A More Logical World of Darkness

[SixFootChicken]

too be honest there was never a problem with me in the inconsistencies between cosmologies. every critter in the cWOD is just like any other religion or belief system in the real world. they don't have to be compatible to co exist they just do. yes many of them have the nasty habit of manifesting literally. but that's the nature of magic in the cwod. people believe it therefore it exists. that's what the umbra is, that's what the dreaming is, that's what magic is. all a reflection of differing beliefs across vast spectrum of reality.each group has a "secret truth" that is actually a piece of a truth far more simple than any one's ego or cultural pride wants to admit. that everyone else's beliefs are just as valid as theirs.

it just seems your trying to force a hundred square pegs into the same round hole at the same time. belief was never "logical" and it never had to be. the problems with crossovers was never really cosmological, it was pretty much mechanical. the fluff already had a built in coping mechanism to deal with the various inconsistencies. the crunch was the hard part.

and i'm not pulling this out of my but either. this is a strong recuring theme in Mage, Changeling, and to a lesser extent Werewolf. Magic and even the vast cosmological effects were influenced by billions of people thinking of things throw in the extra supernatural nature of the critters all believing some thing and voila! Magic stew!

I like that you broke it down into fluff vs crunch.

I think like you and most others here do on the fluff... everything fits just fine, as different aspects of the same truth.

On crunch I never had much of a problem either. I think perhaps because I was never interested in "balance" across the game lines (the disparity is what gave it an edge, crunch wise) and because Mage: the Ascension was easily my touchstone no matter what the PCs were. That combined with the fact that in table-top games as long as everyone is there for the same purpose (awesome stories, fun characters) we could always quickly find a resolution that was both fluff-accurate and reasonably fair.

So with that being said, out of curiosity what sort of mechanical problems did you run into in your experience?

[ryu238]

I think that it is probably simpler to use the Translation guides for Chronicles. Or try looking at this old project: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?thre...roject.568684/

[ryu238]

Have you got some page references on this, actually? Because my 1st Ed. books were pretty saturated with crossovers too. Hell, that's when Samuel Haight was the focal point of the metaplot.

I've noticed that no one is addressing this. I'm aware Haight is/was very unpopular but still...

A good way to create consistency would be to severely reduce the scale of metaplot events. Taking a cue from Chronicles, there would be no Gehenna, no Wyrm/Weaver based Apocalypse,...I just realized I am taking too much from Chronicles now 😳 😅

Still Vampire 5th edition was forced to drop or hand-wave away Gehenna...perhaps something like that?