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I'm really torn about WoD.

In theory, it has killer potential. But in practice, it often comes off as trailer trash goth/emo soap opera.

For one thing, it's allegedly a game about personal horror BUT its own structure seems far more political than personal.

For another thing, some of the worst character concepts I've ever heard of originate in VtM/R or WtA/R.

One of the most infamous stereotypes of a bad character is the trope Malkavian. As MGS related in another thread, the trope Malkavian is an excuse to be super disruptive one way or another.

But MGS went on to give an example of a well-played Malkavian -- two people in the same group who would play the same character in very different ways whenever one or the other showed up to the session.

So

The point of this thread is talk about cool character concepts for WoD (old/classic or new). You don't have to just relate stuff you've actually played/seen played. Feel free to brainstorm concepts, too.

I find that it's mostly only the Vampire games that come off as goth/emo soap operas.

I understand what you mean. But that doesn't absolve the others. For example, a friend of mine likens WtA to backyard wrestling. Which isn't any better really.

There's an interesting dichotomy between what White Wolf say they want and what they themselves produce in scenarios and ready to run characters.

WW often and loudly bemoan the 'stereotypes' of the Ventrue prince in his skyscraper, the biker Brujah gangers, the vacuous Toreador artiste and the sewer dwelling Nosferatu information broker.

Yet when we look to their own scenarios, their own writers easily fall into these tropes and it's easy to do. They claim, I think in 'counsel of primogen' that the clans don't all act like noble Houses moving against one another like political armies, yet we've all seen and I've certainly run, games where the clans do just that. Principally, in my games, because they've taken place in London, a big city with a substantial kindred population, when, in reflection, I should have run one or two games in smaller locales. And so the game does become, as you've said, political. No bad thing in my book, I love a lot of moving and shaking, allies and rivals, little combat and lots of confrontation.

So, I think personal horror is a difficult thing to pull off effectively, not least because the vampire is so unfrightening in today's media and the social perception. Twilight and True Blood really have destroyed the capacity to put fear and loathing into the mind at the prospect of the unliving... Unless it's my version of the Sabbat, but then I would not allow the players to play my Sabbat, because my Sabbat are the real thing, and in order to be so, they must be so very horrific, so very visceral and wicked, that they are unplayable. No noble sword of Caine, they are monsters, true monsters. So, perhaps the trick of it is to forgo the personal horror, at least for the vampiric condition the players find themselves in, and save the horror for the new world they discover all around them, the world that was always there, just unseen prior to their transformation.

As to characters, I always suggest people think about characters in shows, books, movies, that have caught their eye, not the main characters, but minor ones. Blend them up a bit. See what comes out.
One of my favorites, a character I played for several years, was a ventrue. He had the business savvy of a block of concrete, being a 1920s London gangster, doggedly loyal, very fond of his Jag Mk2 and sticking to the dogma of helping little old ladies across the road and offering his seat to a lady, trapped in the behaviors of old school underworld and constantly slightly disgusted by the modern age and the new, 'honorless' underworld (which tricked him on more than one occasion... time to roll frenzy! ).

I think creating the moral code of your character is the most important thing, understanding how, once you're generated your Gangrel botany student, how she lives day to day, what upsets her on the news, what brings her a sense of well-being and fulfillment.

Also to take the 'cliche' of the clan and perhaps not entirely reverse it, but view it through a different lense. CURNOW on dakka created a great idea for vampire, a demonologist, but this man was no Tremere, he was Toreador, he had a fanatical love of ancient occult writings and tomes, they were his expertise and his love, he was less about what the tome could summon than he was about the quality of the binding, the detail of the penmanship, the rarity of it. He was inspired by the TV show, Poltergeist: The Legacy but the character, created long before the film was ever released, ended up very much like the Johny Depp character from The 9th Gate.








Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
I find that it's mostly only the Vampire games that come off as goth/emo soap operas.

I've tried to sit in on two werewolf games, I found them a pathetic mix of combat rolls (and white wolf don't do good combat systems...) and a weird mix-up of people trying to munchkin their werewolf and then being all carebear about saving a little girl or protecting a wolf cub, and it all smells mildly of 'furry'...

Other than Pentex, who I love, the rest of it leaves me totally cold. I'd rather stick my johnson in a blender than play changling, wraith seems dull as well. Mage often appealed though.

Agreed that WW do little to unseat the stereotypes (Bloodlines anyone?) and constantly play up the pretentious politics.

