30 thoughts on “A Month Away From Onyx Path Con 4 [Monday Meeting Notes]”

1. Why do I pay each supernatural denizen?
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   Vampire: I love the myths surroundeing then,the predation,their powers it’s all awesome
   Werewolves: their powers,their abilities as hunters are all awesome. But the thing that got me the most is the ANIMISM I fucking love the idea that everything has sentient behind it and werewolves deal with spirits
   Mages: the fact that any sorta of human of human practitioner of any sorts of mystical arts of any point human story can be played and have awesome powers based on their practice

   Changelings: I love the way the fair folk s embodies myths. Their magic has fascinating me since I was a child

   Demons: I love playing a an outcast but only sometimes.

   Ghosts: Ah the memories.. ghosts are great stories because they are the spookiest.

   Promethean: the philosophy and introspection this splat encourages

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   • Very cool- It’s interesting that you have pretty specific elements that draw you in for all the supernaturals you’ve listed except for vampires. 😉 Thinking that maybe, at the end of the day (or night), it’s because vampires are cool. That hard to put a pin in, but what we always come back to, quality that folks really relate to when it comes to vampires.

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2. It’s simple, really – whatever I play, what I enjoy the most is having the power to do good and punch systemic evil in the face. In many ways you are indeed more than a mortal – and if feasible, I think it’s laudable to use those to handle problems mortals can’t.

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   • How much does the setting for your punching of evil come into the equation? Do you enjoy it more when the setting is all bleak and ground down because of the influence of that systemic evil?

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3. I gotta say, I like werewolves because of their focus on the hunt, the chase, and then the kill. But also you can delve into more of the warrior element too. The rage aspects certainly have a place, but I think Forsaken’s take strikes the perfect balance. Rage in that game is not as easy to fall into, but when it happens, it’s guaranteed bad news for bystanders unless the other packmates can stop the one who lost control. Unleashing animal fury, fusing human cunning with animalistic ferocity, is a huge draw for me. We humans often look to animals for inspiration. For thousands of years there have been cultures who assign values to animals and in some cases try to emulate them. You see potential hints here and there that the wolf was one example of this in many cultures. Sometimes the values were paradoxical! In Norse mythology, Odin is accompanied by two wolves, and he may have had his “wolf warrior” berserkers, but he is killed by a giant wolf at Ragnarok and two wolves devour the sun and moon.

   To sum up my thoughts on werewolves, I like their Hunter, Warrior, and, obviously, Animalistic aspects, there’s something so freeing about that. Being a werewolf can be a horror experience, but I actually don’t find them horrific but, to use a sophisticated description, cool as hell, even if they are dangerous. I touched on this before, but for me horror is about loss of control in the face of something horrible and stronger than you. But what happens when YOU are the beast? The expectation flips. Sure, I do see the cool drama and horror of what you can do to others you do not mean to harm, but that’s not all werewolves are to me, and I like them actually being more heroic and helpful to the world around them. To be a monster who uses the power of the Wolf and who can go head-to-head against other monsters is just one of the coolest concepts to me.

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   • Are you into Hulk or Wolverine in the same way outside of the horror game genre? For a lot of their storylines, it seems like they are the sort of monsters who defend against even worse monsters theme I’m picking up from your thoughts on werewolves. And I could be off-base, there, too.

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     • Those are concepts I definitely like! Though I don’t specifically have a particular excitement for a lot of superhero characters, but those two have my sympathy. For a favorite example of mine, and a character also played by Hugh Jackman coincidentally, the end of the 2004 Van Helsing movie (cheesy though it may be) where Van Helsing uses his werewolf curse to absolutely shred Dracula. Van Helsing has lost control and is cursed in a way, but finally we see a creature that can directly challenge Dracula, who loses his prior nigh-invulnerability at last, and in a way the werewolf is a vehicle to bring Dracula to justice for his crimes.

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       • Not a great film, but an excellent use of that plot element – I agree!

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4. RichT. is it possible that Scion:Titans Rising will receive a Crowdfunding campaign later in the year of 2023?

