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39 responses to “MAYDAY! MAYDAY! It’s the Monday Meeting Notes Blog! [Monday Meeting Notes]”

1. 

   Nicolas

   May 1, 2023

   Can you tell mr jenkins and mr tate I can portray any sorta God with maestry? and write some screenplays too?

   1. 

      richt

      May 2, 2023

      In all seriousness – I can suggest all sorts of things, but when it comes to TV production I bow to the folks at J&T’s years and years of experience. So, I do talk about their casting ideas, but rarely inject anybody who could fill a role except in brainstorming conversation – they have actual professional casting directors for that. As for writing – what have you written for that we might have seen on TV, online shows, or films? They have professional script writers set up for these scripts, so you have to be able to step into that arena. 🙂

2. 

   ArcaneArts

   May 1, 2023

   I mean, a lot of the humanity in World and Chronicles is dredged up and made explorable because of the horror. THat said, RPG’s are kind of hard to facilitate a “gather round the fire and scare the shit out of each other”, so while I’m interested in seeing how much stronger the horror element can be, I don’t think it could leave, or have it be productive, to go too far beyond the strong underline, pervasive atmosphere level we see in World and Chronicles. But if I were to suggest a direction for deviation, I’d rather see it go deeper and darker than kick for the surface.

   1. 

      richt

      May 2, 2023

      Are you suggesting that there is some sort of zone between WoD/CofD levels of horror and “too far”? And if so, how would that zone being deeper and darker appear in a game setting?

      1. 

         ArcaneArts

         May 2, 2023

         If I get a clever idea what deeper and dark looks like that’s still useful for a RPG play setting, I will definitely share that. For the most part, that’s just me stating a broad, projected preference.

         As for the broader point, I think there’s a zone where horror is a useful tool for exploring a lot of the humane and humanist themes that World and Chronicles explored as a group play experience, but I think we’ve all come across media where the experience superseded or was default more the point than it’s related ideas-letting the idiom lead the work rather than the ideas or the form, to borrow from Scott McCloud. I think both World and Chronicles both sat pretty comfortably in that zone where the horror and the themes worked in tandem with each other and makes a good measuring stick in any attempt to make a work with a distinct feel, because you can compare the two and see when/if a work is starting to have it’s idiom (horror) override or under-serve the themes.

         Of course, that does raise the question of what themes would you want to set as the foundation for a new urban horror/urban fantasy game.

         1. 

            richt

            May 3, 2023

            No worries – I wondered if there was something I was missing. As for themes, what would be a couple you think were underlying in WoD and/or CofD?

3. 

   Nicolas

   May 1, 2023

   As for Horror. I had a lot of horror in my very first cofd game where i was player,it was a Promethean: The Created game. and there was a LOT of personal horror,and it worked wonderfully.
   But i personally think the horror should be encouraged,but not still optional. Many games,even horror games are about living out lifes we cannot live in our world. Sometimes i want to be a epic werewolf hunting a evil spirit,or the sexy vampire or the badass wizard and shaman. Sometimes horror should be played down,only sometimes.
   One of the reasons i like persona horror is that since personal horror comes for your emotions,you can be a powerful but still feel the horror.

   1. 

      richt

      May 2, 2023

      So, you’re an epic werewolf hunting a spirit: where does the horror of this horror game show up? Even if you aren’t participating in horrific actions, are there ways that a horror game still injects the horror in? How does the personal horror manifest?

      1. 

         Nicolas

         May 2, 2023

         Imo In the werewolf case,the horror come. from how alien spirits are and how alien werewolves are to us,even if we’re playing one

         1. 

            richt

            May 3, 2023

            OK, so the horror came from the strangeness of the alien nature of the supernatural? Did you have any particular ways your players and storytellers showed that alien-ness at the table? I’m wondering how strangeness went from horror-inducing from, say, unsettling strangeness. And were the books and how the setting was described and pictured a big part of that? Like, the picture with the wheelchair in the original blue-book core new World of Darkness – I think it was from the first time I was lucky enough to art direct Sam Araya – was deeply unsettling to me. It was just off. For me, at the time, that piece of art caught the tone of the text that described the setting.

            1. 

