high hit to miss ratio for the official Compacts and Conspiracies, even the ones I'm not wild about are more "meh" than "I hate this and want it removed". It's tremendously flexible, with rules for creating your own hunter groups, and still works just fine for independent Hunters. You don't need to buy other game lines if you don't want to, as the monster creation system can approximate pretty much whatever you want. At the same time, it's easy to slot in with other splats. Hunter is the game I feel like I could always come back to, and even in other games, it provides so many options that there's always a fitting group of HtV hunters to have running around.

>>98808302
You can't just tell people. You have to convince them to truly believe it. If you remove the consensus you don't have any Mage God-Kings either. Everyone basically becomes abstract fey beings beyond the need for material reality or stops existing altogether without gravity holding their atoms together.

>>98808301
Except vampires are metaphysically tainted monsters who have to skulk in the darkness and prey on others to survive, are despised by their very nature and have very few constructive powers. Meanwhile, mages have both the capacity for good and bad in spades, and when given the choice most mages try to do good. Arete itself is a measure of your understanding, your personal excellence, your wisdom beyond wisdom. Your avatar is calling you towards ascension, ever deeper understanding, whilst the beast is leading you to degeneration.

Ninety-nine percent of vampire NPCs are evil as fuck, whilst the majority of traditions NPCs are not at all. Not even the average technocrat agent is as evil as the average vampire.

>>98808305
>You have to convince them to truly believe it.
Luckily Vampires aren't affected by consensus for some reason so show everyone a vampire and you've already broken 99% of their understanding of reality

>>98808319
>look at a vampire
>don't awaken
Consensus has layers. Everyone agrees dragons don't exist, so they can't exist at all. Lots of people have genuine fear of monsters in the dark, so vampires are allowed to exist on the fringes of society. It don't actually break consensus to let a sleeper see a vampire.

>>98808326
You absolutely could have a dragon under that definition, people are always making theories about how dragons and giants were a real thing.

>>98808194
Anon, Lucifer straight says in his book that those guys are defying God, they're the only angels still in creation because all the others left. Those guys are NOT supposed to be doing what they are so yes God indeed wanted humans to be mages they just weren't ready for it and demons fucked up everything with their debauchery and the Nephilim

>>98808337
Maybe in more recent years, due to history channel nonsense. Just goes to show how flexible consensus actually is.

File: this-time-you-are-dracula(...).png (1.76 MB, 1920x1056)

1.76 MB PNG

>>98808339
>Lucifer straight says in his book that those guys are defying God
Oh, right, how silly of me not to take what fucking Satan at face value.

>>98808337
>>98808326
>>98808319
What is and isn't a bygone is super weird cross-splat theory and basically ST territory. Would vampires be driven out of consensus if some specific things happened? Who knows. Same about woofs.
Theories abound about all different sorts of explanations, the behind the curtains explanation is of course they didn't want mage cosmology to overwrite everything else definitely, not even within mage itself.

>>98808352
>Same about woofs.
Well Werewolves have their own version of paradox lashing out via Delirium.

>>98808348
lucifer and satan are two different characters in wod

people still take lucifer way too much by his world tho

>>98808326
Or we can just accept that consen doesn't actually cover everything and that none of the splats are actually fundamentally correct about reality except occasionally specifically inside their own gamelines.

>>98808388
Yeah we never actually get to hear God's side of the story in Demon and the actions of the Demons aren't exactly engendering trust and reliability.

>>98808381
That is one theory, just the same as calling their rage or weakness to silver paradox backlash, or calling vampires sunlight weakness a paradox backlash.
Other theories are that they WILL get ejected any time now, or that they are being "anchored" by ghouls/kinfolk, or that gaia/god is more powerful than consensus.

>>98808395
i don't think even that is fair because 4/5 of the playable demons decided that lucifer was full of shit and yet the community seems to consider him a sage

Gay werewolf sex

>>98808389
That's not as fun.

Mage genderbending themselves into a loli and going into a seclusion to research magic

>>98808397
Isn't the Technocracy actively working on getting rid of werewolves through their subsidiary Pentex?

>>98808460
the larger Technocracy does not know about Pentex and the path that was funding it completely lost control over it which they want to hide from the union so that it won't influence the syndicate vs NWO influence civil war

so no

>>98808460
Pentex was not a techno subsidiary; some technos in the ancap convention that I can't remember the name of worked with them and this became pretty intwined, actually, but there was never technocracy control over pentex.

