Geist

[Raistlin]

This was a topic started in another thread but instead of continuing to hi-jack that thread I figured I'd start a new one. I have to admit to being fairly blown away by Geist when I got it. I'm a huge fan of ghost stories and think that this could have a lot of potential for a game. My question to you all is this: should a Geist game pop up what would you be looking for in it? I think it'd have to be dedicated to Geist with either no other super types or a limited number of them(introduced later after we establish the Geist setting and get the first major TP out of the way). Anyway, I'm off to work now but I'm definitely interested in what you guys have to say. Thanks in advance.

[Retarded Disfigured Clown]

As said elsewhere and for reasons stated elsewhere, I think Geist plays best on its own.  I'd love to see it set somewhere like Mexico City or Rio, but it'd probably work best for the majority somewhere in the US.  A formula for a successful nWoD game would probably be a hybrid flat/other xp system - a certain amount per week, a small amount from PrP participation, no votes.  Prevailing wisdom right now says votes = bad. 

If you want to involve other spheres, Second Sight is probably a best fit, not only because so much of the psychic stuff works so well with Geist, but because people sometimes want an option somewhere between vanilla and fully super powered - and they will flip out less when an "M+" type realizes they're not as mechanically combat-powerful as a Sin-Eater than, say, a vampire with Vigor/Resilience/Celerity might (Seriously, Shroud > Celerity/Resilience, Caul > Vigor/Resilience). 

Maintaining momentum will be -really fucking important- to get a project like this off the ground - if you haven't got a coder, I think you're doomed.  If you do, and they know Rhost, I suggest you grab CG from grump/Gattaca as a starting point.  Grump's original code was supposed to be as modular as possible, and Gattaca's done a lot of work with it - I don't know what all has been changed (I know the dice are broken, but that's probably an easy fix) but if it's still as modular as was originally planned, you can plug in Manifestations/Keys/Synergy/Plasm/Psyche/Threshold/Archetype where Contracts/Clarity/Glamour/Wyrd/Seeming/Kith is now and pretty much go.  The data entry for Sin Eater will be minimal compared to other games - not only because there's just the core rules as far as I know, but because you've only got 7 powers and 10 keys to input and the 'merit' section for Geist is pretty damned short.

[Whirlwind]

If one really wanted a ghost-focused game (be it oWoD Wraith or nWoD Geist) with other folks around, one crazy idea that might work would be to have it so folks can make non-ghosts, but CharGen gives you some baseline "You can see ghosts" merit by default. If you want, you can sell it off for a few points (and be ghost-blind like the NPC population of the game) or can buy up higher merits of the same stripe (EG: You can physically interact with them).

Trouble is, I'm sure you'd get a slew of ghost-playing folks who felt this "nerfed" their ghosts, even though the ghost-seeing PC population would obviously be a drop in the bucket of the ghost-blind NPC population.

[Retarded Disfigured Clown]

Well, Sin-Eaters in Geist can see ghosts by default.  One could lower the cost of the Unseen Sense (Ghosts) merit, I suppose, for Second Sight/Mortals.

[Silent93]

I think that if there was a real demand for 'other' super-types, drop on the 'ghost story specific' limiter.  So the Ordo Dracul bloodline that has that ghost-interaction discipline.  The mages who have the 'afterlife' watchtowers.  I don't know if there's a puppy-line that deals with ghosts or not...but there's fair grounds to slap that limiter on.

Would allow people to get in on the fun if they don't want to play a Sin-eater or a mortal/second-sight, without derailing things.  Just make sure you don't budge on the 'others' limiter.  And that's only if you decided to let the 'others' in in the first place.

[Retarded Disfigured Clown]

So rather than GeistMU*, you have Ghost Story MU*, with focus on Geist (because it's the Ghost Story sphere).  That'd be cool.

The Werewolf tribe most likely to fit your criteria there are Bone Shadows, S93.

[Gattaca]

The cgen I modified from Grump is locked down to Changeling at the moment. But I still have all the data on the other races in there, so it would not be terribly difficult to unlock and do geist.

I do that Wyrd, blood potency (whatever equivalent the others have) is busted and I just put in a work around for Wyrd since that is all we use on my game.

If you want it - you can have it. You would still need a coder to grok it and slide it over to geist stuff.

[Silent93]

So rather than GeistMU*, you have Ghost Story MU*, with focus on Geist (because it's the Ghost Story sphere).  That'd be cool.

And hopefully it would have all the potential of Wraith, with none of the downsides.

Bad-ass stories, and strange PC interactions that make perfect sense!  And nobody stuck incorporeal in the lands of the dead, unable to do anything but watch the other players.

