This is our first time trying anything like a video essay so this quite experimental and in its visual and narrative language very clearly headed by 5 people with roiling, overcooked ADHD brains but you might've already expected that going into a video on this channel. Nevertheless, we hope you enjoy and, of course, give this setting and franchise a chance if you haven't already because _Its Good,_ we think. And if you DO enjoy this format, we could look into more stuff like this in the future. Not neccesarily just about WoD either! We could cover whatever we feel we've got an interest in. Hell, we could maybe even do something Warhammer if there's interest, this format plays within their legal ballpark, could be worth looking into.
So would you suggest Chronicles + The Vigil or Hunter 5e for a first time GM and group? The 5e does seem to be easier to grasp but doesn't seem to have much going on for hunting organizations or for supernatural effects for players.
one of my favorite little lore bits is how the Technocracy was behind the Apollo missions as part of a plot where they thought that by showing everyone that the moon is just a boring dusty rock with nothing mystical or special about it would weaken Werewolves, but instead the Luna Landing inspired so much wonder in people that it brought the fairies back instead, leading to Changeling: The Dreaming.
Theres something *deeply* hilarious about how the technocracy is all uppity acting all enlightened to bring humanity to the next age, thinking that the moonlanding is nothing special, they are so lost in their own sauce id be confident in saying theyve lost touch with reality. Its also deeply sad that looking at all the crazy achievements they've made with hyperscience, that they forget the simple joy of discovery there are more frontiers in the world
Honestly, the All-Powerful Conspiracy That Is Super Great And Behind Everything And Also Totally Manipulating All The Happenings In Your Own Campaign (TM) is much more interesting if it's just incompetent and fails at its biggest endeavors
Its a good visual to hammer home that even the hardest Supernatural being in WoD can be thrown off balance (heh) and even killed with a little planning and a hell of a lot of luck.
The fast food chain isn't the main enemy on itself, it's owned *by* the megacorporation that is the main enemy of the setting, Pentex. They own several companies and subsidiaries they direct towards evil acts, O'tolley's being one of them.
Not so much the main enemy, but a subsidiary of one of the main enemies. "Pentex" is a Megacorporation that directly worships "The Wyrm" (The metaphysical aspect of corruption werewolves face) it has a ton of Subsidiaries that spiritually and physically pollute the world. "O'Tolleys" is just one of it's many companies. "Enron Oil" is the main company it started from.
@@danny_decheeto8300 From the wiki: "Also called "The Family Place", O'Tolley's operates mainly in the USA and Canada, and as a branch of Pentex, it is dedicated on spreading corruption and create an atmosphere that allows banes to grow stronger. It sells very slightly "Wyrm-tainted" food products to the population as a whole to make them overweight and lose ambition. " The Wyrm and its minions being the main antag of the Werewolves.
@@danny_decheeto8300 Also, O'Telly's is owned by Pentex. Described thus: "Pentex is a multi-national megacorporation, one of the largest in the world, which is also tainted by the Wyrm. Its main agenda is the spiritual, moral, and environmental corruption of the planet. It is the main tool on Earth of the Defiler Wyrm and one of the most implacable foes of the Garou."
One of my favorite clown shoes aspect of the WoD setting is that Rasputin is probably an otherworldly being, but even in WoD he is SO weird that no one actually knows for certain WHAT kind of thing he is
Honestly, that sort of cross species "What The Fuck"ery is my favorite thing about WoD/CoD. Having the different supernatural species bicker/clash/co-operate like that over storylines/mythologies/Chronicles are always a hoot.
Jesus is also like that, I believe. Werewolves recall about him that he was basically a walking Caern, and some Mages and Vampire Clans claim him, but the reality about him doesn't quite match ANYTHING.
I heard that authors kleptomaniac tendencies toward historical figures were one of the downfalls of original WoD ie OWoD. Yeah, sure, every person of prominence ever was supernatural. Right...
@TheArklyte Except the Nazis, of course. Even WoD writers weren't tasteless enough to assert that the Third Reich did what it did because of some secret agenda by supernatural agents. There was supernatural involvement, people who were ideologically interested by the fascists or just opportunistically using the carnage for their own schemes, but by and large the leadership was just a collection of very, very bad people who did bad things for bad reasons.
Chronicles of Darkness actually has two popular fan-made gamelines: Genius: The Transgression, where you play as mad scientists; and Princess: The Hopeful, where you play as Madoka-style magical girls.
And probably a dozen more amazingly written, if not that popular, other fan made lines like Dragon, Leviathan, Demon, Outsider, Siren and Wraith and furtherly even more obscure ones.
I don’t know if Bruva will ever read this, but honestly I’d rather spew positivity to the winds instead of being silent; the TTS series were the catalyst that brought me into 40k and eventually wargaming as a whole and miniature painting as a hobby. I’d listen on repeat while building and painting minis and would excitedly announce new releases of the series to my friends (even those who thought of me nothing more than a raving lunatic). The hiatus of TTS, like many fans, hit me like a cold knife slowly greeting my spine with shockwaves of sadness and anger at GW. Didn’t really help I was going through personal self destructing agendas at the time. Watching the first episode of HtP was once again, like TTS, a muse that guided me into new things… specifically it motivated me to go outside the umbrella of GW and try new systems and different miniatures to paint. Even tried out TTRPGs and painted characters for them. The D&D OGL fiasco left me a bitter taste… and then this video was released. I ordered Hunter the Reckoning 5th edition. I found a cell of willing players. We will dive into the World of Darkness very very soon. So thank you. Everyone. All the souls that pour their very being into these videos. You have turned me into a WoD fanatic that will refuse to touch grass in any way shape or form. Also D’s voice makes me moist. OKAYIGOBYENOW
If this gives you more stuff to enjoy some of the crew behind tts and htp run a darksouls inspired pathfinder stream on the channel narrative declaration.
@@justinsummers8788 I'm just shocked someone else knows what Red Markets is. A lost friend introduced it to me years ago and it's hard to convince people to play it for some reason. My favorite character was a Black Math pyromaniac with a flammewerfer.
I'm still a GW boy to heart, but I agree to an extreme with everything said in this. Me and my older brothers discovered tts maybe a year before its hiatus. Its great lore comparisons and jokes got us interested in the lore where I started listening to lore vids and podcasts, and then I actually started looking at painting and got hooked. Currently making smurf army because of their overpowered lore
No matter how horrific or dreadfull WoD setting can be I will always describe it as a Gothic themed clown car that fits in vampires, werewolfs, ghosts, mages, mummies and god knows what else, it's the best thing ever.
@@vi0let831 Is a group from the World of Darkness, is literal circus filled with many supernatural creatures that has the explicit purpose to kill and corrupt as much as possible.
"This is because the metric for Oh, FU- is three to six guys with shotguns hanging out somewhere they weren't expected." Yeah I'd say that is a realism-building aspect of the game. My char: "I am an invincible were-spider the size of a car, you can't defeat me!" The Hillbilly with a home-made Flamethrower: "I can give it a go."
@@ComedicLetter Your character may experience a +1 increase in Strength or Stamina, though he also may become edgy and paranoid. The Storyteller bases the effects of the drug on the volume that your character takes, how pure it is and your character's state of mind.
yeaaaa i feel like that is a super major flaw in the world building then. Realistically it should be a case of 'shotguns are effective cause they do more physical damage, but they are still a mundane weapon and won't properly seperate a monster's soul from their immortal flesh'. Like yeha the flamethrower gonna hurt that spider bad but.... it won't keep the spider from killing the hillbilly.
It is also technically the most popular WOD show in existance. Even the official live play , LA by Night and NY by night do not get the same views. Coincidentally only the Hololive Live play of Hunter the vigil ever cam close to viewership with parenting
My favorite template is Mage: The Ascension. I played an Akashic "Mage" named Cidney who watched so many Jackie Chan films that he started to think it was all real, and no one told him otherwise. Mostly because he could actually DO it. Mans was a Saturday morning cartoon character with how much shit he could do, and how stupid it got. Later on in the game, he even got a pair of arm mounted grappling hooks so he could be a discount Spiderman if he wanted to. In his first appearance, he punched a zombie so hard it's head flew off and spin-kicked another into dust, both saving and mildly traumatizing a bus full of school children as he did so. Another time he grabbed a charging evil horse, and spun it around to throw it at its buddy. And then continued to do that until he killed them with each other. And another time he drank from the fountain of youth by accident because he didn't realize what it was and he was really thirsty. And another time, he suplexed a serial killer off of a motorcycle and then shot him in the face with a massive revolver. Also, he was the friendliest person on the team with by FAR the best stats for talking to people. He was an action himbo that fought monsters for three reasons, 1 because it was fun, 2 because he was good at it, And 3, he was raised by a Hunter. So it's basically in his blood. I played him as a carefree goofball who wasn't all that smart, but meant well, and knew everything there was to know about the streets, and hunting monsters (which we did rather often). This very often led him to being the VIP in combat, while mostly being full clownshoes comic relief outside of it. The rest of the party was composed of a druggie musician who played us battle music and other scene appropriate music, and he also dealt with vampires in his free time, a mad scientist whose brain was fused with an Akashic child, and so then they did sci fi tech AND kung fu, a reporter who leveraged spirits to get the next big SCOOP, and a drug dealer who did blood magic on the side, and was the Akashic kid's overprotective cousin, but didn't know that the kid wasn't just the kid anymore. It was a fun, if sometimes very stupid, game. I miss it greatly.
I am torn between wanting it DESPERATELY to come back, due to how pure fun it was, but i also dont want them to get into any trouble due to how BS the whole mess was
My favorite WOD character was my Wraith-- "Brother Confessor" who I made eternal and able to appear in multiple locations with a single note I was allowed where he triumphed over the destruction of his cathedral. He became an information broker for our mixed storylines. Edit: incidentally, made the storyteller mad i broke the game with a throwaway thing he gave me because of player table shenanigans but he thought it was such a cool sidestep that he allowed it. And later everyone enjoyed having Brother Confessor around. He was kinda like ghostly gps and google who could also offer advice to heartsick monsters.
"Ghostly GPS and Google," is a very helpful idea for any campaign, I didn't realize that's the description of one of my monk DMPCs until you mentioned it
4 in law, 2 in medicine. Because nothing can throw more of a wrench into the legal defense than a suddenly updated autopsy. Also, being a semi-competent doctor is useful should someone need a little more than a bandaid. Also, be aware of two key aspects. Dispose of the body if possible and. "No witnesses, no crime!"
“Failure. Perhaps next time”. An old voice from a friend not seen for what felt like an eternity. A faint smile grows on an aged face as memories of a simpler time return.
I'm hoping this means they might dip their toes back into TTS. They did say that the show wasn't cancelled and that they didn't want to continue it without at least having something to fall back onto. Now that they have HtP, I'm guessing they're gonna start some production on it again in the near future.
Definitely! But, it might take a bit, we didn’t expect this video to do as well as it did so newer content of this variety is going to be happening a bit later down the line, at least as far as we’ve planned things right now. But we are VERY excited to continue doing this kind of stuff, without doubt.
@@alfabusa I found your vid through a random tiktok on a tumblr post and I have to say that I freaking loved this video! I'm brand new to the TTRPG scene but I've always wanted to get into it. I gravitated towards Werewolf the Apocalypse due to the lore and artwork (also, I have a rather unhealthy obsession with werewolves). Whenever you do, I can't wait to hear your take on WtA and WtF!
@@alfabusa how about a bestiary for the next video essay, going into the detail on the different races of WoD. the organisations and types of Hunter the clans and factions of Vampire the tribes and different changing breeds of werewolf and so on and so forth
HOW DARE THAT SABBAT TZIMITZE GET POPULARITY, HES LITERALLY BODY HORROR KINDRED HITLER UUUUGH. WORSE, THAT HAS TO BE THE HIGHEST MASQUERADE VIOLATION EVER!