>>98808460
The technocracy does NOT control Pentex. They are in bed with each other because Pentex makes The Big Money. Actually, according to the newest lore:
>Some parts of the technocracy realized Pentex is Big Evil
>but they can't appear incompetent to the other parts of the technocracy, so they sweep it under the rug whilst secretly opposing them
>The technocracy is now covertly funding anti-Pentex shit, whilst Pentex continues to try and subvert the TU
Basically, the TU hates the supernatural and Pentex is a supernatural cult full of reality deviants which is also hated by other reality deviants. If the TU looked at Pentex any closer, they'd try to stomp them out.

>>98807672
Dreamspeakerbros, what happened? We were in second place....

File: HUCvEQRbAAEIMAn.jpg (529 KB, 1020x2400)

529 KB JPG

I'm gonna be honest, I feel like WoD (and Exalted for that matter) is best as a really good fetish setting because humans are so helpless to do anything, so you can have really hot moments like sitting on a mortals face after mentally dominating them as a vampire, or shrinking them and using them as a buttplug as a mage.

Lubed up changelings getting ready to slip and slide into a dragon’s open ass

>>98808319
we know the consensus can affect other splats. just look at what happened to the garou after paradox wiped them from everyone's memories

File: IMG_6679.jpg (211 KB, 997x1024)

211 KB JPG

How much culture shock would a vampire experience if they were sheltered by mages for a week

>>98808517
A lot.

>>98808428
>>98808458
>>98808503
Nice
*unzips pants*

>>98808476
>>98808484
>>98808490
Why is this evil capitalist organization enemies with that evil fascist organization? Feels like a match made in heaven to me.

>>98808533
Let's be honest the only fascists in the setting are the hunters.

>>98808533
Because they are full of reality deviants, did you not listen? The technocracies main concern is consensus, Pentex is a Wyrm cult. The wyrm is supernatural. Thus, they need to get gone. Not like fascists (nazis) are known to like capitalists (jews) in the first place.

>>98808533
because technocracy actually does their job sometimes and is HFY. pentex is an unironic captain planet villain who wants the wyrm to destroy the world.

>>98808533
one is statis greatest champion one is worshipping the avatar of entropy

one are convinced that they are doing all this for mankind the other want to sell the world for personal power

one want to wipe out everything else that is supernatural in time the other want to employ corrupt people with demons

>>98808543
>Joe schmoe in the suburbs is literally hitler.

>>98808352
>Would vampires be driven out of consensus if some specific things happened?
Don't the mage books explicitly answer that the consensus stuff can't really touch the curse of Caine?

>>98808550
Wanting to purge his town of the 'evil' supernaturals? Yes. If it was up to the Hunters, the only thing left on Earth would be sleeper humans.

>>98808550
angel brainworms make them shizo out into mini hitlers
why? the will of the one works in mysterious ways

>>98808554
Yeah, in some books and some places, and then they also immediatly contradict themselves. Vampires aren't even necessarily a curse from God in Mage, they're just vampires. VtM isn't by default true in Mage, and neither is Mage in VtM.

>>98808490
>Some parts of the technocracy realized Pentex is Big Evil
After Pentex decided the Technocracy had outlived their usefulness and the SPD ditched them en masse. They'd have never worked it out on their own.

>>98808557
>why?
The general gist of things seems to be that God hates people who toy around with the fate of humans for any reason. Doesn't matter if you do it 'for the greater good', if you don't let humanity handle their own affairs then God doesn't like that. There's a reason the Imbued are basically empowered to the sole purpose of killing supernaturals and that's about it, they don't do anything else, they literally just get rid of the people who mess around with humans.

>>98808561
>VtM isn't by default true in Mage, and neither is Mage in VtM.
Didn't that trend of "nooo don't try to mix books together" not even last for half of Revised before they gave up and went back to everyone in the same setting but just ignorant?

>>98808557
Aren't imbued not canon anymore?

Do werewolves do Halloween?

>>98808557
>why? the will of the one works in mysterious ways
one of the authors talked about it back on something awful

imbued are a panic button by the watchers who are acting alone because of the fallen and the zombies everyone else is just collateral due to them being "unnatural", but sadly they couldn't get that plot resolved because even htr got cut short because of toj

>>98808570
It's a fucking clusterfuck that nobody at White Wolf ever conclusively decided on. The general idea seems to be that they want to have their cake and eat it too. "Yes, the vampires in Mage are not necessarily VtM Vampires, but here's how things would work if they were." Thus you have statements both of "To undo the curse of caine, you have to roll more successes than god" and "Vampires could feasibly be deleted by consensus."

>>98808574
>and the zombies
What was causing random outbursts of zombies again?

>>98808571
they are not canon to wod5 and both dtf and htr hasn't happened yet in wod20. elohim and earthbound still exist but the 6th malestrom didn't happened yet

I really liked that one story about the drunk Technocrats tranquilizing werewolves, drugging them, and putting reindeer outfits on them for the yearly Christmas party back at headquarters.

