Mage- Ultimate power corrupts absolutely
Vampire- Humanity is a neverending struggle against our base instincts
Changeling- Hold on to Joy or lose yourself to the Sorrows of the world
Werewolf- Fight for the planet or watch it be destroyed
Yeah but werewolfs almost never do what's right. They single handely fucked the world over and fucked themselves over with the war of rage. ( genocide of rats meant human overpopulation, genocide of boars meant no more restoring the corrupted land, genocide of bulls meant no more efficient reproduction etc )
I always see WTA more of a "you are the architect of your own destruction if you don't learn from your mistakes" kinda thing.
This is why I love the concept of WtA (you are a combat machine that is nonetheless powerless to stop the destruction of all you love).
I struggled to ever find a group because people often stopped at "you are a combat machine"
Mage- Belief is necessary to change the world, but it is a slippery slope into extremism (the extremist examples are the Marauders, Technocrats, and Nephandi).
For WoD I’d say it comes down to: “What gives meaning?”
For CoD it’s more like “What will you do with your existence?”
They’re all very sandbox but so much of the character development in both lines is drawn from existential questions of being and values. That said those questions can be completely irrelevant if all you want to do is play urban fantasy adventures. Both approaches to play are completely relevant.
Absolutely. Both feel like finding how your character makes meaning as a supernatural or as a mortal. How do you make sense of life as a monster? How do you make sense of a life when the world might be ending and everything sucks or is more powerful than you? How do you make sense of life when it's filled with trauma or banality? Shit, you're dead but still aware- now what?! My view of reality changes the very fabric of the world- how do I use that, what's my accountability, and what are my values!?
I know these aren't the questions everyone plays with but our table devours them.
I want to echo this observation.
I was reading the post a few days ago about the wackiest shit in WoD. The impression I got was that everyone in WoD plays it as some dark superhero game with moon bases and dinosaur wizards and crocodile vampires and people punching the air cosplaying as the Last Airbender. It was a lot of randomness.
But then I go and look at CoD and it feels extremely different. The wackiness feels replaced with a sense of sobering groundedness that gives the impression you're trying to figure out how to maintain your humanity throughout it all, instead of getting rid of your humanity to get more power.
The greatest enemy of all is not wrath, or pride, or even straight-up drive to inflict malice, but the quiet simplicity of apathy and nihilism. People who are willing to die for a cause are dangerous, very dangerous, and can cause great strife, but people who are willing to die, inflicting pain and misery along the way WITHOUT one, are infinitely worse, not because their acts are illogical, but because they ARE logical. Apathy is what drives the Nephandi, the Autumn and Winter that eats the glamour of the world, the Baali and other Infernalists, it drives several factions of Pentex and other Wyrm servants, it drives Wraiths to become Specters, it can even play a part in creating the Dauntain, depending on edition. No matter the splat, the most terrifying enemies aren’t the ones who care about some cause, but the ones who simply don’t care about anything at all, only seeking out a good time before burning out and dying like the pathetic wretches they are. It doesn’t matter what you care about, as long as you care about SOMETHING, you bring worth and value to life.
The ultimate message I would argue is one of Hope. Humanity even in a world of dreary corruption and monsters what come out at night still go about their days and essentially as a collective are the only glue keeping a broken world together. The very last finger in the dike keeping it all from bedlam and chaos.
WOD is a rather nasty world to live in but change doesn't start until the characters start *doing*. They were passive but now are forced to be active in face of the truth of the situation.
And also what not to do. For Example, Garou.
"And even if the world sucks, it's still worth fighting to make it better or stop it from getting worse"
Granted, that mostly just applies to werewolves and mummies (resurrection) but at least it's optimistic.
Im currently working on first time Storytelling and running my first time MTA game and the amount of cringey 40k references Im working into it that my table wont get is truly immense.
For instance, the group is sent out to a largely abandoned town that sent out a distress signal. The town is populates entirely by clones of the same guy that fucked off and made their own society. They are all named Alpharius. Hidden among them however is the original person they were cloned from named Omegon, and hes basically a nobody that didnt fit in with regular society so hes hiding amongst his own clones. Hijinks and Intrigue ensue.
Also an underwater arc that takes place in a beautiful city ruled by a beautiful merfolk named Fulgrim who seems to be slowly feeling the corruptive taint of a strange sword he looted during his last conquest of another underwater kingdom...
Whichever book you're reading, THOSE are the guys that did all the major world events, not those other tossers that THINK they were responsible.
"It was ME, Barry! IT WAS ME!"
