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(/default.aspx?g=topics&f=22) God-Machine Chronicle - First
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Posted by: Revlid - Thursday, May 02, 2013 11:35:22 PM(UTC)

EDIT: I've put the rant itself, hastily created (and screen-deformingly large) as it is, in spoiler tags.
Having read through and responded to a few replies, it's certainly interesting to see how people reacted to it. Most addressed my issues with corrections,
clarifications, or honest arguments for a different stance - displaying the kind of attitude that gives this forum a good name. For that I thank them. Some,
well, didn't. The less said there the better, though my own attitude could certainly have stood to be less confrontational.
Now, a good night's sleep and some healthy commentary later, it's time to accentuate the positive. What did I like about these new rules?
I've been brought around to the new focus on specialties, now that it's been presented to me as such.
Having had time to look it over, I like the new use of dramatic failure. I may add "choose to take a dramatic failure" as a universal Flaw-equivalent in my next
nWoD game. Or perhaps not, it being something of a disassociated mechanic. We'll see.
The social maneuvering system has great ideas, some of which I'll be stealing, even if I disagree with a few specifics of its execution.
Tilts are interesting, and could prove useful.
Most of my complaints stem from what I perceive to be the overcomplication - or rather, regimentation - of subsystems or effects that were previously largely
freeform. I can see how consolidating all manner of traits, effects, conditions, modifiers, ambiances and so on beneath the umbrella of "Conditions" will be
helpful for some games and for some writers. It's simply not my cup of tea, for a variety of reasons, and that taints the entire rule set for me, relying as it
does on Conditions, Beats, and other such newly-labelled things.
Now, back to your previously posted rant.

Evening all! Im not often active on this side of the White Wolf forums, but I do play nWoD, and those who frequent the Exalted edge of things may be more
familiar with me from there. Having an interest in both nWoD and rules patches in general, I downloaded the free God-Machine Chronicles rules package from
DriveThruRPG.
Ive yet to get the main book and (spoilers for the ultimate verdict) as a result of what Ive read here, probably never will. In fact, my reaction to the rules
presented in the pdf as strong enough that I felt the need to share them what you see here is largely a copy-paste of my description of the rules to a friend
over Skype, typed as I read it, cleaned-up, slightly-rearranged, and edited for readability as an essay.
Okay, so lets start from the top. For simplicitys sake, Ill be referring to this altered system as GMC, and the current one as nWoD. As a disclaimer, one
I'm putting right up top - I got impatient (or hungry, or was asked to play Smash Bros) a lot while reading. It's possible I've missed things, or misinterpreted
rules. If so, please correct me on these points! I will be really glad to stop being upset about them.
The God-Machine Chronicles wrote:
Note on Specialties
You may only purchase one instance of a given Specialty, although multiple Specialties may apply to a given roll. For example, Surgery and Cardiology
may apply to a Medicine roll to perform heart surgery.

Ill start off with a minor complaint yknow, to ease you into the major ones, which will be arriving later. Im aware that this specialty change is largely a
formalization of a fairly common house rule, but that doesnt mean I have to like it. One thing I like about nWoD specialties is that you can get as many as
you like, and while they only add one die to a roll, but dice pools are small enough that this one die still significant. So you're encouraged to get a wide range
of little bonuses, rather than the "What I Want To Do +3" you end up with in Exalted. This, on the other hand, seems to be encouraging you to take a bunch of
overlapping Specialties to stack their bonuses. Rather than Cardiology +2, you get Surgery +1 and Cardiology +1, which stack.
Next up is Aspirations, which are basically the Motivations from Exalted, except theyre specifically called out as being tailored toward the scale of the
Chronicle, with examples given for both short-term and long-term Aspirations. No mechanics yet, so they just appear to be another way of saying "this is what
I want out of the game" to your Storyteller. That's not bad at all, even if it is a bit redundant with just using the words from your mouth to talk to your
Storyteller.
Then we have Virtues and Vices. Its easier to regain Willpower from these now, a change which a sidebar suggests was prompted by resource-hoarding
players not spending Willpower as often as was necessary to keep the game fun. I know I have the problem of hanging onto Potions and Ethers in case I need
them later in the game, the same probably applies to some people on the tabletop. TO be more specific, you can get Willpower from Vices without needing to
endanger yourself or your goals. You can't do the same with Virtues, but you can get it twice per game session now, rather than once. Despite the fact that a
sidebar notes you probably shouldnt be refreshing Willpower with your Virtue every game session, let alone more than once per session. Huh.
The other big change to Virtues and Vices is that they're no longer restricted to the seven classics. Instead, you just make up one of each - examples are
given - with Virtue basically being "What Personality Trait Makes My Character Admirable" and Vice basically being "What Personality Trait Makes My Character
Flawed". Or, to put it another way, sources of long-term improvement vs short-term comfort. Ambitious is given as an example of something that could be
both a Virtue and a Vice, but a given character has to have different ones.
This isnt bad at all. The old seven Vs are still available to those who want to use them (I certainly find them useful in shaping a character), while the others
open up options for those who felt their character needed some special little guilty pleasure or admirable drive that wasnt previously covered, or who wanted
to put a personal slant on their V you could previously cover procrastination with sloth, but now you dont have to.

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This also shifts nWoD away from the Gothic (Christian) Horror connotations of the seven Vs, which is an interesting decision for a system essentially based in
Gothic Horror. I suppose this could be a decision rooted in the new setting, which is by default a more modern Cosmic Horror.
Skimming over some stuff Ill get to later, we find XP! Experience point costs are no longer based on a rating theyre flat. Attributes just cost 4xp regardless
of level, Skills 2xp, and so on. This is presumably to work with the new XP-awarding system, which I'm not... entirely sure I like. Revolving around the
acquisition of Beats, each of which is essentially 1/5th of an experience point, its built as much more of a system than in the nWoD, and any system
encourages players to game it by its very existence. The "eyeball it, have some guidelines" system of nWoD was about as airtight as you were going to get,
frankly. That said, there is a "group xp" system that helps, and is certainly how I'd use such a system.
On to Merits! The house rules for getting refunds for lost Merits have been formalized, which is useful. Ironically, considering my tendency to safeguard
Backgrounds and the xp spent on them in Exalted, I tend to prefer nWoD Merits to be lost without recompense, especially if the source of their destruction
was the character in question, through action or inaction. I find it gives a sense of (non-fatal) loss and consequence, with any trivial or temporary losses best
dealt with through refunds. Still, those who want to apply more universal refund rules can now do so.
Oh! And now heres three pages of fiction right in the middle of the Merits section, separating how to buy Merits from here are some Merits. Thats... thats
definitely a formatting decision.
Hm, interesting. The first Merit is Area of Expertise, which is just an extra +1 for a Specialty, at an equal cost to buying another Specialty. What a boring
waste of words. It has a nonsensical Attribute prerequisite, and facilitates overspecialization and dice-grubbing. So now that surgeon with specialties in
Cardiology and Surgery can buy this to get a +3 rather than a +2 on heart surgery! What a meaningful place to put your xp.
A poor start, but it can only get better, unless we immediately run into Good Time Management, which allows you to halve the interval of all extended actions
ever for 1xp. Considering that we do immediately run into that, I hope youll forgive me if I start skim-reading much of this document, my interest
demolished.
Patient increases the number of intervals you can take in an extended action by two, just in case any system of magic based on extended actions (i.e.
practically all of them) wasnt already broken over your knee. Professional Training reminds me of what little I recall of the Professions from Hunter. In short:
Pick a job.
At level 1, you
At level 2, you
At level 3, you
At level 4, you
At level 5, you

get two dots of Contacts associated with that job.

get 9-again on three Skills related to the job.
get two specialties spread between those Skills.
get a free dot in one of those three Skills, and a Beat when you buy a dot in one of them.
can spend Willpower before making a roll in one of those three Skills to give it the rote quality, allowing you to reroll dice if it fails.

