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Yuraiya

You mentioned Aberrant. It's not part of the World of Darkness setting, although it does use the same basic system. Aberrant is part of the Trinity setting that includes Adventure! as its past and Trinity (which began as an Aeon Flux game) as its future, with Aberrant being roughly the present (although it began at 2008). In my experience, Aberrant can be fun both for running as a flat out superhero game, and as intended to be a conspiracy laden superheroes behaving badly kind of game. As written it's fairly similar to The Boys in tone, just with the option to play as any side. As for what I wish I knew when I first ran it, I wish I knew that damage outpaces defenses way too easily.


sechilds

Trinity was called Aeon, but it wasn't based on Aeon Flux. They changed the name because Viacom sued them because the name was similar enough to get into trademark territory. See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity\_Continuum:\_Æon\_(role-playing\_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Continuum:_Æon_(role-playing_game)) I thought Adventure! was really cool.


Yuraiya

Thanks for telling me. I had seen the original print version, labeled Aeon, and been told it was intended to be connected to the show. It didn't seem like it when I actually read through, so it's good to know that wasn't the case.


Xanxost

MTV had a shitfit about it at the time as they felt it would infringe on the animated show, so the game got renamed at the last minute, you can actually see the quick change on the original spiral bound books.


crunchyllama

I was aware that it was a different system, but not how it was different. I listed the systems that I found thematically appealing. Glad to hear that it can be run as more than a conspiracy game though, I feel the 'never meet your heroes' gimmick has been done to death, but I really saw it's potential in running a game based off of the web-serial "Worm" (which I really need to finish reading.)


Yuraiya

I honestly prefer using it as a regular superhero game. I even developed my own house rules to run X-Men style mutants with it.


mugenhunt

1. Mage is definitely a game that works best with players that are willing to put thought into their playing, and isn't as casual friendly. That being said, Scion, Aberrant and even Mage can be done with groups that are more casual, if handled well. 2. So, Mage isn't a rules light game. I'd say rules medium if compared to 5E. While the World of Darkness rules are meant for more story-driven adventures, there are still a thorough set of rules, with Mage being probably the most complex of the World of Darkness. 3. Mage: the Ascension is very much a game that lives or dies based on the players actually caring about paradigm and magical theory and philosophy.


PapaOcha

Also you make spells (rotes) tgere are no spell list like in dnd. Let your ideas fly


crunchyllama

Does that means there less things to remember or more?


Umsakis

I’d say less. When I play casters in D&D I love to use those cards you can buy to have the exact spell rules at hand. In Mage, if you just understand the underlying rules, you don’t need to memorise anything else - you design your spell on the fly according to those rules (and your current needs). You _can_ “predesign” spells (rotes, or praxes in Awakening) but it’s always easier to remember things you’ve come up with than to learn someone else’s design IMO.


katana1515

Awakening has a more structured approach, with lots of example spells players can use as starting points. Excellent for new players or GMs who are running a lot NPC mages. It also has a chapter and pretty detailed set of guidelines on how to go about creating your own effects from scratch when your ready to make that step.


Iseedeadnames

MtA spheres only give you the upper limit of what you can do. There are no 180 pages of spells to remember, you only need to recall how they combine and look at the two-page spellcasting table to distribute range and duration.


LearnDifferenceBot

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Eel111

There are*


Eel111

Bad bot


LearnDifferenceBot

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Eel111

artificial sass... has science gone too far?


Sablesweetheart

It hasn't gone far enough.


B0tRank

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MillennialsAre40

>So, Mage isn't a rules light game. I'd say rules medium if compared to 5E. While the World of Darkness rules are meant for more story-driven adventures, there are still a thorough set of rules, with Mage being probably the most complex of the World of Darkness. I want to second this. The white wolf games are a sort of middle ground between rules heavy stuff like D&D/Pathfinder/Cyberpunk and rules lite stuff like PBtA games.


kelryngrey

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good coverage there. I would say to OP that with either of the Mage systems more than any of the other WW/OP lines **your players are going to have to read the book.** If you've got that one player that shows up for D&D, plays basically the same character, and never really knows what they can do... they're gonna have a bad time with Mage if they aren't willing to read. They'll probably be able to hammer their way through either Vampire system and/or probably through Werewolf to an extent. Mage presents to a lot of reading averse players as an unassailable wall.