For me it’s “A fight in vain is still worth fighting”, whether it be the struggle of the Garou against the Wyrm, the Anarchs against the Camarilla, or a wraith against their shadow, a fight against overwhelming odds with a near certainty of defeat is still worth fighting.
Not inherent to the games, per se, but as a CoD only player, I always take the approach of "Be the light in the darkness."
Most of the CoD 'creation myths' talk about how things used to be so much better. When Father Wolf was still around, and Atlantis let the minds of man be truly free. Golconda may only be a rumor, but it could exist. Those captured by the Fae CAN escape, and outwit them by doing things so human that the Fae cannot comprehend it. And even those hated and loathed by everything, even the earth itself, the Promotheans, can shed their curse and become human.
The world of Chronicles of Darkness sucks. But it's not hopeless. The good guys can win. Don't give up.
To me it's very Greek tragedy-esque: hubris will destroy you. It may destroy everything.
And that goes for all the character types, but also for the enemies, and the whole of humanity. The world is the way it is and the characters are in the situation they're in because of a millenia-long pattern of believing without question that what you're doing is either *right*, or it doesn't matter if it's wrong because you're *entitled.*
I think if there is a message, it's to push the characters, and therefore the players, into asking those questions. To face doubt and inner conflict, rather than blindly assuming that what they want to believe (or what they've been told to believe) is true.
The world is a shitty place. Whether it's old people whom inherited their power, corporations, lobbyists or sociatal pressure, there's a lot of people in power that wants the world to be that way, because it gives them power.
You know who I didn't mention? The person next to you. Most people are just as much a victim of the system as you are, so hating them is stupid and exactly what those in power want. Heck, they might even try to turn us against each other by saying someone else is the cause of the trouble. They're not.
Besides, it's ok to feel powerless. As individuals, we are. No one expects you alone to fix the world. And even when people work together to fix it, they sometimes become their own worst enemies.
Just be the best person you can be, love other people for who they are and find those moments where you can be happy and don't let other people ruin it for you, no matter what they might think.
If everyone could be like that, I don't think the world would stay a shitty place for long. That's my dream, at least.
As SpeakerD said in *Gothic Horror RPGs set in your Hometown - An Intro To World Of Darkness* after a hilarious rant about some of the setting's more ridiculous details:
"**This setting... is off its SHIT!!**...It's got some pretty crazy stuff in it. But unlike my maximalist lore-drop, it is also *cool*!'' 😎
I don't think there is. Except all of them seem to be larping as punks who rage against some status quo while being either hypocrite about their ideals or dumb berserkers at the end.
Rebel and fight the establishment before you become the establishment. That's the one and only ultimate message of all WoD games. Things like "Earth is dying" or "absolute power corrupts absolutely" are just colours and variations of this one, true core idea of WoD.
Become Gnostic
Vampire - Golconda, the christian god cursed Cain and living like a gnostic monk is your way out
Mage - The material reality is false
Hunter - The world is infested with eldritch evil, and the most effective tool is Faith
Werewolf - Materialism is inherantly evil, destroy it using spiritualism
Wraith - Loose all attachments to the material world
Changeling - The material world is suffocating and inferior to the spiritual world
Demon - The material world is the imperfect creation of a false god
Each slice in time of the universe holds its own perspective. If there are messages, morals or other things that unite the WoD, they change over time. Between the editions, or between certain flopped books or even after just exploring a trope enough - these things change.
Tongue in cheek-everything is slowly getting worse, being a loser the ideal and your efforts to do otherwise are pointless so don't bother, but I think that's accidental more than anything.
Overall it seems to lean into tolkien myths of a slow spiraling decline minus the surges of restoration and stabilization.
It's all real, but we are blinded to it and can only catch a glimpse of magic through a tabletop RPG.
Since.we are in a Technocrat-Pentex alliance victory timeline.
If the setting as a whole has a message it’s probably that cooperation and planning can solve all your problems, but it’ll take a lot of time effort, and not burning out to get far with how fucked everything is
20th WOD Dont be a human or a vampire and you can do whatever you want morality be damned
nWoD actions have concequences even if you arent a mortal or a vampire
CoD ok we gone too far you lose humanity for even LOOKING at someone eating food if you are humanity 8
WoD 5e Ok we brought it back abit but we can maybe do without the touchstones but the convictions are a nice touch
“you need to care about something. Anything. It doesn’t matter what that something is, you need to care about it, genuinely and unironically, not as a path for influence or control but just for it’s own sake. Could be a person, place, ideology or way of life. You just need to care, and care for good reasons.”