               Nicolas

               May 4, 2023

               Since the game was promethean, we had horror come from body dysmorphia. How our character felt uncomfortable with their bodies.
               And how our bad guys were viscerally twisted In almost cronwnburgian fashion.
               If the game was changeling or werewolf,the horror would probably come from how alien our enemies are. And how we can’t trust our own memories and perceptions.
               I feel like strangeness can be horrific as opposed to unsettling if the strangeness implies that something terrible is about to happen

            2. 

               richt

               May 6, 2023

               Nice thought about timing and, I guess, the potential for something awful being part a horror experience.

4. 

   Wes

   May 1, 2023

   What a fancy new look! I will confess, when I play something like CofD I don’t feel horror so much, but then again this is perhaps because I mostly play Werewolf, where it can be hard to actually find horror when you can turn into a ten foot tall wolf monster yourself. It’s kind of how I see the 2016 DOOM. You are surrounded by the horrible and grotesque demons, but to hell (literally) with them, you are the Doom Slayer! Rip and tear until it is done.

   I have felt spooked in Werewolf for sure, but I just tend to unconsciously not think of Forsaken as horror even with all the, well, body horror. Vampire has horror but you are causing the horror, and Kindred can be monstrous in form and in action, but again you are playing as the monster.

   To me, horror is about a loss of control and feeling weak. Attempts at horror really miss me when they are just about spectacular violence or ridiculously depraved actions for no real logical or narrative purpose. I will continue to sing praises about Werewolf the Forsaken 2E and Vampire the Requiem 2E, but I personally find myself disappointed when either book almost seems like it’s trying too hard. Like in Werewolf there’s an off-hand remark about how one pack blinds a child because it’s the will of Luna and a tradition in that area, and with this they gain prophetic visions. Again in Forsaken, I really actually dislike how Lodges became these depraved cults and I was made aware that certain “secrets” of these cults were supposed to be in the writeups but got cut, like how one Lodge feeds their dogs or wolves on enemy werewolves, then kills and eats those dogs… For power. I don’t know, I may be in the minority but that kind of “horror” is what I mean when I say I don’t like horror that tries too hard. It’s such a convoluted and horrible action even for werewolves I think, and it just feels to me like a lot of the fluff seems to imply that every werewolf you meet secretly eats babies or something.

   Every werewolf/vampire/etc. is or CAN be the source of their own horror, but when you assume that everyone is doing something utterly depraved you lose any sympathy for the characters in the fiction which I think is important to keep. Simply put, even in horror it is possible to go to far.

   I seem to have made a novel so I will finish this long thought by saying that horror for me only really works in highly specific ways, so I know people are going to disagree with this, and I hope that my thoughts do not come off as overly hostile!

   1. 

      richt

      May 2, 2023

      Not even slightly hostile – no worries! And I do think that horror – our definition and reaction to it – is personal. Then add in the idea that if you are playing a monster, you should be part of that horror. What does that even mean? You being a monster is just basically horrific? You do horrific things, like blinding children? Or, because these are TTRPGs, not movies or books, and require folks to participate, is the horror stuff a backdrop that your character (and group of characters) perform in front of but aren’t part of? People talk about the “superheroes with fangs” description of vampire TTRPGs, but maybe that’s the only way some, or even most, players can actually roleplay these monstrous PCs? Then, a little dip into the horror, having your PC go ahead and do something you, as a real world person, wouldn’t do, let’s the horror in in a controlled way. Maybe?

      1. 

         Wes

         May 2, 2023

         Definitely fair questions. I have found a bit of a dissonance between the expectations of a game and the way the group ends up behaving. It is very hard with TTRPGs because the book can only really give tools to the players but the players can take them in so many different ways. There is no developer there to tell the players they are doing it “wrong” like the “superheroes with fangs” phenomenon I hear talked about so much. I think horror can be interesting in a few ways, either in making a choice you feel has to be made even if it goes against your morals, or about being confronted by something greater that can hurt you in ways you didn’t expect. I think my experience so far has been having characters that exist in front of a backdrop of gloom and horror, trying to avoid the worst choices, but getting dragged into or consciously making choices that I as a human do not have to make, usually in regards to killing something or someone. Killing on its own is, needless to say, a horror in its own way really. And I am fine with that level of horror, even if it may seem a bit basic. If you spend your life as a normal kind person, but you become a werewolf and you are specifically designed to kill things, how can you look the people you care about who are still human in the eye again? How do you cope with that?