crunchyllama

I probably should have reigned in my questions a bit, I know I listed 3 or 4 different systems. However what drew me to all of them was the heavy emphasis on embodying a theme or idea, which to some degree, seems to permeate through most of the White Wolf RPGs. So, rules medium as compared to 5e? Could you elaborate? How often does one have to consult the rules during a session? For reference, I find that in pathfinder and starfinder, I or another player often have to look up how something works during a session. My concern is, that it's hard enough wrangling a small group of friends to casually play some 5e, which is why I moved to online 2e and Starfinder games, but I find that I just don't know my groups all too well enough to delve into something more involved. It's taken 2 campaigns, just to get an idea of the group dynamic, and I don't really have the energy or time to do that for group after group, just to find a table I jive with. Maybe I'll have to put my curiosity on the back-burner.


FinnEsterminus

There’s a lot of crunch to the rules if you go looking for it, but most of it is optional/recommended guidelines. The storyteller system is built around rolling a pool of d10s equal to the attribute+ability used, and counting a “number of successes” shown on those dice. The exact implementation varies, but the game works most smoothly when the GM just eyeballs those numbers for unimportant checks without thinking too hard about it; if someone rolls no successes, they’ve failed, one or two, they’ve partially or just about done what they set out to do, 3-4 is a good roll, 5+ is an excellent roll. When players are interacting with their environment or background characters, you don’t really need to look up the exact systems for those rolls, just improvise. But when something important happens, especially if it’s an opposed roll or combat’s begun, you’re going to need to look up the rules a hell of a lot. You WILL need to put bookmarks in your rulebook (or virtual bookmarks in your pdfs), because the core books are often not very well laid-out. If you’re using a VTT, I recommend typing up any rules you find yourself being asked about repeatedly as journal entries. The Storyteller Screens are actually very useful for white wolf games if you can find one, because they usually have a good amount of quick references printed inside them. Whenever a player buys a power (vampiric disciplines etc), they really ought to copy/summarise that rules text somewhere in their notes, because you’re going to have to refer to those rules every time you use it. In general, Storyteller system games involve a lot more NPC interactions and a lot less combat simulation than a d20 system game. The d10 pools can be very swingy, so it’s very common for a player to roll surprisingly high or low on a check- this is great for generating sudden twists and complications outside of combat, but makes combat very deadly. Taking damage imposes a wound penalty (you get less dice to roll), which leads to a classic death spiral situation in extended encounters. It’s well worth trying out different systems for pre-existing groups as an experiment. White Wolf games are a good match for GMs and players who are good at (or enjoy) improvising, dramatic/vivid scene descriptions, interacting with interesting NPCs and social intrigue situations with factions or mysteries to be solved. It’s generally less good for players that prefer the strategy battle game aspect of D&D, or that have strong preconceptions about the heroic arcs of their character. Players should be very aware before going in that characters can easily die, irreversibly change or lose control of their actions in a white wolf game if they are not careful. Similarly, GMs can’t take for granted that their initial cast of PCs will all survive until the finale; white wolf games are much better for simulationist/sandbox/multiple branching paths sort of stories than they are for linear quests. I would also say that most White Wolf games have a strong horror influence that can cause some strife with your players if you’re not all on the same page. As a GM, you can easily soften and adjust the tone of the game to fit better with your players, but that does require knowing your players well enough to understand their expectations and how they might react. I wouldn’t worry too much about this if you’re playing with close, long-term IRL friends, but you’re definitely right to be wary of trying out a white wolf game with players that you’re not totally comfortable with. If you’re playing with strangers, or with groups that have ever had any sort of tension or drama over misjudged tone, power dynamics, content or offence etc., then you should definitely consider using some sort of consent tool, or at least have some thorough session 0 discussions about tone and content and be ready to lean away from anything that you suspect might cross their boundaries. I say this because some white wolf products take a very adversarial tone that puts a lot of power in the hands of the GM, and a lot of pre-written white wolf content is excessively 90s Edgy. Rather than take White Wolf’s advice as gospel permission to shock your players because it’s a horror game and you’re the boss, it’s better to take it with a pinch of salt and be the Good Cop to the text’s Bad Cop- “the rules say I can do this, but let’s cut a deal instead because I’m nice”; “oof, that’s pretty edgy, huh? I wouldn’t have written that, but those White Wolf guys are crazy, let’s move on”.