>>98808579
underworld was kaputt and everyone who could tried to flee but because the conditions to create a risen are not all that common wraiths who either didn't had the right arcanoi or couldn't use their own corpse instead became lesser zombies and wraiths who didn't have both became mindless shamblers

this was presented as a big problem because the dead outnumber the living but then they just didn't do anything with it beside print a zombie hunter book for htr and throw in half a chapter in the giovanni book and a single mention in the hollow one book

File: Pogrom Enjoyer 2.0.png (242 KB, 1425x1445)

242 KB PNG

I just fucking love pic related that an anon here made. The ''Scientia potentia est'' and ''billions must be enlightened'' sends me

>>98808595
Well that explains that one Bloodlines mission.

>>98808570
it didn't start in revised it was mentioned as being the case in the very first wta corebook... but like the other anon mentioned they never consistently kept it so it was only true when it was convenient and false when they wanted to do crossover lore

>>98808502
VtM has a lot of fetish stuff but does exalted has any? The concept of that game always looked super lame to me

>>98808649
Yes, earlier exalted editions had quite a few, though I think less than say VtM.

>>98808649
>but does exalted has any?
A ton, there's a load of sex charms

>>98808649
Just look at The Roll of Divinity I and tell me it isn't incredibly fetishy

>>98808608
yeah bloodline had a few things that refered to larger wod but weren't explained

it's been a while but i think you could also hear about the giant storm part of the week of nightmares earlier on the news or something

File: 1790801142766611.jpg (342 KB, 1000x1000)

342 KB JPG

So as someone whose unfamiliar how freeform is the magic system in Mage, how does OWoD Mage and NWoD mage differ mechanically, and how does it compare to Ars Magica?

>>98808600
Man it's so good, I hope there's more of different groups

>>98808649
anon it's the cultivator genre it's super lewd and rapey

>>98808677
I only just noticed that the belt says ''100% wolf'' too. This 'jak was made with love for the material

>>98808676
Uh.. Roughly. In both MtAs and MtAw aspects of reality are divided into spheres/arcana. So basic concepts like forces, life or matter would be an arcana or a sphere. Spheres and Arcana commonly have ratings from 1 to 5 which signify how good you are at controlling that element of reality.

So somebody with forces 5 could essentially manipulate forces any way he wishes, turn heat into cold or disable gravity as he wills it. But the magnitude is limited by successes scored on an arete roll. But theoretically, you can do basically anything but a few things that are explicitly off limit with these systems.

MtAw focusses less on weird combinations of spheres and lets you do more with a single one and is way more streamlined, but you can still come up with basically any spell that does anything. It's also not about consensual reality anymore but the big lie put there by the hitler fascist mages who exploded Atlantis. MtAw mages are far more "mage-like" than MtAs mages have to be. It's like if all mages were hermetics lite.

Ars Magicka is a different beast from those two and I don't remember it clearly. It's more about researching, having your own base and it uses forms+techniques. E.g."I create"+"Fire". I think it's a little less freeform, but it's just an entirely different system. Everybody here is also hermetics aka wizards like you expect them to be.

>>98808672
IIRC that was Haqim raping a few fighter jets in the desert.

So if mages are basically people who realize reality is bullshit and they can do whatever they want, what is sorcery, thaumaturgy, and true faith, especially as practiced by non-mages?

>>98808717
Sorcery is learning the rules of the world and how to abuse them. Thaumaturgy is the same thing but vampires.

>>98808717
Sorcery and Thaumaturgy are linear sorcery as opposed to dynamic magick. Magick is like writing the source-code for a program on the fly, whilst sorcery is like using a cheatcode. Sorcery is "barely within consensus"; exploits in reality left behind by mystic traditions of the past. Magick is forging new traditions to the point where a prime mage can create new sorcery paths out of thin air.

>>98808676
Ars Magica is like a super shitty and 10x times more boring version of MtA.

>>98808723
>>98808726
What about Theurgy? And True Faith?

>>98808726
That said, this does mean that sorcery can do things that mages flat out can't like paradox-free immortality.