This is probably the biggest reason why so many WoD characters are gakky. Playing directly against Clan stereotypes isn't much better IMO; a kind of Drizzt effect can result.

Might be best for a GM to secretly assign clan or assign it based on playing out the embrace such that the player does not know their clan and must focus on fleshing out the character rather than dealing with the stereotypes. This would obviously be easier for some clans than others.

As for personal horror -- it really has nothing to do with vampire being frightening or not. The horror is personal to the characters. It hinges on their biographies and psychologies rather than on being one category or another of the Universal Pictures monsters.

The books place huge emphasis on the Clans, then shout about not being governed by it. They have entire chunks of kindred history played out by Clan 'nations' acting in concert, the pulling down of Antediluvian, the establishment of sects...


Noone has much of a choice in being embraced and by whom.

Perhaps do it as a dice roll, at the very end, after you've created a mortal character.

Perhaps try an alternative universe and have no clans, just sects. Open all the disciplines up and let them have at it.

I think the clans/tribes/etc are pretty important to people who want to play WoD games so I wouldn't want to mess with that as a GM. But I would consider taking the choice of clan out of the players hands and leaving that up to fate -- either in terms of a dice roll or story consequences.

Been playing Werewolf the Apocalypse for almost twenty one years off and on, and aye, stereotypes as with most things are bad. Look beneath the surface and thee true game will shine through.

Heck I always gain the occasional odd looks (often from VtM players) when I say Werewolf can easily be as politically Machiavellian as Vampire, if not more so, its all there. Sadly too often it seems from not just folks looking in, but those playing the game and holding it up as their fave WoD setting fell into the new age Superheroes with fur trope and didn't see the game for what it could be.

Its sadly late and I have an early start tomorrow, but over the next day or so I'll go through the archives to bring up some good WtA characters and hopefully share some insight to why I consider it the my fave of the WoD games.

I 'played' a single VtM game back when I was like 13. I was hanging out with some friends, and they handed me a character sheet (they knew I played DnD). It was like 30 minutes long before someone took the storyline and basically drove it into a night club... It may have been me, but I had asked, "Hey is it okay if I hop into this sports car (that my character apparently owned) and drive away from this vampire that's trying to chase me down?" I may have flubbed a roll or two, I really can't remember, and I ended up crashing the car into a vampire owned night club and ran over the regular human some people were looking for...


With that being said, I've always wanted to try a real nWoD game, I've got a few books for it, but no one I play with wants to really try it, and I don't feel comfortable enough running the system to run a game, probably to do my own inability to string a good story together.

The trick with all World of Darkness character creation is to make a person. Make someone more than a job, give them set responses to situations. If you want to go nuts, add a moral code. Then tack all your extras on.

Basically, as with everything in the pen and paper world, it comes down to the person running the game. With a good GM a group of vampires playing their clan archetypes can blossom into awesome characters in their own rights over time. Or with a bad GM a group of interesting concepts can become caricatures.

I personally avoided VtM after a few nonstarter campaigns. I had actually played WtA earlier and found it more interesting, but that was with a group of fairly newish and passionate roleplayers. Out of our group we had me playing a Get Ragabash, a Children of Gaia Ahroun, a Fianna Philodox, a Silver Fang Theurge, and a Bone Gnawer Galliard. We all enjoyed subverting the traditional image of our Tribes to a certain extent. My character was easy going and forgiving (although his Get heritage shone through on occasion), the Child of Gaia was a bitter, disillusioned drunk who was constantly at odds with the rest of his Tribe, and the Silver Fang was a hideously deformed Metis who was just barely tolerated by his Tribe because both of his parents were of ancient lineage and had died heroically. He secretly hated them all. Oh, and the Fianna didn't drink at all.


But yeah, I've found I enjoy VtR far more, simply because I ignore bloodlines. With the five core Clans, you are actually forced to come up with a character yourself. The archetypes are too broad otherwise. And the majority of my gaming in the WoD has been fairly short mortal based NWoD games, and I find it very very easy to keep them based on personal horror. My experiences have been