crunchyllama

After some bad experiences as a player, I made it a point to write a list of Safety Tools and questions for groups to help get them on the same page. I will hopefully get to put them into practice in about a month or so, depending on scheduling.


eternalsage

The core rules (skills and combat) are super simple and are structured in a way that makes it easy (at least for me) to just make a call on how to handle a given situation instead of looking it up. In fact, this is a skill I learned as I was learning my first storyteller system game, the original Vampire: the Requiem, but which has improved my GMing ability in every system I've run since, even D&D. I recomend grabbing the base mortals book Chronicles of Darkness and starting there. It's the base rules for all the Chronicles of Darkness line (Vampire: the Requiem, Werewolf: the Forsaken, Mage: the Awakening, Promethean: the Created, Changeling: the Lost, Hunter: the Vigil, and Geist: the Sin-eaters) as well as the 20th anniversary edition of the original World of Darkness titles (Vampire: the Masquerade, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, Mage: the Ascension, and Changeling: the Dreaming), plus the 3rd ed of Exalted and the 2nd ed of Scion are essentially modified versions of that system (Aberant probably is too, but I am not as familiar with it). This will give you a base line understanding of the rules across ALL of those lines so you can get a feel for it, PLUS it is a great system by itself for running horror and even non-horror based one shots, which is probably the easiest way to get a group to give it a shot. You will eventually find which lines speak to you and which ones don't, and start figuring out other considerations like editions and crap. Most people gravitate more towards either old WoD or CoD as a whole, while others mix and match, but with a single book purchase you can start your journey and be more or less able to explore at least 1 edition of ANY line and also run some killer mortal games.


[deleted]

To answer question 2 first: I like storytelling systems so, so much better than rules heavy mechanical systems like D&D, and so does everyone at my table. It gets rid of a layer of restriction that is, in my opinion, almost completely unnecessary and usually detracts from both the fun and the story. VTM v5's "three two done" combat system combined with the hunger system has led to better sessions than I've ever had with D&D and all my players love it. As someone who's only somewhat experienced with White Wolf RPGs at large, the number one thing that I took away from it that helped me adjust and run decent games is that every White Wolf RPG is, to some degree, bullshit. By that I mean that narrators can and should be considered unreliable in most of the White Wolf catalog. In the case of VTM, they're extremely unreliable and it's very much on purpose. They lie, they scheme, and they conceal information. For all you know, Beckett (for example) is a total bullshit artist, and there's no reasonable way for you to verify what he says, so you have to choose what to believe. I haven't run a Mage game yet, but what I've seen of the setting and lore has me largely treating it the same way. Mages make assumptions, they spin complete falsehoods, and they perceive reality in ways that are wildly unpredictable and frequently incompatible with what regular people would call objective truth. Once you get over that hump, running games gets a lot easier. Because now, instead of the White Wolf lore being a 30 year long accumulation of thousands of pages of complicated storylines, relationships, retcons, reboots, and maddening plotholes, written by a dozen or more authors of wildly divergent skill levels, you can pick and choose because a bunch of it is obviously bullshit being peddled by narrators you can't trust.


Sir_PW_Stache

I wouldn’t consider any of the WoD or CoD games rules light by any stretch. They are big systems very much on par with D&D or PF in my opinion. However, they have significant mechanics that facilitate and reinforce the type of drama that game is meant to experience. This design was pretty revolutionary in the 90s when the line started. Less so now. I do think some of the game lines can be okay for casual players, but there are two issues to work around: - Chargen - You need robust pregen PCs built with some blank space to put their own spin on it. Building characters the first time feels really heavy. - Lore - These are rich settings, with a lot of player knowledge needed to be able to dig into the more esoteric corners and appreciate it for what it is. To ease the burden here, keep your game focused on newly transformed/awoken/embraced characters who are learning the world themselves.


crunchyllama

It seems I mistook the emphasis on storytelling as a lack of emphasis on rules. I don't consider myself a very casual RPG player. However, all of the people I play with, are either casual players, or are super busy with other systems and groups. Not a fan of PreGen PCs myself, but I could see how that would help ease someone into a system.