16:30 (a better time was pointed, and edited to this.) “Rushing down Yog-Sothoth with a blicky and a pocket full of dreams.” This is peak Speaker D monologuing and I’m here for it.
@@TheGoodLuc how dare you, of course there's hope in 40k! The hope to Kill even MORE Heretics before a corrupted angel of man crushes you under its seramite boot
@@seelcudoom1aybe it's 50/50 with him. Or the coin toss. Sure he dominates a entire squad of ghouls but maybe in a fight against vampires where your party is winning but he get surprised attacked.
"Dis iz our furwst video essay. Pweeze be nice =(" proceeds to effortlessly knock a video essay out of the park. Its so good I kinda don't wanna be nice about it just to be spiteful.
Dude, you have a vibe that is honestly more engaging than most people. If I had met anybody like those in Ogre Poppenang in High School, I'd be doing this for War Machine.
My personal skub issues with 5th Edition lore aside, it was an amazing overview that really captured the heart of WoD's appeal. Definitely comes from a place of love.
I’ve heard of people mixing WoD and CoD to great effect. Two examples that come to mind is running Changeling: the Lost in WoD because it’s just more coherent than Dreaming, and running Mage games that use Ascension’s lore but Awakening’s mechanics.
Mage is always a hoot "I want to turn that man's junk into a duck" "Uh... do you have the stats to do that?" "Yeah" "Alright, if you succeed the roll, that man's junk is a duck I guess"
@@tokushiroku2291 Oh dear god! Wrinkle! Took my character back in time and made me NOT do the magic that incurred the paradox that put him on my tail. That’s after he screwed with me horribly. Putting my character in the path of Hailey’s comet, and threatening to let it hit me unless I agreed to behave!
Speaking of WOD stories I have one, we were playing Mage and were investigating a shady ass rural medical center outside of Seattle that was for sure connected to the Technocrats. Our cabal had a Virtual Adept running tactical, an Akashic with a penchant for playing Spider-Man, a Hermetic with a Daemon cat friend and a tinge of Fae blood, a Hollow one who was the literal reincarnation of Edger Allen Poe; complete with Raven. And my character, a 7ft tall orphan who later joined the Cult of Ecstasy who drew their power from an Aztec goddess. Alongside us we 2 Werewolves for the Children of Gaia, one of whom was our VA's mother brought back to life and the other of witch was a Vietnam vet and the VA's mate. So needless to say we were pretty fucking stacked against whatever we found, we stacked up by the front door to breach and clear the place only to set off a ward and get half our group shoved into the umbra and then making so we couldn't cross back over to easily. Unfortunately for our ST he rolled to see who it was and it would up being the Hollow one, who was a powerful spirit mage, and the Hermetic and Akashic, so they just went right along with the plan and started fucking up the constructs and doctors they found there... even wrecked shop on a hit-mark till a few newer models made them have to run for it. Meanwhile my character and the werewolves went through the real front door and began subduing the civies and taking out the cyborg orderlies we ran into, since it was basically three walking tanks running the place and the Technos weren't expecting us it didn't take long. Eventually the team in the umbra construct manged to light the place on spiritual fire and get out and our group kicked in the hidden last door at the end of the complex, we rushed inside and found three doctors looking over several beds of comatose patients hooked up to some weird devices. Our St went about explaining how 2 of the doctors freak out and look like they were reaching for weapons, expecting us to all target one of the two, but I noticed something... the third doctor hadn't panicked at all. Now I like to think that both in and out of game I'm a fairly brave person, but if I saw a 7ft tall amazon looking woman in full tactical gear and a combat shotgun and two full crinos werewolves with assault weapons kicked down my door I think I would be a bit spooked to say the least... hell I'd probably wish I'd wore brown pants. But this Lady didn't bat an eye... so i figured she had to be the most dangerous thing in the room, and subsequently blew her lower leg off with the aforementioned shotgun. As it happens I was right and she had been about to activate a kill-switch that would have teleported her out of there and flooded the place with toxic gas and silver, but the shock of loosing a leg stopped her till we were able to subdue her. Turns out it wasn't just a technocrat base but was with the Special Projects and Research division and those poor folks had had their DNA torn apart and fucked with to turn them into living Quintessence generators, but that's a story for another time.
@@hammer1349 oh yea not to mention that my own character was 7ft tall and built like an amazon and the was probably the worst 3-man stack you could have run into
I cannot stress enough how much I LOVE educational content mixed with comedy. Not too much that it feels like a farce, but enough that it helps keep your attention. You could literally talk about ANYTHING if you make it entertaining enough.
Hearing The Emperor’s voice at the end was like receiving a warm blanket you didn’t expect to have. It pains me about what happened to TTS. It’s what got me into Warhammer 40k. But just like that series, Hunter: The Parenting got me into the World of Darkness. I bought Bloodlines not too long ago and having a blast with the setting. Thanks for the amazing content y’all. ❤️
I *love* the idea of Hunter. Something about being just a dude aware of the all the monsters pretending to be people and monstrous people, and trying to do something about it is just my shit.
Amen, reason why I love the boys show soo much too, I tried to get into a game once long ago but I gave up on that as I wasn't able to find anyone running who had a empty spot
EVERY TIME F.Knudsen shows up in a Ogre Poppenang video I lose my mind all over again. His voice and cadence is just perfectly suited for the bizarre duality of hyper-serious and dramatically comical that OP finds itself in.
My favorite moment of “knowing” world of darkness lore while watching hunter the parenting is definitely when Grimal ask why there are no vampires in Japan and I just thought “because they nuked them twice”
There are very few Cainites in Asia, mostly because that is Kuei Jin territory and high-gen Cainites can easily get shredded by most Kuei Jin (or Wan Kuei, Gaki or whatever you might call them.) The nuking of Japan did a lot to strengthen malicious spirits by tainting the Umbra (spiritual world), but it actually strengthened some Kuei Jin, such as the Scorpion Eaters or the Akuma: the ones who serve the Yama Kings.
I liked the very meta response Markus gave, basically talking OOC about how the very idea of "kuei jin" is some very ignorant americans in the 80s shoving together different bits of mythology from different asian countries into a single thing. Which, imo, is the proper answer. It's okay to admit that the thing you like has some problematic parts caused by the creators.
@@Shenaldrac Cainites are also a messed up jumble of western religion folklore and mythology, as is every other WoD game line. If you consider that problematic than the entire franchise is problematic to its very bones.
@@pietromassimi7104 Not really? Dies in sunlight, need to drink blood, can't eat normal food, having a stake shoved through the heart is bad news, that all lines up pretty well with established vampire mythos. Hardly a "jumble" when you can find all that in the seminal vampire book Bram Stoker's Dracula.
@@Shenaldrac Descend from Caine? Nope. Being anywhere outside central Europe or maybe Greece? Nope. Having "generations"? and clans? Nope. Being literal gods of other religions, making the Judeo-Christian the only "true" one? Nope. Most of VtM lore plays and twists cultural concepts both inside and outside the physical nature and powers of vampires, and a lot of the time it does it just as badly as Wan Kuei lore or Mage canons do it. Also, western vampires are more about folklore than modern novels like Carmilla, The Vampyre or Dracula, and as I've shown even if limit yourself to those it takes them and changes them. Just because a fictional world, however based on reality it may be, changes stuff around, it doesn't make it "problematic" by any objective metric, if such a thing can even exist at all.
Honestly, I don't expect anybody to read that two weeks after release, however I wanted to say it This was VERY GOOD. You took something that seemed convoluted and nebulous to me and made it both understandable AND amusing. This is a wonderful, wonderful work of "vulgarisation" I would really like you (SpeakerD, Alfa or any member of he crew really) to make a whole serie of "deep dive essays" on the World of Darkness. Maybe present us the different clans and so on so we can better understand the plot of Hunter : The Parenting ? Or maybe make some quick videos about the theories made by people in the comments, neither denying nor confirming them, just shedding some light on them ? Anyways, you did kikckass work !
You're not immortal, no one is Then cutting to pyotr getting blown up was perfect just like that entire episode. Hunters the parenting is the best thing ever. Now I must go buy a blender for 99p Also dope video essay
The amount of imaginative, clever writing, effort, and polish put into this video is astounding and everyone who worked on this video essay deserves a job well done. This standard of video essay raises the bar here on RUclips.
WoD can absolutely have a huge variety of tones. One time I had a larp game where a bunch of Camarilla Elders sat down at a table and argued about whether a hot dog was a sandwich, and if DIe Hard was a christmas movie. Little moments like that can add so much depth to chronicles
From the way you describe WoD speaker, it sounds like a setting where characters like old man Henderson can thrive in. It is the meeting point between insanity, stupidity, and awesomeness
Every World Of Darkness setting has a theme to it, and that theme is often an emotion. For example, for Vampire the Masquerage, it's Paranoia: All vampires fear and hate other vampires, and fear the breaking of the Masquerade. If the Masquerade breaks, everyone loses. But most vampires will gladly betray other vampires to rise in the social order and gain a little bit more strength, influence, or power. The more you rise, the bigger the target on your back and the more you have to be afraid of. Meanwhile, for Mage The Ascension, it's Hubris: All mages possess immense, reality-shaking powers, but overuse of those powers risks damaging reality, and the defining event of the setting was that same Hubris long ago massively damaging reality. For Werewolf The Apocalypse, it's Rage. The setting is already f-ed beyond all possible salvation, your ancestors dropped the ball so spectacularly that there is literally no hope of stopping the apocalypse that is coming no matter what anyone does. Abandon all hope of any kind of happy ending. All you can do is fight against it, to Rage against the dying of the light and hope that maybe, just maybe, what you do matters enough to ensure that it's just an apocalypse and not the end of existence of everything at the end of it all. There's a lot more, including The New World Of Darkness/Chronicles Of Darkness, but you get the idea. At its core, every setting has a theme/emotion behind it.
That’s the Camirilla way of handling VtM. Anarch and Sabbat have more leaning towards brotherhood and those who stand alongside you. Facing threats greater than you preparing for things you might not ever beat. You try anyways learning to accept the new you and facing the fact you aren’t human.
@@MultiKbarry True, that's certainly a way to play the game. But the setting's overall theme is Paranoia Even if your characters don't interact with or catch the attention of the Camirilla, there's the Masquerade to consider: Did that person catch me doing something that they shouldn't? Are they just a human? A ghoul keeping watch for vampires breaking the rules? A hunter? Do I stand out? Even without Camirilla, there's plenty to be paranoid about.
I love how familiar they made wod. It’s so easy to get into as much to do similar to buy our world. However, there is still a distinct element of fantasy inside the setting that makes it different in many key ways. This sounds awesome.
As a WoD player myself I really enjoyed the video, and I hope for more Splats videos in the future! The animation was great, the script is balanced between serious and humorous, I think that your first essay was a great success, and I hope that you have been having fun making this video for public :D
This video should be THE intro to a World of Darkness. The overall work and detail you put into this video is incredible. I literally FELT this setting through your video.
I love the dynamic that immortals have more bad days than mortals As an immortal you may be a scary fish, but most forgot that the pond is deeper than just minnows The mortal is like algae short lived, but even a fish can die to choking on their food especially when that food knows that the fish are hungry
I would absolutely kill to hear you talk about the WOD books and adventures that have aged poorly. The way you talk and the way everything is animated is horribly entertaining, and I love it. It’s entrancing. I look forward to seeing more from all y’all.
I would LOVE a video on the Garou, they're SO much different from standard werewolves compares to vampires and their sheer insanity would be pretty funny to talk about.
7:06 Story: “Yours, Sorry” and Flaws: “Poor Parenting Skills” have always been the single funniest part of the hypothetical character sheet for great-x14-Grandpa. Seriously though, I keep coming back to this video and I keep absolutely adoring it. Thank y’all for making this, it’s always a treat to see what you decide to do next.