WtM - too many people don't/can't incorporate the ideas of The Beast into their games and so they become blood fueled super heroes.
WtA - with a strong GM this can be an excellent experience, theme and awesomeness leaking out every orifice, but has huge cheese potential.
WtO - only played about six sessions, and it was in a group of three PCs. Was going good until two of my players had to drop - a lot of potential, but I think it would work best with a very small, dedicated group.
MtA - a mess, but seems like it has the potential to be fun. Never got a full game going, although I would like to try a game as Technocrats. The thoroughly enjoyable Ascension Warrior trilogy is worth a look.
CtD - a weird, beautiful mess. Only ever played two one offs, but it was good time. Almost no one can pull off playing as a child and this should be avoided as it is creepy as feth.
HtR - Awesome, but I only ever got one semi-long campaign going. Probably my second favorite experience with the OWoD after my first Werewolf game.
DtF - Tonally, thematically and philosophically by far the most intriguing and awesome of the OWoD. Demon is a wonderfully deep, dark game. Dancing on the edge of the end of the world, choosing to damn yourself and everything out of ages old spite, or using a tiny spark of human hope and decency to try and regain the beautiful purity of your former self (almost certainly dying in the process). I fell in love with this game when I got it, but I've never gotten a campaign off the ground. I absolutely refuse to try it with more than four players, and a part of me thinks it won't work well with more than two.
Orpheus - bought the first book, never tried it.
Mummy - skimmed it, wasn't my bag.
Kindred of the East - didn't care for it.

Vampire the Victorian Age, Werewolf the Wild West, The Sorcerer's Crusade, Wraith the Great War - are some of my favorite splats as far as content, but I've never been tempted to run games with them; I am happy to own them.
Dark Ages Vampire, Werewolf, and Fae I am interested in running but haven't had a chance.




As much of my formative roleplaying years took place in the Old World of Darkness, much like Rifts, I am past running games in the system. I would simply adapt them to the New World of Darkness, which is easier, quicker and more elegant.
As far as NWoD, my knowledge is far spottier. I've played...
VtR - much better for playing a game based around personal horror and paranoia, I do adapt a few things from VtM, but generally an improvement on all fronts.
WtF - I've tried a couple of games, but I feel like the improvements to the system don't outweigh the losses in awesomeness. I just liked WtA too much to really get into this. I have been thinking out a hybridization of the two, though.
CtL - infinitely better than CtD. Gone is the eurocentric weird kid fantasy stuff that had play taking place simultaneously in two worlds that were hard to reconcile. I do make changes to the setting when I run games - but overall a huge improvement.
But as I stated earlier, most of my NWoD play has been a combination of mortals/Hunter/some of the splats. And at this the NWoD shreds the OWoD.
There are all of the thinsplat core NWoD books - these are some of the best roleplaying aides ever put to paper. Chock full of awesome ideas, themes, and none of it the overriding meta plot railroad of OWoD.
Ghost Stories, Mysterious Places, Second Sight, Tales from the 13th Precinct, Urban Legends, Asylum, Slasher, Mirrors, Dogs of War. All of these are awesome books rife with inspiration and useful knowledge/stories.


I've read a good chunk of the rest of the NWoD but have lacked either desire or opportunity to play it - Promethean seems interesting but seems to fall into the smaller groups are better thing that you run into in Wraith and Demon. Geist seems cool but is far more tonally homogenous than anything else in the NWoD - all of your PCs had better dig the 'vibe' of the game. Mage - Conceptually cool, seems like a mess to play (or, exactly the same as the last time they tried this).



So I guess, overall, my point is simply that lazy players will make boring characters. A good GM can mitigate that, just as good players can mitigate a poor GM. Thinking one system is worse than another for this is at best just anecdotal experience - I mean, compared to 'bat gak crazy' malks, how many wise wizards, cunning thieves, and brawny but mentally and socially challenged barbarians have there been?

Promethean is probably the most interest RPG I have ever read BUT it's hard to imagine playing it.

Bromsy, didn't you kickstart the W20 book? It's WtA with nWoD rules, right?

I've been aware of White Wolf's offerings since I started roleplaying (12 years ago now, wow). While initially I liked the idea, I was really let down when I looked at the books. I found them to be too verbose, and much too snooty and self satisfied, as well as having a really bad habit of crapping all over D'n'D like a bunch of superior asses.

The other problem I had was that the books tended to set you up as the most important force in the game universe (like, a mortal can't have discovered fire, a Mage had to conjure it, and so on), and they all had this "mortals are cattle/sleepers/prey" theme that I found annoying. I felt it was pretty dismissive of humanity as a whole, but perhaps that's the entire point.