Now, lets set aside the fact that the rote quality is really powerful, and not commonly used for just that reason. For now, lets also ignore the fact that its
really dumb to offer people xp (in chunks of 1/5th of a point) for raising Skills that you just gave them a free point in and that theyve been previously
encouraged to get as high as possible, and that its even dumber to do so at level 4 of the Merit representing the job that those skills are relevant to, by which
point youd think your average programmer would have Computer rated pretty high already.
Setting all that aside, and assuming that 9-again on a single Skill is worth about the same as a Specialty (1/10 as good, but active all the time), thats 9xp of
stuff for 5xp of Merits.
I will admit to some amusement (which is technically a positive emotion) at the fact that this use of Asset Skills (which, lets face it, werent a great idea in
Mirrors, let alone here) makes I am a chef/beat cop/desk jockey more mechanically potent than, say, a Changeling Kith.
Tolerance for Biology is another 1xp Merit that completely negates body-horror in all its forms. You dont get nauseated or freaked out by guts or blood or alien
biology or grotesque shapeshifting. I object to this on a few levels first, thats just a Composure specialty and/or personality-based
circumstance/equipment bonus jacked up to an autosuccess for the same xp cost. I mean, I am not unsettled by scary things is one of the main points of
Composure, so why this Merit both shunts its way into prominence in that area and requires three dots in Resolve is beyond me. Perhaps more annoying is the
fact that this is a really cheap Merit for a Horror game that says I am not scared by X. Its a cheap Merit that negates an entire avenue of character suffering
this isnt something that really worked in Exalted, a game about being an invincible demigod, so why the hell would it work in nWoD, a game about being a
scared little prune in a world replete with shadows.
Then weve got Hardy, which adds its dot-rating to rolls to resist disease, poison, deprivation, unconsciousness, or suffocation, and so is literally just a series
of specialties compressed into a single Merit. If youre going to muddy the waters like this, Im not really sure what the point of Specialties is.
If I ever write an RPG system with a Merits equivalent, there will be a clearly laid-out section of what they can and cannot do per dot at the top, framed in
generic terms. If Ambidextrous costs 3 dots and allows you to ignore the -2 penalty for using an off-hand, then "Ignore two points of a fairly common penalty"
is something a 3-dot Merit can do. Youd think, what with everything else this rewrite has picked up from FATE (well get to that later) theyd at least have
picked up something like that.
Whatever, let's move on from Merits before I lose the will to live. There's a whole section for Fighting Merits, and another for Supernatural Merits to give you
mind bullets and telepathy, both which I'm sure are inspiring examples of game design in this core system meant for the desperate and hopeless struggles of
Cosmic Horror, but I'm going to start on Conditions, instead.
Okay, so Conditions are essentially the Temporary Aspects of the FATE system. Whenever you achieve an exceptional success, you can apply a Condition to
someone, and when its removed they gain a Beat. There are other ways to do so, but they're not immediately presented.
Now, one of the big benefits of Aspects is that theyre generic in effect; no matter what a given Aspect is, it offers the same benefits; +2 to a roll if
channelled, and so on. As a result, you can make up whatever Aspect you like, and know that its effects are catered for. Conditions cant be channelled,
obviously, as Fate points or similar arent present, but in any case theyre not generic. Instead, they each have detailed and specific mechanical effects, much
like Flaws in the nWoD. In fact, they outright /replace/ Flaws, with "Persistent Conditions" like Blind or Addicted that cant be resolved, but instead provide
Beats when theyre annoying, just as Flaws provided xp.
At around this point, some might wonder why they didnt just quintuple all xp costs and replace Beats with xp. We shant, instead choosing to continue our
investigation of Conditions.
Now, the generic nature of FATEs Aspects obviously has its downsides, as well a broken leg is the same as a twisted ankle, it just lasts longer, for example
but while there are benefits in Condition-specific mechanics, they make it rather more difficult to create new Conditions if the 23 in the book don't meet your
immediate needs. Fortunately, the writers didnt just give us a clear sense of how potent Conditions should be, we're provided with a neat system for
homebrewing them on the fly if necessary!
The God-Machine Chronicles wrote:
When creating a Condition, consider the following two points:
What game mechanics does the Condition require?
How can the Condition be resolved?
[...]
All Conditions should have some kind of game effect. They can add or subtract dice, restrict certain kinds of rolls, remove 10-again or add 9-again, and
interact with sub-systems such as Social maneuvering.

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Thats it. Good luck.

Still, the actual Conditions themselves can justify the whole exercise, if theyre cool and comprehensive enough. Lets give them a look... ah, heres an
example. Deprived.
The God-Machine Chronicles wrote:
Deprived
Your character suffers from an addiction. She is unable to get her fix, however, leaving her irritable, anxious, and unable to focus. Remove one from her
Stamina, Resolve, and Composure dice pools. This does not influence derived traits; it only influences dice pools that use these Attributes.
Resolution: Your character indulges her addiction.
Beat: n/a

So it's a contextual penalty. A really obvious contextual penalty. Of the sort youve seen used through the nWoD, with no need to Capitalize Ordinary Words, or
attach mechanics that are, by turns, oppressively mechanized and offensively vague. How delightful.
Im going to make a prediction, here this entire Conditions system is going to turn out to be the worst parts of the Aspect system from FATE and the worst
parts of the original nWoD contextual bonus/penalty system, with none of the benefits of either. Thats what tends to happen when you fall in love with how
one system works, and try to ape it in another without really understanding what makes it run in such a way that you like it the form of the system is
mirrored, but not its function.
Another Condition, by the by, is Bonded.
The God-Machine Chronicles wrote:
Bonded
Your character has established an extensive bond with a specific animal. She gains +2 on any rolls to influence or persuade her bonded animal. It may
add your Animal Ken to any rolls to resist coercion or fear when in your characters presence. The animal may add your characters Animal Ken to any
one die roll.
Resolution: The bonded animal dies or is otherwise parted from the character.
Beat: n/a

