Beauty in Madness: what do you want in Changeling's Chronicle book?

[MachineIV]

So my biggest question is how do you plan to make Changing's paranoia distinct from Demon's Paranoia?

That's a really good question. I'll try to hit it up soon.

[The Kings Raven]

I'll look forward to hearing the answer

[Unahim]

The thing that had me most excited about trying out Changeling after being a Vampire exclusivist for the longest time was when the storyteller said "Look, these are Seemings and Kith. So long as you can make it work within the flavour of the character you're making, I'll let you add extra kiths at 2 merit dots each. Enjoy." I've almost never had so much fun designing a character, and while the end result is much weaker than a vampire by far, all the little powers are incredibly flavourful.

I hope that this sort of customization will be possible in 2.0. I'd much prefer a system that let me meld together 4 individually weaker elements into my own unique Kithe rather than stronger versions that come already set in stone as a complete package. Like vanilla Changeling: the Lost, in others words. (Though there they weren't strong completed packages, but weaker building blocks of which you only got one, but you get what I'm saying!)

Anyway, I got to see my girlfriend bounce around all giddy with excitement when changeling updates were announced, so this book is already causing me great amusement

[atamajakki]

One thing I'm very curious about; what will this new book do that original Changeling didn't?

Something that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with the original books for VtR, WtF, and MtAw was that they all felt sort of like watered-down versions of their oWoD equivalents. Later supplements refined these games into unique entities and then these new corebooks are attempts to really solidify these stylish new identities, as well as reign in some fairly dated rules resulting from nWoD still being pretty fresh.

Changeling doesn't have a lot of these problems. It came out of the gate strong and sure of what it was, and supplements covered damn near everything you could want out of the line. The rules don't need that massive of an overhaul and CtL as a whole has no sort of identity crisis. While I'm glad to be getting new material, it doesn't feel half as warranted as some of the other books.

[ArcaneArts]

Changeling came out strong, but it was a product of it's time as well-by which I mean it was on that schedule of the day, which had a lot to do with the style of the day. Changeling is a great book, but can be cleaned up and polished in a lot of ways, given the sort of edge we saw Vampire dance on. Plus there are mechanics that should have been in there since the beginning, not the least of which is Maledictions.

I'm not sure if new stuff needs to be in there(not to say that there aren't unexplored corners of fairy tales), but Changeling can use a lot of info shuffling delivered with razorblade smiles and shadow-smooth confidence to get even more people excited.

That's actually one thing I'd like for Changeling to do actually, on that last note: better marry the bitter and the sweet. Quite a lot of people mentioned that there was a tone difference in the book, between the tragedy of the changeling being juxtaposed by the revelry in the fae side of things, and I think now that the game's had time to sit in our heads Changeling can better show how the tragedy doesn't taint the 'good' of faerie tales.

Which is a big thing in the entire recovery process, if only changelings can find the time.

(I'll chime in and say I agree with Raven in that I want to see Dave's ideas on paranoia for Changeling, particularly since I had my chat on it.)

[atamajakki]

I hadn't seen your post in that thread before, ArcaneArts. Made me and my boyfriend both physically cry. It hit a little hard. Still, very well thought out, and very much the sort of stuff that makes us both love CtL.

[ArcaneArts]

Thank you. Changeling is a very personal game for me, and that aspect of Changeling is one of many big reasons why.

There's a reason I wanted to write for this game.

[SoulGambit]

One thing I'd like to see more of is how Changeling relates to mortals and mortal society. There is a lot of material and focus on how Changelings interact with each other and how they interact with the True Fae, and most campaigns I see also focus on that. What are Changelings from the mortal perspective, even if they don't know that's what they deal with? What are mortals from the Changeling perspective? I feel like its an area that is woefully underrepresented in the book, despite several elements of the game (Spring Court, Fetches, regaining one's lost family, etc) all focus on it.

I would also love to see the themes of Changeling tightened up, at least in the corebook. Vampire is centered around this idea of being a (blood sucking) Monster controled by an Id stand-in called the Beast and places it opposition to the vampire's Humanity. Almost everything else in the book takes one of the words in that sentance and changes what it means / casts it in a new light. From an ST perspective there is also a very strong sense of, "This is what a Vampire Game is -supposed- to feel and play like, but you can feel free to break the mold" which is extremely helpful. This is notably at odd with the sheer scope of things that Changelings can be and do (see: Kith Bloat, Court Bloat) but I think it can and should be done.

Fluff on par with Blood and Smoke is required. In the original Changeling Core it kind of felt like there was a disconnect from the stories and the actual game.

l would also like a Climbing the Ladder equivalent and a section on different Cities that feed Chronical ideas.

In terms of more power things. Changeling touches on a lot of evocative themes and its power-set, in my opinion, feels like it just doesn't deliver on the themes that Changeling it "should." See: everyone's attempts at giving Changelings Sorcery or Mage equivalent magic. I really don't feel that's the way to go because you would have to devote too much wordcount into your magic system. In Mage it makes sense to have such a large part of the book devoted to the powers and the charts and the rules because that's what Mage sort of is. What shape should it take? That depends on what themes you bring to the surface. But people should have their expectations met.