Lastly, they went big for pathos and so on but then made the actual mechanics for each type much more "super heroic" than anything else. A world of darkness vampire seems to be able to feed without causing trauma to the victim (indeed it's described as a fairly enjoyable experience for them) and without causing much harm. I think it would be much more interesting to have the feeding be infrequent but likely to kill the one fed upon, and make it a bit more nasty and awful for the person in any case- really emphasise the gory, awful nature of the bloodsuckers and make feeding an actual choice rather than a way to gain a mechanical benefit.

There was a lot to like in the extremely detailed setting though, and some really cool ideas that did bear investigating. I've only played in a Mage game, and that was piles of fun and very interesting. Vampire seemed to have the best politics, whereas Werewolf seemed interesting from a metaphysics perspective, the clans were WAY to OTT cultural stereotypey for me to tolerate. Wraith seems like it's the best at being the kind of game White Wolf profess to want. Not really well informed on Changeling or anything other than Hunter (which is the antidote to some of my problems with the system) and Demon, which is a great book but I have never seen anyone play it.

In short, great potential but I'd love to see the moral choice elements played up a bit more, emphasise the struggle with the inner beast or the choice between creating paradox or not be more of a moral decision than a mechanical beatstick.

My character was a Norse Valderman btw, in a Dark Ages game. Really fun to play, and the magic system is really great if you're creative because you can do all kinds of things. I like the simplicity of the dice pool mechanics too, though it seems to get complicated fairly fast!

I have been (and am still to some degree) put off of WoD for the same reasons. I will say that when you start to read the various This: The That books in parallel it becomes pretty clear that each one is written 40k-style from the (rather arrogant) perspective of that creature-type. Vampires are kind of flimsy compared to werewolves, for example. And Cain isn't too impressive to a demon, I suppose. In Hunter, you get a taste for how ... well, mighty a human being can be.

I love the concept of werewolves who understand the notion of a hierarchy.

Almost every werewolf character I ever saw in WoD was played with a very modern, liberal mindset that ran completely counter to the way the Garou set themselves up. I played a game in a Shadow Lords sept where I played a completely submissive, boot-licking, toadying Bone Gnawer. One of my favorite werewolf characters ever.

Vampire suffered from some of the same problem, especially in games where PCs were allowed to hold court positions. OWBN was the absolute worst for that. There were several games in the Midwest where the Primogen council had political power over the Prince, or where the Prince could be voted out of office by an actual vote of all the city's vampires. Made me want to heave. I'm not saying the political system in VtM is something to emulate in real life, or a thing to be admired or anything, but if you aren't going to play the game, then don't play the damn game. I was always aggravated by characters that supported that sort of nonsense. I liked vampires that played to the status quo, who believed that age equated to superiority, and that greater status carried greater credibility than say, the truth.

I too, hated what we termed 'fluffy bunny Malkavians.' I liked seeing my Malkavians one of two ways. Either honestly, seriously, deeply disturbing, or completely normal. The ones that hid their derangements were easily my favorites.

I loved Hunter. It was the IDEAL game for in-fighting, bickering, and people who couldn't agree on how to play the game. There was no wrong way to play an imbued Hunter. What a great concept.

As a side note, one of the things I liked working into my character concepts for WoD was a complete lack of shame. A long experience with inter-city gaming courtesy of OWBN brought me against a lot of PC on PC conflict, and towards the end of my WoD tenure, I learned that no one is prepared for groveling. They tend to get flustered and let you live.

Example (NSFW)


I don't know why, but that 'anything-to-stay-alive' mentality is something I like seeing in vampire characters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
I have been (and am still to some degree) put off of WoD for the same reasons. I will say that when you start to read the various This: The That books in parallel it becomes pretty clear that each one is written 40k-style from the (rather arrogant) perspective of that creature-type. Vampires are kind of flimsy compared to werewolves, for example. And Cain isn't too impressive to a demon, I suppose. In Hunter, you get a taste for how ... well, mighty a human being can be.

Tabletop wise, a starting stat werewolf can mow through vampires like they were made from straw. Bottom line, they deal aggravated damage with their bare hands, which vampires (barring Fortitude) cannot soak. Werewolves, on the other hand, CAN soak aggravated damage, and frenzy in a pinch to shrug off many mental or social effects.

I did like each game's self-centric nature. Really, in tone and theme, they were never meant to mix. Vampire assumes a degree of truth behind Judeo-Christian beliefs, while Werewolf assumes the same about shamanistic pagan traditions. It's really hard to mix two or more WoD games without compromising one of them.