>>98808676
owod mage is more about combining spheres for spell in what was originally sold as being a system that can create every effect, but then later the kept nerfing it but still every mage can in theory learn all magic

nwod mage is a lot more about single sphere casting but single spheres can do more about it and even compared to owod mage i remember it being a lot more about stacking modifiers but it's been a while since i even glanced at nwod mage and also mages have prefered and lesser spheres

i think the best example is the spirit sphere in owod mage it's needed to messing with alternative dimensions and spirits of all kinds while in nwod it's only about the shadow (think middle umbra if you only know owod) and the spirit living there while necromancy is fully in the death spheres angels and demons are each in another sphere etc


ars magica (hermetic) spells always work by combining a form (Create, Perceive, Destroy, Control, Transform) with a single art but that is only the base hermetic magic every house has subfactions with "mysteries" that allow you to do magic outside of Hermetic Arts and factions, beings and cults outside of the order of hermes also have their own magic that you can learn studying those is what Ex Miscellanea is about in ars magica but it's not limited to them they just get to start with a non hermetic mystery in most editions and there are entire books just filled with mysteries and while there isn't a limit to how much you can learn in most cases... there just is no mage who can learn everything as you don't have the time and exp for it

ars magica is also not a storyteller system game it's rather crunchy in comparision

>>98808748
So why don't mages just teach humans sorcery and then say "Hey you know how you didn't believe you could do magic but now you totally can? Well turns out there's no rules to this shit and you can do whatever you want". To make them all mages?

>>98808748
Yes, but. Sorcery is also affected by disbelief and may be dispelled by sleepers questioning it. Also sort of like vampire immortality being paradox free, innit.
>>98808751
The Order of Hermes does this to questionable success. It's not like knowing reality is fake and gay is the only thing that matters. You also need personal willpower, a strong avatar and the right mindset.

>>98808741
Theurgy is just sorcery limited through the lense of abrahamic faith

while true faith is you rejecting the supernatural with your own zealous belief in something where exactly that comes from the point of view of mage as a game they never really fully answered

>>98808751
sorcery actually makes it harder to awaken because you immerse yourself in the rules of reality

>>98808760
Where is this stated? I think Sorcerer at best gives justification for why it doesn't always happen with this, not that it's unlikelier. And I think that's from sorcerer 1e. So it's not like "Sorcery makes you less likely to awaken" and more like "Not all sorcerers awaken, because they lack the correct mindset."

>>98808760
But you *already* got told that reality is bullshit once to learn regular sorcery, feels like it'd be easier to do it again

>>98808717
There is rout magic and true magic. A Mage is using true magic by breaking the rules, and others are using rout magic by following the rules. If you're playing a game, like Balder's Gate 3 for example, a vampire plays a sorcerer and casts the fireball spell in game. A mage mods the game's files to add guns. People don't believe you can watch a wizard cast fire ball in the street, but enough people believe in faith healing, or history channel conspiracies, or whatever that the other splats already in a consensus gray area can have some rout spells.

should demons be able to learn dark thaum?

>>98808760
>>98808772
Yeah I want to know the exact quote about this for future reference.

>>98808773
It's like super heroes. We all hate the current world, but instead of learning a political ideology and fighting, you're just watching a super hero fix it all for you. You just consume a story that breaks the rules, while you are still following them.

>>98808777
they don't need it. most of the tempting effects can be done with lore of humanity and lore of longing, they already have firepowers with the lore of fire and such and they have the ability to learn and make new rituals as part of their base template

>>98808418
to play the devils very own advocate, all those demon have been trapped in the sensory depravation chamber for unknown millennia stewing in their own eternal hatred for the one [(single)1] guy they followed who didn't get tossed in there with them.

I'd say that Lucifer, based on most of his ToJ scenarios and days of fire (where he does go into details for humanity on how to deal with all the night folk), really is the one always, unequivocally in our collective corner ignoring the time he killed a priest for making him realize that God is probably dead and gave their divine collective spark to humanity, and barring one scenario where he really did sell the fallen out to be kept out of the abyss.

>>98808687
Indeed

>>98808801
while days of fire is fair. it's still written by him for himself and i really in general don't want to use ToJ because of it's nature as semi canon with multiple contradicting scenarios

not just for lucifer but in general

File: 1586149836789.jpg (172 KB, 842x1200)

172 KB JPG

I mean, based on what we know:
>Imbued Hunters are able to become sorcerers, but not mages
>The Messengers that imbue hunters are probably angels given what we know about them
>Given that God allowed angels to come see him and talk about the great plan he had and none of them felt the need to go back to Earth afterwards, it's unlikely that the current Messengers are rogue angels of any kind and that they are in fact in line with God's vision otherwise they would be demons
>This means that mages are NOT in line with God's plan and God likes consensus reality (sorcery/theurgy is okay, but it's up to humanity to make up 'the rules' for how they live and how it works)
>Ergo, the Celestial Chorus is actually Heretics

File: 1723034900301509.png (217 KB, 410x772)

217 KB PNG

>>98808824
>>Imbued Hunters are able to become sorcerers, but not mages
that's actually false. the spellbound says that imbued can't learn linear magic
>they can't perform magic - not even hedge magic
>whatever the heralds do to the chosen upon imbueing makes them antithetical to the capacity of performing magic

sorcerers also ping the second sight like mages in fact unless the imbued has edges that improve the second sight sorcerers and mages look the same for the imbued

so everyone who does magic is a heretic

>>98808831
Then what the fuck is the Society of St. Leopold

>>98808833
the judas witches are also heretics they know that they doom themselves to help other inqusitors hunt

>>98808816
>not just for lucifer but in general

Fair, ToJ is a cairn of wyrms best left unopened.