[Raistlin]

I'll be doing all the code for the game myself so that's not an issue. I like the idea of eventually allowing ghost-friendly 'others' to the grid. That'd be down the road if we did it at all. I just don't like saying 'no' to a splash of variety. I'm still formulating a fully detailed 'proposal' for the game. I'm still formulating an overall drive for where I want it to go. Things are looking promising though. I think this could be a very interesting theme to explore.

[Whirlwind]

I think that if there was a real demand for 'other' super-types, drop on the 'ghost story specific' limiter. 

Yep, thus my idea of all the non-ghost characters having a built-in hook for ghost interaction (namely, they can at least see them), unless they want to drop that hook in CharGen for a few extra points.

Is there anything that would prevent vampires and suchlike supers from being able to take the Unseen Sense (Ghost) Merit, with the notion being that the PCs aren't just the folks who'll be doing more than the NPCs (including the mortal and the super NPC populations) but are also folks who were born with that knack and had funkiness befall them later on?  I seem to recall something about Unseen Sense canonically vanishing if you end up super-ified, but that seems ignorable for the purposes of a Ghost Story MU*

[Retarded Disfigured Clown]

Once you get the place set up, let us know the addy?

[Cobalt]

Meh.  I thought they were done after Changeling.  >_< No more venues.  No more!

[Thenomain]

Meh.  I thought they were done after Changeling.

Can they milk more money out of Camarilla members?  Yes?  Then they're not done.

[Ganymede]

Meh.  I thought they were done after Changeling.  >_< No more venues.  No more!

Wot? No Demon/Angel?

[Seamus]

I gave Geist a read over. It's actually a halfway decent system. I'd like to see a M* based around it's concept. I agree with the masses though, the Mortal and Second Sight presence would only augment the setting of Geist.

[Raistlin]

Quick post while I'm on lunch. Here's what I'm thinking so far for the game...

It'd take place in Las Vegas(though it'd work equally well in any other crime ridden cities such as Detroit, I'm just a fan of Vegas) and focus on the 'seedy' side of Vegas life. They're well above the national average when it comes to things such as violent crimes and murder so the city would likley be filled with restless spirits looking for various things(vengeance, redemption, etc). The overall theme would be a focus on the corruption in the city. I figure we can customize things from their depending on invidual characters and such but overall things start coming to light that the local criminal element has strong ties to the Geist underworld. I'm also still very open on development of the overall theme.

I'll be able to fully code all the systems. I managed to snag a c-gen from a now defunct WoD game that I thought was pretty nifty. I'm currently converting it to geist and tweaking it to suit my own needs/tastes.

I think Vegas opens things up quite a bit character wise. Everything from detectives(or CSI types) to former boxers to prostitutes to gambling adicts to celebrities to just about anything really. Anyway those are my initial proto-thoughts on the game.

[3LC]

Apping a thinly-veiled ripoff of Oscar Goodman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Goodman, aka America's happiest mayor, would almost make any sort of Vegas game worthwhile. The man is a MUSH character come to life.

[EUBanana]

I always thought Wraith was cool.   

[lcanady]

Meh.  I thought they were done after Changeling.  >_< No more venues.  No more!

Wot? No Demon/Angel?

Well, there IS WoD: Infernal

[TheMalien]

So, are there any updates on this potential Mu? A Geist game has a lot of potential.

[Cobalt]

Meh.  I thought they were done after Changeling.  >_< No more venues.  No more!

Wot? No Demon/Angel?

To... reply extremely late.

I actually don't care for the idea of angels / demons in the World of Darkness.  I think that spirits fill this niche just fine enough, anything else is just cluttering up the world.

[TheMalien]

I actually don't care for the idea of angels / demons in the World of Darkness.  I think that spirits fill this niche just fine enough, anything else is just cluttering up the world.

While Demon was a pretty neat game the last time around, I wonder if including Angels and Demons (aside from the stuff in Inferno which seems decent) wouldn't throw too much Judeo-Christianity on a setting that's tried hard to avoid it. Even with the oWoD, which didn't really shy away from sticking God in all over the place, Demon's mythology didn't really jive so well with everything else out there.

[Cobalt]

Well, if they go by the Judo-Christian version of demons, then most definitely it would.  If they go by some of the legends of demons and monsters from other religions it wouldn't be too bad, but well.. It's White Wolf.

[Thenomain]

Wasn't there an angel featuring fairly prominently in the fiction for Promethean, not to mention one of the fictional seed ideas in the core rules?

[Cobalt]

Never really read anything about Promethean, tbh.  And I didn't read the fiction for the core rules, just the rules.

I still think that spirits play the part of angels well enough.

[EUBanana]

Demons are cooler than, I dunno, take your pick -  loa? - IMHO.

Just because it's a Judaeo-Christian concept doesn't mean it's bad, and I say that as an avowed arch-atheist.  I don't think Demon was particularly kind to Him Upstairs,  he's portrayed as a swine.  There's a reason they rebelled after all.  I remember phrases like 'His pitiless eye' from Demon.