 Manchu wrote:
I have been (and am still to some degree) put off of WoD for the same reasons. I will say that when you start to read the various This: The That books in parallel it becomes pretty clear that each one is written 40k-style from the (rather arrogant) perspective of that creature-type. Vampires are kind of flimsy compared to werewolves, for example. And Cain isn't too impressive to a demon, I suppose. In Hunter, you get a taste for how ... well, mighty a human being can be.

Young vampires are very flimsy compared to werewolves. Only problem for the werewolf is there isn't a big learning curve until he's as good as he's going to get. Vampires just keep growing and growing. The higher end Ancillas into lower end elders can fold a lupine like a deck chair, and they're still low on the kindred totem pole. Once you get into elders proper and above, the lupines need to show up as entire tribes to take them down.

And the quote you're thinking of in demon, doesn't match up to the capabilities of an antediluvian, much less their Grandfather. The mightiest earthbound lords would be hard pressed to take on an antediluvian, the weakest of whom was only taken down by several tribes of lupines, three of the most powerful Kuei Jin Bodhisattvas and The Technocracy deploying the power of 5 suns via orbiting satellites and hitting it with magically augmented spirit-nukes, over the course of a week of combat...

Three rank six Hengyokai where the reason Ravnos was weakened enough to be killed by the spirit nuke, and two of them where still fighting when it hit.

Lower end Vampires literally have no chance against Werewolves one on one based on the compared backgrounds. Standard Vamp Elders (what can be brought with generation have a slim change one on one depending on Clan, some clans have little chance even if they are age six or seven using the advanced rules verses an Athro or higher Garou. Most Elder Garou can take anything lower gen than six, and most Vampires would actively look to avoid that combat.

Younger Garou make up for their lack of knowledge by being in packs, so the Elder struggles once pack combats come into play. An Elder pack would make a Methuselah think its time to leave the area.

Its simply down to damage soaks and types verse one another, Vampires cannot deal with that level of aggravated damage that higher level Garou can dish out.

Of course to counter that, it would be a very foolish Vampire who allows it to reach the stage of direct combat.. a typically very dead (for the final time) Vampire at that.

 Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:
Three rank six Hengyokai where the reason Ravnos was weakened enough to be killed by the spirit nuke, and two of them where still fighting when it hit.

Lower end Vampires literally have no chance against Werewolves one on one based on the compared backgrounds. Standard Vamp Elders (what can be brought with generation have a slim change one on one depending on Clan, some clans have little chance even if they are age six or seven using the advanced rules verses an Athro or higher Garou. Most Elder Garou can take anything lower gen than six, and most Vampires would actively look to avoid that combat.

Younger Garou make up for their lack of knowledge by being in packs, so the Elder struggles once pack combats come into play. An Elder pack would make a Methuselah think its time to leave the area.

Its simply down to damage soaks and types verse one another, Vampires cannot deal with that level of aggravated damage that higher level Garou can dish out.

Of course to counter that, it would be a very foolish Vampire who allows it to reach the stage of direct combat.. a typically very dead (for the final time) Vampire at that.

According to the books I've read, the Ravnos clanbook, Gehenna, the three beings battling Zapathasura were Kuei Jin Bodhisattva, the most powerful forms of the Kindred of the East. Can you tell me what books says they were Hengyokai (and what a rank 6 one is?). I know such things can be reported differently sometimes, but that's the first I've ever heard of them being eastern shapeshifters.

As to what you've just said about younger lupines running in packs to take on an elder vampire or elder lupines running in packs to take on a Methuselah, that sort of proves my point, they can't take those vampires by themselves, they have to do it in numbers... Lupines are glaringly vulnerable to many of the psychological powers vampires can dish out, what point is all that strength and speed when you're grovelling in the dirt because the Brujah just walked in with Majesty or the Tremere started boiling your blood with a wink or the Ventrue told you to SIT down and ROLL over...

Lupines are huge fuzzy balls of rage and firepower but the nuances will get you every time. They are losing for a reason...

I ran a short Hunter: the Reckoning game once, it was an interesting setting; sorta like CoC, just that you knew about the horrors but somehow you were not insane, more like..enlighten while everyone was blind. So an uphill battle against everything and everyone around you (as almost everyone and everyone around you was somehow a puppet of the Vampires/Mages/Werewolves/Spirits/whatever).

