nWoD player here: can you sell me on oWoD?

I have explained my position several times.  You find my answers "intellectually unsatisfying".  Fair enough.  I don't think it's that big a deal either way.  Either you can accept that or you can't.  It seems that you can't.  If it's just a case of Somebody Is Wrong On The Internet, I suggest you get over it.  If not, then show some social graces and please quit banging on about it.

To me, explanation is the two-way street.  If the person you are talking to does not understand, you have not explained.  You have offered an explanation, but it isn't enough for me to understand.

I can accept that you don't care to actually help me understand, though I'm not sure why.

I would appreciate though if this is something personal, you just tell me you do not want to explain and not respond to my questions instead of engaging in conversation without an intent to discuss.  I'd also appreciate if you would stop assigning these ulterior motives to my questions.  I haven't said, "you're wrong."  I've asked you to help me understand how you got to your conclusions.  Asking me to show 'social graces' seems rather odd, considering how this conversation has actually gone on.

There's nothing personal about this.  I've stated my opinion (I think the OWoD has lighter rules).  I've stated how I came to that opinion (I read the books and found lighter rules in the OWoD).  I've given a couple of examples.  You've said that's intellectually unsatisfying.  Sorry that you feel that way, but that's all the explanation that I have to offer because that's all there is to it.  I'm not about to invent complicated explanations where there are none.  Why do you refuse to accept my explanation that I read the OWoD and NWoD books and found the former to have lighter rules than the latter?  That's what happened.  There's nothing more to it.  To be honest, I find it baffling that you can't accept that simple chain of reason (read the books - compare the rules - form opinion.)   Is it because you don't agree that the OWoD has lighter rules?  Fine.  So why not agree to disagree?

At the end of the day, I've acknowledged that you don't see where I'm coming from and that's fine with me.  I'm not emotionally invested in the topic and find the protracted discussion terribly dull.  I think that your inability or unwillingness to move on from this is impolite.

Ok, lets keep it civil. No need to get in a fight about the issue. You have have both made your points, so let it go now please.

Now, I'll say that NWoD might seem like it has more rules..but technically, when taken as a whole with all the other game lines, it has less rules than OWoD. The reason? It has a single set of "core rules" that never changes, and then the game line core books add in a few more rules to enhance the base rules. In OWoD, you had different core rules for each line(tho they followed a similar vein).

Now, in OWoD, if you only played one game line, then you'd be fine. But if you wanted to play another game line, you had to figure out a whole new set of core rules for the supernatural. With NWoD, while there are new rules for each supernatural, there are less "core rules" you have to learn to add in another supernatural to the mix.

If that makes sense..

Yeah, I see what you're saying there.  NWoD is certainly friendlier to crossover games.  I think for the creation of any individual character, there are a few more rules to deal with in NWoD.  But when it comes to moving between gamelines, it's a far smoother ride at the core level.  Of course, as an Ascension player crossovers aren't something I have to deal with very often :-).  I like the idea that vampires that crop up in Ascension don't need to bear any mechanical resemblance to those that you might play in Masquerade.  Or that mages in Masquerade need have nothing to do with mages from Ascension.  NWoD covers that approach very well also in its supplements.  The variant magic system in Witch Finders, for example, is fantastic - almost worth using as a core system for mages in its own right.

I, however, took the third option...using the New WoD rules, and the OWoD metaplot...

Thebian:

Why do you refuse to accept my explanation that I read the OWoD and NWoD books and found the former to have lighter rules than the latter?

I don't refuse to accept that's what happened.  As I attempted to clarify, my question is, "what is the subjective context of this conclusion?"  Or perhaps another way, what exactly do you mean by, "lighter," outside of an objective measure of the rules?  Since this is not counting rules, what is it that makes one have more or less rules?

I'm not trying to go endless back to the mechanical process of what you did to get to a conclusion.  How can I really agree to disagree with something, if I don't even know what you're saying?  Do I agree with you?  I don't know.  Because I'm not understanding what you mean.  If we were talking about a factual approach to this (aka not opinions, but counting) I would disagree.  But you said we're not talking about that.  I don't know what you are talking about.  Hence my entire line of questions.

I'm sorry if this seems impolite, but I do care about not being understood.  I do not feel you have understood what my question is, so I'm attempting to come at it from a different perspective in the hopes that it will make sense to you this time.  It isn't an emotional investment in the topic per say.  But I don't think I've managed to communicate what I intended to you, and I want to fix that.