"We're talking Old Testament, Mr Mayor, real wrath of god type stuff."

[Cobalt]

Demons are cooler than, I dunno, take your pick -  loa? - IMHO.

diafkthanx

[EUBanana]

Demons are cooler than, I dunno, take your pick -  loa? - IMHO.

diafkthanx

Don't worry Cobalt - I'm very unlikely to clutter up any of your worlds beyond posting opinions about them on here.   

[TheMalien]

Demons are cooler than, I dunno, take your pick -  loa? - IMHO.

Just because it's a Judaeo-Christian concept doesn't mean it's bad, and I say that as an avowed arch-atheist.  I don't think Demon was particularly kind to Him Upstairs,  he's portrayed as a swine.  There's a reason they rebelled after all.  I remember phrases like 'His pitiless eye' from Demon.

"We're talking Old Testament, Mr Mayor, real wrath of god type stuff."

I thought that, given the J-C bent of oWoD, the Demon stuff fit pretty well myself. I do however have a loud group of friends who bitched and moaned constantly about it, especially the hardcore Mage and the hardcore Werewolf fan. The nWoD seems to want to shed that sort of focus though, which is why I figured it wouldn't work as well this time around.

Having said that, I'd still probably end up buying the book.

Wasn't there an angel featuring fairly prominently in the fiction for Promethean, not to mention one of the fictional seed ideas in the core rules?

I vaguely remember the idea of inhuman entities that pursued the agenda of some greater idea or force that you never were quite given all the details on. They'd sometimes be antagonists for the Promethean PCs, sometimes allies... That's all I really remember. I recall Promethean being a very intriguing game, but I've yet to get any mileage out of my books.

[EUBanana]

I thought that, given the J-C bent of oWoD, the Demon stuff fit pretty well myself. I do however have a loud group of friends who bitched and moaned constantly about it, especially the hardcore Mage and the hardcore Werewolf fan.

Not too surprising, as Demon jettisons all that Weaver business.  I actually found that quite amusing.  I'm no lover of Mage or Werewolf after all.  Some mage arguing about static reality and then suddenly Gawd shows up, how embarassing.   Bzzt, wrong.

The demon archetypes actually seemed quite cool too.  Ganymede could be a devil lawyer and say things like 'Vanity, always my favourite sin!'.  Clear win.

[Cobalt]

Demons are cooler than, I dunno, take your pick -  loa? - IMHO.

diafkthanx

Don't worry Cobalt - I'm very unlikely to clutter up any of your worlds beyond posting opinions about them on here.   

Actually I was emoing because you knocked loa.

IT WAS A JOKE JEES

(You should come clutter my worlds.)

[EUBanana]

Actually I was emoing because you knocked loa.

IT WAS A JOKE JEES

 

My heart is a cold and mechanical place.  I'd be a Technocrat for sure.  Humour does not compute.  I'd love to chaingun some hippies, I admit it.   

(You should come clutter my worlds.)

Kinky!

[TheMalien]

Not too surprising, as Demon jettisons all that Weaver business.  I actually found that quite amusing.  I'm no lover of Mage or Werewolf after all.  Some mage arguing about static reality and then suddenly Gawd shows up, how embarassing.   Bzzt, wrong.

The demon archetypes actually seemed quite cool too.  Ganymede could be a devil lawyer and say things like 'Vanity, always my favourite sin!'.  Clear win.

I always did find the need for some race-specific oWoD fans to show how 'their' cosmology was the one that explained all the others. I got to listen to a lot of 'there is a God in Vampire and Demon becomes enough people believed there was a God, and it became reality, mages can become God' blah blah blah.

The more I think about it, the more I want to go download a pdf and read some of the Demon fluff. Never could find the one book that was supposed to be written by Lucifer...

[Silent93]

Honestly, Cobalt is right.

What's the difference between the Archangel Gabriel, statted as Demon would have it, and the Archangel Gabriel, statted as an Incarna?  Hell, I always liked the explanation that the Weaver was the Judeo-Christian god, and the wrath of god type stuff stopped happening because he'd gone nuts.  Thus making all the angels be greater jagglings, incarna, and celestines.

But I guess that those aren't 'playable character types'.  Fah!

Honestly, I'd really say doing it with spirits is far better than some whole other method of dealing with...um...spiritual incarnations of...wait, fuck it.  Just use damned spirits.  It's exactly what they are there for.

[Whirlwind]

But I guess that those aren't 'playable character types'.  Fah!

Not so sure about that. I mean, there was/is an oMage splatbook that listed the system for setting up a familiar or suchlike beastie that was an Umbral spirit hanging out in a physical shell, which would basically cover Infernal and/or Divine spirits that had manifested in the Prime Material Plane.

It's just that for the sake of game balance, none of them are on par with Metatron or Etrigan or suchlike.