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   • Answer hazy, ask again later.

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5. Well! Looking forward to TotP! And well-timed for me, personally.

   That aside, to try and answer this week’s question… I think the thing supernatural creatures provide is access to emotional intensity, at least for my groups and myself. Whether it’s the grandeur of the Awakened holding a piece of heaven or a vampire’s more-alive-than-the-living elan vital, it all comes back to riding a skein of emotion. People want to *feel* the moment, and supernatural creatures and entities are more alive, more vivid, than us mere mortals, at least in our imaginations.

   Trinity taps into this to a great degree with Talents, incidentally. Talents rarely even show any supernatural ability in an overt sense, but their lucky coincidences or preternatural planning allow them to be grand and larger than life in the way action heroes often are.

   I play a mage (or far more often run a game about mages) because I love magic and wonder and the uncanny. For vampires, it’s because they are an excuse for grand, ridiculous emotion; seeking extremes to satisfy their jaded souls and make eternity worth unliving. For changelings, the sense of wonder and terror that go hand in hand standing in the middle of a storm epitomizes the sensation of Arcadia.

   Ultimately, it doesn’t have to be monsters that go bump in the night. These things work with any great Romantic characters. Supernatural things just make it easier to tap into grandiosity, and setting it in modern nights makes it more accessible still, because we all know what a microwave is and don’t need to explain what this strange heating box is that the character is using to reheat leftovers.

   Hope that helps!

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   • So you’re not into a game of Cubicles and Coffee-breaks, then? 😉 Seriously, I do take your point and it’s one that I do feel is one of the magic areas of TTRPGs overall. Had a crappy week? Can’t get that raise and the criteria makes no sense to you? You can play your favorite TTRPG and live larger than life lets you, and have the rules right there in the book to make sure it happens. Going to the extremes you just can’t do in real life can feel great, whether that’s a physical exertion, a tough fight, an emotional outpouring, or even just the act of imagining all that!

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6. As someone who is really eager for more 3rd edition exalted stuff the last few weeks have been pretty rough. Looking at everything up to but not including “at press”; this week ten things moved, none of them Exalted 3e, last week 23 things none of them exalted 3e, two weeks ago 22 things again without any exalted 3rd ed, in the mix,

   You still have my support. I like the books you have managed to put out. I’m a big fan of the game. It’s just hard to see no visible progress week after week.

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   • Hang in there, the lull in the post-text phase is pretty much directly tied to that big ol’ Essence book, so a lot of EX3 projects have progress that isn’t listed as they aren’t making a big jump yet. And if the weekly updates bum you out, step away from them and just keep an eye on the Wednesday releases.

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7. Across games, I play three archetypes: elemental mage, master manipulator, genius problem-solver

   Manipulators and intellectual problem-solvers allow me to turn any encounter into a puzzle, to use leverage where I’d lose on force. I can play this in almost any game — a drow bard, Changing Breeds feral, and Scion of Athena/Hephaestus stand out from many such PCs. Really, I just need a game other people are willing to play, but it can be especially interesting when I have to worry giving into a monstrous nature and falling past “my way, everyone gets what they want” –> “these are bad people who deserve the pain that is my gain” –> “the weak-willed/stupid have no moral weight and are lucky to be my pawns.” This superiority complex goes naturally with fey, vampires, and tainted-source mages, but can also be interesting with traditionally more sympathetic types that just fail to identify with humanity (vs nature [shifters], some fundamental logic [constructs], inhuman sires [scions, outsider-touched], etc.).

   Elemental magic is just *fun*, gives a lot of flexibility, and lets me steal from my favorite media. In a horror/supernatural setting, I’d go mage or something fey(-touched) and lean into the tension between modern urban settings and primal force. Fey myths especially have always spoken to me.

   I put hunters, ghosts, outsiders, and vampires on my list last week more to fill in the world and roster than as species I personally would select over the others.

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   • Fair enough, it’s a wise person who knows what playstyle they enjoy!