I cried bitter tears when Big E's TTS adventures ended.. And then you started writing a story based on my favorite tabletop RPGs. I've been into World of Darkness (Old World of Darkness, technically) since second edition, played Werewolf and Changeling and Mage with my friends and haunted the old Java chat for years. Hunter: The parenting was nostalgic bliss enveloped in your guys wonder style and I loved every second. Now that you guys are sharing even more of this wonderful setting with people and I can't thank you enough. Cheers, and keep up the amazing work!
This is the most visually impressive video essay I have ever seen. It’s one of the few videos that I don’t just listen to in the background cause then I would miss out on all the sick animations. I would personally love more videos like this
Chronicles player here! Putting aside the weird business circumstances that started it, ChroD really is distinct enough for a separate pitch. Its systems, especially in the current 2E rules, are focused on Gothic Horror as its default rather than the more volatile Gothic Punk. Its games are worth a look if you wanna prioritize character study in your stories, like a more approachable Wraith.
Seeing a bunch of 40k fans try to understand anything even close to related to mage is going to be fantastic and I would like to thank everyone on the team behind this for granting the world the opportunity to watch as this comment section descends into a collection of ever increasing paradox and ork references.
I'm imagining it went something like that Oculus Imperia video talking about Daemons where it steadily degenerates into mumbling "the emperor protects" over and over with increasing horror and despair.
40k is honestly the best possible preparation for WoD there is a ton of lore, much of it is Ferrus Manus-grade half-assed and not thought through at all, and the secret to having fun with the setting is to run with the good and quietly leave the dumb and/or unfun to die forgotten. Also, feel free to add your own stuff! It's a big universe, nobody knows shit, and whatever's out there is fucking weird!
Showing that Door and his son are from two different WoD books (Hunters Hunted and H5 respectively) Really helped put it into perspective at how each caste member may just be rolling a different splatt and is how each person is different (Or that the lad is H5 while everyone is living the HH nightmare)
I hope after wrapping up Hunter the Parenting, Alfabusa and the team give the TTS treatment to some of the important characters in Vampire the Masquerade, like Beckett, Smiling Jack, Ur-Shulgi, etc. There's so much potential in WoD and it's a shame it isn't more popular.
I found this channel 8 years ago throughout the years I’ve come and gone. Hate to admit it but I even forgot about it a few times but I still absolutely love what you do you’re the one that got me into tabletop to begin with. I hope you one day get the recognition you deserve. And continue doing what makes you happy and hopefully one day to get you paid.
For those wondering, Yes, the bit about Czar Vargo trying to stop WWI through non-violent use of a fleet of zeppelins is canon. Until it wasn't...but in a canonical manner. Confused? Allow me to elucidate. WoD had a general philosophy of not invalidating earlier books outright, unless it really needed to (there's a reason White Wolf disavowed the sourcebook "World of Darkness: [Ethinic Slur]"). But it was no stranger to the casual retcon, either. Case in point, Czar Vargo. In earlier books, the self-proclaimed emperor of the world was driven off by the Technocratic Union (and then only because he knew he'd need to potentially kill his enemies to win the day, and he was an avowed pacifist), and all trace of his very public global invasion of the skies was erased by the New World Order (combination Illuminati and Men in Black). In the _Revised_ era, though, the designers elected to be less unrealistic and more dire. In this telling, it was not the New World Order that erased Czar Vargo's actions, but Reality itself. Reality, that bitch, has seldom been kind to Mages, kicking them in the dick whenever they do Magick that clearly violates human belief in what's possible. A phenomenon Mages call "Paradox" (not to be confused with the current WoD rights holders). Paradox is the main balancing factor of Mage casting, since there's otherwise no Spell Slots or Mana system in place. (Well, Sorcerers have Mana, sometimes, but that's different. Don't worry about that). Usually, Paradox backlash is limited to the Mage in the immediate sense, and sometimes those in the blast radius. According to Revised Mage, Czar Vargo's extremely public, _worldwide_ display of Mad Science was SO "Vulgar" (as opposed to "Coincidental", as Mages reckon magickal Effects), merely killing him was not sufficient. Reality *ERASED* Czar Vargo. Retroactively removing him from history altogether. Such that not only did his invasion not happen, not only was Czar Vargo never born, but what was presumably the European fishing village of his birth was _unmade entirely_ (a single resident of the town returned to find no trace of the village anywhere, and no memory it had ever been). In short, Czar Vargo violated Consensus Reality to such a degree that he and everything that went into making him was edited from the timeline. Few Mages aware of the shifting of the timeline can even remember Czar Vargo ever existed. A testament to the calcification of Reality, and the upper limits of what a Mage can look forward to if they go against the grain. But also an almost heroic tragedy: Czar Vargo was SO AWESOME and SO *BASED,* the timeline could not accommodate his genius. Pour one out for the man who paid the ultimate price for wanting to stop the horrors of the Seminal Catastrophe.
Best character I played was a Russian Malkavian who ended up in California during the height of the gold rush. He was a prospector with a penchant for explosives. In fact, he believed that he heard voices from the explosions he caused. Small hints from smaller booms to divine revelations from huge booms. I miss playing him.
YES, deep dives into the different game lines would be an amazing way to bring over more fans to WoD, specifically some underrated lines like Changeling: The Dreaming or Wraith: The Oblivion
@@tsugek123 In the Metaplot of yore? Yeah, it got replaced by Orpheus. Is the game now unplayable? No, it can still be played. And it's not like it can't be house-lored back into existence.
after watching this video, I have to say that it has been the most comprehensive and the least confusing explanation of what WOD is and I've seen many, many, many videos trying to explain the whole confusion with Legacy, Chronicles and V5, and somehow... you managed to avoid the trappings of it. By which mainly I mean that you haven't called Chronicles "New World of Darkness" but just said that it was a "new" version of World of Darkness big work, done bigly!
@@a.hendblade5291 wowzers, 9 months late, but that's what I get for not having notifs on haven't really read any of them, but from a quick look on what they were supposed to be, it's just very clear that they were made to narrow down the type of game their creators wanted like, you have the Genius game, which iirc, is just a way to have a Technocracy-focused Mage game. You have the Zombie game, which afaik is just a way to play Risen, without all the Wraith lore if they got people being creative, that's nice. If I'll ever want to make a game called Blood Mage: The Usurping, you will know what I made it for :D
I really appreciate you making this video. Ever since I played VtM Bloodlines after watching Sseth Tzeentache's video on it, i've been so desperately interested in learning more about the World of Darkness and the ways in which I could get into it. But the White Wolf Wikis are so infrequently updated and so few people I know have every actually played anything in the WoD that I was honestly worrying that no one was really playing any WoD games anymore and that I would sadly be denied a chance to ever really fully immerse myself in it as I couldn't see things panning out for future rule books if no one was playing it. You've done an excellent job in not only giving me the pseudo-"beginner's guide" that I have been so desperately craving but to also show me how there's still a very living and active WoD community and that said community has essentially just been as much of a hidden world as the narrative setting itself is. I'd definitely be down for more specialized videos like this but for the specific games from WoD!
I really wanna see something similar to this in the future, even if it isn't WoD related I really loved this video. Honestly I've really wanted to get into running a WoD game and this really helped put into an easily digestible format. That emperor voice at the end really got me :( I miss TTS everyday.
I watched HTP, enjoying it thoroughly without knowing nothin about world of darkness, thinking it was edgy and generally avoiding it. After watching this amazing intro vid, I'm already on the hook for narrating 2 vampire chronicles, and have fallen in love with the world. Thanks Ogre Gang!
i almost shat myself from laughter while watching this. You're the ones bringing magic to whichever universe you decide to build stories upon and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. This and SsethTzeentach's review on the Bloodlines game made me want to check out the game AND the tabletop when given the chance. Also, don't worry about not having the books at hand. Everything's possible with the internet, a printer and a binder to store the pages.
Mage: The Ascension is amazing and you guys should totally go over it. **especially** the stuff like those thought experiments like the whiskey flask paradox and maybe the origin of some memes like the vampires into chairs. Really neat how that's an actual Rote too in the 20th anniversary book.
MtAs is so freaking good. I adore this game of philosophical knife fights. Where it doesn't just matter what kind of magick you do, but HOW you do it, WHY, and to WHAT end. Where your character's approach to reality warping can be as surface level and loose, or in depth and introspective as you please.
To play any edition of Mage you need a group that's really into the esoteric, not just a couple of edgy manbabies like you'd do with Vampire. In my experience Ars Magica is more normie friendly and carries a similar enough flavour to the table.
Yes. You do have a great, totally near-godlike (with training) awesome magickal powers... but so is everybody else, just usually dormant. And that creates an imbalance. You need to push your will upon reality to do stuff, and that can have variable consequences. And then there are some world order organization who prevents and stops magic from functioning correctly - because they believe it's for the greater good, that their version (science) is better, and they may very well be right.
Considering the main characters are Hunters, I think the rest of WoD will be introduced eventually. Vampires are just the easiest first enemy to include. Besides Grimal (a weeb Redcap oddly makes sense), we've had hints that most of Marckus's friends and acquaintances might not be baseline humans - and serious hints that Marckus is unknown to himself a Mage, and that D and Boy aren't baselines either (plus we don't know what Horse is yet...). Those potential revelations have a lot of dramatic potential in a Hunter-based series - what do you do if your family are technically your enemies?
I am always a fan of watching people trying to untangle Mage or explain how to play Wraith without the game devolving into fistfights between the players. The way the deep lore such as the Triat existing across the Mage and Werewolf lines explicitly (and arguably influencing Changeling and Wraith in some aspects) works also fascinates me.
At Its very core, every project you and your team has the perfect amount of charm (period). I love everything you folk have done and I'm honored to live in a world where your content can bring me such joy.
Gonna say this right now: if I were to play in my first WoD game, I think I’d want a GM who thinks like SpeakerD. Welcoming, well-versed, accepting of creativity… I got a taste of that kind of GM back in 2019, when I got to help someone run a 40k TTRPG hybrid of Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, and Only War. The man let me turn an airship AI into basically CABAL from Command & Conquer. He helped one of the Guardsmen players set his character up to become basically 40K SOLID SNAKE. WE EVEN HAD LCPL LIRU, ARMA 3 ZEUS GOD, PLAYING THE DUMBEST YET SIMULTANEOUSLY HILARIOUS GUARDSMAN I HAVE EVER SEEN BECAUSE THE GM SAID “FUCK IT, ROLL FOR IT” SO MANY TIMES. It was wonderful, and I wish I could find a GM of that kind of caliber.
A video all about Vampire would be incredibly sick to watch. I also gotta say, considering that I've never seen a video from you guys before, this was a pretty great video essay considering its your first.
I hope you went back and watched more of his videos. Hunter The Parenting and (of course) If The Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device are very fun and funny series.
more video essays headed by 5 people with roiling, overcooked ADHD brains, please. This is amazing. Sincerely, 1 person with a with a roiling, overcooked ADHD brain. PS: How are you not doing narrations? THAT INTRO THO
I should have commented this when this came out, I have no excuse why I didn't but PLEASE MAKE MORE OF THESE. Video Essays are my brain food and I love to dine on WoD garnished with your fine voices and visuals.
