fAteWod?

[Prak]

So my group is looking at running an urban fantasy game, and I want to use AWoD, world wise at least, and we're looking at using the Dresden Files rules just because three out of the four of us know them (I think it's also avoiding perceived baggage of WoD systems for one player, but, eh.)

However, we're a small group composed of:

• A horror genre buff
• A gaming buff
• and two guys whose conceptual space capacity is "...Cheers, no problem"

So I think we can afford a bit of expansion here (plus I have to convert templates and such anyway).

so I think things can be expanded or changed a bit. One such change is likely to be the Witch weakness (or... possibly the Transhuman one... I can't recall which one my friend had an issue with). And I think we may change the defining divisions of some supernatural types (the defining trait of an Android is a bit fuzzy, for example, and I'm tempted to make the defining difference of lycanthropes contaminant source rather than species)

But it should be interesting, my main question is really "What's the upper limit on Conceptual Space?"

[Username17]

Conceptual space limits are actually strained differently depending on how things interact with the story. If something is supposed to be a monster of the week, then yes you can trot out a new one every week. That format actually becomes tired with repetition, which is one of the reason those kinds of shows get kind of wonky by season five and pretty much don't last past season seven. On the other hand, if things are supposed to be relevant day in and day out and have opinions and cultural impact and shit, then they pretty much have to be kept in a list format brief enough that people can pull it up from memory.

So while Star Trek has a species of the week, they kept the number of space empires you had to care about continuously fairly manageable. Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Borg (DS9 traded giving a damn about the Borg for the Dominion). That's a good example, both because it worked while kitchen sinking it all over the place, but also because it shows a delineation between recurring space cultures (Romulans), playable characters (Trill) and monsters of the week (Edo). And it even shows you how you can transform one into the other. For example: Klingons were a space empire that you encountered over and over again before Worf was a playable character, and the Trill were a monster of the week before they got turned into playable characters, and the Dominion were a monster of the week until they were retconned into a space empire you had to care about. And so on.

So superficially, you could do the nWoD thing where there was a different kind of supernatural critter in like every fucking run down town in bumfuck Montana and the players encounter a new monster of the week every week while they travel around the roads like the protagonists in Supernatural. That works. It just has serious problems as soon as the Players want to take an active role in crafting backstories and stuff. Because when the players run into a monster that can cure diseases or whatever, it breaks immersion when their characters didn't know about that possibility when they were dealing with the Swamp Rot of Gruesome Gulch. Or whatever.

In short, the monster of the week thing works great when we're talking about explorers or even when we're talking about a Scooby Gang who fights whatever monsters they find. But the moment the players are actually part of the cultural group that these monsters of the week are nominally part of, it becomes burdensome to the storytelling. Because if the PCs are also Vampires and shit, then the Oberloch Vampire Family stops feeling like a monster of the week and starts feeling like a Playable Character. Because it's a fucking playable character type.

So yeah: bottom line is that if the PCs are basically humans, or newly transformed supernaturals, and thus every single monster of the week they run into is a brand new experience for the characters, then you can throw in as many as you want. If the characters are actually supposed to know what the fuck is going on, you need to cut the number of critters out there to a number that your players can actually remember.

-Username17

[Prak]

well, I'm not looking at doing a monster of the week set up, and I'm not really looking at a mortals game anymore (though Dresden handles mortals beside supernaturals decently).

I'm looking at "Demons are trying to take the real world, now go kick the shit out of them" and possibly making the demons nazis too because... well I really liked my Alt. History Hitler-demon idea, and I keep seeing Hellboy as the type of story I want to have.

And Everything's Better When You Kill Some Nazis.

So if I expand the supernatural types at all, it'll be before we start playing as part of setting up the world, and then I'll refrain from doing anything more out there than "This Fallen knows some Orphic sorceries and can kill you in your sleep"

[Username17]

Well the armies of the King With 3 Shadows maps pretty well to Monsters of the Week, because you'll be fighting them each week and aren't necessarily in cultural contact with them. You can throw in as many weird one-off NPC demons as you want, because there's no reason for the characters to have ever seen or considered one of them before.

-Username17

[Prak]

that works.

...AWoD is really fucking grimdark, you know that right?