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Mr. Gone,

First if this crossed the line in retreading, sorry.

As to your point, I actually disagree.  The existence of the WOD core book tends to increase the number of rules present in the supernatural core books, precisely because they have more space.  Almost all of them invariably have rules that, in the oWOD would end up in supplements rather than core books. 

I would personally attribute the primary difference to core dice mechanics vs. secondary system mechanics.  The oWOD has a much more complicate base dice scheme, by having variable modifiers to target number, total dice and total successes needed for the action, where in the nWOD everything goes into dice modifiers for the base dice scheme.

The oWOD approach allows more simplicity in secondary systems (like say, combat or supernatural powers).  Since you already have a good supply of variables to play with, you write up powers and tweak them simply by manipulating the basic dice system.  Called shots in the oWOD are a simple trade off of one penalty modifier for bonus modifier on a different variable.

The nWOD approach shifts the complexity more towards the secondary systems.  There's only one variable to play around with.  The more in-depth a given secondary system is, the more you see unique rules variations.  Called shots in the nWOD are a penalty that can result in a selection of possible situational effects, rather than a simple trade off.

Dreaminggod:

I, however, took the third option...using the New WoD rules, and the OWoD metaplot...

Best of both worlds :).  Best approach to take, imho.  I freely mix setting, metaplot and mechanics from both versions, liberally sprinkled with lashings of Clive Barker, Kult and Unknown Armies.  It's a strength of both NWoD and OWoD that they lend themselves easily to modding of this sort.

[Sorry Zeev - as per Mr. Gone's request, I'm done.  No hard feelings :).]

To me my favorite WOD games Vampire: the Masquerade and Mage: the Ascension have a much more interesting setting than their follow ups. Cause the new WOD didn't add anything interesting to these games, they mostly just cuts things out. And we got Atlantis in Mage...
This is not completely rational however, in part its just a certain atmosphere that hangs around the entire thing that explains my attachement to old WOD.

But I've heard it been stated a lot that original WOD is better in terms of setting and new WOD is better in terms of mechanics. Combining the two seems like the right course of action. Allthough that does take some work. So if your big on fluff like me just play original WOD in its entirety.

This has probably been stated ad nauseum, but for me it is the metaplot that makes OWoD interesting.

Also as stated before elsewhere in this thread, NWoD vampires have an insane amount of bloodlines, whereas, OWoD had few.

What I did like about the vampires in NWoD was that as they got older, their blood increased in potency (kindof a reverse generation).  That's pretty much the only thing that they have going for them.

Thebian:

NWoD is certainly friendlier to crossover games.

This comment is one of those that I never quite understood. I have lead mostly crossovers much more than "pure" games since I find it logical to involve some Mage elements if there is a Tremere player, the Garou are an ever present threat looming over the kindred etc. I have never had any problems with any crossovers even though I do admit running a Changeling or a Wraith amongst the others tends to be a tad more difficult because of perception differences and some differences in the plains of existance but even these can be overcome and used in plot without much difficulty. But in general the rules work rather well together.

The greatest difficulties are actually formed by Vampire and Demon which try to force the Abrahamic world view to the exclusion of other game lines which have a common theme with the spirit worlds. Demon also tries it's best to screw over everything ever presented in other gamelines with the exception of Vampire. But then again thats why the ST must decide before hand which view is true Vampire/Demon or the Rest and then stay constant. This is mostly removed from nWoD by just saying that no one knows much about anything so that you all may invent your own history and truths which is basically the case with oWoD too but it atleast gave you options to chooce from so you dont need to invent your own.

Possessed:

This comment is one of those that I never quite understood.

While the cosmology thing is often part of it, most people are usually talking about the rules.  In the oWOD, each game-line uses slightly different variations on the core rules, meaning you're often stuck with differences in core mechanics (if you re-roll a 10 from a specialty, do you re-roll 10s it rolls?) and powers that don't interact with the other groups well (My Discipline uses Humanity as a difficulty, what's your mage's Humanty?).  Then you get weird things like how in WtA, spirits do Agg damage, but in MtA they do Lethal.

Combine this with the effort it takes to mix the cosmologies and you get a lot of people turned off by the approach.

Zeev:

Possessed:

This comment is one of those that I never quite understood.