Sadly, out of the 4 payers I had, 2 were decent (ex-gulf War vet who saw some Arabic vamps doin' their thing and was diagnosed, insistingly, as post traumatic stress, latino son-of-drug-kingpin who picked the wrong alley to do a little blow one night and saw more than what drugs could make him see) while the other 2 were (too) innocents (borderline stupidly silly according to me), but more in a "oh here, please drink my blood Mr. Vampire sir, I want to help you, and I'm a real nice guy wouldn't you know!"

Only lasted a session or two, did had the vet ran a vampire with his car, park on it and emptied a SMG mag in its face.

 Manchu wrote:
Promethean is probably the most interest RPG I have ever read BUT it's hard to imagine playing it.

Bromsy, didn't you kickstart the W20 book? It's WtA with nWoD rules, right?

No, sadly. It's still OWoD rules. There is a Werewolf Translation Guide out for free on drive thru rpg though.

Promethean and Demon are by far my favourite white wolf games but I've sadly never played them.

Did you kickstart the new Demon?

I wasn't aware there was a kickstarter for it.

Looks like that's where my student loan is going tomorrow.

They're shipping the physical copies in the US only, that sucks...

I'm sure you can get a premium PoD through RPGNow as/when but it will likely cost ~40 quid.

I am awaiting Mage:20 eagerly.
I started with Vampires original edition and played until Mage.
I started a Mage game and ran it basically until about 5 years ago - bridging what amounts to two/three groups of people following one story and set of NPCs. Mage focused, but (most) every supernatural was represented and most were played at least once.
Been asked to restart it occasionally.

That said. As others stated, the system is made for building characters. Given that people can basically create whatever they want, it gets to people creating caricatures instead.
It takes some restraint to decide to play a neophyte that needs to learn when the possibility to play an adept (or master!) from the get-go.
With Mage, this gets really hard to resist for people new to the system - especially when joining an ongoing game. We (again. . .mostly) avoided issue by having every sit and discuss the story-thus-far, and having everyone playing involved in each other's creation process.
WoD rules themselves (again, especially Mage) are odd, because games are supposed to tell you what you can and cannot do. These mostly just say that anything can be done, go ahead and try. So many folk do.
Discussing game design, I once stated that I liked Mage because there were almost no limits on what you could do. One of the people in the discussion said it was a horrid game for the exact same reason - games have rules, that is just betting your story against a die roll using that system. I think I like his answer better. ^^

On a related note, that WoD game I ran was easily the most lethal RPG I every ran - or even participated in. Not a single player character death, even so, was not met with bitterness, but a general increase in thoughtfulness in both gameplay and character creation.

Yeah, my long running mortals NWoD was super lethal. I don't think a single person had less than two new characters. One player made it 2/3 of the way through with her first character, only to lose her and her replacement in a single session.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:


According to the books I've read, the Ravnos clanbook, Gehenna, the three beings battling Zapathasura were Kuei Jin Bodhisattva, the most powerful forms of the Kindred of the East. Can you tell me what books says they were Hengyokai (and what a rank 6 one is?). I know such things can be reported differently sometimes, but that's the first I've ever heard of them being eastern shapeshifters.

As to what you've just said about younger lupines running in packs to take on an elder vampire or elder lupines running in packs to take on a Methuselah, that sort of proves my point, they can't take those vampires by themselves, they have to do it in numbers... Lupines are glaringly vulnerable to many of the psychological powers vampires can dish out, what point is all that strength and speed when you're grovelling in the dirt because the Brujah just walked in with Majesty or the Tremere started boiling your blood with a wink or the Ventrue told you to SIT down and ROLL over...

Lupines are huge fuzzy balls of rage and firepower but the nuances will get you every time. They are losing for a reason...

*Goes and rereads Time of thin blood.*





I have no idea how I mixed that up, but you are correct sir. There where Werewolves involved in the battle but they where secondary, I have no idea where that mix up came from, but literally for about ten years I thought those three where rank six Hengyokai.

Most of the Vampire mind altering powers have a limited effect if none against Garou, its one of the key reasons Vampires avoid the combat with them. Its basically a slight oddity as no official cross rules exist, but if you look at how Vampires are portrayed in WtA and werewolves vica versa in VtM, there is a power issue in the favour of werewolves. Background also heavy indicates that Werewolves are a threat Vampires actively avoid due to the combat risk.
If you do what I did and literally mash VtM and WtA together as each are portrayed in their own books, Vampires are literally in trouble from the get go if a combat starts, Aggravated is really too much of a hassle, almost impossible to deal with if the Vampire does not have Fortitude.