On the subject of Demon, Defilers are my favorite, but I really wish they had something that leaned more into the whole "dominion of the creatures of the water" thing that they had prior to making humanity. My guess is that they had one juiced up version of the Lore of Transfiguration, before the Sixth house came along and the Dawn house split it into Flesh and and the current version of Transfiguration, and then they became more Muses of Arts rather than Sea and Storm Elohim that they were when god first made them for the Fifth day of Creation.

I was actually thinking the other day that most of the angels (barring the Dawn) have the preceding and succeeding houses have some overlap in their design and lore mixtures. I'd hope in a different timeline where we got another edition for DtF they'd expand on the Lores and match them better to the house and their role in creation

>>98808833
the SoL does not have any real insight into the cosmology of the setting. their true faith power comes from themselves but they convince themselves that they are divine and they do attack the imbued because for their powers the imbued feel like they are possessed (like fomori, drones etc)

the theurges in the SoL like the other anon said believe that they are dooming themselves. they mark themselves with the seal of solomon. name themselves the witches of judas and so forth because true faith is (for some reason) dwindling in the society as a whole and they need some edge against the supernatural

>>98808841
>my guess is that they had one juiced up version of the Lore of Transfiguration
that's not even a guess it's canon the lores are currently a shadow of their true selves because the global faith level isn't high enough so they probably have elder powers but they don't work right now

>>98808858
Well that's dumb, the Celestial Chorus should be teaching people Theurgy but without the edgy "I'm damning myself" schtick.

>>98808867
the Celestial Chorus has full on sorcerers and they even use them to fill nichès that would be harder to fill with awakened magic

my favorite example are the knights of saint georg who are the tradition monster hunters and they quickly learned that vampires and demons like to surround themselves with sleepers so their tactic is to put a awakened mage who specs into prime and forces into sorcerer made gear give them sorcerer made alchemy potions and all that so that they can clear the out mortals without a problem and then blast the monster

>>98808841
Defilers definitely are underrated. actually i think most of the houses beside Malefactors and Slayers are

>>98808863
>they probably have elder powers but they don't work right now

I'd say that the closest that we get is what the Earthbound can do as their ritual scales up. And, I think that Lore of Storms(especially if you have the Visage) should give you some soak against Electrical damage outside of your Apocalyptic Form, and let me just generally play with more lightning.

Really, the Adad are the coolest of the House of Deeps IMO.

>>98808882
yeah i would probably buff that too. atleast the lightning touch it makes no sense to be bashing damage. every other lightning power in wod is either lethal or agg damage

>>98808881
not sure about slayers but to be fair Malefactors do rock pun intended they have the entire crafting system, pocket dimensions, are the only ones who could make new nephilim if they wanted to and what speaks probably the most to the average wod player their house weakness is autism

File: valentina-govedarica-alekay.jpg (963 KB, 1920x2735)

963 KB JPG

>>98808876
Tbh sorcery just seems more useful than magic most of the time. If you theoretically can 'break the rules' but having to convince everyone that you haven't broke the rules every time is itself a form of rules, whereas sorcerers can just...'break the rules' for most people and it's still okay because they technically were just following different rules.

>>98808858
>and they do attack the imbued because for their powers the imbued feel like they are possessed (like fomori, drones etc)
>spiritually mutilated
>powers that drive you insane
I mean, if the shoe fits.

>>98808919
Basically Cromwell fucked everything up, as usual. FIVE YEARS of rule and he managed to fuck everything up for everyone. Now, even the Technocracy have to deal with Paradox and they WON the war.

Also, as an aside. Does linear magic of let's say a Science paradigm work inside a Hermetic Horizon Realm? If you took a regular sorcerous chemist into Doissetep, would they still be able to use their magic?

>>98809091
>Now, even the Technocracy have to deal with Paradox and they WON the war.
I mean...isn't that the idea? The Technocracy wants to get rid of the supernatural, so even the high-level technocrats who know the truth are ultimately succeeding in their goal if even they become unable to use their own magic.

>>98809094
No it's them getting eaten by the consequences of their actions. Taking themselves out along with the possibility of ever advancing tech was not part of the equation.

>>98809091
sorcery is never mentioned as being limited to earth at all but sorcerer (the books) never really mention the umbra

i would assume it would work because otherwise the apprentices in the hermetic horizon realm would lose acess to the powers their masters are teaching them and we know some of the hermetic academies are in the umbra

>>98808573
Fianna do Samhain.