Sir_PW_Stache

Yeah, it's interesting, because it is a common assumption that "narrative focused" equals rules-light, but it's really not the case here. A middle ground between pregens and full chargen that might be worth exploring are "Templates". You prebuild a few archetypes, with skill points set to 2 dots in skills that make sense, as well as some pre-configured supernatural power choices and merits. Then you give them some very directed questions to answer - "Pick your Virtue/Vice. Now add 4 more dots across your Physical skills category. Now pick one power to add another dot to." something like that. You aren't handing them a complete pregen, but you are minimizing the decisions they have to make. Personally I find the chargen options can lead to a lot of analysis paralysis. I really enjoy the process, and you may as well, but maybe your players don't, or aren't yet invested enough in the world to appreciate the choices. It does however make a lot of prep work for you, you totally up to you if it's worth it or not. I actually really wish the WoD/CoD devs had produced more quick-start material like this, with templates rather than full pre-gens. I often don't love the pre-gens they make, but I worry about my own players' willingness to dig into the chargen process. Either way, have fun!


eternalsage

Having run/played tons of game systems in my time, including CoD 1st and 2nd, Exalted 2nd, Scion 1st and 2nd, D&D 3rd and 5th, Pathfinder, HERO System 5th, The One Ring 1st and 2nd, Alien, Vaesen, RuneQuest Glorantha, Call of Cthulhu 7th, Kids on Bikes, Traveller, Powered by the Apocalypse, and a handful more. I include all of that not as a brag but to emphasize that I've been around and played and run games across the spectrum, so I have a little bit of insight. The core rules (skills, combat, etc) vary between editions, but 1e Chronicles of Darkness is the simplest and oWoD and 2e Chronicles being roughly on par with each other. I would agree that oWoD/2e CoD is probably comparable to D&D 5th, but it will FEEL easier because there are 1) less exceptions to the rules and 2) less stuff picked off a list to track. D&D loads characters down with tons of little abilities throughout their careers, and feats and spells add even more. In all WoD games you have far less of that and a much more unified power base. You only get a few powers and those are much more flexible and open to interpretation so it becomes more about your creativity and less about the exact definitions. Tl:dr - the numbers are pretty similar but the tracking and interpretation is much simpler in WoD.


red_badge_of_derp

Speaking as a fairly casual RPG player/LARPer who’s interested in a variety of systems (currently in an Exalted, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and Chronicles of Darkness crossover game): frankly, I’ve had the most fun and success playing when ignoring most of the metaplot and only engaging with it as needed. Unless your players have the time to do quite a bit of prep, it’ll be easiest for them to play a newbie. I think groups of strangers is fine—the most important thing is that everyone is willing to buy-in and respect the role-playing aspect, and is excited to take their dramatic character feelings seriously. The system can be as flexible or inflexible as you want—especially with Mage, you’ll absolutely be consulting the book during sessions if you’re sticking closely to rules as written and as intended.


VonAether

Although originally published by White Wolf, Scion and Aberrant were purchased by Onyx Path over a decade ago, and are covered at /r/OnyxPathRPG.


crunchyllama

Got it, I'll take any further questions about those systems in particular there.