So in fairness, Conditions arent just renamed circumstance modifiers. Theyre also bizarrely repurposed Merits, like this one, which should probably be called
Animal Companion or Animal Bond and stuck in Social.
Alright, having carved my dire predictions in stone and gargled my dreadful prophecies, Ill move on from Conditions. Next up is Morality or Integrity, as its
now known. I understand that this system was already extensively previewed before release, but I wasnt following any of that, so I come to it afresh, on a
wave of sour annoyance frothed up by my earlier reading.
Okay, so Morality is now Integrity. Instead of Sins against Morality/Humanity/Whatever, there's "Breaking Points". There's no more Hierarchy of Sins, either.
All Breaking Points are dealt with in the exact same way. You meet a Breaking Point, you roll Resolve + Composure (presumably you can spend Willpower as
normal for any roll), with a bonus or penalty based on your current Integrity (ranging from +2 for 8-10 to -2 for 1).
You also get circumstantial modifiers (not Conditions, you'll note, because apparently Conditions arent circumstantial modifiers) like "protecting yourself +1".
Note that since the initial dice pool isn't based on what your Breaking Point is, stuff like "committing a murder should be more severe than stealing a car" is
relegated to circumstantial modifiers like "premeditated murder -5, killing in self-defense -4".
Glossing over any balance issues for a moment (Jack Bauer, for example, can trivially stay at Morality 10), this seems a little... overly complicated for a system
that is already based on winging it.
Oh, did I not mention? There's no hard and fast list of "this is what comprises a Breaking Point", as can be found in the various Moralities of the nWoD.
Instead, your ST decides what is and isn't a Breaking Point, based on the tone of the story and who your PCs are. The example given is a group of PCs coming
across blood splattered over a boiling room, and all rolling for a Breaking Point because blood is scary.
So it's basically a poorly-designed SAN system, with the basic shape of the chargen Aspects from FATE used to generate character-specific Breaking Points,
and even more complications rolled into it than the nWoD Morality system. Thanks, but I think Ill stick with some of the better houseruled Morality fixes if I
need to change anything.
On a Dramatic Failure you lose a dot of Integrity and gain a serious negative Condition (you'll note that the system never actually uses the term "negative
Condition" - they're all Conditions) like Madness or Broken. You also get a Beat.
On a Failure you lose a dot of Integrity and gain a less serious negative Condition like Guilty or Spooked. You don't get a Beat.
On a Success you keep your Integrity, but still gain that less serious negative Condition. You don't get a Beat.
On an Exceptional Success, you gain a point of Willpower /and/ a Beat.
You also get a Beat for getting the shit kicked out of you, by the way, so this continues the trend of get xp for being really shit or really good.
Okay, so apparently Conditions arent just circumstance modifiers, and misplaced Flaws and Merits. Losing the soul is a Condition, too. Well, no, it's three
Conditions, each of which progresses to the next once a given point of degradation is met. I was under the impression that one of the mechanical benefits of
nWoD over oWoD was simplicity, no?

Perhaps I should blame FATE for whats becoming increasingly apparent is a hamfisted attempt to shove its peanut butter in the nWoDs chocolate, but FATE
has merits! And downsides, big downsides that have only become more apparent to me as I GM my Dresden Files game, but it has merits. This system just
happens to have completely missed what they are, and imposed the most basic /structure/ of those merits on another, unrelated system apparently without
considering the consequences or understanding what made those merits work.
When in fact, what they should have done is look at what effects of the FATE system they liked, and then reverse-engineered them to manifest in a system
like nWoD's. The effects of the FATE system that I like arent any that Id want in nWoD, mind you, because theyre intended for very different games FATE
is generally shit at horror.
Posted by: Revlid - Thursday, May 02, 2013 11:36:22 PM(UTC)

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Well, moving on to pastures that at least carried the hope of being greener, the new rules for Extended Actions are identical to the old ones, except with some
minor new complications (e.g. if you fail, you can either start all over again or have one of the free xp factories called Conditions), and the social combat
system has some good ideas, but is ultimately overcomplicated, doesn't make good use of existing systems, and is replete with the kind of Capitalized
Ordinary Word terminology that runs through this system like a distracting river.
Social Maneuvering is basically an extended action, but one that tracks successful rolls rather than actual successes. Extended actions are a subsystem that
this rewrite added unnecessary complications to, so using a further variant of that... maybe not a good idea.
You state a Goal, and then determine the number of successful rolls you need. These are referred to as Doors, because Capitalizing Ordinary Words is the best
way to generate game terminology. The number of necessary Doors for a given Goal is the lower of your Resolve or Composure, plus a bunch of modifiers
based on Aspirations and Vices and Breaking Points and such - essentially the same modifiers explicitly applied to MDV in Exalted, or implied in nWoD social
rolls.
The interval for your rolls in this extended action is based on your Impression (see: Capitalizing Ordinary Words). Which is, like a lot/of the GMC rules,
basically "your ST decides" orbited by a ring of unnecessary pseudomechanizing jargon, like Saturn if it were shitty game design and not a planet.
If you break down all your target's Doors, your Goal is accomplished and they have to do whatever you wanted them to do, acquiring a Beat in the process
(1/5th of an experience point, for those whove forgotten, since Beat is an instance of COW that doesnt even make much sense, despite having its meaning
outright explained in the book). Or they can offer an Alternative, in which case you can apply a Condition (take a shot for COW and then sign up for free xp) to
them, and they still do what you want but mitigate it - maybe they lend you their demon-summoning book but come along with it so that you can't steal it, or
drive you to work but not back from there.
And, of course, there's a big old stop-sign right at the front of this section telling you not to use this on PCs.
The intervals for an Average Impression, by the way, are Weeks. Good Impression is Days. If you want to convince that random guy on the street to lend you
his phone using this system, you're gonna need to plan the /fuck/ ahead. Meanwhile, your average person can convince your other average person to join the
Nazi Party in two weeks. Or two days, if theyre not actively opposed to the idea. Unless the ST steps in and shuts the whole thing down, so its a system that
basically exists or doesnt on their whim.
I can see elements of good ideas in this system - Doors making it easier to do some things than others, etc. It's just all buried under COW and unnecessary
complications.
And now - combat. Hm. Okay, well, we start off with an optional rule for resolving a scene of combat in a single (Dex + Firearms/Strength + Brawl or
Weaponry) roll, which bodes well for their changes to the actual combat system.
Now Tilts are introduced, which are Conditions that apply primarily to combat, from which you can gain Beats. COW waves its banner with pride.
Then weve got the Surrender rules, which, like most of this system update, were hacked in from FATE basically unchanged. Still, it's a better cludge than
most of the ones we've seen so far, even if you need to spend Willpower to attack someone who Surrenders. Not simply surrendering, you understand, but
Surrendering. Were not told what cosmic force imposes a psychic drain on those dishonourable enough to strike a fallen foe.
You need to have Intent going into the combat, which is, again, taken straight from FATE for no apparent reason. This is your purpose for fighting that scene,
and is, of course, a COW. You lose Willpower if your Intent has nothing to do with hurting anyone and you kill someone anyway. I kind of thought that was the
purpose of Breaking Points, but whatever, they're vague as fog seen through smoked glass anyway.
Weapons now carry an Initiative penalty, because simplicity is death. Interestingly, I suffer an Initiative penalty for wielding a pistol, or a sword. I suffer a
higher Initiative penalty for having two pistols, or a sword and a shield.
Hm. You know, I'm not a "mathy" sort of person. I envy those who are. I often find it hard to think in terms of numbers. I don't immediately think in terms of
mathematical probabilities, I tend to find it hard to work out things in my head, etc. I'll often just go with gut feeling because I've no patience for it all.
Nevertheless, I could tell at a glance how pointless the change to Dodge was, so I wrote down some numbers on a Notepad and confirmed it.
Normally, you subtract your Defense from the attack pool. Since each die is 0.3 successes, your Defense is effectively -0.3xD successes. Choosing to Dodge
gives up your action in favour of doubling your Defense, thereby making it -0.6xD successes, yes?
In this new system, you instead double your Defense, roll your Defense as a dice pool, and subtract your successes from your opponent's attack successes. So
instead of -0.6xD successes, you're at -[(Dx2)x0.3] successes. Or, to work that second equation down a little, -0.6xD successes.
The only point to that change was adding another layer of rolling (and with it, randomness, yes) between you and the result. What a nice bit of slowdown and
unreliability.
Okay, so weapon bonuses are no longer added to attack dice pools, instead going straight to damage. It is, therefore, harder to hit, but actually hitting will do
more damage. This is exacerbated by the fact that all weapons now deal lethal damage, regardless of their nature, which is really quite daft. I dont know that
Ive ever complained that my police baton wasn't killy enough, but now being hit by a crowbar is, apparently, just as bad as being struck with a machete or
spear, and worse than being struck with a rapier.
You can deal bashing with a weapon, but it requires that you spend a point of Willpower to, I dont know, wish really hard that you didnt hurt that guy as bad.
Unarmed attacks still do bashing damage, though. So punching someone with a fist does bashing, but hitting them with a stick does lethal. Thats
counterintuitive, to be unnecessarily polite. The reason punches do bashing damage is that they inflict blunt trauma. What punching someone models is
causing them so much subdermal haemorrhaging that they pass out, from blood loss or pain. The exact same thing happens when you hit someone with a
stick. The lethal damage comes in when you punch someone hard enough in specific enough places to start actually damaging organs (e.g. the difference
between hitting someone in the upper arm with a crowbar and hitting them in the head).
nWoD already accounts for this by having bashing wrap around into lethal. Thats what that mechanic is there for. What was the purpose of removing the main
way to model attacks differently? If you wanted to mess about with weapons, there were some perfectly functional, stress-tested hacks in Armoury II. There
was no need to make this change, which I still cant quite discern the motivation behind.
So, yeah. If you want to subdue someone nonlethally, you need to punch them. Everything else requires killing intent. They note that you might not /want/ to
kill someone with your police baton, and if that's the case you'd better drop it and get to punching.
The God-Machine Chronicles wrote:
At the Storytellers discretion, you can reflexively spend a point of Willpower when pulling your blow with a weapon to deal bashing damage. Otherwise,
the only way to avoid dealing lethal damage is to stop using a lump of metal or wood to inflict trauma.