         I like creeping cosmic horror too, there are some interesting stories there too. For me there’s just a spectrum of horror, and I check out of the experience when I stop having sympathy for the characters because their actions are so heinous they don’t even deserve to “win” or I lose hope that there will be a necessary counterbalance of light and goodness.

         1. 

            richt

            May 3, 2023

            We have a saying now, that may have come more out of computer games, but is still true for TTRPGs, that the game design really starts once it’s in the hands of the players. When people talk about how the themes and emphasis’s changed over the course of WoD and CofD, much of that was driven by players letting us know what they enjoyed, and what they didn’t. In the early days, that was mostly us looking at what sold and listening to what few channels of communication there were back then, and later on as we started being able to hear directly from folks online, those bits of input were also considered. When the creative vision collided with how the games were really played, there could be sore spots, but when people found ways to play that caught some of that vision, or even most of it: those are golden.

            Ultimately, the only way I’d say a player is doing it wrong is if they literally are not using what’s specifically in the rules and setting and then complaining that it’s no fun. Otherwise, they’re there for folks to play them their way, and to legit find no fun if they aren’t to the player’s taste. Now, if I’m getting what you’re saying here, the setting works for you as horror if there are horrific things happening in that setting, and then if the players have the potential to go really dark – they could get as nasty as that backdrop – but also they aren’t forced to by the game. Is that a fair synopsis?

            1. 

               Wes

               May 3, 2023

               I would say that is a fair synopsis of my thoughts yes! I think if there was some hypothetical new game that was specifically tuned into horror, or was at least dark urban fantasy on the level of CofD (most of the time) then that would be great because the more I think about it, the more CofD gives space to turn the dials of horror up or down to an extent. The setting is dark and mysterious, but it’s still recognizable and the human world largely goes on like it does in real life, but if you step too far into the shadows they might not let you go.

            2. 

               richt

               May 6, 2023

               Glad I was able to hit what you were saying! I like your encapsulation of CofD, and think it’s a good thing to aim for: a designer could keep it at that general feel, and emphasize whatever aspects work better for the world they’re creating. Even going public with the supernatural could be leavened in a fair bit with that definition – just not to a full-out, “And now the news for Vampires” sort of way.

5. 

   Katfeathers

   May 2, 2023

   Well I will say this about the site’s surprise temporary format: it’s mobile friendly.

   1. 

      richt

      May 2, 2023

      Well, that’s to be expected, I think. I’m not saying our old site and the WP theme were old, they did have some thought included for different devices – but maybe they weren’t set up for all the devices/formats that have come out in the past 5+ years. Still, great to hear!

6. 

   Alain Giorla

   May 2, 2023

   I’ve tried to look for the Storypath Ultra brochure that you mentioned on Drivethru and couldnt find it. did i miss it? or is there another way to get it?

   1. 

      richt

      May 2, 2023

      As always: keep an eye on the MMN and Wednesday Release blogs for when it might show up- thanks!

      1. 

         Alain Giorla

         May 2, 2023

         Ah sorry, I didn’t see it in the MMN. Forgot the mighty power of the Ctrl+F. Thanks!

         1. 

            richt

            May 3, 2023

            No worries!

7. 

