World of Darkness versus Chronicles of Darkness

[Heavy Arms]

I wasn't trying to say Geist was somehow a replacement for the specific thing that is Wraith (but remember that Wraith got cancelled early because it went too hard into the thematic stuff that many groups found it really interesting but really hard to play.. so the move away from that is kinda understandable). Just that the CofD does have a realm of the dead to explore. And thanks to Geist 2e, the CofD Underworld is a lot more interesting and unique that it was in 1e. It's not the same as WoD's Underworld, but in a good way of offering a lot of different story hooks and types of stories to explore while still staying true to the same base concept (which is what I'd say is when the CofD is at its strongest).

Sin-Eaters in play are wildly different from mages. Sure you can say "but they're both just human+" but that's true of the vast majority of the CofD games so it's easier to stick to a single core creation system of "start with normal human, add supernatural stuff to them." Even Prometheans and Demons in the CofD, which explicitly aren't just humans with supernatural stuff stacked on top of them, are defined largely by how circumstances shaped them into a human-like form.

[Rhywbeth]

Uh, the CofD does have an Underworld. It was fully detailed in 2009 with the Book of the Dead, which was a mixed source book for core blue book and Geist. Geist 2e has also expanded on it a lot to make it more playable (even if pure ghosts ala Wraith is still not a core splat).

I know, and CofD's underworld and Geist are cool too, and I enjoy them. But it isn't the same thing WtO, which I adore.

[ArcaneArts]

I know, and CofD's underworld and Geist are cool too. But it isn't WtO, which I adore.

Admittedly it is a shame more things can't, in fact, be Wraith.

Geist isn't really in the same "avenue" as Wraith so to speak. It more-so follows along the line of Orpheus. Both Orpheus and Geist fall short of being anything heavily thematic compared to Wraith, as in both games you're basically just humans+ (which is a niche Mage already fills), without the significant impact roleplaying an actual ghost character and the events that surround being one thereof.

It'd be mildly more accruate to say Sin-Eaters are two ghosts of differing types riding the same body. Just because your heart beats doesn't mean you're not dead.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

RE: Appearance, didn't early 1e CoD basically make it a part of Presence? I recall that there was some disfigurement effect that knocked two dots off of Presence, way back when.

[TyrannicalRabbit]

Massively? Eh I think that is some confirmation bias based on personal area speaking.

I prefer CofD massively...over WoD and I say that as an old WoD fan.

People should play what they want and Paradox should approve book pitches.

Also I like how someone brings up CofD's target number whilst "conveniently." leaving out all it's other pertinent die systems like how you only need a single success for the vast majority of things.

[Lysander]

In regards to COD, I'm a big fan of Changeling the Lost, Mage the Awakening and Promethean the Created of the series and love the lore. I don't mind Vampire the Reqieum and love the Gangrel & Nosferatu clans in the setting. But I find VTM the better of the two.

[Iguazu]

I'm totally fine with CoD not having lore; WoD has too much lore. The games balance each other out. I never liked V:tM's Vampire Encyclopedia in which every vampire knew they were from Caine etc. I like the mystery of CoD. And we all know where the supernatural came from: Space Aliens (from space).

Nostalgia is the big reason for me. I got into roleplaying through VtM Second Edition and stopped when I graduated high school. I got back into the hobby a few months before V5 came out. (not because of V5. I rewatched Kindred: The Embraced and it got me wanting to play again.) This really only applies to the vampire and werewolf lines though, since those were the ones I was into back then. I could go either way Ascension/Awakening and prefer Lost and Vigil.

Our group started V;tM 2e in High-School and continued on. Our last game was really just before Requiem came out, we bought the books, but our old group never really played NWoD. I look at OWoD as a game in and of itself. I don't really want to play a new edition, per se, (I'll try a new edition), but when I want to play V:tM, I'll grab the books.

. . .And every single roll has a base 8 difficulty for everything. everything

poop

You're not alone; that was a problem for me too. Now, I got comfortable with it and I don't mind the rules.

[Spencer from The Hills]

I actually like the lore in Chronicles. I just wish there was more of it.

Same. What I like most about V5 is getting new lore. CofD has gradually stopped growing in that direction.