It's fairly dismissive, actually, but youre clearly intended to have surrendered- sorry, Surrendered before it even matters, so you can take part in the resulting
(http:// 3419622770http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/05/27)XP shower.
So attack dice pools have gone down... and Defense is now lower of your Dexterity or Wits plus your Athletics. That's potentially doubled your Defense, in the
face of a reduced attack pool. That's not (Dex or Wits + Athletics) 2, I should clarify. That's just straight up increasing Defense by Athletics.

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Speaking as, again, a non-maths guy, my revelations might be slow and obvious. I thought this might slow down combat just a tad, more than could be
accounted for by the increased damage from weapons on successful hits. To check this for myself, I ran a fight between two gangbangers, from the core.
They're tripping acid, so theyre doing this to the death, and wielding stolen police batons.
It took 9 rounds for one of them to take a wound, and 47 rounds for one to go down. He died, immediately, after suffering four hits from this stolen police
baton.
Well! I said to myself. That was so excruciatingly boring and slow that I was almost moved to self-harm just to incite some brief flicker of emotion. Lets see
what the nWoD version looks like! So I ran the fight again, this time keeping a razor blade and some band-aids within easy reach.
Round 5, one of them falls unconscious, and the other is free to clobber him to death or just wander off. I had four times as many dice to roll, and was getting
3 times as many successes with each die, even if I was doing half as much damage with each successful round.
Well, at least now we can get onto the meat of the new combat system, the Tilts! Surely these will be clever penalties and bonuses, cunningly pilfered from
FATE, to justify and mitigate the vastly reduced likelihood of hitting anything! ...oh. They're all applied with Called Shots, which are basically attack rolls with
a further penalty. How lovely, more Chance Die.
Okay, so with Armour now reducing final damage, they've effectively created a less well-organized version of Exalted's Accuracy and Damage vs DV and Soak
model, whereby you add your weapon's value to your Damage, and subtract your armour's value from the Damage you suffer, rather than either of them
interacting with attack pools or Defense.
See, Exalteds combat system is no great shakes, but at least it starts off by saying "You have Accuracy which is opposed by DV. If your Accuracy wins, you
apply Damage, which is opposed by Soak." nWoD rolls all of that into "You have Accuracy which is opposed by Defense." GMCnWoD makes that into "You have
Accuracy which is opposed by Defense, with Weapon and Armour jumping in at the last minute and basically doing the same thing as Damage and Soak".
What Im saying is that this is the one time this systems love affair with COW would have come in handy.
Oh, and while close combat is now a dreadful slog of chance die, guns (which now do more damage and aren't at all affected by the increase in Defense and
still inflicts bashing damage through ballistic armour) have become not just a lot more lethal than close combat, as they were before. No, now they are divine
fingers of death compared to the wifflebats of close combat, bolts of heavenly flame that detonate enemies into crimson chunks when the gunman's finger so
much as brushes the trigger. I exaggerate, but you get the idea, yes?
Oh, there are Environmental Tilts... which are just situational penalties and largely outside of the control of the characters. So we can add scene description
to the list of things Conditions are supposed to be but dont quite cover, along with Merits, Flaws, and circumstantial modifiers.
Skipping over the rest of the "Sources of Harm" section out of boredom, we find ourselves in Ephemeral Beings. A Workmanlike overview of ghosts and spirits,
with a similar overview of GMC angels which confirms that they're just Qashmilim...
A fleeting attempt to use Conditions to justify why Rank 6+ spirits should be rare in-game, followed by another attempt to crowbar Conditions into being
everything and nothing, the alpha and omega. Spirits outside of a certain Condition haemorrage Essence. You can no longer say that spirits draw power from
relevant stuff, they have to draw power from "Conditions relating to them".
Ugh. Meta-mechanics. The spirits shouldn't be drawing power from the mechanical representation of something. You should have a mechanical representation
of the drawing of power from something that actually exists.
A mention of a Fate trait, which has not (unless I'm blind) been seen before. We are told that ephemeral beings interact with Fate differently. Since this hasn't
been explained, it's not exactly meaningful. A quick Ctrl+F of the document reveals that Fate is not present, as a mechanical term, anywhere. Something
ditched on the roadside in development, but with references left in thanks to White Wolf editors? Or a mechanic to be found elsewhere in the actual GMC but
not included in this collection of mechanics? Either would be disappointing!
Ephemeral beings now all have Banes and Bans, as a matter of course. The nature of these Banes and Bans are based on their Rank, and while the explicit
split is appreciated, the accompanying restrictions and standardizations are not.
Oh, good gravy, more Conditions. Like Materialized, Anchor, Resonant, Controlled, Fettered, or... Underworld Gate. I dont even have the strength to object
except with a muttered what even is a condition before continuing my perusal. Oh, yay, Urged and Claimed are Conditions, too. I mean, Claimed is a
motherfucking major template, so is a Vampire will probably a Condition, too. Almost certainly, actually! Itll have effects like you burn in sunlight, and
have a Clan.
...There is a fucking flowchart for what Spirits can do based on the Conditions in play around and on them. I am not kidding.
If you want to use a Numen through the Gauntlet, you spend a point of Essence to use the Reaching Manifestation, roll to apply the Reaching Condition to
yourself, and for the rest of the scene have the ability to use Numen with the Reaching Tag. I dont even know what I just said, and Im the one who said it.
See, I remember in the old nWoD you would just use the Reaching Numen, and then could use powers through the Gauntlet for a scene, bam.
...Hey. Hey, guys.
Guess how you summon something? Guess what mechanic it uses? It's time for more Conditiooooooons!
The God-Machine Chronicles wrote:
By acquiring a ghosts bones, or researching his Anchor and using it in the rite, the summoner sets up the Anchor Condition. By burning rare materials,
the area is made Resonant with a fire-spirit. ... Using the fruits of their researches, the Cultists customize Conditions for their intended guest,
advancing the Condition to Open and allowing it to Manifest.

