u/Solarwagon

I like what I've read about it and I'm familiar with the distinguishing mechanics. It's GMless, uses tokens/lures, and is usually centered around marginalized groups trying to survive oppression/manage their own society.

But beyond that what does the actual gameplay feel like at its best?

What tips do you have for people who struggle in general with the brain juices that tabletop roleplaying demands?

That's kinda where I'm at, I've had fun with Werewolf the Apocalypse but it took me longer than many people to really get the actual game playing and I'm still very much a novice.

I've got both dyslexia and dyscalculia and other brain problems that make it harder

I've read before that in ancient Roman society there was a nebulous class of "parasites." People who were "professional flatterers" who would cozy up to various rich Romans in order to get food and shelter from them, memorizing etiquette and whatnot to maximize their appeal.

Was this something specific to Romans and societies descended from ancient Roman culture?

Seems like something that'd mainly emerge within societies with an entrenched and wealthy upper class.

I'm more interested in pre modern variations of this because I know that with the rise of radio and TV and especially the internet you could argue this is an even bigger thing in the ways that matter.

I'm interested in general in the social perceptions and structure of people who are supposedly "unproductive."

I've had ideas in my brain about a chronicle with Mages in high school.

One idea was one of the canon schools that the Order of Hermes uses for Sorcerers but the PCs one by one begin Awakening as they learn more about themselves. Something like Hogwarts or Little Witch Academia but the Hermes paradigm.

Another idea was a boarding school secretly controlled by New World Order where they put Awakened teenagers, using a special method of preventing them from remembering that they're Awakened and false memories put in place, them gradually regaining memories and stuff. Other splats could make it cool to.

But I also have ideas for the other Tradtions like a Catholic college/high school that's secretly founded and maintained by the Celestial Chorus or a performance arts school run by the Cult of Ecstasy or a space camp run by Ethernauts or a programming camp run by Cybernauts.

Have you ever tried something like this?

For those who don't gothicpunk originated as the label for a franchise of RPGs called the World of Darkness. If you know what Vampire the Masquerade is then that's gothicpunk except there are a bunch of other games in that same universe.

And since the coining of that term in the 90s it's become a bigger and broader aesthetic and genre apart from the World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness stuff. Part of solarpunk using the punk suffix in a way for more general indie fiction with a defined look and feel.

More gothic novels than gothic fashion or music but definitely influecned by that to.

Really the Werewolf the Apocalypse line of media would be solarpunk if it wasn't so dystopian and outside certain factions in the game, they're not really concerned as much with rebuilding as much as fighting the status quo.

But I am really curious about the overlap between solarpunk and fantasy fiction.

And lotta the inspirations for solarpunk seem to be specifically modern architecture or more colorful/cheerful/stylish schools of older architecture like art deco or romantic stuff.

But a part of me likes not just gothic architecture but the idea of aesthetically gloomy but philosophically optimistic.

Like the idea that death/suffering/decay are natural and even beautiful.

In a way doesn't that honor environmentalism and the natural world even better? The idea that even the uglier sides of nature are also valuable and beautiful in their own way.

Let me know your thoughts.

Reading a lot of Hunter lore there are bits like "Humanity is blind to the monsters that walk among them, only the Imbued, with the power of the Messengers, can see past their facade!"

or "The Imbued know if they told their loved ones or neighborhood about the dangers in their city they'd be called crazy! Only other Imbued can understand the Reckoning! It's them against the end of all!"

I get that this might reflect their kinda myopic POV but some of the Creeds seem more than grounded enough that they could understand groups like the Society of Leopold or the Templar or really the other mortal centered groups even before the Second Inquisition that were well aware of the existence of the things they hunt.

And aside from that it's not like you couldn't just show someone a staked vampire burning up in the sunlight or maybe a werewolf corpse or point out weird behavior or more subtle signs.

Like just because someone's not Imbued doesn't mean they can't be shown evidence or convinced some other way.

It's a convo I see variats of pretty often on this sub and other rpg communities.

"Our table tried that game but we didn't find it fun."

"Did you understand how that rule is meant to be followed/what that mechanic really is good for/ how it's actually meant to be played?"

If you watch a movie or read a book then the movie/book itself is received pretty much the same way regardless of whose reading it.

But with tabletop games like half of it is what the developers intended but the other half is leaning on the GM's knowledge and skills and the players abilities to.

I know this is a super subjective and complex question but I'm still curious to hear people's takes as someone not very experienced at all.

Like in a weird way I think that being a GM is like a distinct field of study like how we consider filmmaking or acting something you go to school to learn how to do the right way.

But there are no schools for GMs, the closest we have is a lot of blogs and gaining experience GMing.

So how can we distinguish a system from a GM in terms of art?

I've had this game on my list for a long time. I found out about it through the Signalis fandom, another indie retro horror game. I love Signalis so much and if I had to pick I definitely like Signalis way more overall.

I'm going to be kinda critical in this review. I don't mean any offense to people who like this game this is mainly just speaking to my personal experience and perspective on the medium.

And I'm going to limit spoilers as much as possible for any games so if you've never played it, you can read on if you want.

First of all, I really appreciate the level of effort and forethought it probably took to make this experience as revolting as it is. It's very clear that it's not supposed to be a fun game, it's supposed to be a tragic and disgusting experience through and through.