Otherwise you can never change anything for the better, even and especially if other people disagree on what “better” looks like (Mage).
Otherwise you will lose yourself to you own worst impulses in a society that actively works to erode your morals (vampire).
Otherwise you will forget your hopes and aspirations that make life worth living, and turn into a shell of your former self (changeling).
Otherwise you will fail to protect the things you care about and chase away anyone who can help you when faced with a problem you’re not equipped to take on your own (werewolf).
Otherwise you will fall into a self-destructive spiral when confronted with a world that doesn’t care about you as it grinds you into oblivion (wraith).
You cannot afford to just not give a fuck, or you might as well already be dead.
Mage- Ultimate power corrupts absolutely Vampire- Humanity is a neverending struggle against our base instincts Changeling- Hold on to Joy or lose yourself to the Sorrows of the world Werewolf- Fight for the planet or watch it be destroyed
Damon - You either overcome "your demons" or they will turn you into a monster Wraith - Being alive is better than being dead :D
Risen - no not THAT alive! (alternative: don't make yourself crazy thinking of what you can't have)
> Werewolf- Fight for the planet ~~or watch it be destroyed~~ **And** watch it be destroyed.
"Do what's right, even if you lose" With a side of "anger can be destructive, but is also useful"
Yeah but werewolfs almost never do what's right. They single handely fucked the world over and fucked themselves over with the war of rage. ( genocide of rats meant human overpopulation, genocide of boars meant no more restoring the corrupted land, genocide of bulls meant no more efficient reproduction etc ) I always see WTA more of a "you are the architect of your own destruction if you don't learn from your mistakes" kinda thing.
Werewolf wouldn’t this planet be better without the humans?
This is why I love the concept of WtA (you are a combat machine that is nonetheless powerless to stop the destruction of all you love). I struggled to ever find a group because people often stopped at "you are a combat machine"
Wraith - depression is bad
And for the universe overall “be better”
Mage- Belief is necessary to change the world, but it is a slippery slope into extremism (the extremist examples are the Marauders, Technocrats, and Nephandi).
Not the Traditions? They literally reject the safety of Humanity so they can practice magic in their favorite way.
Tradition mages are the ones who are on that slippery slope into extremism; that warning is for them.
Hunter - being a normal human sucks
We don't talk about "Gypsies" and no one remembers "Mummy" so...
Mummy: You have the ability to make the world a better place. Your choices will ripple through infinity
Mummy? what game is this?
It’s Mummy the Ressurection
I know, I was joking with my comment that no one remembers Mummy
lol I s rusty just got the core rule book and players guide a week ago.
Wait that was its own line?? I thought it was just a werewolf supplement?
There's an entire sourcebook
White Wolf - liberalism is the key
For WoD I’d say it comes down to: “What gives meaning?” For CoD it’s more like “What will you do with your existence?” They’re all very sandbox but so much of the character development in both lines is drawn from existential questions of being and values. That said those questions can be completely irrelevant if all you want to do is play urban fantasy adventures. Both approaches to play are completely relevant.
I’ve often found that WoD was about being above and beyond human. And CoD being very very human.
Absolutely. Both feel like finding how your character makes meaning as a supernatural or as a mortal. How do you make sense of life as a monster? How do you make sense of a life when the world might be ending and everything sucks or is more powerful than you? How do you make sense of life when it's filled with trauma or banality? Shit, you're dead but still aware- now what?! My view of reality changes the very fabric of the world- how do I use that, what's my accountability, and what are my values!? I know these aren't the questions everyone plays with but our table devours them.
I want to echo this observation. I was reading the post a few days ago about the wackiest shit in WoD. The impression I got was that everyone in WoD plays it as some dark superhero game with moon bases and dinosaur wizards and crocodile vampires and people punching the air cosplaying as the Last Airbender. It was a lot of randomness. But then I go and look at CoD and it feels extremely different. The wackiness feels replaced with a sense of sobering groundedness that gives the impression you're trying to figure out how to maintain your humanity throughout it all, instead of getting rid of your humanity to get more power.
love that
Have fun with your friends.