[Username17]

Meh. It fits in at about the lower third of grimdark from the original World of Darkness source material. The world is not (seemingly) about to end, there don't seem to be any malevolent gods who hate you personally, you aren't being asked to have sex with dogs, you can't lose the "turned into a vampire by generation X" lottery, and you don't necessarily have to lick elder NPC penis at any point.

It's about where the World of Darkness would be without Gehenna, the Blood War, or The Thinning Blood. Or the analogs for that which were made for each of the subgames (Caine -> Wyrm, Thinning Blood -> Dying Bred, for example). So yeah, you still have other worlds full of monsters and despair, and you still have social covenants that prevent you from striking directly at literal monsters that actually eat children, and the general tone of the world is still supposed to be "like Earth, but darker". But it's still substantially less grimdark than the oWoD or the nWoD. You are expected to be able to accomplish things and not have your sand castle kicked over by an unfaltering god of destruction, for example.

-Username17

[Prak]

Well, and there's the fact that the real matter is "life sucks if you're human, but if you're a monster, what makes life suck for mortals means everyday's CHRISTMAS!!!!!!"

but that's like saying "Hurricane Katrina made New Orleans a shit hole. Unless you were a rapist."

But yes, for a certain style of play, it works. However my players want more hope, so I'm probably going to wind up running more of a Hellboy type setting. World of Bleak Hope or something.

I just have to inject some brightness in there... I know what I'm doing for Maya, but the Gloom and the Dark Reflection are a bit trickier. I started by defining what the worlds as a whole want, and what they offer.

Maya will be a place of impersonal danger, as in, sure, there's dangerous stuff there, and it's all trying to eat you, but that's more or less it, you're basically no worse off than if Australia went through the Skull Island Patented Penis Enlargement Technique. It will also be a land of alien insights and wonder, which can be both wondrous and terrifying, often at the same time. Using the Aspects system of Fate, Maya basically gets Lost World and Alien Landscape as aspects, and probably Marduk Arcanotower as a threat. As a whole, Maya is hungry, but for flesh, and it doesn't care whose. It offers inspiration beyond most human's wildest dreams, by tapping into the dreams of the mad and brilliant.

Basically, two themes that could be good or bad, and a threat.

The Dark Reflection, I'm unsure of, as far as creating two overarching themes that can be good or bad, though the threat would likely be the King of Three Shadows. What it wants is just you, and it doesn't much matter how it gets you, provided you're still useful. It's prepared to offer power, often in exchange for your servitude or allegiance, often by burning out your soul to give it to you.

The Gloom was an obvious thing, at least for what it wants. It wants all your joy and happiness and hope. And in exchange it offers immortality. I'm toying with the idea of flavouring the Gloom Transhuman as either Wraiths or Lichs, with their spawn analogue seriously being dementors. However, I'm stuck for aspects.

[Orion]

Your gloom and dark reflection both sound substantially grimmer than the ones in the source material, where they are just places with bad weather, not malign alien intelligences.

[Username17]

Your gloom and dark reflection both sound substantially grimmer than the ones in the source material, where they are just places with bad weather, not malign alien intelligences.

Well... no. The Gloom is equivalent to The Underworld in Wraith: The Oblivion. I don't think I have to explain how the incorporation of a very real chance that your spirit doesn't get ultimately destroyed by a malign storm composed entirely of materialized despair would make that world about a million times less depressing. The Dark Reflection is like the oWoD Infernal Realms, but it's a way nicer place. I mean shit, you can talk to a lot of the Asura and even Trolls. Heck, someone could be the leader of a pack of Mirror Goblins and not have to sacrifice any virgins. Compared to the Infernal Realms of oWoD, where it was like D&D Hell crossed with the GW Eye of Terror, where all the occupants wanted to corrupt and destroy everyone in the world and even followers of the Wyrm thought they took the "more evil, less reason" thing way too far - it's candy floss and sugar smiles.

I mean yes, there are a lot of relatively indifferent spirit realms in WoD that have been trimmed. But that's because the WW cosmology is incoherent and extremely convoluted:

Basically, the three worlds that have been kept are three that mount a credible "threat" to the world and a source of plots. But they are much nicer places than their official White Wolf analogs.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think we all know what the WoD Cosmology really wanted to be.

[Prak]

I think Orion was talking about my set ups, where the Gloom literally wants to suck all the hope and love out of you, like one large dementor, and Maya wants to literally consume your flesh, but doesn't give a shit about your actual soul.