Every capitalized word in that sentence refers to a Condition.

You don't summon a fire spirit by lighting the proper sacred fire, allowing it to materialize. You summon a fire spirit by lighting the proper sacred fire, which
applies a Sacred Fire Condition to the room, which gives the room the Resonant Condition with regards to that fire spirit, who can then use a Manifestation to
apply the Materialized Condition to itself.
The reverse applies for Exorcisms and Abjurations and such. Wow, this is almost enough to get me a bit angry again.
And we end on a long list of equipment, and the equipment rules themselves, neither of which have changed much at the first glance Im willing to give them.
Some new stuff like smartphones, which is nice. Finally, a brief list of evil mystical items, including such inspired choices as "the evil haunted doll" and "the
evil video tape" and "the skull that screams when no-one's watching".
Now, nWoD and FATE are both fine systems with flaws and upsides. Either could use tweaks or hacks or improvement in a variety of areas, but both
essentially function within their given spheres. They're each better than this... ungodly and ill-considered cludge.
See, I came into White Wolf through Exalted 2e. That was my first contact with them, and indeed with proper roleplaying (outside of one-off D&D games
where I learnt the rules purely through the DM explaining them each time until I remembered them).

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I became familiar with the system's horrific flaws, branched out a bit, discovered other systems and their merits and flaws. D&D 3.5, which I just didn't like
much. D&D 4e, which was a great board game masquerading as a poor RPG. FATE, which I fell in love with and then fell /out/ of love with upon actually GMing
it. Dark Heresy and Eclipse Phase... Oh, and Scion 1e, which proved that as bad as Exalted 2e was, it can always get worse. Probably the most fun I've had is
playing Scholomance, with a system that basically consisted of "player rolls a D6, Storyteller makes shit up on a whim."
Eventually I stumbled into nWoD, and was blown away. What the hell, they could pull this off? A functioning core system with a decent proportion of really
good books? Sign me right up!
And now this, probably less than a year after I actually crack open the core system. You cut me deep, White Wolf. You cut me real deep just now. I'm sure
some people will like this - a lot of my complaints do, after all, stem from the premise of "Conditions are awful", so those who disagree will find great swathes
of this review/bile-filled stream-of-consciousness to be completely invalidated, and the end product far more appealing. I'm obviously not among them.
...Aw, fuck, and now all future books will be run through this filter, and Ill have to reverse-engineer them into a half-way acceptable format. Fuck it, Im off to
bed.
Posted by: Leliel - Thursday, May 02, 2013 11:51:52 PM(UTC)
Wow. So many words, and yet so, so much wrong.
Conditions are only a small part of that. There's a reason Beaten Down exists, after all.
EDIT: Thing is Rev? The flowchart isn't that complex. If Ephemeral Being A Uses Manifestation B, go to Condition C. If Ephemeral Being A Does Not Have
Manifestation B Or Does Not Require It, Remain At Current Location.
Also, Condition, I've realized, is a handy little mechanical abstraction for "die modifier" or "single-use buff". Being, horror of horrors, a D&D player, this is
extremely simple for me to use-they're just Vancian spells or debuffs to me, something I would note down already.
Posted by: Omicron - Friday, May 03, 2013 12:25:56 AM(UTC)
Some of this I disagree with.
Some of this... I'd like to say you're wrong but I can't. Don't know if this is because I find it accurate or because I generally have a lot of respect for your
opinions.
For one thing, it's certain that I will houserule that some weapons do not deal lethal damage - police batons are the obvious examples, but there are others.
I will think about this.
I generally like that the game encourages Specialties over other stuff. With Area of Expertise and Interdisciplinary Specialty, as well as stackable Specialties,
players are encouraged to make Specialties the core of their character, which I hope will encourage a setting where characters with the same rating in a Skill
will not be so equivalent as they were before, because Specialties are the true determinant of their effectiveness.
I feel Conditions will be basically unusable in IRC gaming, work fine for PbP, and for real-life gaming will depend entirely on wether your other players have
access to the book and/or you have printed stacks of "Condition" cards.
For someone like me who is the only one to read the books and have to explain them all to my RL group, Conditions might be a considerable difficulty. I will
try and see.
Posted by: Leliel - Friday, May 03, 2013 12:51:51 AM(UTC)
Omicron wrote:
I feel Conditions will be basically unusable in IRC gaming, .

