Koumei wrote:FrankTrollman wrote:
World of Darkness wrote:Your character regains one spent Willpower point whenever he unleashes his anger in a situation where doing so is dangerous. If the fight has already begun, no Willpower points are regained. It must take place in a situation where anger is unwarranted or inappropriate.
Yeah, it seriously requires that you start inappropriate fights. In a game that is nominally about talking to people. It's worse than a character who has "wacky insanity" or whatever the fuck. Because at least when the Fishmalk is done being disruptive you can go back to what you were doing and don't have to fucking roll initiative in "inappropriate" situations. Fuck.
Wow. Okay, full disclosure I baulked at them telling me to open wide for Jesus so I basically didn't read the VnV for all of the nWoD game (singular) I played, and for that one they specifically let us pick our own thematic things almost like edging towards the Nature system from oWoD. You know, the one everyone liked.
Are the rest that bad? Because that one apparently says that in order to get Willpower you need to suffer from
Randy Orton Syndrome Intermittent Explosive Disorder or ASPD. Do they all mandate that you be a total fucking asshole?
The others are less extreme.
Envy: Gain a willpower point when you gain something from a rival, or harm a rival. That's one of the best ones, because it just requires appropriate violence, or socializing, or negotiation, or blackmail, or whatever. It basically pays you willpower whenever you win, so there is absolutely no reason to fight your rival when you think you're going to lose.
Though, the actual example given in italic text is a character drinking a mysterious potion given to him unsolicited by a mysterious stranger who he has never seen before, but who promises that it will make him better than a rival player.
“Drink this and you’ll be MVP tonight.”
At first, the voice seemed to come out of nowhere, but then there he was, one of the ugliest guys Hughes had ever seen, sitting right there in the locker room, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
“Who the hell are you? How’d you get in here?”
“Kick-off is in five minutes, Hughes. You want to be the star tonight? Then drink up. You want Montgomery to get the headlines tomorrow, then call security.”
Hughes considered a moment, then took the vial and downed it. Salty, thick, warm and powerful — so very powerful. Screw the consequences, he was going to have the game of his life.
By taking the drink, Hughes indulges his defining Vice and regains one point of spent Willpower.
So while the actual rules text is reasonable, the example text implies that it requires you to be too stupid to live. The others are about the same.
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Gluttony requires that you indulge an addiction
at the expense of yourself or loved one. If someone who love doesn't get hurt by your addiction, you don't get the willpower.
The example text is about a guy who snorts cocaine and chugs whiskey while his father is being tortured to death by mobsters. If you take this vice, you will swiftly run out of family members.
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Greed is easier. The rules text says that you regain willpower whenever you gain something at the expense of others, but there must be some risk to yourself.
The example text shows a guy signing off on a corporate merger that ends a few hundred jobs, but makes him slightly wealthier. So being Gordon Gekko is perfectly viable for Greed, and the risk involved doesn't have to be that great.
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Lust is satisfied by going after a passion or compulsion in a way that victimizes someone, according to the rules text. The example text has a US Marshal called Aron, who is part of the witness protection program, and is having an affair with one of his protectees, which counts because it's hypothetically an abuse of power and massive conflict of interest, though the protectee is enthusiastically into it.
Also, her last four husbands died under mysterious circumstances and he has disturbing blackouts, which keep getting longer and longer, every time he has sex with her. But he doesn't care because the sex is great.
So rules text suggests that becoming a catholic priest is the most appropriate outlet for this sin, but flavor text suggests that consensual but professionally damaging relationships work, if you completely ignore the fact that you're obviously screwing a succubus.
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Pride: Exert your own wants (not needs) over others at potential risk to yourself. I'm not sure what that even means.
The example text is a french university professor who was dared to spend a night in a haunted house by a student during a lecture, and does so because it was a fucking dare, and he can't back down from one of those in spite of the fact that he's a fucking adult.
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Sloth: The other best one, going by the rules. You gain a willpower point whenever you avoid a difficult task but achieve the same goal anyway. In other words, whenever you take the easy way out. This is the knotcutters vice. Your Storyteller will probably hate you if you use it frequently. You explicitly only get willpower if you still win without doing the difficult thing that you probably didn't want to do, anyway.
The example text for sloth is of a building superintendent deciding to fix broken hallway lights tomorrow instead of today. That's not even a major thing. That's literally "I'll wait until morning to change a few light bulbs" and absolutely nothing bad happens as a result.
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Wrath: Frank already mentioned it, and its rules text is the worst. The example text is better.
The example text is a woman called April, who is a drug addict, and a woman called Rebecca, who is her landlord. When April says that she doesn't have the rent money and begins making unbelievable excuses, Rebecca beats the crap out of her. And lo and behold, this was actually an effective method, because April did have money squirreled away to buy drugs with, and so the back rent was paid and everyone was happy. Except April, who was both severely contused and would probably go into withdrawal when her stash ran out (especially since she's hooked on magical world of darkness drugs, rather than the normal kind).
So, the Wrath example text suggests that you can regain willpower by just beating the shit out of people who deserve to get the shit beaten out of them for the practical purpose of forcing them to do what you want them to do.
FrankTrollman wrote:
So to start off, there's envy. It gives your character a willpower "whenever she gains something important from a rival or has a hand in harming that rival's wellbeing." Now the example is that the "rival" is someone else on your team, and the character gets a Willpower back by poisoning their teammate just before an important public performance. Which is so fucking out there that I don't have words for it.
The example character for Envy does not give the mysterious potion to his rival. He chugs the mysterious potion himself, because the mysterious stranger whom he has never seen before and was somehow able to sneak past stadium security into the team locker room implied that it would be performance enhancing. Which is, you know, the stupidest possible thing that anyone could possibly do. But it isn't the same as intentional teamkilling.