Just wanted to say thank you! TTS and Astartes got me into 40K lore and Hunter: The Parenting got me into WoD’s respective lore. Sadly on RUclips the former is in abundance and the latter, while it certainly has a fair few creators covering it, it is still covered far less with way less viewership than it deserves. Wiki delving is definitely fruitful but it’s a bit harder to approach. I’m really grateful to see it summarized for a wider audience and by a creator who’s both passionate about the setting and with a large platform to expose more people to it! Btw, Mage: The Ascension lore is fucking WILD, 10/10 would recommend a quick look into it
M:tA is absolutely my favourite game to play and to ST. It's one of the only games out there where you actively have to find ways NOT to do something - you create a Box around your character (Paradigm) and have to find ways to work within it, because anything outside that box hurts you (Paradox, which is also imposed by Reality, regardless of your own characters Paradigm). You have the "Forces" Sphere at 3 so technically you can make Laser beams... except you're playing a Verbena whose magical Paradigm doesn't include "Laser Beams", so your character cannot do it. Or you're playing a Virtual Adept with "Spirit", so the only "Spirits" you can summon are from Movies and Video Games. Etc. However! Lightning bolts focused through the eyes of the idol of a Mythical Creature could take a bit of the properties of the Crystals you use to make the eyes, and all Video games and Movies take their inspiration from SOMEWHERE, so tapping into that source of Inspiration could bring out "spirits" that haven't yet had movies or games made with them... it might take a few extra steps (adding in Mind, for instance, to represent the "Collective Unconscious" where the inspiration is located, or Spirit for the Verbena to appease the spirit of the mythical creature), but it's up to you to figure out how to work within your Paradigm. Or if you can work it into your Paradigm in the first place. Sometimes... well, you just can't do it even if, by the rules of the game, you have the power to do it.
I recently bought Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition. Holy shit, you weren't kidding. This is the deep end. It's a veritable textbook. AND I LOVE IT. I'm going to be running a game soon. Please pray for me.
God I could totally see Anton from No Country for Old Men as a Promethean. He fits it perfectly. Wandering, disconnected, full of disquieting otherness.
I love how every single time Speaker talks about how dangerous combat is, he ALWAYS says that they have a shotgun of SOME KIND. In all seriousness though I'd love to have Speaker talk about more of the WOD games.
There's a reason for that. Most handguns aren't worth shit against supernatural beings. A shotgun blast, on the other hand, is essentially like getting hit by 8 pistol shots at once. It's *spicy*, and generally your best option for a firearm in game unless you're using a heavy caliber sniper rifle.
That's because lorewise and mechanically, shotguns ARE the best commonly-available weapon to fight supernaturals with. Shooting a vampire with a 1911? Might as well be throwing a pebble. But a shotgun using Dragon's Breath shells? THAT will put the fear of God into the foul bloodsucker if it doesn't outright end them.
They're not demons as such, as demons are their own thing. As I recall, the things in your sandwich, car's fuel tank, mobile phone and metal music are called banes, which are basically spirits aligned with the Wyrm. One of their main purposes is to turn you into a mindless drone who simply keeps doing all the unproductive and downright harmful things, but more. Unlike most megacorporations, Pentex's primary goal isn't to make profit; it's to corrupt humanity completely. For many, however, the profit is hella nice, and some are in it *only* for the profit, which is corruption of its own kind. But if you want to get into the specifics of the effects of eating bane-sandwiches (and otherwise interfacing with bane-laced products), think of the resulting corruption as mutations. But you (probably) won't be turning into a sword-wielding humanoid turtle or shoot laser beams from your eyes. I mean it *can* happen, but there's probably gonna be some... downsides, such as smelling like sulfur farts up to 20 feet away, literally exploding if you get too angry, seeping pus from your eyes, losing the ability to speak as your tongue swells to fill your entire mouth (good luck figuring out how to eat), literally losing pieces of your body as you use your powers, and just... a whole host of other "fun" things.
My favorite is Chronicles of Darkness. It is designed for cross compatibility between the different game lines (no more guessing what you roll to oppose a vampire power as a werewolf). Also I like the parsing down of the tribes/clans/traditions, that makes it easier for new players to jump in. And if you miss something (my beloved Silent Striders) there are conversion books to being some of that stuff into CoD.
I'd very much love if you guys talked about elements that changed drastically as the End Times showed up, like the Void Engineers going from Idealistic Explorers to "Oh My God WHAT IS COMING?!" preppers. Or how elements from one property blends into others (like Pentex, Technocracy, etc).
I have never seen any of your videos before and I just have to say: I found it very difficult to take my eyes off the screen even though I usually listen to RUclips in the background while doing something else. You have such a unique style to your visuals and animation and it is great at keeping my attention with this sense of fluidity it gives. I’m gonna sub to you and hope you make more stuff like this
I'm sure many folks have said this at some point or another, but this is my current comfort video and it has really made me (a person who has never really played any ttrpg/rpgs of any sort) really want to attempt playing something. Thank you guys for making this and hoping there is more like this! If not, I will continue to watch your other videos on repeat for the serotonin.
I have to say I love this and has brought more want in me to go into WOD and play it myself, the explanation, animation, funny bits, the excitement and enthusiasm that Speaker-D has in his voice for a game he genuinely loves and the work the team put into this just *chef kiss* I really wanna see more of these video essays, I think they're great and we get to see more of the team talk about stuff they're really interested in, hopefully fostering a closer community as we get to see them for who they are besides their great voice, art, sound or other work they do for the channel Amazing stuff as always everyone, should be really proud of yourselves for the brilliant work and content you bring to the channel x
![YoungBoy Never Broke Again - Catch Me [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KxwEXXFQMTY/mqdefault.jpg)
This is our first time trying anything like a video essay so this quite experimental and in its visual and narrative language very clearly headed by 5 people with roiling, overcooked ADHD brains but you might've already expected that going into a video on this channel.
Nevertheless, we hope you enjoy and, of course, give this setting and franchise a chance if you haven't already because _Its Good,_ we think.
And if you DO enjoy this format, we could look into more stuff like this in the future.
Not neccesarily just about WoD either!
We could cover whatever we feel we've got an interest in.
Hell, we could maybe even do something Warhammer if there's interest, this format plays within their legal ballpark, could be worth looking into.
Hi alfabus
That's my favourite sort of video.
Do a GORKKAMORKKA play through. Tht would be awesome.
So would you suggest Chronicles + The Vigil or Hunter 5e for a first time GM and group? The 5e does seem to be easier to grasp but doesn't seem to have much going on for hunting organizations or for supernatural effects for players.
alfabussy
one of my favorite little lore bits is how the Technocracy was behind the Apollo missions as part of a plot where they thought that by showing everyone that the moon is just a boring dusty rock with nothing mystical or special about it would weaken Werewolves, but instead the Luna Landing inspired so much wonder in people that it brought the fairies back instead, leading to Changeling: The Dreaming.
That's one hell of an epic fail.
There's also a fangame that uses the Apollo to bring magical Girls in Princesss: The hopefull.
@@christopherpalazzolo9547 ...Well, that's a government bureaucracy for you.
Theres something *deeply* hilarious about how the technocracy is all uppity acting all enlightened to bring humanity to the next age, thinking that the moonlanding is nothing special, they are so lost in their own sauce id be confident in saying theyve lost touch with reality.
Its also deeply sad that looking at all the crazy achievements they've made with hyperscience, that they forget the simple joy of discovery there are more frontiers in the world
Honestly, the All-Powerful Conspiracy That Is Super Great And Behind Everything And Also Totally Manipulating All The Happenings In Your Own Campaign (TM) is much more interesting if it's just incompetent and fails at its biggest endeavors
“You’re not invincible, no one is” followed by pyotr’s surprise present in the form of the landmines is a lovely pairing
Its a good visual to hammer home that even the hardest Supernatural being in WoD can be thrown off balance (heh) and even killed with a little planning and a hell of a lot of luck.
Except the garou who are comically OP furry balls of murder.
@@paulll47Yes but even they aren’t *literally* invincible.
@@paulll47 45-70 silver bullets in my vampire game set in Cheyenne say otherwise
@17:12 Btw
5:55 So, I looked it up, and that burger chain is also apparently the main enemy of the werewolves in this setting.
The fast food chain isn't the main enemy on itself, it's owned *by* the megacorporation that is the main enemy of the setting, Pentex. They own several companies and subsidiaries they direct towards evil acts, O'tolley's being one of them.
Not so much the main enemy, but a subsidiary of one of the main enemies. "Pentex" is a Megacorporation that directly worships "The Wyrm" (The metaphysical aspect of corruption werewolves face) it has a ton of Subsidiaries that spiritually and physically pollute the world. "O'Tolleys" is just one of it's many companies. "Enron Oil" is the main company it started from.
what??
@@danny_decheeto8300 From the wiki: "Also called "The Family Place", O'Tolley's operates mainly in the USA and Canada, and as a branch of Pentex, it is dedicated on spreading corruption and create an atmosphere that allows banes to grow stronger. It sells very slightly "Wyrm-tainted" food products to the population as a whole to make them overweight and lose ambition. "
The Wyrm and its minions being the main antag of the Werewolves.
@@danny_decheeto8300 Also, O'Telly's is owned by Pentex. Described thus:
"Pentex is a multi-national megacorporation, one of the largest in the world, which is also tainted by the Wyrm. Its main agenda is the spiritual, moral, and environmental corruption of the planet. It is the main tool on Earth of the Defiler Wyrm and one of the most implacable foes of the Garou."
One of my favorite clown shoes aspect of the WoD setting is that Rasputin is probably an otherworldly being, but even in WoD he is SO weird that no one actually knows for certain WHAT kind of thing he is
Honestly, that sort of cross species "What The Fuck"ery is my favorite thing about WoD/CoD. Having the different supernatural species bicker/clash/co-operate like that over storylines/mythologies/Chronicles are always a hoot.
Jesus is also like that, I believe. Werewolves recall about him that he was basically a walking Caern, and some Mages and Vampire Clans claim him, but the reality about him doesn't quite match ANYTHING.
Not going to lie, from a top-down view, I feel like the Cult of Ecstasy in Mage was patterned completely off of Rasputin.
I heard that authors kleptomaniac tendencies toward historical figures were one of the downfalls of original WoD ie OWoD. Yeah, sure, every person of prominence ever was supernatural. Right...
@TheArklyte Except the Nazis, of course. Even WoD writers weren't tasteless enough to assert that the Third Reich did what it did because of some secret agenda by supernatural agents. There was supernatural involvement, people who were ideologically interested by the fascists or just opportunistically using the carnage for their own schemes, but by and large the leadership was just a collection of very, very bad people who did bad things for bad reasons.
"This setting is off it's shit!"
Might just be the best sentence to describe the world of darkness that I've ever heard.
And that's why we like it!
Chronicles of Darkness actually has two popular fan-made gamelines: Genius: The Transgression, where you play as mad scientists; and Princess: The Hopeful, where you play as Madoka-style magical girls.
And probably a dozen more amazingly written, if not that popular, other fan made lines like Dragon, Leviathan, Demon, Outsider, Siren and Wraith and furtherly even more obscure ones.
Yep and I run the fuckin sever
The duality of man
@@thebohemian814 oh shit?
@@alejandrorivas4585 Yep, a whole sever for the fan games of Darkness, along with link and files to other homebrew, wanna join?
It was an honour to do a little bit of the animation for this video. This video is a wild ride and I hope everyone enjoys it.
Your labor and blood sacrifice is greatly appreciated.
You did good, son. You did good.
A good warmup for the tibwars video. Great job!
@DrWhite Any forecast on Black Knight? I only ever played Mercenaries, what happened to your precious clowny boy?
Great Job Dude!
I don’t know if Bruva will ever read this, but honestly I’d rather spew positivity to the winds instead of being silent; the TTS series were the catalyst that brought me into 40k and eventually wargaming as a whole and miniature painting as a hobby. I’d listen on repeat while building and painting minis and would excitedly announce new releases of the series to my friends (even those who thought of me nothing more than a raving lunatic).
The hiatus of TTS, like many fans, hit me like a cold knife slowly greeting my spine with shockwaves of sadness and anger at GW. Didn’t really help I was going through personal self destructing agendas at the time.
Watching the first episode of HtP was once again, like TTS, a muse that guided me into new things… specifically it motivated me to go outside the umbrella of GW and try new systems and different miniatures to paint. Even tried out TTRPGs and painted characters for them.
The D&D OGL fiasco left me a bitter taste… and then this video was released.