No it won't.
Just make a checklist, email it to other players, and rule that you aren't making new Conditions without explaining what they are far in advance. I don't even
think you need index cards, given how there's going to be relatively few Conditions picked up in play, and how quickly they can be resolved.
Posted by: LOOK - Friday, May 03, 2013 1:05:15 AM(UTC)
So, far as I can tell you don't like the premise of conditions. That's fine, I suppose. But many of these complains apply as thoroughly to nWoD as they do to
GMC. Conditions are litereally just a more streamlined system for noting what effects are active on a character. The Reaching Condition, for example, is just
there to help the ST remember "Oh, hey, I used the Reaching Manifestation seven turns ago". Basically they are notes.
The combat notes are not unjustified, though from experience many of the problems you cite haven't actually emerged in play. They are also trivially easy to
correct. Don't like all weapons doing lethal? Simple enough to rule they don't. Don't like the defense roll? Remove it. World of Darkness isn't Exalted, its way
more free-form and hack friendly. Changing a rule here and there doesn't butcher combat economy, touching up the exp system won't damage character
progression.
I understand there are some things to be frustrated about in the new system, but certainly no more than there were in the old. And I for one find GMC to be
more stable base of which to construct a game, with fewer unexpected loop holes and problems. Combat especially has been vastly more dynamic and
engaging, with the rule of numbers no longer being the surefire path to victory (though admittedly I do tweak weapons so they don't all deal lethal).
Perhaps this is all a difference of opinions, but at least try it before you bash it. Then remove the bits that pissed you off and perhaps try it again.
Posted by: Strill - Friday, May 03, 2013 1:12:07 AM(UTC)
Quote:
Next up is Aspirations, which are basically the Motivations from Exalted, except theyre specifically called out as being tailored toward the scale of the
Chronicle, with examples given for both short-term and long-term Aspirations. No mechanics yet, so they just appear to be another way of saying "this
is what I want out of the game" to your Storyteller. That's not bad at all, even if it is a bit redundant with just using the words from your mouth to talk
to your Storyteller.
You didn't read the whole thing. Aspirations are also key part of the game's EXP system. You get beats for fulfilling them.

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Posted by: Revlid - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 4:11:45 AM(UTC)

Well, its been over a week since I first posted my off-the-cuff reactions to GMC straight from Skype to the forums, in what might be charitably referred to as a
torrent of distaste. Since then, Ive read through these rules some more, played a one-off game with some old friends who were in town and spoiled Iron Man
3 for me (the bastards), and received a fair bit of commentary on my original post some of it helpful (thank you very much, LOOK) and some of it... less so
(no need to name names).
Time for a second look, wouldnt you say?
Ill start off by apologizing to the writers for any rudeness in that first post, most of which has since been edited out. I attribute it to the nature of the post a
ripped Skype log and the lateness of the hour, but thats still no excuse. If there are any factual errors in the following post, please point them out to me.
To begin with something I have absolutely no problem with - the Virtue and Vice options are good. New options have been opened up*, bringing in flexibility
and variety without sacrificing the spirit of the original rules. The guidelines for creating new Vs are clear and concise, while the new Vs provided in the text
make up a fairly comprehensive set. Ive never had much of a problem with the rate of Willpower regeneration, but the manner in which it was increased is
completely unobjectionable, and the logic behind the decision is sound enough.
*technically just made explicit, as the option to create personal Virtues and Vices already existed but given how little attention that got, and how rarely it saw use (never in my experience), this is effectively the
creation rather than expansion of an option.

The change to flat experience costs is a welcome one, given how scaling costs warped the relative value of different builds at character creation. I did like
how the climbing costs restricted those who wanted to reach the top of their fields, but that kind of soft benefit isnt worth the kind of mathematical jiggerypokery that ensued as a result.
The new emphasis on Specialties produced by the stacking rules and Specialty Merits is interesting, although given that I had to have them explained to me
as a new emphasis, its possible that it could have been better communicated in the book itself. I dont as of yet know if I like it on the one hand, Ive
always been a great fan of Specialties, so pushing them as a mechanic is neat, but on the other hand, I dont know what that kind of stacking does to an
optimal build for a given task. Could look a little silly. I guess thats what the ST is for, though a cap would also have worked.
The updated equipment lists are good, especially considering the stuff that simply didnt exist when the nWoD core was released; things like smartphones.
Services are also useful.
Its absolutely lovely to have basic Spirit/Ghost rules consolidated in the Core. Theyre currently split between howevermany books right now, taking up
wordcount in each that could have been dedicated to more specific concerns. I dont know that I like the standardization of their Bans and Banes, even if it
does play into the study up, work out the Spirits weakness, then take the fight to it model.
Obviously, lacking the full book, I cant really talk about the layout of the God-Machine Chronicles as a whole. In this section, theres examples of good layout
the split between Tilts and Ephemeral Beings, for instance, in which a clear change of subjects and a block of empty page are plugged by a small piece of
setting fiction. Thats good. Theres also rather less inspiring choices, like the three solid pages of setting fiction smack-bang in the middle of Merits. Wouldnt
have been so obnoxious if set between two separate topics, would have been even less obnoxious if set outside of the rules section entirely.
Merit refunds are presented well, but should probably have been treated as an optional rule. I know more than one gaming group that happily treats if you
lose your stuff its gone, no refunds as a feature rather than a bug, and I myself swing back and forth on the issue depending on what kind of game I want to
play or run at the time.
Some of the Supernatural Merits arent to my personal taste, but thats an issue with concept, not with execution; those who want to use such things will find
them helpful. I bought Second Sight, so it's not like I'm opposed to psychic powers on principle, I just think having Strength 5 mind-bullets in the Core gives
the wrong impression. I'm going to be playing in a nWoD Earthbound game that might well benefit from these rules, if the ST doesnt just stick to Innocents
and Second Sight, but even so...
Merits in general arent much changed, although I believe theyve received the greatest decrease in xp cost overall, which should be nice for those of you who
wanted more cool stuff for your characters.
What I dont like (and yes, I know they existed before, Im allowed to dislike old stuff as much as new stuff) are those Merits that basically ape (or outright
obsolete) Specialties. Why have something like Hardy, which is a set of Specialties for Stamina (an Attribute) at a fifth of the cost, when you could instead
have a Merit along the lines of Attribute Specialty or, if youre taking this route, just let people take Attribute Specialties (with certain caveats). They both
cost the same now, so surely Specialties and Merits should be more clearly delineated, such that Specialties just add dice to specific areas of a given trait, and
Merits do more complicated stuff?
Im no more a fan of Professions than I was in Hunter, but thats not really a system-level complaint.
Alright, so, Conditions. For all the fuss I made over Conditions in my last post, theyre not actually a massive change, in terms of mechanics. Everything they
do (except in terms of providing Beats) is already a part of the game things like deprivation penalties, circumstance bonuses, crippling injuries, etc.
Conditions are essentially just putting every modifier thats not on your character sheet in a big box called Conditions*. If you'd be suffering a -2 penalty due
to dizziness, you instead have the Dizziness Condition, which inflicts a -2 penalty, and so on.
*and a w ay of saying w hen [bad thing] happens you get xp, but Ill talk about that later.

So its largely a question of presentation. Some people will find it easier and more inspiring to deal with Conditions than freeform modifiers, as they print off
cards or homebrew their own or trawl the forums for useful ones. Other people will find it harmful to immersion, or another layer of busywork in the way of
rolling. It will vary depending on the person, the game, and the situation. I tend to fall into the latter category, though this is mainly because I use this
system to run Horror games*, and I dont find explicit labels and rewards along the lines of Conditions to be especially conducive to this.

