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[CaptOtter]

I've been toying with the idea of a kinetic forces shield having a "Durability" as if it were an actual object (per Mage 20). At the end of the day, the projectile doesn't care whether it's hitting a wall, or an invisible barrier made of kinetic "force" that provides the same resistance against the projectile as a wall would. In essence I would subtract the durability from the projectiles' damage rating (it wouldn't make sense to factor in the ramp from the attack if you consider that a magical kinetic barrier is probably uniformly strong all around), if there's enough left...

[CaptOtter]

Either a Glass Walker or Child of Gaia. Glass Walkers appeal to my love of technology and pragmatism (which is a quality I self-ascribe, and aspire to, but will admit that I fall short of more often than I'd like.) Children of Gaia seems overall the most decent, tolerant, and humane tribe. But in any case, being a Garou would (for me) be the best.

As much as I love technology and gadget and the internet, we live in ever more isolated world--and frankly (and I will not get into partisan politics here), it's hard to really believe in any given institution anymore. Being a Garou gives...

[CaptOtter]

Page 79; Constructs; Artificial People; Darius

The last sentence of the first full paragraph after the heading "Darius". It reads "[t]he ideal playmate for certain tastes, he’s only good for only thing… but he’s very good at that." I'm assuming that it should read "he's only good for one thing...."

[CaptOtter]

Hey, you know, to each their own. I just wish my life were so great or easy, and I felt so empowered from day-to-day, that I'd need my fantasy world to be a depressing exercise in powerlessness as I'd spiral into ennui and immoral decadence lol....

[CaptOtter]

Fantastic! You clearly put a lot of time and work into this! Thank you, friend!

[CaptOtter]

So I've been running a mage game for the better part of 10 years now, and I'm a crossover junkie, but my players are... less so.... so my own desire to really go over the top was tempered by their skepticism over the the whole thing, and I really believe we struck a very reasonable middle. Fortunately I think Mage lends itself to crossover moreso than most of the other lines. My Mage game takes place in L.A., so there was immediate crossover potential with Demon, which might be the second cameo any other WOD line made in my game (the first having been Vampire for probably obvious reasons). That...

[CaptOtter]

Both of the things you mention, actually, and third that I'll touch upon below. Before I explain myself, let me at least acknowledge it's a practical certainty that as we grew up (we started playing these games in high school and now we're all in our 30's) the game influenced how our tastes developed, such that at some point we made the transition from seeing the game as some permutation of the video games we all liked (e.g., RTS and fighting games) in which balance is very truly crucial to overall enjoyment, to more of a narrative- and drama-focused approach to the game (the game's influence...

[CaptOtter]

My experience has been moreso that people attack one another, don't really hit most of the time (outside of an ambush), and end up one-shot-killing folks.

Having said that, I've yet to see a reasonably playable system (i.e., I'm not talking about "Phoenix Command" or some other ridiculously overwrought simulationist wank) more realistic in its combat/damage system as Cyberpunk 2020; those "Saturday Night Firefight" rules are SO deadly! Getting shot is easy as hell, and if you're shot anywhere, you probably go into shock and keel over.

I digress; WoD...

[CaptOtter]

This is such a fantastic question, and something my WOD-loving buddies and I have discussed on many occasions. For me and mine, I think the number one thing was the rich setting (which we always played as closer to dark fantasy/tragic 'romance' than straight up horror), very closely followed by a system that did not seem to care a wit that it was pretty unbalanced. At some point we decided that (for example) the overwhelming disparity between the relative utility of Celerity vs. Potence vs. Fortitude (to name just one thing) was a good thing; the fact that blood sorcerers are basically in league...

[CaptOtter]

Revised really is quite vague; it says under the entry for Mind 1: "[T]he initiate . . . can perform a number of prodigious, but usually coincidental, mental feats." M:tAs(Rev.), 175. Under the common effect of Mind Empowerment:



Systematically, I think this implies that you get an extra 'mental task' for every success spent towards that purpose; e.g., four successes grants for extra mental tasks that can be performed per turn (subject to whatever the duration of the effect happens to be). Certainly you could construe this as having to do with penalties or something,...

[CaptOtter]

But can't I use Mind 1 to allow me to multi-task (i.e., take additional mental actions each turn)? And if that's the case, couldn't I use one of my "multi-task mind turns" to control the animal from one moment to the next?...

[CaptOtter]

You're 100% correct that I was referring to D&D 4th Ed. I'm not going to defend one edition versus another, because I've played neither (and ultimately, as Charlaquin admonished, this should not become a war over D&D Editions). I think the way you feel you feel about D&D 4th Edition clearly demonstrates that despite having been largely unsatisfying to many people (or at least that's what the consensus seems to have been), it undoubtedly found its audience--and I think that's true of most things: no matter how unpopular it may be, it's always going to hit for at least a few people (even...