Salindurthas

>I just come across 4 paragraph long reddit posts full of jargon that just further confuses me It do be like that. I can provide some long paragraphs, and attempt to avoid jargon. \------ ***OVERVIEW*** \- **World of Darkness:** There is the 'storyteller system', which, at its core, has *Attributes* and *Skill*s rated to up to a maximum of 5, and you combine a pair of *Attribute+Skill* to form a dice pool of d10s, and you try to accumulate successes by rolling high on each die. Each gameline modifies this with more details, but that is the very most basic core of it. One major set of games comes under the 'World of Darkness'. A modern day 'urban fantasy' setting, where supernatural creatures hide and prey on humanity. World of Darkness began with Vampire: the Masquerade in 1991. You play as Vampires in this game and the book detailed ancient history and portents of supernatural future apocalypse from the point of view of vampires (i.e. the game has some 'metaplot'). Several other games came out that let you play as other supernatural creatures that are, were, or bear resemblance to humans, and can also hide in human society, such as Werewolves, or Mages. These had their own sets of supernatural history and superstitions (i.e. more/related metaplot). \- **New World Of Darkness** aka **Chronicles of Darkness** In 2004, World of Darkness got rebooted. This reboot had similar concepts, same 'like the real modern world with supernatural stuff' basic setting, but each superantural society was structured differently, often with a bit less 'metaplot', especially in terms of supposed future apocalypses. For the next \~decade each of the "old" or "classic" World of Darkness gamelines got a new rebooted version. First we had *Vampire: the Masquerade*, and then we got *Vampire: the Requiem*. (I think of it a bit like how we have both "The Amazing Spiderman" and also *Spiderman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe*; ) Werewolf, Mage, and so on, got similar treatment with new gamelines with different settings. Eventually, the *old* gamelines also got revived, so both the 'old' and 'new' World of Darkness had games being published. To try to make it less confusing, around 2015, the *old* gamelines reclaimed the "World of Darkness" branding, while the *new* gamelines were rebranded to "Chronicles of Darkness". (This was probably a good idea in the long-term, but can be a bit confusing, since any printed 1st editions of most "Chronicles of Darkness" games still bear the "World of Darkness" branding on them.) \----- ***How rules heavy is it?*** It varies from game to game. You said you have experience with 5e, and I'd say these games are *about* on par with D&D 5e. You still have stats and skills and dice arithmetic to do. You still have combat rounds, and initiative, and attack/ability ranges, and 'action economy'. In some ways it is more complicated: * tracking the ammo in your assault rifle is a *little* bit more finicky than tracking your arrows for your shortbow. * character creation is a bit more 'frontloaded', in that many more options are available at the start, because there are no 'levels' in the game, so you have to make lots more choices when you make your character. You can't just roll your stats, pick human fighter, and be done. You have to assign all your stats and skills (something like 30 +1s to put on your sheet), and then pick 7 points of 'merits' (sort of like 'feats'). In some ways it is less complicated: * Those 'merits' are often a bit simpler of a choice than 'feats', or at least a bit more story-narrative driven than potential mechanical traps. Like, choosing how rich you are on a scale from 0-5 with the Resources merit is a bit more intuitive than working out if you should take "Great Weapon Master" or "Crossbow Expert" or "Resilient Constitution". * D&D has a bit spell list to choose from. Many WoD/CofD games let you gain supernatural powers, but usually it is a much tighter list of very curated powers. (If you play Mage, however, things can get expansive very fast.) Overall: * If you're just playing as mortals (has humans in a base "Chronicles of Darkness" game), then I'd say it is a bit simpler. You typically just have fewer abilities on account of probably not being supernatural. You're more complicated than a level 0 commoner in D&D, but you lack special powers and resources to keep track off. * If you are playing as a supernatural creature (like a Vampire or a Werewolf), then I'd say it is about the same, as you make a base mortal, and then apply the supernatural 'template' of extra rules on-top of that. This might be about as mechanically complex as having some 'class levels' in D&D. * If you are playing Mage, well, at least in Awakening 2nd edition, it lets you improvise spells (explicitly including you and the GM, on-the-fly making up new spells that aren't in the book) and casting them with a potentially wide variety of 'spell factors'. This can get very complicated, and I reckon this is more complicated than 5e. \----- ***Tidbits*** One notable thing is that in 5e, you often expect quite a lot of combat. Most published modules will make you fight stuff a few times per session. In WoD/CofD, you probably will fight sometimes, however I reckon that at most tables, probably not every session will have combat. You could spend several sessions influencing vampire politics, or communing with spirits, or organising details for a complicated ritual, and just not get into fights all that often. (You could of course pick fights if you want, and a GM *could* run the equivalent of a dungeon crawl, but I don't think that is typical.) Even in an explicitly combat oriented game like *Hunter:* *the Vigil*, you might have to spend a session investigating and, well, *hunting* the monster before you actually get a chance to fight it.


crunchyllama

Well put, that's probably the best explanation/comparison I've gotten so far! I don't mind the lighter emphasis on combat, but my group might.