   Tom Murr

   May 2, 2023

   About horror:
   I am a gentle person, (at least I believe this to be true 😉 ) and there for the horror in my games is not necessarily core shakingly terrifying as many movies or audio shows can be.
   There is to many of my games a strong note of mystery, threat, dark elements. It’s not a happy world you are entering, when you are joining my Changeling games (or hunter). There are also beautiful wonders but this beauty will turn against you, thorns made of diamonds will be brilliantly glistening with your blood at dawn.
   As stated before one very important source of horror is the loss of control and the feeling of being helpless. Sometimes I use this. More oftenly, I believe, I will phrase situations in a way, that encourage a dfecission between two horrible things. I let my players pick between two bad/hurtful options. They make the call, they are responsible, they gonna think about that and process it over the (next few) session(s).
   My horror is more subliminal, a feeling creeping under your skin and I don’t want it any other way. Changeling has the perfect setup for me and my style. I can dial up the horror and trauma as I need. Nobody really knows what happend to you in Arcadia, but it changed you sure as hell and left it’s marks. All your incredible time magic doesn’t help you with having a working relationship with those you love and are drifting apart from.
   CofD games always carry potential for immense power moves. It can be hard to get horror in there. And I agree with Wes and the others, if I ever going to run or play a Werewolf game (which I really want), it will be katharsis for me. That game will be a voice to my rage, it will be bloody and gory, and fueled by the real nightmare our world is right now and has been for many people for a very long time. It will be dark, but not necessarily horror. And that’s fine. The second game might become something else, as I sneak into my players emotions and introduce new undertones.
   My regular player pool contains several people who join me for the personal horror aspect and critizes when games/books turn away from that aspect.
   My experiences with CofD game lines and horror from real games as a ST or player:

   Changeling: “I can’t but really need to trust myself. Even with people sharing my experience we have our moments of questioning just everything! What seems good or magical in this world might turn away from me any second like my loved ones. I am afraid to loose even more.”

   Hunter: “We are out numbered, out gunned, have basically no idea what we are up against and don’t know if we are even making a difference. Any step I take endangers those, I am trying to protect. No preparation in the world realy balances the scales in a fight and I find out as somethings is mopping the floor with my face.”

   Demon: “I am on my own, I did something frightening and right (maybe wrong?), that led me to a point, where I get hunted down as soon as I show my true potential. The enemy has spies everywhere, can learn anything and their agents don’t need to hide as I do. My abilities might just draw out the inevitable.”

   Mage: “I don’t know so much about the world, I struggled to write my name in a book on a tower and became part of a worldm that’s beyond anything I could imagen before. This is an arms race.” (We are turning away from horror as you can see.)

   Vampire: “I am a monster. I am supposed to be powerful but all the other monsters are more powerful than I am. If I loose control, they will kill me.” (We played a very low level VTR game.)

   1. 

      richt

      May 2, 2023

      Thanks for the in-depth run-downs your take on the scary side of the various games. Maybe that’s closer to where we get with horror in TTRPGs? Scary, rather than horror as defined by other media like books and films? With the abilities players want to have, can we really take away their ability to control their characters and keep it a game?

      1. 

         Tom Murr

         May 2, 2023

         Taking away power/agency is very tricky and necessary to some understandings of horror. I think a base component for gaming is player activity. Otherwise we end up with the ST becoming a audio book narrator. Players come to the table to take an active part in the story telling. (Many are.) So you can’t completly take away player agency. I see two ways to work with the players to create a horror filled game.
         One can reduce it or narrow the range of activity down by phrasing. Instead of “You see the creature coming out of the mist is wearing the face of your mother. What do you do?” you could ask: “You see the creature coming out of the mist is wearing the face of your mother. What do you do with the gun in your hand?” The player is gently pushed into a direction, yet still can decide to put the weapon away. This raises tension, draws up horrible options, leaving the players mind to filling in the blanks as they contemplate the possible actions You can stir things into further escalation, so that players partake in characters loosing control over the development.
         The other option I am stealing from Bluebeard’s Bride: Ask the player, what would be the most horrible thing to happen. Let them tell and then show how it is even worse. Adding to the input of the player. The player is in controll of the narrative to a degree. They had a very high activity in the game and then might exerience a little shock by learning that everything is even more awefull. The character might not be able to act in any way, but the player is.