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*Well, I try to. In any case, the sort of mechanics that make a good Horror game tend to translate w ell into the sort of games that I like, even if I end up playing Changeling as Grimms Fairy Tales meets Pulp Fiction.

Skimming the Geist forums, I found a post talking about how Aspirations (basically a Condition) might be used in a Synergy rewrite to represent the Geists
desires, and another talking about how different Keys might have their own specific Conditions that they apply to a general power. Thats cool! What your
Geist wants affects your Synergy and variations on a power have distinct side-effects arent ideas that require Aspirations and Conditions to execute or even
conceive of, but the system clearly inspired someone, and thats good.
Tilts are basically the same as Conditions, but theyre rather more useful thanks to the nature of combat. The ways you can suffer penalties specific to combat
are generally quite homogenous ("I have been hurt in X fashion", covers most basic Tilt concepts), and having quick references on hand for how you're hurting
is helpful and speeds things along. They also dont have the connection with Beats, which is something Ill get to a bit later.
Aspirations should be subject to the same criticisms as Conditions, but they can get away with a lot more thanks to not interacting with other parts of the
mechanics as much. Theyre basically a way of setting out this is what I want to do in this game and this is the goal I should be getting xp for, both of
where extant-and-eyeballed under the old rules, and defined as game traits in these new ones. Thats the trend, here categorization and labelling. Whether
this helps or hurts your gameplay experience or doesnt affect it at all is really a matter of personal preference.
A quick dart away from regimenting things that were once freeform into its complete opposite; Integrity, which has departed from the set of carefully defined
doing this makes you a worse person landmarks that was Morality, instead becoming entirely based on freeforming and winging it, by way of Breaking
Points. I have... more of a problem with this than with the other example of opening things up to player interpretation Vices and Virtues, the changes to
which I like. Im not sure, however, how much of this dislike stems from the execution, rather than the concepts involved is Jack Baeur supposed to be able
to easily swan about at Integrity 10 while inflicting horrific torture on his targets for the good of murrikah?
The principles of the system work well for Cosmic Horror rather than Gothic Horror which is appropriate, given the change in focus from the ghost stories of
the old Core to the God Machine stories of this new one. In Cosmic Horror, youre affected by what you witness and learn, steadily degrading into madness and
terror. The scale and/or inhumanity of your foes is emphasized, such that your breakdown seems inevitable, and an atmosphere of oppressive fear is produced.
Hence Integrity, which is basically a SAN track, reduced by reading hidden lore or discovering dead bodies (or making them). In Gothic Horror, youre affected
by what you do, eventually becoming an immoral monster in your own right. The tragedy of your degradation is emphasized, as it is your own deeds and
thoughts that damn you, a betrayal of the self that produces a sense of disquieted fear. Hence Morality, which measures how low youve sunk and just what
heinous acts you can perform without giving a shit.
What Ive heard of the GMC Vampire Humanity trait suggests a continuation of this theme. Breaking Points for great age or taking wounds that would be
mortal for a mortal - rather than becoming monstrous because you have done monstrous things in the course of your existence (as would be found in Gothic
Horror) you become monstrous simply by virtue of being exposed to monstrosity (as in Cosmic Horror the abyss gazes also, and all that). In this case, the
monstrosity is your own.
So, for certain games, Integrity will be great I dont doubt Ill be using it (with some in-the-field tweaks, probably) for games based more on cosmic than
personal horror. The ability to just toss out a Breaking Point for everyone is interesting, though obviously best used in moderation unless you want your
players to adopt the look at nothing, burn everything you cant see strategy so effectively applied in certain Call of Cthulhu games. It also cant be ported to
Morality for obvious reasons. For other games, itll be less fitting, and the flexibility will leave certain assumptions in the air, or slow down the game a tad
god knows after going through FATEs Aspect-generating questions with an unprepared and/or recalcitrant group, Im not particularly looking forward to using
the Breaking Point generation rules.
So, whats left... Beats! Beats are basically one-fifth of an experience point, and you get one in more-or-less any situation you would have previously got an
experience point*. XP costs were reduced by anywhere between two to six times, so this ends up producing approximately the same rate of advancement with
less room for the massive xp-efficiency issues brought about by the old, exponential costs.
*I asked previously w hy xp costs w erent simply quintupled and Beats replaced w ith xp, and w as told there w ere plans for future supplements to have Beats be expended on other things obviously this depends on
the execution, and I lack details or indeed broad strokes, but at first blush that sounds like spending xp (in chunks of one-fifth, admittedly) on fleeting bonuses, w hich seems like the exact kind of situation things like
Merit refunds w ere introduced to avoid.

My problem with Beats comes with how theyre acquired. You get one at the end of each session for showing up, one at the end of each session for fulfilling
your goals (Aspiration), and the ST can award further Beats for exceptional tactics, roleplaying, or character development this basically conforms to the
guidelines for the nWoD model. The change is where you also get experience for... well, for fucking up, basically. You can elect to suffer a dramatic failure and
get a Beat, you get a Beat whenever you get the shit kicked out of you, and you get a Beat for resolving a Condition (which is almost always going to be some
nasty penalty).
One of the strengths of the Storyteller system, for me, has always been its lack of disassociated mechanics. The vast majority of its mechanics represent
phenomena that are actually present within the game world. The vast majority of its player decisions represent decisions actually made by characters in the
game world. There are varying degrees of abstraction, sure, but the exceptions tend to be relatively minor; things like the use of Scenes as a unit of time that
varies as is dramatically appropriate.
To clarify, a disassociated mechanic is where you, as a player, make a decision that affects the game world, but does not represent a decision made by your
character, even in the most abstract sense. Consider the difference between Willpower and FATE points. Both can be used to improve a roll, both can be
regained in a number of ways.
If you blow Willpower to boost your roll, your character is gritting their teeth and putting in that last bit of effort. Your character regains that Willpower by
relaxing (indulging in Vice or sleeping) and building up their self-esteem (engaging in Virtue). If you spend FATE points to boost your roll, you the player are
dictating that a happy coincidence happens that helps your character out, or something. You the player regain those FATE points by having your character get
into trouble (which as far as they're aware is just horrible shit with no reward).
Neither of these are inherently worse or better than the other, but you have to acknowledge them as being different, or the game starts looking really weird.
And as a matter of personal preference, Ive come to the conclusion (after having GM'd a FATE game for about a year) that I prefer playing a character to
playing a story, as it were.
And, usually, thats what the Storyteller system gives me. When you change the experience point system such that it revolves around fucking up and
surviving it generally in such a way that the player has agreed to or even initiated a situation that the character absolutely doesnt want to be in it kind of
breaks that. If my character fails her roll to jump over a fence, I should be going oh, shit, now I need to find some other way to avoid being eaten by a
were-bicycle (which is what shes thinking) rather than if I twist my ankle, can I get some tasty bennies? (which is a train of thought shes oblivious to).
Playing the character rather than playing the story.
That kind of disassociation also plays into the Beaten Down rules, which are set up to encourage short fights that end in surrender rather than death, but do so
in a hamfisted fashion. Once Ive taken (x) amount of damage, I need to spend Willpower to take violent actions, or just give up. If I give up, I get Willpower
and XP, and my opponents need to spend Willpower to attack me. This doesnt apply if my opponents want nothing but to inflict violence on me, as I cant
surrender without dying.
Now, lets imagine two scenarios. In the first, I am out on the streets of Venice, on holiday, and am attacked by a man with a knife. He jabbers at me in his
pagan tongue, and I take a desperate swing at him, bloodying his nose. His knife scrapes across my arm, and I jerk back in terror. With every subsequent
punch or kick I make to ward him off, I can feel my mental energies and resolve draining, until finally I throw my hands in the air and piss myself, begging for
mercy in the universal tongue of loud English. He clearly doesnt believe my attempt to surrender is sincere, and makes a few further swipes at me with his
knife, but each strike visibly drains him of energy, and eventually he just snatches my wallet from the pocket of my shorts and sprints off down some winding
sidestreet. I am filled with a minor burst of determination, and feel Ive learned something.
In the second scenario, I am out on the streets of Venice, on holiday, and am attacked by a man with a knife. He jabbers at me in his pagan tongue, and I