While the cosmology thing is often part of it, most people are usually talking about the rules.  In the oWOD, each game-line uses slightly different variations on the core rules, meaning you're often stuck with differences in core mechanics (if you re-roll a 10 from a specialty, do you re-roll 10s it rolls?) and powers that don't interact with the other groups well (My Discipline uses Humanity as a difficulty, what's your mage's Humanty?).  Then you get weird things like how in WtA, spirits do Agg damage, but in MtA they do Lethal.

Combine this with the effort it takes to mix the cosmologies and you get a lot of people turned off by the approach.

Yes, like Zeev says, it's primarily a mechanics issue.  Not that crossovers in OWoD were impossible, or even particularly difficult once you identify the kinks.  I've run plenty of OWoD crossover games myself with no real headaches.  It's not a binary situation with NWoD crossovers being super-easy and OWoD crossovers being super-hard.  It's a sliding scale, with both pretty near the "easy" end.  They're just that bit easier in NWoD due to the mechanics being explicitly designed to be compatible. 

I actually find the setting/cosmology aspects easier to deal with than the mechanics.  I give primacy to whatever game I'm using as the basline.  So if I'm running Mage, then the Mage cosmology and rules take precedence (er, although I have spirits do Agg in Mage, lol).  Plus there's that great concept from OWoD that reality is composed of differing levels - it's possible for Demon, Mage, Vampire and Werewolf all to be true all at the same time despite their apparent contradictions.  Truths, concepts and characters can bleed back and forth across the various levels all the time, as required by the ST.  Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey and all that ;-)

I wonder if the original poster is still reading this thread.  It just occurred to me that no one really seems to be trying to sell anyone on the OWoD; it's more like a poll of opinions at this point.

Thebian:

Yeah, I see what you're saying there.  NWoD is certainly friendlier to crossover games.  I think for the creation of any individual character, there are a few more rules to deal with in NWoD.  But when it comes to moving between gamelines, it's a far smoother ride at the core level.  Of course, as an Ascension player crossovers aren't something I have to deal with very often :-).  I like the idea that vampires that crop up in Ascension don't need to bear any mechanical resemblance to those that you might play in Masquerade.  Or that mages in Masquerade need have nothing to do with mages from Ascension.  NWoD covers that approach very well also in its supplements.  The variant magic system in Witch Finders, for example, is fantastic - almost worth using as a core system for mages in its own right.

Oh, I agree on that point. You don't have to have Masquerade vampires in your Ascension game, or have them been mechnically the same. So you're right on that point.

But yea, NWoD makes crossover a lot easier, and thats what simplifies it for me...since I tended to use crossover quite abit.

Zeev:

Mr. Gone,

First if this crossed the line in retreading, sorry.

Nah, its cool. Things were just getting alittle heated, so I thought I'd step in before it got too out of hand.

Zeev:

As to your point, I actually disagree.  The existence of the WOD core book tends to increase the number of rules present in the supernatural core books, precisely because they have more space.  Almost all of them invariably have rules that, in the oWOD would end up in supplements rather than core books. 

Yea, thats a good point. With the core rules no longer needed in the main books, it does open it up for more specific rules. But, I still think, it doesn't take as much to learn a new game line in NWoD, then it does in OWoD, since the core rules are the same. Granted, it still takes some time, but I think its easier to figure things out.

I mean, I deal more in Character sheets, but looking at the sheets for each game, they are almost identical in layout, and while the names are different, you still have power stat, fuel stat, morality stat, etc. So it doesn't take much to figure out rules for those things between game lines.

Zeev:

I would personally attribute the primary difference to core dice mechanics vs. secondary system mechanics.  The oWOD has a much more complicate base dice scheme, by having variable modifiers to target number, total dice and total successes needed for the action, where in the nWOD everything goes into dice modifiers for the base dice scheme.

The oWOD approach allows more simplicity in secondary systems (like say, combat or supernatural powers).  Since you already have a good supply of variables to play with, you write up powers and tweak them simply by manipulating the basic dice system.  Called shots in the oWOD are a simple trade off of one penalty modifier for bonus modifier on a different variable.

The nWOD approach shifts the complexity more towards the secondary systems.  There's only one variable to play around with.  The more in-depth a given secondary system is, the more you see unique rules variations.  Called shots in the nWOD are a penalty that can result in a selection of possible situational effects, rather than a simple trade off.

I can see that. Really, both systemk have good and bad things about them. Honestly, they really sren't that different when you try to balance it all out. One just seems more complicated than the other, because of the way somethinfs are switched up, like you spelled out above.