But like I said, while those are the motivations of the worlds that I'm setting up, I need to apply aspects to them, and I want those aspects to be neutral, so that they an be invoked for grimdark, or for wonder.

[Username17]

Oh snap, I hadn't even noticed that you edited in more stuff and thought he was talking to me. Yeah, I agree with Orion in that by making the other world actively hostile rather than simply metaphorically hostile, you've made the universe way more Grimdark.

-Username17

[Prak]

yeah, I wasn't trying too, but, I, erm, conceptually slipped and spilled a whole bunch of grimdark all over the place.

possibly the problem is that I don't really see any of it as particularly grimdark, personally. The Dark Reflection is just a demonic Uncle Sam, Maya is just a hungry beast, and the Gloom... well it's not like you have to go there, now, is it?

Yes, I know, it's supposed to be the respite of all ghosts, so technically you do have to go there, though I'm toying with having souls go to compatible worlds, rather than just the Gloom.

Hm... fucking conceptual space... I suppose I could add a bright, cheery world or two, but... fuck there are already six.

[Orion]

Anyone who can control weather can build a sunshiney fairy castle in Maya.

Anyone able to control ghosts can build an austere and orderly city in Gloom.

Anyone with an army of slaves to polish off soot can build a mansion of shining mirrors in the Dark Reflection.

[Prak]

Alright, here's what I've got so far to bring some bright and shiny potential in, or at least try to make stuff less grimdark:

The Wilds World Sheet
Theme/Threat	Theme/Threat	Theme/Threat
idea	idea	idea
Strange Alien Landscapes	Marduk Soc. Arcanotower	Raw, unfettered, chaotic creative force
aspect	aspect	aspect
Alien Ecology	???	Chaotic Creation
The Faces	The Faces	The Faces
Name/Concept	Name/Concept	Name/Concept
-	-

The Dark Reflection World Sheet
Theme/Threat	Theme/Threat	Theme/Threat
idea	idea	idea
All things come to an end	-	They want your allegiance, but they'll reciprocate
aspect	aspect	aspect
The Grim Reaper	-	The Ties That Bind
The Faces	The Faces	The Faces
Name/Concept	Name/Concept	Name/Concept
-	-

The Gloom World Sheet
Theme/Threat	Theme/Threat	Theme/Threat
idea	idea	idea
Stasis/Entropy	-	The Consumption of all happiness, joy and hope
aspect	aspect	aspect
-	-
The Faces	The Faces	The Faces
Name/Concept	Name/Concept	Name/Concept
-	-

This is pretty much what I've got of the three worlds, how's it look for being a bit less grimdark?

[Prak]

So we did the first session, the world and character talk, and I'm already practically tossing the plot, and lots of AWOD stufff, into the bin.

I was thinking about running a slightly less Grimdark AWoD game about a demonic incursion. In Portland. With two Transhumans, and likely a witch.

....yeah that doesn't exactly work at all.

I was amused when I looked at things and found the group was entirely maya/wilds fueled:
-Mad Scientist Inventor type (not a Child of Aether, more a Luminary mad scientist)
-Doc Savage style actual Child of Aether
-Naga/snake Shaman (once I fit snake shamans in... and it can't replace Verbena because I have one as an NPC in the city, nor can it replace Khaibit and have the necromancy go to Ventrue, because the player is not a "death fuels my powers" type)

Then we started planning the city, and looking at Portland, I decided the major powers were Deep Ones and the WCL (old port town, used to have lots of organized crime) and we were doing the usual Fate/Dresden Files city building thing.

...Basically Portland is so steeped in Wilds Energy that the government does actually have some idea of what's going on because, well, Godzilla comes calling in Portland every once in a while, and it's kind of difficult to hide that.

On the other hand, I wanted to run this vaguely similar to Hellboy/BPRD stuff, so it works.

[CatharzGodfoot]

What you say naga/snake shaman, do you mean a snake that happens to be a shaman, or a shaman that happens to use snakes?

[Prak]

shaman who uses snakes

[CatharzGodfoot]

Then they could be fuckin' anything, although Ventrue and Khaibit would work best. Since the player doesn't want Gloom powers, Baali probably makes the most sense. Mesmerism and Command are already snake-associated, and the other abilities aren't far off.