Pledge is a good idea with a horrible, game-pace murdering execution. Its also effectively "Any merit you want rated at 3 or +2" which almost completely removes mortal world based challenges from the game in the hands of a sly player. While I can, as an ST, temper this with good story and consequences I shouldn't -have- to.

[danparadox]

You know, I know for a fact people will say similar things, and since I feel late to the party I'll just put in my 2 cents and then see what people write.

Courts: I LOVE the courts, I would love to see court privilages and powers be fleshed out more, Winter lore in Lords of Summer was such a good idea, but I think it could not only be expanded but spread around. I would also like to see another crack at some of the Alternate courts like the Direction Courts and the Day and Night courts, I liked the court ideas but felt that they needed more support.

Contracts: I actually liked the contract system, but feel that things like unleashing and developing alternate clauses should either be explored or codified. I would also love more Court Contracts that futher the themes explored in the courts.

Pledges: I would love to see Wyrd-Sorcery done as a variant of the Pledge system. The fiction Tangled Fates in Dancers at Dusk caught my imagination on fire for what could be done with changeling magic and I've long felt dissapointment that there never was any rule system to work it.

Entitlements: I posted a thread on this, I think either there need to be more entitlements or their privilages need a huge boost. So long as it's thematic and exclusive the crunch matters less.

Dreams: Changelings are part narrative and part dream, while I really like what's been done before I feel that the dreaming elements of Changeling tend to be an excusive narrative tool, some overlap between dream and reality outside of a contract would be nice.

Wyrd Evolution: It's been something I've played in-character, but I've always liked the idea that both the appearance and the power of changelings change as their wyrd evolves. Either taking the benefits for high wyrd changelings in Equinox Roads and spread them more evenly, or work in the idea along the lines that once a Changeling hits mid-wyrd they start becoming their own being that is beyond what their keepers made them, except once they hit high-wyrd they start becoming like the creatures that made them.

Oddities and exceptions: Part of the reason why I like changeling is all the awesome and unique loopholes that seem to be part of being a changeling, If changelings got a few catches that have nothing to do with their clauses I think it would be amazing. (a Darkling being able to hide in shadow if they are carrying nothing that produces light, etc.)

[atamajakki]

I hope we can see a supplement full of international Courts; the Directional Courts are some of my favorite material in CtL, and I'd love to see similar approaches to Middle Eastern or African freehold structures (not to mention a better-researched Night/Day Courts).

[Nezumi]

Honestly, my biggest issue with Lost was the problems with internal consistency it had. Some things in the corebook or early supplements were just plain wrong according to later supplements, with no real justification beyond "We decided it works this way now." Sometimes these changes were for the better (Even if it wasn't consistent with some of the earlier stuff, the restrictions on how True Fae operated on Earth made them a lot easier to use in play), but others... not so much. (The only good thing I can say about the Cold Iron retcon is that at least the retcon meant that stuff that could cut down the True Fae easily was rare.)


EDIT: Oh, I thought of another thing that bugged me. Despite arts and crafts having a lot of prominence in fairy lore, and the entire Wizened seeming being organized around such, there was basically no sort of organization for crafters or artists. Between Lords of Summer and the core book, there seemed to be sample orders for everything except crafting and creating art.

[ArcaneArts]

Honestly, my biggest issue with Lost was the problems with internal consistency it had. Some things in the corebook or early supplements were just plain wrong according to later supplements, with no real justification beyond "We decided it works this way now." Sometimes these changes were for the better (Even if it wasn't consistent with some of the earlier stuff, the restrictions on how True Fae operated on Earth made them a lot easier to use in play), but others... not so much. (The only good thing I can say about the Cold Iron retcon is that at least the retcon meant that stuff that could cut down the True Fae easily was rare.)


EDIT: Oh, I thought of another thing that bugged me. Despite arts and crafts having a lot of prominence in fairy lore, and the entire Wizened seeming being organized around such, there was basically no sort of organization for crafters or artists. Between Lords of Summer and the core book, there seemed to be sample orders for everything except crafting and creating art.

I think the reason for that might be because of the Wizened.

[Nezumi]

I think I reason for that might be because of the Wizened.

Yeah, but the character idea that always stuck with me as something I wanted to play if I ever got to play C;tL was a character who would be big into that without being Wizened (unless she managed to change Seeming through the Chronicle) -- She'd be a Manikin under old system, and a Manikin Fairest (dancing doll) under new, but due to wanting to reject the role her Keeper set for her, but still having so much about her affected by her Durance and Keeper (who fancied himself a craftsman and maker of clockwork oddities... fancied himself, rather than was one, because True Fae are terrible at making anything that's legitimately original or makes sense or functions for any reason except "They want it to work that way and have godlike powers in their own realm") went heavily into mechanical engineering and clockwork and kinetic sculpture as an outlet.

[Raistlin]

Does anyone remember "Lost Shards"? It made an attempt to iadapt some Changeling the Dreaming mechanics into Lost. Personally, I wouldn´t mind to see Channeling and Reverie (power-up state at the cost of temporal madness, plus creating a temporal resonance able to be perceived from the Hedge and maybe Faerie) included.