I ordered Hunter the Reckoning 5th edition. I found a cell of willing players. We will dive into the World of Darkness very very soon.
So thank you. Everyone. All the souls that pour their very being into these videos.
You have turned me into a WoD fanatic that will refuse to touch grass in any way shape or form. Also D’s voice makes me moist. OKAYIGOBYENOW
If this gives you more stuff to enjoy some of the crew behind tts and htp run a darksouls inspired pathfinder stream on the channel narrative declaration.
The is the kind of inspiration I think every creator should be proud of. To affect someone's life in such a positive way is truly, inspiring.
@@justinsummers8788
I'm just shocked someone else knows what Red Markets is.
A lost friend introduced it to me years ago and it's hard to convince people to play it for some reason. My favorite character was a Black Math pyromaniac with a flammewerfer.
For the Social side of this triangle, little beats WoD. For the combat side? Battletech. For all-rounders, I suggest Shadowrun or Pathfinder.
I'm still a GW boy to heart, but I agree to an extreme with everything said in this. Me and my older brothers discovered tts maybe a year before its hiatus. Its great lore comparisons and jokes got us interested in the lore where I started listening to lore vids and podcasts, and then I actually started looking at painting and got hooked. Currently making smurf army because of their overpowered lore
No matter how horrific or dreadfull WoD setting can be I will always describe it as a Gothic themed clown car that fits in vampires, werewolfs, ghosts, mages, mummies and god knows what else, it's the best thing ever.
The Midnight Circus got you covered fam.
@@vi0let831 Is a group from the World of Darkness, is literal circus filled with many supernatural creatures that has the explicit purpose to kill and corrupt as much as possible.
@@theonethesequel
Oh ok lol my bad 😅
THIS! This comment right here!! 😂😂😂😂
"This is because the metric for Oh, FU- is three to six guys with shotguns hanging out somewhere they weren't expected."
Yeah I'd say that is a realism-building aspect of the game.
My char: "I am an invincible were-spider the size of a car, you can't defeat me!"
The Hillbilly with a home-made Flamethrower: "I can give it a go."
Meth is one hell of a performance enhancement
@@ComedicLetter Your character may experience a +1 increase in Strength or Stamina, though he also may become edgy and paranoid. The Storyteller bases the effects of the drug on the volume that your character takes, how pure it is and your character's state of mind.
yeaaaa i feel like that is a super major flaw in the world building then.
Realistically it should be a case of 'shotguns are effective cause they do more physical damage, but they are still a mundane weapon and won't properly seperate a monster's soul from their immortal flesh'.
Like yeha the flamethrower gonna hurt that spider bad but.... it won't keep the spider from killing the hillbilly.
@@taddad2641 there’s nothing immortal about these monsters. They can all be killed with brute force.
Except maybe the really big ones
@@taddad2641 Why?
Honestly, hunter the parenting is the single greatest introduction to the world of darkness.
just tts once was for warhammer
That's basically how I got where I am
@@pigspartan1819 Nah, Dawn of War was better for that imo.
Could´nt agree more, love all the content from Busa and the entire cast, be it the people who make the vids, or the voice actors or script writers etc
It is also technically the most popular WOD show in existance. Even the official live play , LA by Night and NY by night do not get the same views. Coincidentally only the Hololive Live play of Hunter the vigil ever cam close to viewership with parenting
My favorite template is Mage: The Ascension.
I played an Akashic "Mage" named Cidney who watched so many Jackie Chan films that he started to think it was all real, and no one told him otherwise. Mostly because he could actually DO it.
Mans was a Saturday morning cartoon character with how much shit he could do, and how stupid it got. Later on in the game, he even got a pair of arm mounted grappling hooks so he could be a discount Spiderman if he wanted to.
In his first appearance, he punched a zombie so hard it's head flew off and spin-kicked another into dust, both saving and mildly traumatizing a bus full of school children as he did so.
Another time he grabbed a charging evil horse, and spun it around to throw it at its buddy. And then continued to do that until he killed them with each other.
And another time he drank from the fountain of youth by accident because he didn't realize what it was and he was really thirsty.
And another time, he suplexed a serial killer off of a motorcycle and then shot him in the face with a massive revolver.
Also, he was the friendliest person on the team with by FAR the best stats for talking to people.
He was an action himbo that fought monsters for three reasons,
1 because it was fun,
2 because he was good at it,
And 3, he was raised by a Hunter. So it's basically in his blood.
I played him as a carefree goofball who wasn't all that smart, but meant well, and knew everything there was to know about the streets, and hunting monsters (which we did rather often).
This very often led him to being the VIP in combat, while mostly being full clownshoes comic relief outside of it.
The rest of the party was composed of a druggie musician who played us battle music and other scene appropriate music, and he also dealt with vampires in his free time, a mad scientist whose brain was fused with an Akashic child, and so then they did sci fi tech AND kung fu, a reporter who leveraged spirits to get the next big SCOOP, and a drug dealer who did blood magic on the side, and was the Akashic kid's overprotective cousin, but didn't know that the kid wasn't just the kid anymore.
It was a fun, if sometimes very stupid, game. I miss it greatly.
That all sounds amazing. Never have gotten to experience any TTRPG since my friends are... Well, flaky.
I don't blame you for missing that.
I love that you basically just put an essay in the comments section God bless you you goddamn mad man
@@linear5695 thank you for sharing your memories! This sounds very cool!
I hope everyone enjoyed the brief return of Flashback Puppets. Hopefully I can do more of them for further videos.
Loved them 👍
They're brilliant!
I very much liked them. A warm present I didn't expect to receive.
It was solid puppeteering
I loved the shark and werewolf puppets!
The emperors “voice” at the end gave me the hugest amount of goosebumps holy shit that terrified me
It gave me hope. I almost forgot that feeling.
Oh god please.
I am torn between wanting it DESPERATELY to come back, due to how pure fun it was, but i also dont want them to get into any trouble due to how BS the whole mess was
timecode ?
@@garox5124 44:22
My favorite WOD character was my Wraith-- "Brother Confessor" who I made eternal and able to appear in multiple locations with a single note I was allowed where he triumphed over the destruction of his cathedral. He became an information broker for our mixed storylines. Edit: incidentally, made the storyteller mad i broke the game with a throwaway thing he gave me because of player table shenanigans but he thought it was such a cool sidestep that he allowed it. And later everyone enjoyed having Brother Confessor around. He was kinda like ghostly gps and google who could also offer advice to heartsick monsters.
"Ghostly GPS and Google," is a very helpful idea for any campaign, I didn't realize that's the description of one of my monk DMPCs until you mentioned it
Not exactly old man henderson but hey, whatever derails the DM makes everyone have a laugh
@@matrixtrollmarine Haven't heard that name in a while, good times.
"Your two points in law might seem useless at first" As a person who has played a Lawyer mage in multiple Mage games, Law is never useless.
Law seems useless until your Cabal member is on trail for crimes against the Traditions with Gilgul on the line
“Your Honor, my client can’t be imprisoned. He doesn’t like jail”
4 in law, 2 in medicine.
Because nothing can throw more of a wrench into the legal defense than a suddenly updated autopsy.
Also, being a semi-competent doctor is useful should someone need a little more than a bandaid.
Also, be aware of two key aspects.
Dispose of the body if possible and.
"No witnesses, no crime!"
@Memes_The_DNA_of_the_soul holy shit, this made me lol harder than I should've
@@memes_the_dna_of_the_soul5487 what is the two key aspect?
“Failure. Perhaps next time”. An old voice from a friend not seen for what felt like an eternity. A faint smile grows on an aged face as memories of a simpler time return.
I smiled and giggled like a child hearing that voice.
Now that is a voice I wish we could hear again.
Even gone as he is now still the emperor watches over us all…in constant disappointment but still watching.
Ow... My heart. My soul. My everything else, really.
I'm hoping this means they might dip their toes back into TTS. They did say that the show wasn't cancelled and that they didn't want to continue it without at least having something to fall back onto. Now that they have HtP, I'm guessing they're gonna start some production on it again in the near future.
So, any chance there's going to be more vids about the various other aspects of WoD?
Definitely!
But, it might take a bit, we didn’t expect this video to do as well as it did so newer content of this variety is going to be happening a bit later down the line, at least as far as we’ve planned things right now.
But we are VERY excited to continue doing this kind of stuff, without doubt.
The life you breath into lore is like crack.
@@alfabusa I found your vid through a random tiktok on a tumblr post and I have to say that I freaking loved this video! I'm brand new to the TTRPG scene but I've always wanted to get into it. I gravitated towards Werewolf the Apocalypse due to the lore and artwork (also, I have a rather unhealthy obsession with werewolves). Whenever you do, I can't wait to hear your take on WtA and WtF!
@@alfabusa how about a bestiary for the next video essay, going into the detail on the different races of WoD.
the organisations and types of Hunter
the clans and factions of Vampire
the tribes and different changing breeds of werewolf
and so on and so forth
@@lykanprince7Long time fan since like 2011, its super awesome that the community still grows :D
Something about a vampire willingly going out in broad daylight just to shit on Dracula seems like a very vampire thing to do.
"I'm so angry that dracula is more popular than me!"
-some Camarilla Prince, probably
HOW DARE THAT SABBAT TZIMITZE GET POPULARITY, HES LITERALLY BODY HORROR KINDRED HITLER UUUUGH. WORSE, THAT HAS TO BE THE HIGHEST MASQUERADE VIOLATION EVER!
I mean some vamps are willing to cut off their Genitalia and throw it in Vampire Meetings as an insult
Virgin camarilla vs chadracula
16:30 (a better time was pointed, and edited to this.)
“Rushing down Yog-Sothoth with a blicky and a pocket full of dreams.”
This is peak Speaker D monologuing and I’m here for it.
16:30 is a better time code
When does his mix tape drop?!?
YES! I laugh every time I see it!
Hey it worked out for old man henderson.
Werewolf is honestly my favorite part of all of WoD, because you can just be a werewolf who can’t transform and still just absolutely wreck shop
I hear werewolves are busted as hell.
@@xanmontes8715 Yep, easily the physically strongest Splat in WoD.
@@Logamer-tn6db a friend explained it like this to me:
Everything in the WoD has an equivalent in Warhammer.
Werewolves? Space Marines.
@@xanmontes8715 so 40k only? Thens what's a vamp in this metaphor?
@@evilsclone2499my mind instantly goes to drukhari but with blood to replace pain
“No Country for Old Men as directed by Suda 51” might be the best description of WOD ever written.
Yep
Although while dark, the hope can be here, unlike in Warhammer.
@@TheGoodLuc how dare you, of course there's hope in 40k! The hope to Kill even MORE Heretics before a corrupted angel of man crushes you under its seramite boot
Truly
@@TheGoodLucfantasy? 40k? Age of sigmar?
maybe a video explaining each character and what skills they have for shits and giggles.
kinda want to see how markus is built
And was Door able to convince him to put a point into guns?
@Clu Rosencrans they show his character sheet and its just completely unreadable threw the coffee stains
@@seelcudoom1aybe it's 50/50 with him. Or the coin toss.
Sure he dominates a entire squad of ghouls but maybe in a fight against vampires where your party is winning but he get surprised attacked.
my headcanon is that Big-D is a high level hunter as played by someone who is an absolute loremaster in WoD and has a tendency to metagame a bit
@@malhekaihe kind of fits the hermit archetype: people who are just insane but are some of the most intelligent characters in their field.
Can SpeakerD continue to just like… talk about stuff? Warhammer, WoD, whatever, man, I just love how you break things down
"Dis iz our furwst video essay. Pweeze be nice =("
proceeds to effortlessly knock a video essay out of the park. Its so good I kinda don't wanna be nice about it just to be spiteful.
One of my favorite videos to write and present, and the most terrifying for me to launch. I hope you guys enjoy!!
Dude, you have a vibe that is honestly more engaging than most people. If I had met anybody like those in Ogre Poppenang in High School, I'd be doing this for War Machine.