         Taking away powers is difficult I feel. When I create a character, I choose a concept with a supernatural feature already in mind. I want to be able to transform into a werewolf, I want to be able to drink other peoples emotions and learn all their secrets and so on. Taking this away or making it meaningless because it doesn’t work as intended against an adversary, makes for a good horror moment. But a game should have more horror moments than one. And I wouldn’t be happy to play a game with my powers that I chose for a reason not working 90% of the time. Chronicles is always a power fantasy for me too! (No reason to lie.)
         Chronicles also come with a huge number of powers, tweaks and abilities for starter characters. Obviously you got your disciplines and contracts and so on. But then there are abilities tied your supernatural trait (Blood potency, wyrd) and others tied to your Clan/Seeming/Tribe and others to your faction and others to merits. (Style merits basically give you a new special power with each dot.) I am learning Scion at the moment and I counted from my limited point of view, there were 16 super powers on the premade character sheet in various degrees of visibilities. (I know, it’s not Chronicles, but except for games about mortals, I can easily find similar numbers for other game lines.) Demons start with 7 powers from their demon form alone and then get their 5 points in regular powers + X. With so many options on the table, there is rarely a moment of true powerlessness. (Demons can’t be caught lying, Changelings can’t be restrained and so on.) Thing is, so many powers are in there, because their ideas and concepts are amazing and should be explored. And often there aren’t any games that get the ideas and themes in the way Chronicles (Changeling, Demon i.e.) does.
         Are characters in my games truely helples? Sometimes, not often. I feel like forcing them to make a horrible choice is an better option.

         Also I feel sometimes horror is mixed up with revulsion? I have a few lines and veils not because of phobias or because I am afraid of something, but because I find these things/actions to be repulsive. I just feel sick imagening them, so there are many horror tropes from movies that I am not affraid of but just give me the urge to release my food onto the floor.
         I am afraid, as I don’t want to see harm coming to a person. NPCs can e a source of powerlessness fueled horror. It doesn’t have to be anything disgusting happening to them. Instead demonstrate how they are robbed of their defenses and agency and then thread them with (further) harm. We have all seen the barely covered human sacrifice on the altar, about to be cut open. That’s not horror, I think. Showing their fruitless struggle, the inevitable pain and unrevokeable damage to their body and soul in detail, makes horror. Reducing the options of the players by a countdown, limited resources (only two shots left) depens the experience. As said before by others: these scenes work ones or twice but then they loose their impact and drag down. So sooner or later we are back to personal horror, that fullfills the circle to the beginning of the post.
         Looking at anything else than Kult are any other major HORROR games out there, that wouldn’t be more on the scary side of atmosphere? The only other game, that I know of and also haven’t played yet, because the idea gives me nightmares, is Bluebeards Bride. The most successfull Vaesen podcast plays the nordic horror rpg more like a DnD campaign. It get’s scary at some points. So I feel yeah, we are more in a time for scary/unsettling rpgs than hard core horror experiences. In the end nothing can compare with the true horrors in reality and I’d like to get to a place, where I can change things and aren’t forced into submitting to them.
         After writing all of this, it feels like preaching to the choir. So do with these tangents as you like.

         1. 

            richt

            May 3, 2023

            To start at your ending: I really don’t think of any of these comments and conversations as preaching to the choir. In fact, hearing from all of you and comparing your thoughts on these subjects is pretty enlightening, as we all have specific shadings to our points, even when we agree. For example, your bringing up direct player – not PC – involvement is a legit addition to my asking about adding in horror. When you stream a horror film, you usually have some sort of idea what sort of horror you’ll be getting. That seems pretty similar to sitting down with your GM to determine the sort of horror you as a player want to explore – and the sorts of horror you DO NOT want in there. And you may well feel like saying “surprise me!” and seeing what happens.

            But you, as the player are holding the power – so then does your character need to have any control over the situation for you to enjoy the session? Does the player getting to be involved in the horror-ing allow more horrific, loss of control, loss of powers, revolting things to happen to the PC? Again, we’re still talking safety tools before these sessions, so nobody has to deal with things that horrify the player (unless they want to – people still get catharsis from scary things, I think). This sort of player involvement wasn’t directly a part of the systems in WoD or CofD, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t work in a new game.

            1. 

               Tom Murr

               May 5, 2023

               There is no way around safety tools, 100%. Tbh I am more concerned if my players say to me: “everything is OK, just hit me” than with some lines and veils in place. As a ST I need personally reassurance, that I am doing no harm to my players whilst torturing their characters.
               I think Mediocrities of Socrates has a good point about constant stress and misery. Especially in hunter (like) games, it feels like the characters burn out fast. Too much horror also dulls out the impact on players, whilst the characters are traumatised again and again. In Changeling I counter the effect of burnout by introducing heartwarming and very supportive npcs, creating a home for the PCs. Give time to breathe and have genuinely good things happen.

