• good_evening_my_princeEnglish
    12·
    21 hours ago

    This is the most depressing part. Why must every chronicle be an earth-shattering, Gehenna / Apocalypse averting romp?

    • figjam@midwest.socialEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      It doesn’t really. Any story can be fun as long as you don’t feel the need to drop in meta plot.

    • TipRing@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      11 hours ago

      This is a big part of why I prefer CofD. Also, Mage:t:Aw has a better magic system and Geist much more cheerful than Wraith.

      But then we also get the abuse-apologia game, so I guess it’s a wash.

      • jtrek@startrek.website
        3·
        11 hours ago

        Awakening 2nd edition is pretty sweet, but it’s not exactly speedy. I do enjoy the mini game of figuring out exactly how many dice I feel comfortable giving up for my bonuses, though.

        But yeah, my most recent game is a purely street level situation. Recent events include

        • killing an AI music CEO because fuck that noise
        • killing a nimby lady, a dirty lawyer, and dirty assemblyman as part of a favor exchange
        • agreeing to help a spooky but friendly old lady try to get her church back from a grifter (this will probably involve murder)
        • agreed to supply a “maybe a mad scientist?” guy that’s been working on animating the dead with bodies. (They provided two deceased dead cops)

        There sure is a lot of murder in this game, though.

        • TipRing@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          10 hours ago

          I played a Chosen of Secrets in my EvWoD game. I was playing, for all intents and purposes, a total sociopath. I’d kill people when fate said they had to die. If fate said it wasn’t their time I’d save them even from my friends. I’d tell people secrets when fate told me to, I’d hide things from people when fate indicated it wasn’t time to reveal them. I’d send people away if the signs said it was auspicious and I’d slow everyone down if the stars weren’t quite right yet (but we always showed up at just the right time for it to matter).

          Completely insane from a human standpoint. And also manipulative as fuuuuuck. Since my own destiny was destroyed I could barely be said to exist in the world and it made personal consequences fleeting enough to not care who I fucked over. And I did. Repeatedly. In ways that were basically impossible to catch up to me and the one time they did, I just Ceased to Exist - made another life for myself as a Lupus Fianna and fought in the civil war against the Get until the time was right, and then I let that life go and became myself again, such as it was.

          Weird game. Very fun. I never get to play in games and so it was a real treat to let loose in a setting I knew a lot about.

          But when I run games, I prefer a setting where I control the plot and don’t have big movers and shakers in the background doing things (unless that is important to the story somehow). Chronicles is a great set of legos to make a campaign out of.

    • Section Ratio General@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
      7·
      20 hours ago

      Personally I like setting my campaigns, regardless of system, in some post-apocalypse. Preferably, I like to veil layers of how fucked the world is so the game gets more depressing the more the players dig.

      In other words, I really like the current state of the metaplot! Gaia is fully dead, the Gehenna War is fully underway, the Fomorians have overthrown the Tuatha de Danán in Arcadia, the Acsension War has been lost and the Tempest has almost destroyed the Spell of Life, not to mention that Charon has been dead for ages and God is for all intents and purposes either dead or gone depending on your interpretation of the data.

      In my game’s canon, Lucifer tried to start the End of Days in 2005, but it didn’t stick because of Banality undoing all his work. Now he’s trying to figure out what Banality is and how to counteract it at scale, but for every step of progress he makes the world gets a little worse. Then COVID-19 happens, we all get stuck inside, the trods slam shut, and the Changelings have been slowly starving to death ever since. So, all hope of the End of Days happening is dead in the water for now.

      • good_evening_my_princeEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        And how do your players feel about this level of sad?

        Also, what is the conclusion of the chronicle supposed to be like? Survival? Reversal of fortune / rebuilding? Helping Descent along? Or is it just a depressive, morbid slice-of-life tale, where the PCs are observing the End happen?

        • Section Ratio General@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
          1·
          1 hour ago

          Changeling: the Dreaming about keeping wonder and joy alive in a world trying to crush it, so it doesn’t feel as bleak as it is. Also my wife is enjoying playing as a 7-year-old disney princess who sings to the amimals and forces the grown-ups to dance along. Absolutely terrifying little monster.