D you did an incredible job ! This might be the best introduction to the TTRPG i ever heard !
u did good son
or father
Cringe is dead and you are still breathing.
All is well.
My personal skub issues with 5th Edition lore aside, it was an amazing overview that really captured the heart of WoD's appeal. Definitely comes from a place of love.
I’ve heard of people mixing WoD and CoD to great effect. Two examples that come to mind is running Changeling: the Lost in WoD because it’s just more coherent than Dreaming, and running Mage games that use Ascension’s lore but Awakening’s mechanics.
I'm such a pleb that when i read CoD I thought you were referring to call of duty... I wonder if that combo would work though?
CoD?
@@armageddon845 Chronicles of Darkness
I mean, CoD zombies set in World of Darkness would be remarkably amusing
Do a mage introduction to prove you aren't cowards
That's where weirdness get real (except for Changeling)... and that's why we like it.
Owod mage: everything is terrible and also drugs
Nwod mage: it's all Atlantis and it's awful
@@shawnconway9957 Yep. OWOD mage has better story but poor mechanics; NWOD somewhat in reverse.
@@TheGoodLuc depends. MtAw 2e has made massive improvements with bore lore and mechanics
"so, let's talk about the dyson sphere" lmao
Mage is always a hoot
"I want to turn that man's junk into a duck"
"Uh... do you have the stats to do that?"
"Yeah"
"Alright, if you succeed the roll, that man's junk is a duck I guess"
"Also Paradox says hi"
@@MapleShrimp Mr Wrinkle: Hey can you not do that? Thanks. Or I'll erase you
I use Forces 5 and Life 5 to turn that man's body into Gravity
wrap your head around that one
@@tokushiroku2291 Oh dear god! Wrinkle! Took my character back in time and made me NOT do the magic that incurred the paradox that put him on my tail. That’s after he screwed with me horribly. Putting my character in the path of Hailey’s comet, and threatening to let it hit me unless I agreed to behave!
@@MapleShrimp Ask them when Bloodlines 2 come's out
Speaking of WOD stories I have one, we were playing Mage and were investigating a shady ass rural medical center outside of Seattle that was for sure connected to the Technocrats.
Our cabal had a Virtual Adept running tactical, an Akashic with a penchant for playing Spider-Man, a Hermetic with a Daemon cat friend and a tinge of Fae blood, a Hollow one who was the literal reincarnation of Edger Allen Poe; complete with Raven.
And my character, a 7ft tall orphan who later joined the Cult of Ecstasy who drew their power from an Aztec goddess.
Alongside us we 2 Werewolves for the Children of Gaia, one of whom was our VA's mother brought back to life and the other of witch was a Vietnam vet and the VA's mate.
So needless to say we were pretty fucking stacked against whatever we found, we stacked up by the front door to breach and clear the place only to set off a ward and get half our group shoved into the umbra and then making so we couldn't cross back over to easily.
Unfortunately for our ST he rolled to see who it was and it would up being the Hollow one, who was a powerful spirit mage, and the Hermetic and Akashic, so they just went right along with the plan and started fucking up the constructs and doctors they found there... even wrecked shop on a hit-mark till a few newer models made them have to run for it.
Meanwhile my character and the werewolves went through the real front door and began subduing the civies and taking out the cyborg orderlies we ran into, since it was basically three walking tanks running the place and the Technos weren't expecting us it didn't take long.
Eventually the team in the umbra construct manged to light the place on spiritual fire and get out and our group kicked in the hidden last door at the end of the complex, we rushed inside and found three doctors looking over several beds of comatose patients hooked up to some weird devices.
Our St went about explaining how 2 of the doctors freak out and look like they were reaching for weapons, expecting us to all target one of the two, but I noticed something... the third doctor hadn't panicked at all.
Now I like to think that both in and out of game I'm a fairly brave person, but if I saw a 7ft tall amazon looking woman in full tactical gear and a combat shotgun and two full crinos werewolves with assault weapons kicked down my door I think I would be a bit spooked to say the least... hell I'd probably wish I'd wore brown pants.
But this Lady didn't bat an eye... so i figured she had to be the most dangerous thing in the room, and subsequently blew her lower leg off with the aforementioned shotgun.
As it happens I was right and she had been about to activate a kill-switch that would have teleported her out of there and flooded the place with toxic gas and silver, but the shock of loosing a leg stopped her till we were able to subdue her.
Turns out it wasn't just a technocrat base but was with the Special Projects and Research division and those poor folks had had their DNA torn apart and fucked with to turn them into living Quintessence generators, but that's a story for another time.
Werewolves in military tactical get up sounds all kinds of awesome
@@hammer1349
oh yea not to mention that my own character was 7ft tall and built like an amazon and the was probably the worst 3-man stack you could have run into
"Cringe is dead and I'm still breathing" is one hell of a line
Words to live by
Shit's axiomatic, yo.
I thought he said grieving.
"When the concept of cringe is dead, than you are truly based"
- some random internet people
I thought he said grieving
I cannot stress enough how much I LOVE educational content mixed with comedy. Not too much that it feels like a farce, but enough that it helps keep your attention. You could literally talk about ANYTHING if you make it entertaining enough.
It feels like Bill Nye talking about his game session he had over the weekend.
running at Yog-sothoth with a blicky and a pocket full of dreams needs to be on a shirt.
Hearing The Emperor’s voice at the end was like receiving a warm blanket you didn’t expect to have.
It pains me about what happened to TTS. It’s what got me into Warhammer 40k. But just like that series, Hunter: The Parenting got me into the World of Darkness. I bought Bloodlines not too long ago and having a blast with the setting.
Thanks for the amazing content y’all. ❤️
Hey, its only on indefinite Haitus. There is a chance of return
_WAAH!_
I *love* the idea of Hunter.
Something about being just a dude aware of the all the monsters pretending to be people and monstrous people, and trying to do something about it is just my shit.
Amen, reason why I love the boys show soo much too, I tried to get into a game once long ago but I gave up on that as I wasn't able to find anyone running who had a empty spot
EVERY TIME F.Knudsen shows up in a Ogre Poppenang video I lose my mind all over again. His voice and cadence is just perfectly suited for the bizarre duality of hyper-serious and dramatically comical that OP finds itself in.
Meow.meow.
PURR!
My favorite moment of “knowing” world of darkness lore while watching hunter the parenting is definitely when Grimal ask why there are no vampires in Japan and I just thought “because they nuked them twice”
There are very few Cainites in Asia, mostly because that is Kuei Jin territory and high-gen Cainites can easily get shredded by most Kuei Jin (or Wan Kuei, Gaki or whatever you might call them.) The nuking of Japan did a lot to strengthen malicious spirits by tainting the Umbra (spiritual world), but it actually strengthened some Kuei Jin, such as the Scorpion Eaters or the Akuma: the ones who serve the Yama Kings.
I liked the very meta response Markus gave, basically talking OOC about how the very idea of "kuei jin" is some very ignorant americans in the 80s shoving together different bits of mythology from different asian countries into a single thing. Which, imo, is the proper answer. It's okay to admit that the thing you like has some problematic parts caused by the creators.
@@Shenaldrac Cainites are also a messed up jumble of western religion folklore and mythology, as is every other WoD game line. If you consider that problematic than the entire franchise is problematic to its very bones.
@@pietromassimi7104 Not really? Dies in sunlight, need to drink blood, can't eat normal food, having a stake shoved through the heart is bad news, that all lines up pretty well with established vampire mythos. Hardly a "jumble" when you can find all that in the seminal vampire book Bram Stoker's Dracula.
@@Shenaldrac Descend from Caine? Nope. Being anywhere outside central Europe or maybe Greece? Nope. Having "generations"? and clans? Nope. Being literal gods of other religions, making the Judeo-Christian the only "true" one? Nope. Most of VtM lore plays and twists cultural concepts both inside and outside the physical nature and powers of vampires, and a lot of the time it does it just as badly as Wan Kuei lore or Mage canons do it. Also, western vampires are more about folklore than modern novels like Carmilla, The Vampyre or Dracula, and as I've shown even if limit yourself to those it takes them and changes them. Just because a fictional world, however based on reality it may be, changes stuff around, it doesn't make it "problematic" by any objective metric, if such a thing can even exist at all.
The brief return of Big E at the very end made me so happy.
I was hit with a veritable tidal wave of nostalgia, hearing that voice again.
Not sure how, But hearing that familiar TTS voice just.... Hit. Excitement, Hope, Yet sorrow.
I felt a little sad but also happy
Just got a hit of nostalgia too
where?
Honestly, I don't expect anybody to read that two weeks after release, however I wanted to say it
This was VERY GOOD. You took something that seemed convoluted and nebulous to me and made it both understandable AND amusing. This is a wonderful, wonderful work of "vulgarisation"
I would really like you (SpeakerD, Alfa or any member of he crew really) to make a whole serie of "deep dive essays" on the World of Darkness. Maybe present us the different clans and so on so we can better understand the plot of Hunter : The Parenting ? Or maybe make some quick videos about the theories made by people in the comments, neither denying nor confirming them, just shedding some light on them ?
Anyways, you did kikckass work !
I hope you'll do some 1-hour-long lore-related episodes like the 'If the Emperor had a Podcast' videos, those were hella fun
yeah i can already see Daddy E and the ßois doing a 'lesson'
Oh good Man-Emperor YES.
"Kitten and Big-D's Primer on the Supernatural and Local Folklore" kinda felt like a hybrid between podcast and audiolog at least to me
@@CBeavr definitely I agree. But more with different characters maybe would be cool
Bruh they already do those
You're not immortal, no one is
Then cutting to pyotr getting blown up was perfect just like that entire episode.
Hunters the parenting is the best thing ever. Now I must go buy a blender for 99p
Also dope video essay
The amount of imaginative, clever writing, effort, and polish put into this video is astounding and everyone who worked on this video essay deserves a job well done.
This standard of video essay raises the bar here on RUclips.
WoD can absolutely have a huge variety of tones. One time I had a larp game where a bunch of Camarilla Elders sat down at a table and argued about whether a hot dog was a sandwich, and if DIe Hard was a christmas movie. Little moments like that can add so much depth to chronicles
Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
a hot dog is a sandwich
@@ordo_draigo_assault_ham YOU FOOL DIE HARD IS NOT A CHRSYMAS MOVIE!!! ITS AN ACTION ONE!!!
@@mynameisd2849 Why can`t it be bot-
*tremere causes head to explode*
@@esper4605 incorrect it is a taco
From the way you describe WoD speaker, it sounds like a setting where characters like old man Henderson can thrive in.
It is the meeting point between insanity, stupidity, and awesomeness
Henderson as a mage or sabbat…
Every World Of Darkness setting has a theme to it, and that theme is often an emotion. For example, for Vampire the Masquerage, it's Paranoia: All vampires fear and hate other vampires, and fear the breaking of the Masquerade. If the Masquerade breaks, everyone loses. But most vampires will gladly betray other vampires to rise in the social order and gain a little bit more strength, influence, or power. The more you rise, the bigger the target on your back and the more you have to be afraid of.
Meanwhile, for Mage The Ascension, it's Hubris: All mages possess immense, reality-shaking powers, but overuse of those powers risks damaging reality, and the defining event of the setting was that same Hubris long ago massively damaging reality.
For Werewolf The Apocalypse, it's Rage. The setting is already f-ed beyond all possible salvation, your ancestors dropped the ball so spectacularly that there is literally no hope of stopping the apocalypse that is coming no matter what anyone does. Abandon all hope of any kind of happy ending. All you can do is fight against it, to Rage against the dying of the light and hope that maybe, just maybe, what you do matters enough to ensure that it's just an apocalypse and not the end of existence of everything at the end of it all.
There's a lot more, including The New World Of Darkness/Chronicles Of Darkness, but you get the idea. At its core, every setting has a theme/emotion behind it.