               I think it might be a special spin to a game to give players an active role in creating horror at the table. For this you need lines and veils/consent sheet front and center. So everyone knows where they can push. And then work on techniques to on how to increase the scaryness for the players. Like a campfire situation where you join in on telling horrific tales with your friends (but know, what topics to avoid and which to go bananas with, bc you are caring friends).
               We could probably separate in two types of tools. One that leaves the player in control and one that gives ones power to another person (player or ST). We got the latter already in Wraith with one player playing the shadow of another player character. The former can be found in degrees within character abilities that come with a part that allows other players/ST to chime in and make matters worse. The active players knows, something bad is going to happen and can willingly go for that. Leaving them partially in power and active. Or you can have bonus effects on abilities come with an extra drawback, that can be willingy added. I am thinking about story repercussions, dark twists like: “If you use this power with extra effect, something you believed to be true turns out wrong … or … sharm is done to someone who is important to you.” Just adding a point of lethal damage as drawback isn’t inherently horrific.
               Mechanics like this lead to a stronger metagame, but I find conditions already very meta, so I don’t believe they will change much on that level of gaming experience. (To not drive your ST mad you should always give the ST a chance to interject, if they get in trouble with the plot or see a golden opportunity to implement something.)
               I think a rpg would profit from teaching the ST and groups how to create certain moods and atmosphere. I collected my tools to build atmosphere and horror from different games, where techniques like “Always give players two threads to worry about, so they can’t relax during solving one crisis.” or “Cut fast between player characters perspectives.” or “Let players roll dice and then turn to another player and draw out the tension with withholding the effect of the dice roll just a little bit longer.” Like a real manual how to set up scenes.
               I still remember the way that Damnation City introduced chase scenes. It is an amazing way to run action scenes, that I use in all my games to this day (and often scrap any other racing/chase rules for it.)
               Most techniques are centred around the ST but there might be cool things for players to do as well. Keeping them active and in some (little) controll.

            2. 

               richt

               May 6, 2023

               Yes, just in games I’ve worked on, you have the Shadow in Wraith – which was one of the aspects about the game that scared people off, dunno if that was the overall concept or the idea of a fellow player screwing with your character – or the concept in the original Ars Magica of cycling through which kind of characters you’d be playing in any given game. Both being steps towards more player directed control of the way you play. Many forms of safety tools do the same thing. Even D&D5 has formalized the setting up of character relationships previous to starting out playing through an adventure. So a horror game that pulls ideas from the players makes a lot of sense.

8. 

   perverseness

   May 2, 2023

   First, congrats. that Scion poster looks GREAT.
   Second, when can the non GAMA goers get a peak at the storypath ultra brochure?

   1. 

      richt

      May 2, 2023

      I agree! Great work by J&K, especially Victor, who did the actual creation of it! As per every question that is about when something will be available: keep an eye on the MMN and Wednesday release blogs!

9. 

   Mediocrities of Socrates

   May 2, 2023

   Contributing my own unobjective singular data point: Back when I first started to play New World of Darkness games, maybe about 15 years ago now (goodness, how time flies), I tried to play them as horror games. Horror, in this case, meaning dire situations and the grotesque; serial killers, blood sacrifice, people spewing spiders from their eyes, and so forth… And while that kind of horror is extremely atmospheric, it is emotionally scarring on characters and draining for players. It makes for a lot of really intense moments that are fun and interesting, but which can make ongoing character dramas quite miserable. There’s a reason – I learned after much trial and error – why games like Call of Cthulhu tend to be one-offs, and it’s not (just) because of the high body count.

   This isn’t to knock that style of gameplay. I enjoy what it can do! It just isn’t for me. I like ongoing stories that are about characters growing and changing, where I or my players can lose ourselves in the characters and their mindsets. That’s horrible if those mindsets and experiences are just constant stress and misery. Once I figured that out, my Chronicles games moved from gothic horror to romantic (in the art movement sense) high weirdness, and I’ve been happy with it ever since.

   Since then, I’ve moved on to Trinity and love it too. And if I ever do want to go back to horror, They Came From…! is always there. But y’all put out so many wonderful products that I absolutely love (no matter how much I sometimes complain about this or that), and you’re all wonderful for it. With the decline of the Chronicles line, I’ve moved on to Trinity as my game of choice and I’m very happy with it.