Also note the Werewolves are losing, but not to Kindred, hell if you follow some of the Werewolf books, short stories in them, some Kindred have learned about the Wyrm to their own horror, and are shocked that Werewolves see a connection between Leeches and Wyrm minions. Hell looking at the Wyrm stuff, if for some reason the Kindred drew their ire, the Kindred would be losing as well.

 Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:

Most of the Vampire mind altering powers have a limited effect if none against Garou, its one of the key reasons Vampires avoid the combat with them. Its basically a slight oddity as no official cross rules exist, but if you look at how Vampires are portrayed in WtA and werewolves vica versa in VtM, there is a power issue in the favour of werewolves. Background also heavy indicates that Werewolves are a threat Vampires actively avoid due to the combat risk.

Where does it say 'limited if none' against weres? Because in the Sabbat book and elsewhere, it actually says the best protections are the mind altering powers, because they have little to no counter against it.

I don't remember ever seeing counters to the kindred mind altering powers simply because that is their cobra to mongoose counter to the lupines considerable physical powers. I imagine a theuge might have some counters, but the average ahroun is going to be wagging his tail and fetching the ball once a sufficiently dominate capable ventrue gets through with him.

I will say I know next to nothing about NWOD, someone bought me the Requiem book, I had a read through it and put it away and tried to forget I'd ever seen it.

I've put two parties up against Freak Legion created Formori and the vampires, other than being fairly revolted, kicked their asses, knocked the crap out of them, I was very disappointed.

And there is a sizeable link between the wyrm and kindred, dependent on clan and bloodline, the Minions of Set and Baali show up high on the wyrm-o-meter, the ventrue are weaverbound and the gangrel and ravnos show for the wyld. There's also a Malkavian antitribu of the Sabbat sitting on the Board of Directors for Pentex...

The only real defenses Garou have against Mind control are certain gifts, boons, and fethishes as I recall.

That comes with some large caveats, especially for Vampires - who rarely have a way to check if a possible counter exist and mostly need eye contact.

If range is an issue they are really hard to sneak up on/approach.
If they happen to have a way to stop it, most of their counters just work. (i.e. straight counter, not a contested roll.)
If it fails, even for a bad roll well. . .yea.

The only reason people think it is a bad idea is that it eventually fails.

Getting eye contact is the issue. The reason I stated no effect* is because you can't make them hurt themselves, its still a delaying tactic and if a Garou frenzies that removes such concerns anyway. The best answer for a Kindred is Celerity, but even then they need to be armed correctly/have the right combat disciplines and hope that they have caught the Garou alone or its not an Ahroun.

I think dominate would be useful, but there are few one word commands that are going to stop a Garou for long. Alone it might make a difference, but most of the Clans with Dominate are hardly the key combat faces of the Kindred, Lasombra and Giovanni perhaps having the best chance.

Higher level dominate is a different ball game, but its still not as simple as having a Garou dropping and wagging tails, it would be a lot of resist rolling. Plus that would equate Elders and we are already suggesting packs v's Elders, where dominating a lone Garou in the fight isn't going to be much good.

Fomori are basically cannon fodder for Garou as well, the issue there is a higher percentage of silver wielding machine guns as Pentex knows what it is facing. The real problem are the Banes and BSD's which really would tear Kindred apart and what I am referring to when I speak of the Wyrm as a whole.
Damn the thought of what a Nexus Crawler would do with a group of Vampire characters is bloody horrifying.



edit - *probably poorly tbh, it was 2am though, so I wasn't fully awake, so I would hold my had up on that one, and bit over the top. Although its not going to stop them dead in their tracks for long, and as soon as you hit them, unless you can get a killing blow, very unlikely, they'll break and be face to face with you. I am also sure there was info on mind powers and roll off stats somewhere down the road, and I was sure Garou had a bonus to resist from their rage stat.. but that might have been from a forum chat over at the White Wolf boards. I need to go through my WtA ST guides and check.

Of course as I noted in the previous post the big stumbling block is the lack of direct rules, so its still not 100% defined. Just from reading how Vampires portray Garou in its limited glances at them VtM side, and the stories and notes about Garou taking on Vamps WtA side is where my conclusions are coming from. Using the rules directly with both sides combat potential, does without question show favour to the Garou just simply due to what they are expected to face in game, where Kindred avoiding combat is often the norm.