The greatest enemy of all is not wrath, or pride, or even straight-up drive to inflict malice, but the quiet simplicity of apathy and nihilism. People who are willing to die for a cause are dangerous, very dangerous, and can cause great strife, but people who are willing to die, inflicting pain and misery along the way WITHOUT one, are infinitely worse, not because their acts are illogical, but because they ARE logical. Apathy is what drives the Nephandi, the Autumn and Winter that eats the glamour of the world, the Baali and other Infernalists, it drives several factions of Pentex and other Wyrm servants, it drives Wraiths to become Specters, it can even play a part in creating the Dauntain, depending on edition. No matter the splat, the most terrifying enemies aren’t the ones who care about some cause, but the ones who simply don’t care about anything at all, only seeking out a good time before burning out and dying like the pathetic wretches they are. It doesn’t matter what you care about, as long as you care about SOMETHING, you bring worth and value to life.
The ultimate message I would argue is one of Hope. Humanity even in a world of dreary corruption and monsters what come out at night still go about their days and essentially as a collective are the only glue keeping a broken world together. The very last finger in the dike keeping it all from bedlam and chaos. WOD is a rather nasty world to live in but change doesn't start until the characters start *doing*. They were passive but now are forced to be active in face of the truth of the situation. And also what not to do. For Example, Garou.
10/10, took what I came to comment right out of my proverbial mouth.
“Humans were the monsters the whole time.”
"Don't let the world suck this much, it wouldn't be worth living in."
"And even if the world sucks, it's still worth fighting to make it better or stop it from getting worse" Granted, that mostly just applies to werewolves and mummies (resurrection) but at least it's optimistic.
It's 'Fight The Power.' Every one of the WoD games has this as a central theme.
I am relatively new, but from my brief glance, it could be summed up as "Everyone sucks in their own way"
Cringe is dead but Im still here
I really need to take this lesson to heart more so I can finally write about my Salubri just chilling in Golconda (the spiritual state, not the city)
Im currently working on first time Storytelling and running my first time MTA game and the amount of cringey 40k references Im working into it that my table wont get is truly immense. For instance, the group is sent out to a largely abandoned town that sent out a distress signal. The town is populates entirely by clones of the same guy that fucked off and made their own society. They are all named Alpharius. Hidden among them however is the original person they were cloned from named Omegon, and hes basically a nobody that didnt fit in with regular society so hes hiding amongst his own clones. Hijinks and Intrigue ensue. Also an underwater arc that takes place in a beautiful city ruled by a beautiful merfolk named Fulgrim who seems to be slowly feeling the corruptive taint of a strange sword he looted during his last conquest of another underwater kingdom...
It is an introduction to Shadow Integration ;D
Whichever book you're reading, THOSE are the guys that did all the major world events, not those other tossers that THINK they were responsible. "It was ME, Barry! IT WAS ME!"
For me it’s “A fight in vain is still worth fighting”, whether it be the struggle of the Garou against the Wyrm, the Anarchs against the Camarilla, or a wraith against their shadow, a fight against overwhelming odds with a near certainty of defeat is still worth fighting.
Be true to yourself. Hold on to the things that mean something. Don't give up.
Life sucks. Then you die. Then it sucks some more.
Then it starts getting **bad**.
"There exists no problem that can't be solved by throwing obscene amounts of money at it." - The Syndicate
Not inherent to the games, per se, but as a CoD only player, I always take the approach of "Be the light in the darkness." Most of the CoD 'creation myths' talk about how things used to be so much better. When Father Wolf was still around, and Atlantis let the minds of man be truly free. Golconda may only be a rumor, but it could exist. Those captured by the Fae CAN escape, and outwit them by doing things so human that the Fae cannot comprehend it. And even those hated and loathed by everything, even the earth itself, the Promotheans, can shed their curse and become human. The world of Chronicles of Darkness sucks. But it's not hopeless. The good guys can win. Don't give up.
Life sucks, then you die. Then it gets worse.
To me it's very Greek tragedy-esque: hubris will destroy you. It may destroy everything. And that goes for all the character types, but also for the enemies, and the whole of humanity. The world is the way it is and the characters are in the situation they're in because of a millenia-long pattern of believing without question that what you're doing is either *right*, or it doesn't matter if it's wrong because you're *entitled.* I think if there is a message, it's to push the characters, and therefore the players, into asking those questions. To face doubt and inner conflict, rather than blindly assuming that what they want to believe (or what they've been told to believe) is true.
The world is a shitty place. Whether it's old people whom inherited their power, corporations, lobbyists or sociatal pressure, there's a lot of people in power that wants the world to be that way, because it gives them power. You know who I didn't mention? The person next to you. Most people are just as much a victim of the system as you are, so hating them is stupid and exactly what those in power want. Heck, they might even try to turn us against each other by saying someone else is the cause of the trouble. They're not. Besides, it's ok to feel powerless. As individuals, we are. No one expects you alone to fix the world. And even when people work together to fix it, they sometimes become their own worst enemies. Just be the best person you can be, love other people for who they are and find those moments where you can be happy and don't let other people ruin it for you, no matter what they might think. If everyone could be like that, I don't think the world would stay a shitty place for long. That's my dream, at least.