>>98808573
I don't see why not. Although it's probably about dealing with ghosts for a night.

>>98808649
It does. But Exalted has the risk that whoever you're doing weird shit to will Exalt. And then you realize you're in a domination loss doujin and not in the way you thought you were.

>>98809096
>along with the possibility of ever advancing tech
Humans are able to advance tech without them.

>>98808775
This just feels like you could rawdog consensus reality by becoming a televangelist.

>>98809124
I mean, kind of. In the world of darkness you can only invest new things by sliding the Overton window of consensus over.

>>98809127
Cults like that are often too shallow to elicit True Faith or shift Consensus on a grand scale. You'd be hunted down by bigger fish before you made any progress.

>>98809128
No, you can also just use the laws of physics to make new things within those laws. Mages didn't invent AI or biological computers or drones, that was all sleepers.

>>98809124
>Humans are able to advance tech without them.
Shame about the Technocrats and Weaver lobotomising that out of them then lol

>>98809127
Yeah basically, get the Cult background and maybe some Fame and you'll have the NWO at your door within a few months asking about your sham "faith healing" and "miracles for money" scheme.

Raw-dogging reality and accepting paradox to push your paradigm is half the battle, the other half is ensuring your success can spread outside of your collective community without the 'crats coming in to wipe out reality deviance.

>>98809135
No, if anything they encouraged it. By achieving a shared consensus humans are able to innovate within that consensus.

>>98809136
>and you'll have the NWO at your door within a few months asking about your sham "faith healing" and "miracles for money" scheme.
Buddy, Pentecostals do that on the regular and there's over half a billion of them.

>>98809136
>a few months
That long? Christ on a unicycle, I was thinking weeks. Days. And these are the chumps secretly running the world? Goddamn.

>>98809145
I feel like you're not quite getting the whole stasis web deal that's a major issue in Werewolf, Mage and probably Changeling stuff.

>>98809134
I get what you're saying but Iteration X invented AI in the 1800s in WoD and both the Progenitors and Iteration X worked on Wetware to make sure HIT marks worked, In WoD, invention is done by Awakened as they hold the spark of creation in their hands. Alan Turing was an Awakened. People in WoD, regular people, are just that little bit dumber, ignorant and apathetic than people in this world.

>>98809152
Marie Curie was a sleeper.

Consensus is stupid. There, I said it

File: Spoiler Image (275 KB, 426x1443)

275 KB PNG

>>98809152

>>98809157
It's the only version of "we have to hide to preserve modern earth society" excuse I've ever liked.

>>98809160
>Uses magic to make her tits bigger
Carmen is a WHORE

>>98809166
UA's is better.

>>98809166
I once wrote a story.
>Sorcerers like us are kept under strict lock and key. We keep to our circles, stick to the rules to the point that we’ve assigned a death sentence to immoral magic, and don’t let anyone know what we are. This includes random civilians, because if anyone knows, they’re going to squeal.
>Magic is real, big whoop. Who’s gonna care?
>A lot of people, actually, namely governmental and corporate interests. Magic can do things that most science can’t. The moment they catch wind of this stuff, you know whats going to happen next? They’re going to exploit it. Men figured out how to split the atom and the first thing they did with it was make a bomb so they could kill more people. Now I want you to imagine magic getting put into bullets to let them assassinate leaders the world over whenever they want. War isn’t even the start of it. Then we get to the corporations. You know how much Wall Street and Blackrock control? More than what you’re thinking. They find out about us, they realize money has innately less value, and they start trying to hold onto power and sent assassins after all of us, or worse yet start charging people for magic to make even more money. And then we get to the energy crisis. The moment they find out that your average Magus can produce the combined energy of a thunderstorm, they’re going to hook us up to machinery. Yeah, we could break out, but that means even more deaths, and eventually a possible subjugation of the human race in self defense. I know exactly how exploitative the human race can be. There’s a reason we clobbered you over the head with a chair and abducted you the moment you showed any signs of magic. You are a fucking liability in your current state, and we are going to beat you until you understand the rules. This is for your own good.

>>98807914
You misspelled Sluagh.

>>98809192
>This is for your own good.
Gotta say, this rain on my leg smells an awful lot like piss.

>>98808490
>Technoracy vs Pentex
Mid-off of the ages.

File: retardapu.png (68 KB, 238x192)

68 KB PNG

>>98809263
My bad.

>>98808490
Actually, the only one covering for Pentex is the Syndicate, and that’s only because they’re trying to cover up their own fuck-up from the rest of the Union. While the Union is somewhat aware of Pentex’s activities as the Syndicate’s SPD Methodology, virtually no one outside the Syndicate knows that the Syndicate has long since lost control Pentex. And they are making sure THAT fact stays a secret from the rest of the Union, much like the situation with the Void Engineers and Threat Null. And since Pentex is still paying its Methodology dues to the Syndicate, they’re okay with letting sleeping dogs lay, for now.