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8. For the World/Chronicles of Darkness supernaturals, what has made them appealing is each of them seemed to focus on some aspect of human behavior, sometimes darker human behavior, which made them fun and safe to explore.

   Vampire was about the dark impulses balance againt humanity
   Werewolf was the anger
   Mage was about hubris
   Changeling the Lost is about past trauma and building anew

   When I was college aged, while the mystery and intrigue was fun to play, safely exploring those darker emotions was vital for me at that age. Now that I am older, I explore those games in a different way, I ask how do your actions for better or worse affect the place where you are?

   So it’s always some aspect of human behavior that each supernatural explores that make them fun for me to play.

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   • So does your older perspective change which supernaturals you want to play? Like are there any you just have phased out of?

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9. Excited to see Tome of the Pentacle reach us at last. Sad that it marks the end of support for my favorite RPG.

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   • Did they say that?

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   • I think “end” is way too finite for these game lines, as history has shown. Right now, we aren’t getting approved for CofD books, but that’s right now.

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10. Reasons to play/run:
    Werewolves: I find the animism very endeering. Furthermore it is the combination of being aware, that the world is so much richer, navigating the realms, being challenged in wisdom and wits and on the other side the very physical part of the nature of werewolves. I have kept my anger caged up in my heart for a very long time and in my eyes the wolf path is a good way the find access to my feelings and stay empathetic and kind. As others have stated before: it is karthatic.

    Mages: I want to throw fireballs, very sneakily though. I want to bent reality but not being catched by paradox. I want to feel smart and creative in my solutions. And last but not least I want to uncover mysteries.

    Fae: I want to tell dark and twisted faery tales ripe with symbolism and hidden meaning. I want to witness the power of emotions. See people stuggle, heal, find a new home. Carving out a place in a world, which doesn’t provide any for them anymore. See very diverse communities grow and watching out for each other. I can enter wonderland through my npcs and test the waters as I put my own character traits turned to eleven into the game. Changeling has an inate beauty (as the subtitle affirms), basically everything is broken and seems hopeless. Yet this pile of shards and pieces pulls together, and creates something magnificient.

    Vampires: I choose vampires, if I want to tell a story about dangerous snacks.

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    • Very nice and on-target. Does playing a different shapeshifter like a were-lion, or were-raven, do anything for you like the werewolves do?

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      • I think differed were kin open the scope and range of emotions. Since we have learned to associate different qualities with different animals the focus would shift towards certain emotions repressed by ourselves and our environment. The were facet is something that we are hiding and moments of need/danger or honesty lead to the transformation. Ultimately it would be a story about self acceptance and probably revolution against a restrictive, controlling environment.
        There is an aspect of personal horror in it, since the characters are denying their were persona for good reasons too. You can’t always rage against everything dear wolf, you can’t always show everyone that you are smarter than them dear fox, you can’t always be the center of the world dear cat. And you put so much energy in creating your life and world and what would happen if people you need would see you in all your colours? It is this very moment I realise this is amongst other things a coming out story.
        Were personas are not inherently “good” or “evil”. A bbeg can very much be a shifter, since they are hiding their sceming foresight of their owl aspect from their prey.

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        • So different types of animal shapeshifters allow for different kinds of play based on our perceptions – almost the mythology – of the animals. In offering these for folks to play, the creator of the game is walking the tightrope of making sure they resonate emotionally, our myths about an animal, ie: foxes are clever, and the science of them, ie: there are no alpha wolves in packs in the wild. Too much of the “science” and we lose the emotional pull that brings people out to play them, to much of the myth, and we lose the the real-world simulation of just what they can do in the rules.

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11. It’s the fun of playing the politics of the gameline, but in the context of what is essentially a simulator for that supernatural creature with lots of little nooks and crannies to inhabit– like the relative charm of playing a Dhampir or being able to take the Oath of Abstinence, or the lost clan bloodlines. There’s so much definition in that stuff.

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12. The reason I liked the World of Darkness boils down to one thing. You were the monster trying to deal with being the monster. The things that were the antagonists got flipped to being the protagonist and those protagonists had to struggle with the thing that made them the antagonist of most horror stories.

