[Faust]

Fable - any chance of renaming the thread to indicate its content a bit more, then?

Originally Posted by pennypincher

... Seriously people... Unless you have some overwhelming desire to insult yourself, you'll stick with the original game. In addition to that, you'll forget stupid things from the original game like Samedi, acient affrican bloodlines, gargoyles as PC's, the Black Hand having an Antedeluvian in their basement, the daughters of the loudness and other odd smells issuing forth from hidden little books around the place.

Not big on change, eh? Well I can sympathize. The new world seems to lack much of the vision to the old one. It also focuses more on mechanics than the last world. This ends up subtracting from its worth, I think. I miss my White Wolf creators who cared nothing about coherent rules, but were all focused on telling a good story. Alas, that era seems to be behind us.

Still, I think you paint an overly bleak picture.

In terms of rules, it feels like a "cleaned up" system to me. It's actually a pretty comparable system to the old one, once you get into the mechanics. The major difference is there's more overarching consistency to it. I won't go too deep into mechanics, but its a fairly simple system to get down. You have tasks, dice pools which determine your ability to complete said tasks that are based on a combination of an attribute and skill, then you have modifiers applied by difficulty (is this an overly easy action, well then you need less successes to complete the task? Likewise, perhaps terrain or some other aspect of the task makes it more difficult, you have to have more successes.). And there is a fixed number for successes - a roll of 8. In my opinion, it works well and is easy to learn. The dice pools also make much more logical sense too (attributes and skills are divided into three categories that correspond fairly effectively). Get into the mechanics a bit, from the link I gave you earlier, and you can see my point. It's a much simpler, and in my opinion more logical rules system.

One other thing I really do like about the new system, is that White Wolf -for the first time in recorded history - is actually attempting to make their rules between different WoD games be essentially the same. This is very nice. I don't have to make up rules when bringing Werewolves or Magi into my game, what a concept! My players actually prefer the new rules system, and many aren't crying for the coherency of D&D anymore. However like anything else, its not going to gel for some. If you're players love the VtM rules, then it will work fine for them. My players and friends hated VtM rules. So we've rediscovered the genre with the new system.

Many of the issues you've illuminated actually make fairly decent sense to me. Basically, they've introduced fighting styles to the game. These are not cheap to acquire, and they offer some very interesting benefits. Certainly, I don't see the huge problem in these styles. You can still hit a person without any fighting techniques, you just receive some added techniques to use (which have varying defensive and offensive advantages) with such things as boxing and kung-fu. Likewise, in the scenario you mentioned, I can really envision a scenario when anyone but the most unlucky player would miss hitting the bum. This kind of thing was possible in the old system, as well. So I really don't get your point on it. Spectacular failures are just a dice rolling tool, ultimately the outcome of one like all things WoD is up to the Storyteller. So I don't understand why their existence is troublesome. They are fairly rare, for that matter.

I also don't get your problem with the Contacts merit? Didn't they basically exist before? Anyway, I like the character creation system better, in some ways. I was always resentful of how easily the merit/flaw system lent itself to player abuse in the old game. That has been largely fixed. Flaws are role playing tools that earn you experience when you role play them out. Likewise, merits are part of backgrounds. I like it, personally.

Still, I agree with you about the clans. I hate the new clan distinctions. I'm trying to be open-minded about it, though. Possibly, the simpler system will work for a new batch of players and I'm just being reluctant to change. Basically, the idea now is to make "bloodlines" the new rule of thumb in WoD. I dont' care for it, but it may grow on me in time.

I do think some of the Disciplines have retained their "coolness" (and I actually like the Nightmare discipline. It seems fitting for a Nosferatu, and goes well with the boogeyman imagery they are trying to get across). Many of the disciplines have remained unchanged, for that matter. I'm not sure which disciplines you have a real problem with. I've not heard this complaint often about the new system.

Still, I have to agree entirely with you about blood potency and torpor. I just hate the move from generations to blood potency. The idea of someone losing their power when they nap in the way they mention, sort of undermines the entire apocalptyptic White Wolf universe I knew and love. However, again, I haven't studied the ramifications of it fully. It may not be as dire news as it initially sounds to me.

And, yes, Gehenna stunk. It was definitely not something that a lot of effort was put in. The actual Gehenna sourcebook ended up being decent, and allowing for a lot of Storyteller discretion. Certainly, the whole affair was rushed (well, for something that was looming for years, it kind of just "hit" without much appropriate build-up or dragging it out). I was quite upset with how they did it.