[ArcaneArts]

Same. What I like most about V5 is getting new lore. CofD has gradually stopped growing in that direction.

I'm not sure how that's accurate outside of the fact that Chronicles is just getting less books nowadays-off the top of my head, both Kith and Kin and The Devoted Companion have plenty of lore drops as appropriate to their sizes ("what the fuck was specifically going on with the Chain Regalia" is a question to delight and terrify, as a minor example).

We're not getting the massive dumps that we arguably were getting with the Dark Eras books, that did a lot to show how the modern landscape more or less formed, but it's still coming in.

[Iguazu]

Verses this and that, one thing is certain; that I will find what I like in both games, and use them in both; for instance, I like Blood-Potency and Sunlight-damage based on your humanity and BP-levels, so, that's going to work itself into a World of Darkness game. I never liked the idea of Generation the whole Vampire Encyclopedia i.e. Cain etc. So, in V:tM, when they by Generation Background, it's BP, really.

[ArcaneArts]

Verses this and that, one thing is certain; that I will find what I like in both games, and use them in both; for instance, I like Blood-Potency and Sunlight-damage based on your humanity and BP-levels, so, that's going to work itself into a World of Darkness game. I never liked the idea of Generation the whole Vampire Encyclopedia i.e. Cain etc. So, in V:tM, when they by Generation Background, it's BP, really.

While I too also prefer Blood Potency, I'm obliged to ask if you've thought about the consequences of that.

Generation in V:tM is there as the main implement of Masquerade's stagnant hierarchical positioning, the rotting edifice the curdles at every level and drips down. Power is exercised from on ancient high, and the modern low just have to deal with it (well, "just"), diablerie is the only way to inherently grow in power, and thus is more societally condemned but is more personally relatable and even sympathetic. It softly enforces the notion that the modern All Night Society is suffering from millenia old biases and prejudices that rots the world around it.

Blood Potency in V:tR, by contrast, is a lot more fluid, and centrally reinforces the notion that vampirism as a state is a lot more mutative and subject to change than in Masquerade. Elders no longer have a monopoly on power they can just sit on, they have to work, play, and keep up with the times, and the bloodlines of clans have power flow up and down the chain, and with that diablerie is more heinous but also no longer a threat to the entire structure of Kindred society. It's less related to the Kindred's existential threat, but it still helps to inform the notion that the biggest threat to them is the inclusion/intrusion of differing strains of vampirism that will change what it means to be Kindred if not properly excised or otherwise isolated.

In my limited experience of adjusting Masquerade with Requiem ideas, I tend to make Generation operate more like Blood Potency at it's lower tiers, allowing for the threat of a stagnant hierarchy to still be present, but to have a more organic threat in the lower generations because, in theory, the lower generations have an innate ability to rise in power the older generations don't have. Of course, I also had a system that for vampires getting locked into a generation as they rose up in it, so power still had it's association with stagnancy.

Anyways, the point is you want to think about the way Blood Potency would radically change the whole setting of Masquerade, because that singular aspect is one of the big reasons Requiem is so wildly different from Masquerade.

[TyrannicalRabbit]

Same. What I like most about V5 is getting new lore. CofD has gradually stopped growing in that direction.

What does that even mean? CofD have consistently built up on core world developing foundations and frequently fantastically. Both Night Horror and Dark Era books have deeply enriched the overall setting alone. The only distinction of note is Paradox's attitude on future 5e books vs CofD books, which is not an indictment of CofD in the slightest.

[Dataweaver]

I want to know why people seem to massively prefer the World of Darkness 5th edition instead of The Chronicles of Darkness second edition?

Is there a preference comparing the rules? Is there a preference comparing the lore?

You're asking that in the Onyx Open Forums? Where there is arguably the highest concentration of fans of Chronicles of Darkness?

[ArcaneArts]

You're asking that in the Onyx Open Forums? Where there is arguably the highest concentration of fans of Chronicles of Darkness?

Given they haven't really contributed to the thread since they started it, I assume they don't actually care.

[Dataweaver]

I can confirm that I don't. I don't see a conflict between the two, myself; and rather than seeing one as better and the other as worse, I just see the two as different. Sometimes subtlety so (Vampire), and sometimes drastically so (Changeling).