Wraith: The Oblivion = Grief in all its “stages”?
That’s the Camirilla way of handling VtM. Anarch and Sabbat have more leaning towards brotherhood and those who stand alongside you. Facing threats greater than you preparing for things you might not ever beat. You try anyways learning to accept the new you and facing the fact you aren’t human.
@@Spinnermist Or you can ignore that and go work for Jimmy Giovanni who can get you new meat suits.
@@MultiKbarry True, that's certainly a way to play the game. But the setting's overall theme is Paranoia Even if your characters don't interact with or catch the attention of the Camirilla, there's the Masquerade to consider: Did that person catch me doing something that they shouldn't? Are they just a human? A ghoul keeping watch for vampires breaking the rules? A hunter? Do I stand out? Even without Camirilla, there's plenty to be paranoid about.
Changling: The Dreaming = Bringing hope and whimsy to a gloomy and depressing world.
Demon: The Fallen = Atonement and salvation
“WOD is as heartwarming as it is tragic.” Is a sentiment I wish I heard shared more often in certain circles of the WOD fanbase
What are these circles you speak of?
Circles do not share sentiments. They are shapes.
@@EchoKilo-wi9ec Spoken like a true son of dorn.
To quote our favorite not-deity, "Go play in traffic, Rogal."
@@Deridus I shall do this.
I love how familiar they made wod. It’s so easy to get into as much to do similar to buy our world. However, there is still a distinct element of fantasy inside the setting that makes it different in many key ways. This sounds awesome.
Literally on the DAY I start planning my first Vampire: the Masquerade chronicle.
Impeccable timing as always.
As a WoD player myself I really enjoyed the video, and I hope for more Splats videos in the future! The animation was great, the script is balanced between serious and humorous, I think that your first essay was a great success, and I hope that you have been having fun making this video for public :D
Aptly said!
This is strait up gold material, WoD community really needed this.
This video should be THE intro to a World of Darkness. The overall work and detail you put into this video is incredible. I literally FELT this setting through your video.
I love the dynamic that immortals have more bad days than mortals
As an immortal you may be a scary fish, but most forgot that the pond is deeper than just minnows
The mortal is like algae short lived, but even a fish can die to choking on their food especially when that food knows that the fish are hungry
I would absolutely kill to hear you talk about the WOD books and adventures that have aged poorly.
The way you talk and the way everything is animated is horribly entertaining, and I love it. It’s entrancing.
I look forward to seeing more from all y’all.
You died in the holocaust: The Game. Wish I was making that up.
???
@@shenotski now now now.. you cant stop now. Keeping speaking 😊
@@shenotski wait isn't it actually considered reslly good for how it explores the topic?
@@shenotski when I think of awful World of Darkness books, I think of the gypsies source book, not the Holocaust book for Wraith
I would LOVE a video on the Garou, they're SO much different from standard werewolves compares to vampires and their sheer insanity would be pretty funny to talk about.
SpeakerD talks about the dangers of combat.
Also SpeakerD "because it's fun". I can see why Tannhauser and Phi-Brain are combat lunatics.
7:06 Story: “Yours, Sorry” and Flaws: “Poor Parenting Skills” have always been the single funniest part of the hypothetical character sheet for great-x14-Grandpa.
Seriously though, I keep coming back to this video and I keep absolutely adoring it. Thank y’all for making this, it’s always a treat to see what you decide to do next.
I cried bitter tears when Big E's TTS adventures ended..
And then you started writing a story based on my favorite tabletop RPGs.
I've been into World of Darkness (Old World of Darkness, technically) since second edition, played Werewolf and Changeling and Mage with my friends and haunted the old Java chat for years.
Hunter: The parenting was nostalgic bliss enveloped in your guys wonder style and I loved every second.
Now that you guys are sharing even more of this wonderful setting with people and I can't thank you enough.
Cheers, and keep up the amazing work!
This is the most visually impressive video essay I have ever seen. It’s one of the few videos that I don’t just listen to in the background cause then I would miss out on all the sick animations. I would personally love more videos like this
Chronicles player here!
Putting aside the weird business circumstances that started it, ChroD really is distinct enough for a separate pitch. Its systems, especially in the current 2E rules, are focused on Gothic Horror as its default rather than the more volatile Gothic Punk. Its games are worth a look if you wanna prioritize character study in your stories, like a more approachable Wraith.
Seeing a bunch of 40k fans try to understand anything even close to related to mage is going to be fantastic and I would like to thank everyone on the team behind this for granting the world the opportunity to watch as this comment section descends into a collection of ever increasing paradox and ork references.
I'm imagining it went something like that Oculus Imperia video talking about Daemons where it steadily degenerates into mumbling "the emperor protects" over and over with increasing horror and despair.
Humanity really is Ork in WoD.
@@KVP424 this
Orks basically are Marauders 🙂
40k is honestly the best possible preparation for WoD
there is a ton of lore, much of it is Ferrus Manus-grade half-assed and not thought through at all, and the secret to having fun with the setting is to run with the good and quietly leave the dumb and/or unfun to die forgotten. Also, feel free to add your own stuff! It's a big universe, nobody knows shit, and whatever's out there is fucking weird!
Hearing SpeakerD's normal speaking voice after just watching the latest hunter the parenting podcast again, gave me whiplash
Showing that Door and his son are from two different WoD books (Hunters Hunted and H5 respectively) Really helped put it into perspective at how each caste member may just be rolling a different splatt and is how each person is different (Or that the lad is H5 while everyone is living the HH nightmare)
That voice...those dulcet tones...that incredible charisma...I have missed that voice...
I hope after wrapping up Hunter the Parenting, Alfabusa and the team give the TTS treatment to some of the important characters in Vampire the Masquerade, like Beckett, Smiling Jack, Ur-Shulgi, etc.
There's so much potential in WoD and it's a shame it isn't more popular.
Imagine what they'd do to Samual Haight...
@@SymbioteMullet you mean the WoD ninja pirate zombie robot and soulsteel ashtray?
@@Spinnermist Yep, that exact dude.
What horrific beanstalk would grow from such a seed in the fertile clay of Alfabusa's mind?
Named characters in WoD are pretty taboo to have. Due to the insane power grading.
if the anti-diluvians had a TTS device
I found this channel 8 years ago throughout the years I’ve come and gone. Hate to admit it but I even forgot about it a few times but I still absolutely love what you do you’re the one that got me into tabletop to begin with. I hope you one day get the recognition you deserve. And continue doing what makes you happy and hopefully one day to get you paid.
Yes, I know I’m a basic bitch for telling you this but hey, what’s one more person saying what’s on their mind?
For those wondering, Yes, the bit about Czar Vargo trying to stop WWI through non-violent use of a fleet of zeppelins is canon. Until it wasn't...but in a canonical manner.
Confused? Allow me to elucidate.
WoD had a general philosophy of not invalidating earlier books outright, unless it really needed to (there's a reason White Wolf disavowed the sourcebook "World of Darkness: [Ethinic Slur]"). But it was no stranger to the casual retcon, either. Case in point, Czar Vargo. In earlier books, the self-proclaimed emperor of the world was driven off by the Technocratic Union (and then only because he knew he'd need to potentially kill his enemies to win the day, and he was an avowed pacifist), and all trace of his very public global invasion of the skies was erased by the New World Order (combination Illuminati and Men in Black).
In the _Revised_ era, though, the designers elected to be less unrealistic and more dire. In this telling, it was not the New World Order that erased Czar Vargo's actions, but Reality itself. Reality, that bitch, has seldom been kind to Mages, kicking them in the dick whenever they do Magick that clearly violates human belief in what's possible. A phenomenon Mages call "Paradox" (not to be confused with the current WoD rights holders). Paradox is the main balancing factor of Mage casting, since there's otherwise no Spell Slots or Mana system in place. (Well, Sorcerers have Mana, sometimes, but that's different. Don't worry about that).
Usually, Paradox backlash is limited to the Mage in the immediate sense, and sometimes those in the blast radius. According to Revised Mage, Czar Vargo's extremely public, _worldwide_ display of Mad Science was SO "Vulgar" (as opposed to "Coincidental", as Mages reckon magickal Effects), merely killing him was not sufficient. Reality *ERASED* Czar Vargo. Retroactively removing him from history altogether. Such that not only did his invasion not happen, not only was Czar Vargo never born, but what was presumably the European fishing village of his birth was _unmade entirely_ (a single resident of the town returned to find no trace of the village anywhere, and no memory it had ever been).
In short, Czar Vargo violated Consensus Reality to such a degree that he and everything that went into making him was edited from the timeline. Few Mages aware of the shifting of the timeline can even remember Czar Vargo ever existed. A testament to the calcification of Reality, and the upper limits of what a Mage can look forward to if they go against the grain. But also an almost heroic tragedy: Czar Vargo was SO AWESOME and SO *BASED,* the timeline could not accommodate his genius.
Pour one out for the man who paid the ultimate price for wanting to stop the horrors of the Seminal Catastrophe.
my first roleplaying system.. the memories... the joy... the darkness.
90's and 2000 edginess at it's best.
I keep a little candle lit that someday they might dabble in West End Game's Paranoia though.
It just seems soooo..... _them_
@@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing Friend Computer is always looking for more Troubleshooters
You have the absolute best ads. I almost missed the 99p blender at 28:51.
I love how much of a running gag it's become
Best character I played was a Russian Malkavian who ended up in California during the height of the gold rush. He was a prospector with a penchant for explosives. In fact, he believed that he heard voices from the explosions he caused. Small hints from smaller booms to divine revelations from huge booms. I miss playing him.
That sounds like an incredible character to play, kudos my friend!
He sounds like a blast to play as.
@@whatzhisface9016 Ba dum tish
Nuke.
You were some kinda Dracaler
YES, deep dives into the different game lines would be an amazing way to bring over more fans to WoD, specifically some underrated lines like Changeling: The Dreaming or Wraith: The Oblivion
didn't wraith die?
@@tsugek123 In the Metaplot of yore? Yeah, it got replaced by Orpheus. Is the game now unplayable? No, it can still be played. And it's not like it can't be house-lored back into existence.
This video plus H:tP are directly responsible for my group deciding to start a WoD game set in 2009 Cheyenne, Wyoming
after watching this video, I have to say that it has been the most comprehensive and the least confusing explanation of what WOD is
and I've seen many, many, many videos trying to explain the whole confusion with Legacy, Chronicles and V5, and somehow... you managed to avoid the trappings of it. By which mainly I mean that you haven't called Chronicles "New World of Darkness" but just said that it was a "new" version of World of Darkness
big work, done bigly!
There's also a bunch of fan modules for even more creatures to play as
Even Magical Girls in WoD
@@quinnholloway5400 oh ye, most of them are a sign of their times, and not something really needed, but they were neat
@@MayTTruck guessing those fan modules where just redundant? Or more along the lines of not being well integrated with the rest of WOD?
@@a.hendblade5291
wowzers, 9 months late, but that's what I get for not having notifs on
haven't really read any of them, but from a quick look on what they were supposed to be, it's just very clear that they were made to narrow down the type of game their creators wanted
like, you have the Genius game, which iirc, is just a way to have a Technocracy-focused Mage game. You have the Zombie game, which afaik is just a way to play Risen, without all the Wraith lore
if they got people being creative, that's nice. If I'll ever want to make a game called Blood Mage: The Usurping, you will know what I made it for :D
I really appreciate you making this video. Ever since I played VtM Bloodlines after watching Sseth Tzeentache's video on it, i've been so desperately interested in learning more about the World of Darkness and the ways in which I could get into it. But the White Wolf Wikis are so infrequently updated and so few people I know have every actually played anything in the WoD that I was honestly worrying that no one was really playing any WoD games anymore and that I would sadly be denied a chance to ever really fully immerse myself in it as I couldn't see things panning out for future rule books if no one was playing it.