[Prak]

She doesn't want TDR powers either, is the thing.

So far I'm thinking of just saying Fuckit, she's a steve, or something.

[CatharzGodfoot]

She could just be a Verbena that uses snakes. You can have an evil seed in your heart and still have cool tattoos, a badass hoodie, and say "Nake, snake, cobra, cobrura".

You player will probably flip at the thought of sticking her feet in dirt to replenish her powers rather than eating frozen mice (or whatever), though. Since your player doesn't want to be a part of the World of Darkness as it is, your best bet might be to reshape it to suit her desires. Take the snake flavor away from ventrue, retcon the Verbena witch as something else (I'd go with mi go; fill her with bees to pollinate her vines), and replace verbena with a cabal of snake handers that sustain their powers though a constant high of venom (ritual power schedule, inject snake venom).

Snake Handler
Ritual power schedule, astral power source
Core discipline
[*]Veil of Morpheus: Enchanted Slumber, Dream Vision, Denial of Privacy (A).
Other disciplines
[*]Lure of Destruction: Tongue of the Serpent (probably euphoric).
[*]Auspex: Supernatural Senses
[*]Celerity: Quickness
[*]Presence: Dread Gaze, Majesty (A).

The base flaw could be disloyal, conspicuous consumption (serious snake bites or needle marks), or even delusional (Pentecostal). You could also swap out the Veil of Morpheus stuff for Domination, including mesmerism. These guys should also probably get parseltongue (seriously limited feral whispers) for free.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Another possibility is redoing migo as medusas, and completely rewriting swarm song.

[Prak]

possible.

But here's the problem in full:

• She wants to play a "naga" (my rp gamer knowledge of what a naga is failed me as she's talking about something different than anything I've seen in any game.) meaning a priestess whose family "worships(?)" snakes and is hindu. Not a problem.
• She doesn't want to have the gloom or TDR as her power source, leaving Maya/The Wilds/Wyld
• It's already been established that the Wyld witch is the Verbena, specifically a poison ivy style plant mage
• It's already been established that the Wyld leviathan is the Deep One
• It's already been established that AWoD's default snake people are the Ventrue
• It's already been established that the Wyld transhuman is the Child of Aether, and there are two of those (or one and a Wyld influenced human luminary mad scientist) in the party already

Basically she wants to play, powers wise, the good aligned, pretty, hindu version of Jafar.

But, I've only established, explicitly, the existence of Witches, Leviathans, Transhumans, and possibly vampires and werewolves. I can see a number of solutions at this moment:

• Make a new supernatural type, and tack it on, possibly "Divine" and make the types, off the top of my head, Angel, Archon and Guardinal
• make a new type and ditch another one, possibly promethian
• Make a fourth metaphysical realm, and add a new type of each supernatural that gets their power from it
• Establish that different lands or cultural areas have different supernaturals and that the basic ones are "Western" or just the primarily known ones, allowing me to make her the Eastern Wyld-powered (already established type) and forcing me to give some thought as to what else there is.
• Change the werewolves into Totem Drawers, and make her a "Werewolf" who turns into a snake (and I'd be changing the other types too, wererats would become plague shifters, and bagheera would become...I'm not sure... and each would have their possible forms be opened greatly, with the definitional difference being why they change, not into what they change.)

So far I'm thinking the first is the best.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The route that would require the least work is probably to break the current correspondence of playable types to other worlds, get rid of...say, daeva (to maintain a manageable number of types), and add a new astral type of 'pretty pretty snake princess magical girl'.

Another option is to collapse conceptual space by folding the dark reflection and the gloom into one. Basically, the shallow dark reflection would be unchanged, while the deep dark reflection would be known as 'the gloom' and be all cold, dark, and life-sucking.

Then you have three other worlds: good (magic snake kingdom), neutral (the wilds), and evil (the dark reflection). This would totally change the entire dynamics of the setting and turn it into Nightwatch rather than WoD, but that seems to be what your players want. After all, in the World of Darkness there are no heroes -- just people and monsters.

The advantage of keeping it down to three other worlds is that three fucking alternate dimensions is already a lot. Most stories get by with just one.

[Username17]

If she just want to be Jafar, why not just be a Baali and carry a snake staff? If you want an animal form, you can just get one.

-Username17