>>98809266
I actually changed that sentence
>I’m not going to pretend this is for your own good. You’re a problem and we need to fix you

>>98809192
A self-policing cult might work, rather ingeniously I might add, for vampires, but it just doesn’t seem like the right fit for magic users.

>>98809318
They actually have permission to execute anyone who breaks a rule.
A newbie is totally allowed to kill the highest ranking officer if he leaks information on mage existence .

>>98809325
>Death is the only deterrent for information leak
>For users of magic
And this accounts for time manipulation? And immortality potions? Or even just simple idealogical differences? Some noble goals such as “information is knowledge, and knowledge belongs to everyone”, or even just simple pettiness? And who set up these rules instead of just becoming god kings and ruling over humanity like the unenlightened masses that they are? Awfully noble of them, stepping aside like that.

Don’t mean to rib you. I’m just poking holes like a child rips off the wings of a butterfly.

File: 1610221725277.png (467 KB, 973x829)

467 KB PNG

One thing I don't understand is if Mages are people who realized reality is fake and gay why are they even limited by spheres? You don't have to know shit about how anything works if your powers come from realizing shit is however you want it to be.

>>98809392
Mages think it's another layer of consensus. Something deeper that even they are bound by. It could change if mages' perception of magic changes. It too can be broken, but you basically have to be so far in the Umbra you becomes an abstract idea and then it doesn't really matter that you can cast fireball with no paradox or spheres.

>>98809392
that's kind of the point of the 10th sphere, which is knowledge that the boundries between the spheres were arbituary in the first place

I feel like people underestimate the dangers of mages because they don’t realize the type of people that become mages.

You cannot show someone the truth about the world with any physical evidence via your mage powers, or it will just result in paradox. Therefore, every single mage had to have come to the conclusion that the rules that govern the world are actually completely made up…..with no evidence whatsoever.

We have a name for this IRL, it’s called psychosis, and the type of mentally ill schizophrenics who experience that 24/7 are not the kind of crazies you want having nearly unlimited power. Mages are lunatics because you have to be fucking psychotic to become a mage in the first place.

>>98809424
Wasn't the tenth sphere judgement?

>>98809441
We don't really know what the 10th Sphere is. It really should be something that reflects your Ascension, if it even exists.

>>98809441
what the 10th sphere is depends on your ToJ scenario it could be unity, judgment, nothing and i think a 4th i am forgetting right now

>>98809440
To be fair the schizophrenics in question here are literally ontologically right. But you aren't wrong the kind of people who become mages tend to be driven and very eccentric, as befitting wizards

>>98808319
>Luckily Vampires aren't affected by consensus for some reason
Depends. If we're going with local paradigms you absolutely could make vampires and other splats get paradox. Technocrats literally created a super sleeper, incapale of conceptualizing anything outside of what science says.

>>98809440
I consider it more like radicalization, personally. You can show someone a big book of political theory that mathematically proves you're right. A lot of people will simply ignore that to favor the ideology they were raised to find Normal and Acceptable. Mages are, usually through some traumatic event, able to see the cracks in the current system. They then start asking questions. This leads them to a tradition that they agree with most. Now this is the ideology they find Right and Acceptable. All of the people who are Normal are idiots at best, or malicious at worst. Although, I guess there is a certain amount of craziness that comes with wanting to be politically radical.

>>98809440
did you even read the splatbook
that's basically the point of quiet, and actually having psychosis turns you into a maurader

WtF question about Hosts. They're proto-spirits from before the stone-age that Daddy Wolf couldn't quite kill. But they don't have Bans, Banes or Influences? Is that just because they've possessed a host that they lose them, or do they never have them in the first place? I can't find an answer in any of the books.

I used the Adarushashu Wolf Hosts because they don't possess people, they are just wolves that run about and do wolf-shit. Initially that appealed to me as a side-threat in the campaign because they're just wolves that the PCs can fight now and then, but now I'm wondering if Hosts can build/lead their own Ilthums, or are Hosts a reviled entity by both Uratha and Spirits? The books are very very vague on all this stuff and it's annoying because I don't want to draw a line in the sand and then find out I've painted myself into a corner later down the line. Any help?

