tarlyn wrote:This is sort of related. In what book are weapons and equipment listed in Vampire the Masquerade?
You can find basic stuff in the core rulebook,
World of Darkness. For more you'll need
Armory and
Armory: Reloaded. The former is mainly more equipment and Fighting Style Merits. The latter is more about unique, storied items (things with supernatural powers) as well as some additional weapons and rules.
Reliquary isn't necessarily a weapons and equipment book but it does offer rules for (very minor) supernatural equipment and weapons.
Trike wrote:High Priest Mikhal wrote:Trike wrote:As an aside, I enjoy having a variety of templates. But it makes me miss out on the cool team abilities in the Hunter series.
Is that
Reckoning or
Vigil?
WHAT?! No
Mage?!?! Or
Changeling for that matter?
That would be Vigil. My Reckoning knowledge was mainly based on the X-Box and Playstation games (which I enjoyed immensely).
Oh, and I love Mage but it has always seemed kind of daunting. At this point I'm planning on limiting my players to using the spells listed as rotes until we all get the hang of improv spell casting. Mainly, I want to get used to what spells can do at certain levels. Other than aggravated damage at 5 dots and lethal damage at 3 dots.
Changeling is great. But I have a hard time fitting the high fantasy elements involved with Changelings into a modern horror setting. I've seen how its done in the Dresden Files and Hollows series. I just can't seem to get it to feel right in my own stories. I enjoy it a lot more as a stand alone addition.
I'm finding Mummy to be kind of daunting on my first read through, too. I'm still wrapping my head around everything.
Understandable. I, myself, find
Vampire daunting due to the political undertones of Kindred existence and the covenants. That's just not how my mind works.
Werewolf (which isn't like Planeteers to whomever made that comparison;
Shifting Breeds has shapeshifters infinitely closer to that ideal) is another I'm having trouble with if only because there's so much more to it in the spiritual half. Or it could simply be I
hate such "traditional" monsters and the parodies pop culture has made them into. Not to mention they've been done to death--no pun intended for vampires--in movies (damn you,
Twilight!), TV shows, video games, novels, you name it. Pop McCulture has a way of ruining niche interests.
I actually find
Mage and
Changeling to be easier for me to absorb simply because they both have elements I'm very interested in like dimensional theory and oneirology. They also share more common elements (and crossover potential) than any of the other settings and I've found knowledge of one is very helpful in understanding the other. As for the high fantasy, that's largely relegated to the Hedge. Changelings in and of themselves may a be a bit fantastical, but that just makes them more interesting when contrasted with the gritty, Gothic reality of the World of Darkness. It's actually from a fusion of the two that a new race of beings (half-human, half-True Fae called Fae Blooded or just Blooded) has germinated into an idea for a netbook called
Shadows of Utah for the WW forums. It's still very much in my head and ideas are being tossed around so don't expect anything for a long time. Plus I need to sort through the history from the time of its "discovery" by whites to events up to the year 2010 since, in the WoD, history is very much alive and affecting modern times.
Be grateful you didn't get into
Reckoning. As I understand it all the oWOD books were quite complicated compared to nWOD, but
Hunter was a trainwreck. The core book is so convoluted it's a nightmare to run, and it doesn't use many of the same rules as the rest of oWOD. Then there's the fluff which alluded that Hunters were somehow divinely chosen for a Final Reckoning (the rather disappointing end of oWOD). Frankly the video games were the only good things to come from it.
EDIT: Because nWOD has informed more of the realities of how supernatural beings can hide in the plain sight of over six-billion humans in
The Gothic Journals (no, not the same systems, but the same general ideas of cultural disbelief, willful ignorance, and Masques as Lunacy/Disbelief/the Mask), I feel I should mention that I do owe the general setting some credit for helping me realize that, yes, Virginia, humanity really can be that blind. It's sickening that the horrors we do acknowledge get just as ignored.
