#classic world of darkness

[theonyxpath]

On this day in 2012, we went public at Gen Con! Thank you for joining us in our Many Worlds, One Path!

[manyworldsofdarkness]

Wanna go into detail? Join our discord

[briangrossman]

[psychicmayhem]

Had you asked this question when I was playing a lot of World of Darkness LARPs, I probably would have said it's not cheating per se, but it certainly feels like poor sportsmanship. Although I wouldn't have been able to fully articulate or defend my answer.

But now that I've been stewing in old-school-adjacent RPGs for over a decade, my opinion is probably this: are not many challenges in traditional RPGs a mix of player skill and character skill? You make plans based on what you know and the resources at your disposal, hoping that good planning and positioning will counteract any bad luck that might arise from random elements. In this case, you could consider Shadiya usually throwing paper akin to her character Semiramis having a tell when she lies or favoring her left side in a fight — your character has correctly identified a weakness and exploits it during challenges. (And I can't think of anything that screams "petty vampires being jerks to each other in Elysium" than that!) The fact that said weakness blends player and character knowledge is pretty much par for the course for many role-playing games.

All that to say: I don't think metagaming is "cheating" or even really a problem. Playing pattern-recognition games with pattern-recognizing animals and then getting upset that the animals recognized patterns seems a little silly to me.

But ask me the same question in another decade or two and perhaps my answer will have changed yet again.

debate time: a larp has been designed using rock-paper-scissors as a resolution mechanic, because the designers thought it was entirely chance-based. It isn't, it's skill based, and some participants are much easier to beat than others.

Is playing rock-paper-scissors to win, rather than randomly selecting, cheating? Is picking your opponents to get matchups you think you can win cheating?

Explain.

[sayxit]

Silence

[theonyxpath]

10 years ago today we released the White Howlers Tribebook for Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition via our partners at drivethrurpg.com https://drivethrurpg.com/product/137620/W20-White-Howlers-Tribebook?affiliate_id=13&src=OPPTumblr This book contains the story of the White Howlers, tips for using them in modern games and more!

[manyworldsofdarkness]

The official Orpheus trailer from the old White Wolf website

[briangrossman]

[typewriter-worries]

you say you love the world, so love the world | inspired by @soracities' post about how love is real and always will be

[dykealloy]

[ancient-mystery]

Temple of the Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl, at Teotihuacán, Mexico. Active approximately 1st to 7th centuries CE.

📸 by me.

[ladyofwasps]

Would like to tack on the following

The regent of the Sabbat is a drag queen performing an unending routine as a different vampire to avoid the world's weirdest murder trail.

Bela Lugosi not only convinced himself he wasn't Lugosi but also convinced himself he was actually Dracula.

Pentex created cockroach lycanthropes but they caught the attention of the totem Cockroach who then officially declared his werewolves should be bros with the wereroaches.

They also made monkey lycanthropes who for some reason were put in charge of business matters. They spent an ungodly amount of time and money on literal monkey business.

There's a nosferatu moonlighting as "El Diablo Verde," a professional wrestler who pulls off insane superhuman feats in the ring and this isn't a masquerade violation because "everyone knows wrestling is fake."

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were patrons of the Technocratic Union because she's the steampunk queen.

Sejanus, a roman soldier and close friend of Emperor Tiberius, was a vampire and pretended to be a ventrue for so long and so convincingly he became prince of Washington D.C. A roman soldier older than Christ by 46 years became the regional ruler of D.C. because he is really good at lying.

Speaking of D.C., according to the erotica novel some vampires fuck on the top of the Washington Monument.

Dracula sold the rights to his life story to Bram Stoker so he would break the masquerade for the lolz

The Sabbat LARP D&D in the sewers with dominated humans who are convinced they are actually fantasy monsters

A malkavian once learned to survive off eating words rather than blood and even ate his own entry in the Clanbook.

Changlings in Boston host a riddle contest every 4th of July.

They also have a vampire who thinks he's a fairy.

There are mage apes.

Also mage aliens.

A bishop was such a fan of The Shining he often flashcrafted himself to look like Jack Nicholson and LARP scenes to himself.

The Possessed sourcebook has a cow that cannot be killed by any means.

There's also a goat that can eat anything and has appeared throughout time.

There was a futuristic city of sentient dinosaurs that the Mokele have genetic memories of. You can run a canon friendly Cyberpunk x WoD game so long as every character is a dinosaur.

Isaac Newton was killed in a drive by shooting during Prohibition.

Cain is an LA cab driver, Lucifer is a washed up director, Charon was isekaied into modern day as a nobody, due to the apocalypse being retconned these guys are all still living boring lives somewhere in California.

Every single supernatural wants to say they have Rasputin.

A lady embraced 15 snakes. There are 15 vampire snakes in the world, 15!

This is from Chronicles but its worth a mention, the Whipping Boys legacy is a group of wizards who channel their magic through BDSM.

I love this setting so much and its wackiness is a huge reason why.

Sometimes I rly feel like the wod Fandom needs to remember that while the wod is dark, it's also goofy as fuck and it's ok to laugh at it and point out how ridiculous something is.

Wizards killed an old vampire with space lasers. There is an evil company which puts demons into burgers. During the war in Atlanta someone replaced the round business table where the lasombras were arguing with a reflective square table which increased the body count during the meeting.

It's ok to laugh. We don't need to be defensive of our fav game.

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: l_reads

[runningwithwolvesss]

[chaoticaesthetician]

abnormally large trees please lend me some of your centuries worth of wisdom

[deadlypoetacademia]

How beautiful is the art of remembering little things. Like you got me a red velvet cake for my birthday just because I randomly told you about it once we were passing through the bakery, like you know the name of my favourite perfume, like you know I have a habit of holding hands while crossing the road, like you know I like spicy food more than sweet, like you know so much about me about such little things. Could I love you anymore?