>>98809392
First of all, very few mages are fully aware that reality is fake and gay, just like how very few vampires are fully aware of the entire Noddist rabbit hole. Awakening doesn't cause a mage to become aware that they can believe whatever they want and they just choose a particular paradigm because they think it's cool, most mages genuinely and fully believe that their personal paradigm is the real way that the world works and that all other mages are retards who only partially realise the truth but don't know it like they do.
Second of all, it's just really hard for mages to just do things through will and will alone. If every single mage was forced to believe in the "anything is real if you want it to be" purple paradigm straight out of the gate and that all instruments and foci are just a cope, they would flop around like fishes out of water and barely be able to cast anything because they hadn't yet cultivated the willpower and wisdom to wield their will like a weapon. Paradigms and Spheres are training wheels that are required for a mage to get off of the ground, until they have high enough Arete and high enough Spheres that these things cease to matter.

It's easy to read through Mage and assume that all characters have access to all of this fundamental knowledge of the setting, but they don't. Actually playing a mage means that you have to unlearn half of what you have read and reframe it through your mage's weird and wrong perception of reality instead.

>>98809477
Epiphanies are hilarious in context
>WOAH I CAN DO ANYHTING
>FUCK WAIT I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT IS REALITY NO NO NO UNLIMITED POWER COME BAAAAACK
>Opps, you awakened with just 1 Arete, welp, time to spend 500 years getting to not even half of the power you just had!

>>98809470
>succumbing to weaver or wyrm means you've gotta be put down because you're some kind of evil
>marauders can in fact be talked around to good causes or even back from the brink in some cases

>>98809485
>The Red Talons are right again

>>98809485
becoming a marauder isnt an inherent imbalance of the trinity, and has nothing to do with the wyld.

>>98809491
forgot to add, Chaioth ha-Quadesh mauraders experience a clarity (stasis) quiet

>>98809491
Becoming a Marauder is generally considered being over-aligned with Dynamism, and people love to just assume that the Trinity is the Triat, so they declare that anything Dynamism-aligned must be Wyld-aligned.

>>98808833
Normal people? They have True Faith and Theurgy (their version of sorcery).

So Hunters, specifically the Imbued ones, have second sight, that can tell them who's subhuman. But vampires and the rest can tell when second sight is being used on them, and even if they've never heard of or seen Imbued before, they can tell that their cover is being blown.
But what do they actually see or feel when subjected to second sight? Is it just an intense feeling of being watched, or something else?

>>98809544
I would go with a sort of sixth sense. Feeling of being watched. Feeling like you're exposed. Your fears coming true. Gives you the heebie jeebies. Makes your hair stand on end. Puts butterflies in your stomach.

>>98809485
The Triat =/= metaphysical trinity

>>98809544
some artwork in htr shows the monster and imbued staring at each other when the second sight is used so presumably they also sense the imbued

Which traditions let me make a white woman who fucks dogs?

>>98809622
Ask your ST

>>98809544
Weirdly, in the Hunter rulebook, the fiction is full of the Imbued using second sight and the targets immediately knowing, but it doesn't say anything about that in the rules text.

>>98809622
Cult of Ecstacy, Euthanatos, Verbena, and Iteration X. Syndicate does not enable you to fuck dogs, but does enable you to pay to have white women fucked by dogs.

Is it possible to be a happy vampire, delighted about your condition? It seems like everybody is brooding in the chronicles of darkness, oh no, the Beast, woe is me. While being vampire could provide so much fun and wonders, you could enjoy the (un)life if you wanted. Are the Sires purposefully targeting negative pessimistic individuals to embrace?

>>98809658
Possible but it usually involves getting way away from the unending bullshit of vampirism.

>>98809658
After coming to terms with it, sure, why not.

Being elated about it as soon as you become a vampire and you realise that you have to drink the blood of other people for the rest of your life, that you'll never see the sun again, that you have a passenger in your brain looking to exploit your weakness at every opportunity? You've got to have a screw loose for that.

>>98809658
>Are the Sires purposefully targeting negative pessimistic individuals to embrace?
Unironically yes.
>Is it possible to be a happy vampire?
Debatable, but I think the Sabbat get closest by ditching the path of humanity for their own paths.

>>98809658
One of the most popular vampires in VtM is named Smiling Jack

>>98807965
>i believe sidhe are going to win this
Check again. Total pooka landslide.

>>98807389
>/WoDg/&/CofDg/ weremoth community project
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wxUUfa3NNglvbgmJUAn_n84VYkPS08AKgeB7IqWpB1o/edit?usp=sharing

Editing should now be possible in such a way that I (the guy who "owns" the document) have to accept edits.
Feel free to add in stuff directly.

>>98809751
Thanks for your work.

>>98809848
It's a community project more than anything else, so while I have written parts and made the document to hold things in one place (it's definitely missing some good stuff from earlier threads), it's not only I that made this.
Thanks either way.

Playtest 2.0 is supposed to come out this month. What's it gonna change from 1.0?

>>98809954
Fuck all...