   Thanks for all the fun times I’ve had with friends over the years because of all the writers, editors, artists, proofreaders, etc., who’ve put their name on an OPP product.

   1. 

      richt

      May 3, 2023

      Thank you so much for your kind words and it’s awesome that you’re enjoying the Trinity Continuum! And what works in the TC for people is a whole ‘nother discussion for another time. For this time, though, did you find that CofD as a whole gave you the latitude to go from horror to weirdness? Like, was your shift using the material more because the material had that range, or was it mostly that you took less and less from the published books and added in more of your own stuff to get the mood you wanted?

      1. 

         Mediocrites of Socrates

         May 10, 2023

         Sorry for the delay!

         I think my answer is that it’s a bit of both, plus something extra. In the case of the former, CofD’s mechanics don’t really force a particular kind of narrative, so CofD has a lot of flexibility in it. The high lethality combat and the integrity system in blue book games do incline to horror, but I mostly played MtAw and Changeling, with occasional dabbling in other lines like Werewolf and Mummy. As such, the lethality was reduced via supernatural powers being available and the integrity system was replaced with others that, while somewhat inclined to horror, were of a very different nature. Clarity can be as much about intensity of experience as fear. Wisdom can fall for good deeds. And so on.

         But some of it is that, yes, I wanted to focus my tone away from things that were indeed included at least in the 1st edition of nWoD/CofD games.

         That said, as CofD moved into its second editions, the games also underwent fairly dramatic changes that also saw them increasingly embrace High Weirdness (the entire reason I use that term is because Dave Brookshaw used it to describe his own perspective for Mage). Games like Werewolf moved away from horror in their second edition by the introduction of mechanics like Harmony, which replaced the decline into madness and horror in systems like Integrity and 1e’s Morality. Without that, there was nothing to simulate Gothic Horror’s descent into madness; a staple of the lines since the old World of Darkness. Without that foundational feature, these games don’t contain a mechanical requirement to bend towards a kind of psychic descent. Instead, there’s a goal to work towards; an ideal looking up, instead of a descent looking down. Geist, similarly, portrayed a much more positive and hopeful vision: A better world is difficult, but it’s possible. Even Beast, a game whose characters contain creatures outright called Horrors, is about being the horrifying thing, rather than being horrified, which changes the tone dramatically.

         I think my own shift moving in time with the development of the second editions isn’t a coincidence, I suppose is the neatest summary. Even in the darkest of those games, there was a lot of hope and possibility.

         I hope that answers your question!

10. 

    flivver

    May 2, 2023

    Will the Storypath Ultra Brochures appear on DriveThruRPG?

    1. 

       richt

       May 3, 2023

       Inevitably! If we make a PDF, it goes on DTRPG – any PDF, including the Ultra Brochure. We will probably also make a PoD available, but that one we’ll have to charge for as that’s the way PoDs are set up. Plus, we’ll be doing all sorts of lead-ins to The World Below, which will be the first game using Storypath Ultra, so you’ll have lots of chances to get those rules from somewhere before The World Below is on DTRPG and in stores.

11. 

    Purple Snit

    May 3, 2023

    Part of the problem with “Horror”, is that most of it comes from a feeling that you have no control over the events; you are trapped in the spaceship, pursued relentlessly by the unstoppable revenant, haunted by the ghost that blocks the exits, possessed by the demon clown suit and made to do evil things, and so on. And an RPG is all about the agency of the PCs, and their ability to guide the game through their actions. So “Horror” is tough to pull off without railroading the players, and so it becomes gore, or gratuitous violence, or something that isn’t really that scary (though it may be disturbing). Unless they risk death at any moment, which isn’t conducive to a longer campaign, it’s tough to make a game truly horrific, which is why “am I the monster?” ends up being default so often. I’m not sure there’s a solution to this – I haven’t seen one yet.

    1. 

       richt

       May 3, 2023

       If you get a chance, read elsewhere in these Comments where we’re talking about having the structure of the game involve working directly with the player as to what is horrifying to them. I’m wondering if that level of control of the horror situation by the player would alter some of the feeling of lack of control when the PC is put into those horror moments you mention.