You've done an excellent job in not only giving me the pseudo-"beginner's guide" that I have been so desperately craving but to also show me how there's still a very living and active WoD community and that said community has essentially just been as much of a hidden world as the narrative setting itself is.
I'd definitely be down for more specialized videos like this but for the specific games from WoD!
I really wanna see something similar to this in the future, even if it isn't WoD related I really loved this video. Honestly I've really wanted to get into running a WoD game and this really helped put into an easily digestible format. That emperor voice at the end really got me :( I miss TTS everyday.
I watched HTP, enjoying it thoroughly without knowing nothin about world of darkness, thinking it was edgy and generally avoiding it.
After watching this amazing intro vid, I'm already on the hook for narrating 2 vampire chronicles, and have fallen in love with the world. Thanks Ogre Gang!
I’d definitely be up for more videos, so long as Speaker fully understand you have turned him into what appears to be a VTuber
That sentence is so cursed.
The more the merrier, I guess.
i almost shat myself from laughter while watching this. You're the ones bringing magic to whichever universe you decide to build stories upon and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. This and SsethTzeentach's review on the Bloodlines game made me want to check out the game AND the tabletop when given the chance. Also, don't worry about not having the books at hand. Everything's possible with the internet, a printer and a binder to store the pages.
Mage: The Ascension is amazing and you guys should totally go over it. **especially** the stuff like those thought experiments like the whiskey flask paradox and maybe the origin of some memes like the vampires into chairs. Really neat how that's an actual Rote too in the 20th anniversary book.
MtAs is so freaking good. I adore this game of philosophical knife fights. Where it doesn't just matter what kind of magick you do, but HOW you do it, WHY, and to WHAT end. Where your character's approach to reality warping can be as surface level and loose, or in depth and introspective as you please.
@@Bluecho4
Glad to see SOMEONE gets it.
You mean the game about clockwork robots and Magic Nukes right?
To play any edition of Mage you need a group that's really into the esoteric, not just a couple of edgy manbabies like you'd do with Vampire. In my experience Ars Magica is more normie friendly and carries a similar enough flavour to the table.
Yes. You do have a great, totally near-godlike (with training) awesome magickal powers... but so is everybody else, just usually dormant. And that creates an imbalance. You need to push your will upon reality to do stuff, and that can have variable consequences. And then there are some world order organization who prevents and stops magic from functioning correctly - because they believe it's for the greater good, that their version (science) is better, and they may very well be right.
You guys should cover the lesser known splats honestly. I still think the character of Grimal is a Changeling Redcap given her love of biting people
Speaking as someone whos only contact with the franchise has been through Alfabusa and Apollo Speaks, first of all
Y E S, second of all WHAT ?
Considering the main characters are Hunters, I think the rest of WoD will be introduced eventually. Vampires are just the easiest first enemy to include. Besides Grimal (a weeb Redcap oddly makes sense), we've had hints that most of Marckus's friends and acquaintances might not be baseline humans - and serious hints that Marckus is unknown to himself a Mage, and that D and Boy aren't baselines either (plus we don't know what Horse is yet...). Those potential revelations have a lot of dramatic potential in a Hunter-based series - what do you do if your family are technically your enemies?
Nah that's just how 2000's weebs were
The World of Future Darkness must be revealed.
I am always a fan of watching people trying to untangle Mage or explain how to play Wraith without the game devolving into fistfights between the players. The way the deep lore such as the Triat existing across the Mage and Werewolf lines explicitly (and arguably influencing Changeling and Wraith in some aspects) works also fascinates me.
At Its very core, every project you and your team has the perfect amount of charm (period). I love everything you folk have done and I'm honored to live in a world where your content can bring me such joy.
Gonna say this right now: if I were to play in my first WoD game, I think I’d want a GM who thinks like SpeakerD. Welcoming, well-versed, accepting of creativity… I got a taste of that kind of GM back in 2019, when I got to help someone run a 40k TTRPG hybrid of Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, and Only War.
The man let me turn an airship AI into basically CABAL from Command & Conquer.
He helped one of the Guardsmen players set his character up to become basically 40K SOLID SNAKE.
WE EVEN HAD LCPL LIRU, ARMA 3 ZEUS GOD, PLAYING THE DUMBEST YET SIMULTANEOUSLY HILARIOUS GUARDSMAN I HAVE EVER SEEN BECAUSE THE GM SAID “FUCK IT, ROLL FOR IT” SO MANY TIMES.
It was wonderful, and I wish I could find a GM of that kind of caliber.
A video all about Vampire would be incredibly sick to watch. I also gotta say, considering that I've never seen a video from you guys before, this was a pretty great video essay considering its your first.
I honestly want to see a video on changeling, because I really think that it captures WoD the best, and they barely got mentioned here.
I hope you went back and watched more of his videos. Hunter The Parenting and (of course) If The Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device are very fun and funny series.
more video essays headed by 5 people with roiling, overcooked ADHD brains, please. This is amazing.
Sincerely,
1 person with a with a roiling, overcooked ADHD brain.
PS: How are you not doing narrations? THAT INTRO THO
These guys really should be given a WoD sponsorship because this made me very curious about the game
Well...they technically already do have a sponsorship since paradox themselves are giving them the greenlight to do this stuff and paradox owns WoD
A most wonderful primer! Let us join the bandwagon in saying MORE. (Also, one of our team suggests a breakdown of the different vampire clans.)
I must ask. I notice it has been said that you have glue. is this true?
I love your glue
I should have commented this when this came out, I have no excuse why I didn't but PLEASE MAKE MORE OF THESE. Video Essays are my brain food and I love to dine on WoD garnished with your fine voices and visuals.
Just wanted to say thank you! TTS and Astartes got me into 40K lore and Hunter: The Parenting got me into WoD’s respective lore. Sadly on RUclips the former is in abundance and the latter, while it certainly has a fair few creators covering it, it is still covered far less with way less viewership than it deserves. Wiki delving is definitely fruitful but it’s a bit harder to approach.
I’m really grateful to see it summarized for a wider audience and by a creator who’s both passionate about the setting and with a large platform to expose more people to it!
Btw, Mage: The Ascension lore is fucking WILD, 10/10 would recommend a quick look into it
M:tA is absolutely my favourite game to play and to ST. It's one of the only games out there where you actively have to find ways NOT to do something - you create a Box around your character (Paradigm) and have to find ways to work within it, because anything outside that box hurts you (Paradox, which is also imposed by Reality, regardless of your own characters Paradigm). You have the "Forces" Sphere at 3 so technically you can make Laser beams... except you're playing a Verbena whose magical Paradigm doesn't include "Laser Beams", so your character cannot do it. Or you're playing a Virtual Adept with "Spirit", so the only "Spirits" you can summon are from Movies and Video Games. Etc.
However!
Lightning bolts focused through the eyes of the idol of a Mythical Creature could take a bit of the properties of the Crystals you use to make the eyes, and all Video games and Movies take their inspiration from SOMEWHERE, so tapping into that source of Inspiration could bring out "spirits" that haven't yet had movies or games made with them... it might take a few extra steps (adding in Mind, for instance, to represent the "Collective Unconscious" where the inspiration is located, or Spirit for the Verbena to appease the spirit of the mythical creature), but it's up to you to figure out how to work within your Paradigm.
Or if you can work it into your Paradigm in the first place. Sometimes... well, you just can't do it even if, by the rules of the game, you have the power to do it.
Karl should have a time capsule for him so that future generations can understand our ways
I recently bought Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition. Holy shit, you weren't kidding. This is the deep end. It's a veritable textbook.
AND I LOVE IT. I'm going to be running a game soon. Please pray for me.
God I could totally see Anton from No Country for Old Men as a Promethean. He fits it perfectly. Wandering, disconnected, full of disquieting otherness.
He works as a HiT Mark too. He's got that cold, man in black, terminator vibe to him
Anton being a promethean is a stretch considering how evil he was
I love how every single time Speaker talks about how dangerous combat is, he ALWAYS says that they have a shotgun of SOME KIND.
In all seriousness though I'd love to have Speaker talk about more of the WOD games.
There's a reason for that. Most handguns aren't worth shit against supernatural beings. A shotgun blast, on the other hand, is essentially like getting hit by 8 pistol shots at once. It's *spicy*, and generally your best option for a firearm in game unless you're using a heavy caliber sniper rifle.
That's because lorewise and mechanically, shotguns ARE the best commonly-available weapon to fight supernaturals with.
Shooting a vampire with a 1911? Might as well be throwing a pebble. But a shotgun using Dragon's Breath shells? THAT will put the fear of God into the foul bloodsucker if it doesn't outright end them.
Honestly... I just want a video on Pentex/The Wyrm. I wanna hear more about the demons they've been sneaking into my Double Down sandwich.
Or the ones they've been putting into the Xanax and yes they canonically put demons in the medicines too
They're not demons as such, as demons are their own thing. As I recall, the things in your sandwich, car's fuel tank, mobile phone and metal music are called banes, which are basically spirits aligned with the Wyrm. One of their main purposes is to turn you into a mindless drone who simply keeps doing all the unproductive and downright harmful things, but more. Unlike most megacorporations, Pentex's primary goal isn't to make profit; it's to corrupt humanity completely. For many, however, the profit is hella nice, and some are in it *only* for the profit, which is corruption of its own kind.
But if you want to get into the specifics of the effects of eating bane-sandwiches (and otherwise interfacing with bane-laced products), think of the resulting corruption as mutations. But you (probably) won't be turning into a sword-wielding humanoid turtle or shoot laser beams from your eyes. I mean it *can* happen, but there's probably gonna be some... downsides, such as smelling like sulfur farts up to 20 feet away, literally exploding if you get too angry, seeping pus from your eyes, losing the ability to speak as your tongue swells to fill your entire mouth (good luck figuring out how to eat), literally losing pieces of your body as you use your powers, and just... a whole host of other "fun" things.
Czar Vargo is one of my favourite Tabletop RPG guys and I am glad that someone finally mentioned his story.
"Cringe is dead and I'm still breathing"
Words to live by
My favorite is Chronicles of Darkness. It is designed for cross compatibility between the different game lines (no more guessing what you roll to oppose a vampire power as a werewolf). Also I like the parsing down of the tribes/clans/traditions, that makes it easier for new players to jump in. And if you miss something (my beloved Silent Striders) there are conversion books to being some of that stuff into CoD.
I'd very much love if you guys talked about elements that changed drastically as the End Times showed up, like the Void Engineers going from Idealistic Explorers to "Oh My God WHAT IS COMING?!" preppers. Or how elements from one property blends into others (like Pentex, Technocracy, etc).
I have never seen any of your videos before and I just have to say: I found it very difficult to take my eyes off the screen even though I usually listen to RUclips in the background while doing something else. You have such a unique style to your visuals and animation and it is great at keeping my attention with this sense of fluidity it gives.
I’m gonna sub to you and hope you make more stuff like this
Bruh the real channel has already reacted to my comment, this is just sad
@@saddesklunch2544 nah, this is desklunch
@ xRockLobster75x I was replying to one of those Telegram bots lol
I'm sure many folks have said this at some point or another, but this is my current comfort video and it has really made me (a person who has never really played any ttrpg/rpgs of any sort) really want to attempt playing something. Thank you guys for making this and hoping there is more like this! If not, I will continue to watch your other videos on repeat for the serotonin.
I have to say I love this and has brought more want in me to go into WOD and play it myself, the explanation, animation, funny bits, the excitement and enthusiasm that Speaker-D has in his voice for a game he genuinely loves and the work the team put into this just *chef kiss*
I really wanna see more of these video essays, I think they're great and we get to see more of the team talk about stuff they're really interested in, hopefully fostering a closer community as we get to see them for who they are besides their great voice, art, sound or other work they do for the channel
Amazing stuff as always everyone, should be really proud of yourselves for the brilliant work and content you bring to the channel x