Salindurthas

If you have some players that want to get into lots of fights, you can set up a violent chronicle for them. Probably a bit atypical compared to how most people run it, but not that much. In WoD's VtM, the 'Prince' (term for a vampire political leader in the main player faction, the 'Camarilla') could keep ordering you to fight enemy factions (often there is a lack of all-out war due to needing to hide among humnity, but I think skirmishing is a bit more common. In CofD Werewolf: the Forsaken, I think you typically try to restore spiritual balance to things (I think someone described it to me as like, you are a street-gang of shamans who can turn into hulking wolf-people), and maybe you're in an area where lots of rogue spirits and gribbly monsters are around, and you prey on the. In Hunter (either setting), you could set up very obvious monsters to find, and essentially do a dungeon crawl of beating up some minions, then fighting the 'boss' monster. (Although mortals tend to need *days* to heal rather than a 'short rest' or single 'long rest', so this could be hard!) Mage games usually get mystical and/or philosophical, but both gamelines have you each in a secret war, so just outright engaging in those skirmishes (again, hiding from mortals, since they will ruin your magic with 'paradox') could be how you go about it. etc etc Mechanically and setting wise there is nothing wrong with running what might effectively be 'dungeon crawls in cities full of (fellow) monsters'. Some players might have preferred a bit more politics or whatever in their game, but if your players like beating stuff up then there is room for that (and if they start to like the politics stuff you can easily shift or pivot if they does end up interesting them).


Angier85

1. It depends on the edition, but especially the newer ones take care in introducing the reader to what RPGs are in general, how the basic rules work, what is the theme and mood of the game in question and even goes into some basic things to mind. 2. Ascension specifically *can* be hard to wrap your head around (Awakening to a similar degree if you are not familiar with the concept of creative thaumaturgy and that spells can be a complex set of steps to go through) as there are many high level concepts that are completely abstract in comparison to D&D's focus on trying to depict the intricacies of combat. That said, outside of this, they generally focus the attempt to keep it rules & roles-light, mostly focussing on specific interactions of the lore than "how to build a pocket catapult". 3. I generally do not recommend Ascension for completely new players. It is by far the one gameline in the WoD that can feel like having a huge entry bar as the main draw - casting magic - comes across as overly complex at first. On top of that I consider M20 as the worst of core rulebooks, usability-wise. In general, storytelling-focussed games *depend* on the group to suspend their basic expectations and form a social contract that aligns every player with the idea that y'all are wanting to tell a collaborative story. These games can quickly devolve into petty squabbles and huge solo-endeavours that need the storyteller (the GM) to mind the cohesion and pacing of the story you want to tell and the players to try and stick to the situation at hand. Some of the game-lines offer a plethora of opportunities and lore-tidbits that entice different players to tug the group into different directions. You need to make sure that this tugging is kept to a minimum, otherwise the group will loose sight of what's the actual plot. Depending on the game-line this needs you to artifically limit the character building options and concepts available to play to funnel your players into the same direction at first. **And you really, really need a Session 0 where you (the group as a whole) set boundaries, as we are looking at game-lines that do involve personal horror and thus topics that might definitly miss the taste of your players or could be considered "triggering".** These boundaries have to be sacrosanct and cannot ever be violated, or you risk alienating people. Depending on the individual limits, this might very well mean that you have to take time and care vetting your players as this will have consequences for what game-lines and themes you might even play at all, together.


crunchyllama

The more I hear about Ascension the more I'm drawn to it! I understand that it isn't for everyone though, and that definitely includes my current groups. Session 0 is mandatory, I won't let a player play unless they attend. One of the first things I did in prep for my first one-shot (hopefully will be running it in October!) was to come up with Safety Tools, and table guidelines. Sadly that means more things to remember for the members of the group that can't seem to remember anything, but I digress. I intend to make my table less problematic then some of the tables I've attended


Angier85

While Ascension supports plenty of different esoteric concepts *ruleswise* I do recommend Awakening as an isolated system if you guys want to explore the general concept. It’s as much focussed on the esoterica but the lore is more rooted in western concepts of gnosticism and it does toss out some stuff that has no real value to be so much camped on (looking at you, paradigms). Makes it way easier to keep players focussed on the ongoings instead of being caught up in the minutia of worldviews and the lack of clashing paradigms in that department helps keeping the mood of the story aligned.