This is horror after all. Signalis is also supposed to evoke that reaction. In both games as the player learns more the worse they feel about the world and bad they feel for the characters.

But Mouthwashing gave me an experience that reminds me of The Last of Us 2, like the story itself is asking the player to be more and more masochistic, taking beloved characters and ripping them apart like little paper dolls for shock value.

Signalis felt more like living through someone's memoir, deeply unsettling and heartbreaking but and I'm not sure I'm putting this into words well...

Elster is a much more blank slate main character, I think and really the characters are heavily up to interpretation.

Mouthwashing uses some surrealism in its gameplay that reminds me of Signalis but the situation is much less subjective and the main characters qualities are much more set in stone.

I think the masochism comes from the fact that as the player I'm forced to fill the role of someone I increasingly feel less and less similar to so it feels more and more like I the player am being accused of sympathizing with a terrible person.

Character assassination might be the term I'm reaching for, an interactive character assassination.

It feels like a middle finger to me as a player and I felt like my time spent playing the was time spent being flagellated by the developers.

And just to be clear I'm a longtime fan of VNs like Saya no Uta and Dasaku and titles way darker than even those two!!!

This isn't me being squeamish about the subject matter, it's me thinking that if you're going to be featuring topics like Mouthwashing in an interactive medium then the player should feel like they have some ability to interact with the narrative.

Signalis doesn't really have any good endings aside from one extremely difficult to reach one that leaves the ending an open question.

But there are several endings that the player can reach ranging in tone and stuff. Mouthwashing plays like a museum exhibit for someone the developers want us to hate with relatively little nuances.

I'm open to others takes but this is just mine.

I mean if you consider a couple months recent, it's recent.

Morimens interests me despite the stuff I've read about them backsliding from a relatively fair and high quality gacha to the stereotypes of profit seeking gacha games.

I was tempted to get into Girls Frontline because I also really like Gunslinger Girl and they provided it a boost by doing a collab with them.

So I'm wondering what the community thinks about it apart from the existing fandom for Morimens.

As far as I can tell in the earliest editions the books generally take the second stance but the first stance has become more common in future books.

As in the original books leaned a lot into them being like racists just against magic and controlling cultures and governments from the shadows by and means necessary but later books showed things a bit more form their POV and made them less of an all knowing faction.

Part of that is the plot of the splat moving towards the endgame and the Technocrats realizing maybe they're not perfect but it also seems like some soft retconning went on.

But if you ask me I actually like the earlier edition version. I haven't got a chance to play Mage yet but I like reading the lore.

If I had a PC I'd wanna lean more into the X Files kinda stuff, investigating and fighting a corrupt status quo.

What do you think? What do you prefer in your chronicles?

And yes I know the best recipe is probably a mix of both, some middle ground, and depending on various factors but you know what I mean?

It's one of the weirdest splat interactions. The Tremere used to be Mages, a faction of the Order of Hermes but they wanted immortality so bad they were willing to become Kindred.

And also they were willing to do a ton of other evil stuff across the centuries including but not limited to genetically engineering slaves and building a whole network and really too much to list.

Even centuries later the Hermes seem to really hate them, heck even lotta Kindred don't like the Tremere and the feeling is probably mutual.

But I'm curious about outlier interactions like a Tremere Scourge or Prince or something like that discovering a Rogue Sorcerer from the Order of Hermes that Awakened, that they found before anyone else.

Or a Hermes Chantry discovering a Tremere Fledgling abandoned by her Sire and seeming not to be in the stereotype of sadistic scheming vampire wizard.

Might be particularly interesting after the Second Inqusition when the Pyramid isn't a factor and there's more diversity.

In both cases the Orphan/Fledgling shows great potential, but could be expected to die gruesomely on their own.

Like an orc raised by elf situation.

What do you think? Anything like this in your chronicles?

Our chronicle is set in the past so in our Pack their lineage has mainly been the Iron Riders and later on the Wise Guys, the Camps that came before the Corporate Wolves.

The Wise Guys are werewolf mafia, pretty much. Just a bit nicer than a lot of organized crime because they're doing it for Gaia.

In fact we started in Wild West so our Pack got to kinda witness the founding of that Camp, not that we saw it happen but our Glass Walker Ahroun found out stuff down the grape vine.

It's weird how little canon there seems to be with them fighting the Giovanni despite both factions having a Cosa Nostra thing.

My Child of Gaia Galliard had dots that let her know about Kindred history, including the Giovanni and it let her recognize a surname mentioned on a receipt as an alias for the Puttanesca who was trying to pretty literally muscle a Wise Guy Sept out of a city.

But then it turned out that they were completely mortal!

Our Pack planned for fighting vampires but they just turned out to be mortal relatives with silver bullets and some other counters to Garou.

And after we rather brutally killed quite a few of their leaders we captured one of their daughters, interrogated her, and she revealed to us that they were outcasts among the Giovanni trying to earn their way back in and she only seemed to know about rumors about stuff with ghosts, not even the vampire stuff!

Not that I'm complaining, it was a fun series of sessions but you'd think the Giovanni and Wise Guys would be more natural archnemesis.

Any experiences in your chronicles like this?