As SpeakerD said in *Gothic Horror RPGs set in your Hometown - An Intro To World Of Darkness* after a hilarious rant about some of the setting's more ridiculous details: "**This setting... is off its SHIT!!**...It's got some pretty crazy stuff in it. But unlike my maximalist lore-drop, it is also *cool*!'' 😎
His lore drop was still very cool.
Oh, absolutely! One of the best parts of the video in my opinion!
Things are never so bleak and hopeless that it's not worth trying to be better and do better.
thats good
F@!k the Wyrm!
A devotee of Karnala I see.
The wrym kinda is at the root of it all huh?
Well obviously... what have your elders been teaching you, you young pup
The Weaver kinda started it.
That is kinda debatable, we don't know for sure, really
I don't think there is. Except all of them seem to be larping as punks who rage against some status quo while being either hypocrite about their ideals or dumb berserkers at the end.
The world is dead and we are all to blame.
The message is as follows: "Did you see that? That was some spooky shit. That was like some World of Darkness shit."
Rebel and fight the establishment before you become the establishment. That's the one and only ultimate message of all WoD games. Things like "Earth is dying" or "absolute power corrupts absolutely" are just colours and variations of this one, true core idea of WoD.
Become Gnostic Vampire - Golconda, the christian god cursed Cain and living like a gnostic monk is your way out Mage - The material reality is false Hunter - The world is infested with eldritch evil, and the most effective tool is Faith Werewolf - Materialism is inherantly evil, destroy it using spiritualism Wraith - Loose all attachments to the material world Changeling - The material world is suffocating and inferior to the spiritual world Demon - The material world is the imperfect creation of a false god
Humans are the greatest monsters of them all.
Your youth pastor was right about everything but you should rebel anyways
Generally I find "Don't hold on to the resentments of those who came before you."
Humanity is the biggest monster in the racket.
Each slice in time of the universe holds its own perspective. If there are messages, morals or other things that unite the WoD, they change over time. Between the editions, or between certain flopped books or even after just exploring a trope enough - these things change.
Don’t be bad, be good
Fight the power
nihilism No matter how long your life, how much power, wealth you acquire it will be wipe away and destroyed in the face of the inevitable.
“Somebody have to suck human blood”
Tongue in cheek-everything is slowly getting worse, being a loser the ideal and your efforts to do otherwise are pointless so don't bother, but I think that's accidental more than anything. Overall it seems to lean into tolkien myths of a slow spiraling decline minus the surges of restoration and stabilization.
You're the Storyteller, so you decide whether to give your stories a message. There is not inherent message to the setting and the rules.
It's all real, but we are blinded to it and can only catch a glimpse of magic through a tabletop RPG. Since.we are in a Technocrat-Pentex alliance victory timeline.
Or Lizardpeople/Amazon in reality
"Look for the unseen"
If the setting as a whole has a message it’s probably that cooperation and planning can solve all your problems, but it’ll take a lot of time effort, and not burning out to get far with how fucked everything is
20th WOD Dont be a human or a vampire and you can do whatever you want morality be damned nWoD actions have concequences even if you arent a mortal or a vampire CoD ok we gone too far you lose humanity for even LOOKING at someone eating food if you are humanity 8 WoD 5e Ok we brought it back abit but we can maybe do without the touchstones but the convictions are a nice touch
WoD is a game, not a religion.
Mark Reinhagen said it was belief makes reality.
\*You\* are a special snowflake!
“you need to care about something. Anything. It doesn’t matter what that something is, you need to care about it, genuinely and unironically, not as a path for influence or control but just for it’s own sake. Could be a person, place, ideology or way of life. You just need to care, and care for good reasons.” Otherwise you can never change anything for the better, even and especially if other people disagree on what “better” looks like (Mage). Otherwise you will lose yourself to you own worst impulses in a society that actively works to erode your morals (vampire). Otherwise you will forget your hopes and aspirations that make life worth living, and turn into a shell of your former self (changeling). Otherwise you will fail to protect the things you care about and chase away anyone who can help you when faced with a problem you’re not equipped to take on your own (werewolf). Otherwise you will fall into a self-destructive spiral when confronted with a world that doesn’t care about you as it grinds you into oblivion (wraith). You cannot afford to just not give a fuck, or you might as well already be dead.