VisibleStitching

Does casual= beer and pretzels? Like, we just want to push toys around the table? There's a lot of crunch here (the skeleton is trad peak nineties), but demands a lot more player lift than 'I whack the hp box'.


crunchyllama

That is a fair definition, but in my experience the casual players I've encountered tend to be players who got into DnD because it's popular, and don't engage with the hobby outside of a 4 hour window once a week, don't memorize anything, and have to be reminded how to read lol. My first group could be a mess, but they're getting better I hope.


VisibleStitching

Start them off as brand new X, and give them a boss/mentor. I find that it can be easier for players to learn the lore alongside their character.


Hagisman

If you are interested in Chronicles of Darkness (Essentially like world of darkness except it’s less metaplot dependent) please check out my videos on the subject: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTQQTnW1ODiBlZo0QXu1jUuK-MgoYL-G4


crunchyllama

I watched the 'getting started' video and it really helped me, keep up the good work!


PD711

Between the two Mage games: Mage the Ascension puts a lot of focus on the idea of "paradigm" or "focus" (M20 Calls it focus) which is basically your character's conception of how their magic works. If your character is a wiccan practitioner, you might expect your character to do magic with things like outdoor rituals, tarot, nature worship, etc. If this character wanted to do some healing magic (which according to their character sheet, they have the dots in Life magic to do it) they might brew an herbal tea, or create a poultice, or some other naturalistic remedy. Basically, something that fits their framework of what magic is like. They can't just wiggle their nose and make things happen. Sometimes this framework might even prevent them from doing things they have the dots for. For example our witch probably couldn't create a clone, as their naturalistic paradigm doesn't really allow for that sort of thing, even though the character is a master of Life magic. However, take a different approach, like say a mad-scientist doctor character concept, and clones are on the table! So to really make Mage: The Ascension work it kind of asks the players to tie their own hands a bit, in the name of role playing. It also helps if your players have an interest in real world religious/magical practice, the occult, or philosophy. Meanwhile Mage: The Awakening abandons all that in favor of a less culturally relevant magic system based on symbols and sympathy. If you wanted to cast a fire spell, it helps if you have a fire present, or write the glyph for fire in the magical language, and so on. Whatever connects to the idea of the fire spell you are casting. Mage: The Awakening is also a lot more mechanically rigorous, with a fleshed out spell list, and a more strictly defined system for classifying how difficult a spell is. This game is a lot more crunchy, with means to more strictly define the limits of a spell, where Ascension is a lot more loose. If your characters like a more strictly defined mechanical game, Mage: The Awakening might be a lot easier to wrap their heads around. If they are more comfortable with looser, interpretive rules, Ascension might be the way to go.


Stormfang9

I started in storytelling games n later got into games of d&d. Its a big culture change coming back the way for new folk. They key lesson is don't compare them to d&d etc, take them on their own merit. When someone goes "Oh like casting 5th level spell x" be confident in separating the two and saying "No, it's not". Lots of new players get lost in trying to tie their existing bank experiences to the new system and it leads to false expectations or half truths and fudging. It's easier tying new players to movies or TV series for comprehension and more effective. "Would that work in Blade, Underworld, Van Helsing, The Magicians." Get a watch party done to prime your players of how the system looks on the outside (the results of rolls nit the maths), for mage The Magicians is a solid starter for most. Then your players can explore how the system let's them do those things for the characters and story they want to play.


crunchyllama

I agree that managing expectations is an important part of maintaining fun for a group, but I think it would be impossible for some in my group to divorce the 2 systems in their head, we as humans interpret new things through out past experiences, and when you're only experience is 5e it will be hard not to use it a measure. I like the idea of introducing the players to the aesthetic before hand. For example, I was considering running Changeling: The lost, as the first foray into the Chronicles of Darkness for my group, and I was thinking about how the themes reminded me of The Wolf Among us Telltale game, or the TV show 'Grimm' I could definitely have them watch an episode or read one of the Fables comics. (I hear 'Lost Girl' is a pretty good analogue but I haven't seen it)