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take a desperate swing at him, bloodying his nose. His knife scrapes across my arm, and I jerk back in terror. The fight continues without pause, the two of us
trading cautious blows. Eventually, I decide I cant safely beat him, and no help is on its way, so I backpedal, raise my hands palm-up, and produce my wallet
from my pockets, offering it to him. Despite my surrender, he feels no compulsion to spare my life, having wanted nothing more than to turn my ballsack into
a medicine pouch from the start. Even if I prevail over his redoubled assault, I will regain none of my determination, and will not immediately feel as though
Ive learned anything.
The only difference between the two scenarios was what the other party wanted, something my character couldnt have possibly known. The drain on the
attackers Willpower whether an attacker whos been wounded, or an attacker going after someone who has surrendered functions regardless of their
in-character knowledge. Its a cludgy disassociated mechanic.
This provides a neat point to move onto combat Ill be brief, here. All weapons being lethal is really dumb, and Ive yet to see any kind of justification for it,
either in system or setting terms. Higher defense and lower attack pools mean combat lasts longer in some cases, this opens up room for clever play rather
than dice-flinging. In others, particularly fights between roughly equal mortal combatants, it can result in a frustrating slog of Willpower-burning and chance
die until someone gets lucky. Considering how much better defense is (and how much more dangerous weapons are), All-Out Attacks are really poor choices
unless youre going for an instant kill (and if +2 dice is all you need for that, its generally going to be better to just take another turn or two and not leave
yourself completely vulnerable to any wally with a lethal-damage chairleg). The change to Dodging is both good and simple.
Honestly, itll probably be really easy to houserule this version of nWoD combat into something better Ive seen one set of houserules I liked that took up
less than a page and dealt with most of my issues with it. Thats not really an excuse for those issues existing in the first place, though. Unlike most of the
other principles of GMC, my problems with this combat system cant be attributed to personal taste or wanting other things out of the game it just seems to
be executed badly. Correct me if Im wrong.
So, whats the final verdict? I would like this system a lot better, I think, if it weren't nWoD. It was presented to me as an update or upgrade for the nWoD, so
I assumed it would be the same game, but smoother, more balanced, with consolidated mechanics and interesting hacks and such. A tune-up. New World of
Darkness 2.0 (or 1.5, at least). Instead its a very different game, with different assumptions, different goals, and different problems (and even a different
genre).
Id probably be rather cross if Id actually paid for it, thinking I was getting an update and instead getting a new OS. I dont want to compare it to Windows 8,
because nothing deserves that, but its been on my mind lately, having just got a new computer that uses it; Windows 8 is great for tablets, but Im not using
one, so its useless to me. GMC is fine for certain games, but Im playing something else, so its useless to me.
That said, itll appeal to some people (or, rather, some games), and any new material I like can be rather easily converted back into nWoD, so its no skin off
my nose.
Posted by: Epimetheus - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 4:28:51 AM(UTC)
I have to agree with the always lethal weapons that is a really dumb and nonsensical change. However, I do like chance die attacks that the system currently
has because it makes it feel a little harder to punch someones lights out in one hit. Also, you have to remember that defense only applies to close combat
without supernatural abilities which supernatural attacks can also flat out ignore as well as armor. So it's not going to be as long as you think it'd be
depending on the situation.
Posted by: Malek Tsepesh - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 5:37:19 AM(UTC)
Well I will reiterate what I've said before about "Beaten Down" Its in one of the few sections specifically labeled OPTIONAL.
As for gaining beats for failures, well thats essentially learning from your mistakes the way I see it.
Posted by: Joker - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 5:37:22 AM(UTC)
Revlid wrote:

*I asked previously w hy xp costs w erent simply quintupled and Beats replaced with xp, and w as told there w ere plans for future supplements to have Beats be expended on other things obviously this
depends on the execution, and I lack details or indeed broad strokes, but at first blush that sounds like spending xp (in chunks of one-fifth, admittedly) on fleeting bonuses, w hich seems like the exact kind of
situation things like Merit refunds w ere introduced to avoid.

Quintupling xp costs and replacing beats with xp also tested worse in playtest (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?687128-God-Machine-ChroniclesIts-out!&p=16717402#post16717402).
Beats had noticeably better reactions from playtesters than xp.
Posted by: Morty - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 8:23:43 AM(UTC)
I don't see any problem with all weapons being lethal myself. Beating someone with a baseball bat or tire iron is lethal. While there are some melee weapons
that might deal bashing damage because either they're too brittle to be lethal or they were designed to stun rather than kill, they're exceptions and can be
declared to deal bashing damage on a case-by-case basis. I haven't had the opportunity to play the new rules, and it'll be a while before I do, if ever, but the
only sub-system I'm sceptical about is the new combat. The rest looks pretty solid.
Posted by: Michael - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 9:48:21 AM(UTC)
Are we going to get any actual reasons as to why weapons doing lethal is dumb? The book gave a pretty compelling argument for why they should do so.
Posted by: Revlid - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 10:12:18 AM(UTC)
Michael wrote:
Are we going to get any actual reasons as to why weapons doing lethal is dumb? The book gave a pretty compelling argument for why they should do
so.
If it did, I didn't see it.
Being hit by a crowbar is dangerous, but it's a lot better than being hit by a machete. Getting smacked by a police baton is painful, but it's nothing compared
to being stabbed with a knife or shot by a small pistol. The difference between these is represented, mechanically, by the difference between bashing and
lethal damage.
The reason punches do bashing damage is that they inflict blunt trauma. What filling someone's health track with bashing damage models is causing them so
much subdermal haemorrhaging that they pass out, from blood loss or pain. The exact same thing happens when you hit someone with a stick. Therefore,
punches and batons and sticks and crowbars and such do bashing damage. It's even called "bashing" damage.
Yes, it is possible to injure someone more seriously than even that with a blunt instrument. This is represented by "wrapping around" into lethal damage - it's

11/25/2013 2:15 PM