    I loved them all. And wanted to explore each within the game. The thing I didn’t like was I couldn’t explore them all because each game line focused on the single supernatural type. I would much preferred to be able to choose my personal horror in a setting that allowed players the flexibility to choose. Unfortunately in the real world because they were separated by game line if you wanted to explore a character struggling with their unbridled rage or hubris or hunger you had to find a game that was playing that game line. It was too hyper focused and all characters had similar struggles.

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    • It really seems like there are two significant ways of looking at presentation and they are the folks who like a hyper-focused individual monster to go deep into, and those who want to have several types existing in the same setting for more breadth of play. And smaller subsections of folks who could appreciate just a tad more in either direction. No wrong answers, of course, it’s just a question of whether a game creator can find a way to satisfy both! 😉

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13. For me, whether in the old WoD or the CofD, the horror elements were key. If I wanted to play urban fantasy, and be a heroic monster, then I’d play Dresden Files or another game that tilted that way (and for the record, I love the Dresden Files RPG – I’m certainly not knocking a lighter urban fantasy approach!).

    But going through each of the game lines, and thinking back, it was the horror of the situation that really appealed to me in the “of Darkness” games. For example:

    – Vampire the Masquerade: the tagline, “A monster I am, lest a monster I become” kinda nails it for this one. You *are* a monster – you hunt in the night, and drink the blood of mortals – people who were no different to you before your Embrace. Your need to feed isn’t just a dietary requirement – it’s a necessity, to prevent yourself from becoming an even greater fiend than you already are. Slowly, inevitably, your attachment to humanity will erode, as you see centuries pass, the world around you change, and yet you remain the same. What lengths will you go to to maintain your survival – and what price will you pay for those lengths?

    – Werewolf the Apocalypse: while you were the protagonists of the game, I was never convinced that the Garou were the good guys. I mean, they were ecoterrorists – the clue is in the latter part of that word! For me, WtA was all about fanaticism, and slavish devotion to a belief system, leading to characters doing terrible things in the name of a cause they claimed was the “greater good”. While the battle against the Wyrm and its minions may indeed have been a just one, does that truly justify the actions taken by the Garou – not just throughout history, but in the present times, as well?

    – Mage the Ascension is a game all about hubris. Both sides of the Ascension War (discounting the Nephandi and Marauders) are convinced that they are the best way forward for humanity, but they also consider themselves to be above the Unawakened. Not only that, but the Traditions bicker amongst themselves as to which paradigm is the “correct” one. Going through life, knowing that you can literally bend the universe to your will – that will inevitably change your perception of the world, and your place within it.

    – I’m not sure I need to go too far in explaining the horror within Wraith the Oblivion. I remember a review of the game when first edition came out, that said something along the lines of, “in most RPGs, you start out weak, low-powered, you don’t have a clue about your place in the bigger picture, and everyone is out to get you. In Wraith, you start out weak, low-powered, you don’t have a clue about your place in the bigger picture, everyone is out to get you – *and you’re dead!*” I think that just about covers it. 🙂

    – Changeling the Dreaming was possibly my favourite gameline from the old WoD. I know a lot of people found the colour artwork by Tony DiTerlizzi, and the fiction within the books somewhat “twee” or “cute,” and didn’t see the potential for really heartbreaking stories to be told in the game. Imagine being someone who can literally see the mystical reality all around them, but you’re faced with the certain knowledge that it is all fading away – not just in general (the coming of Winter) but also on a deep and personal level, as you transition from childling to wilder to grump, and then gradually lose your memories to Banality. I always saw CtD as an analog of conditions such as Alzheimer’s or ALS, where you can feel yourself, and your connection to the world around you, slowly and inexorably slipping away. I can’t think of anything more horrific than that…

    So that’s my takes on the classic (main) gamelines – if I haven’t dored you enough already, I might take a stab at the gamelines within CofD that I’ve dabbled with, as well. 🙂

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    • Fantastic takes- thanks so much for sending in your insights!

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