Thank you so much for doing this video. I don't think anybody on RU-vid is as committed to supporting CofD as an integrated gameline as you are. You just seem to 'get' the spirit of CofD. Indeed, I think 'crossover' is a bit of a misleading term, because all CofD lines are designed to be compatible with each other. One of the things I love about CofD is that the setting is flexible, but also extremely rich, not burdened by the incompatible cosmologies that stop oWoD games from properly integrating from each other, or the vast metaplot which is great for novels but makes it hard for players to feel like they 'own' the story they're in. One question: how do you justify, in-game, suspending Disquiet for the player party? I'd love to see more videos on this topic (I have seen your more recent Q&A). Do you think you could do a video with your Mage player about how they can show self-restraint in a way that is in-keeping with their character, rather than just arbitrary? Mage is always the splat that people seem to find most difficult to integrate into 'crossover', and I have to say that if I was running a multi-splat game, that would be the one that I'd be most tempted to ban.
You 'hearted' this comment (which is the first time I've ever received that!) then I foolishly edited it to be more consistent and reduce the number of times I used the word 'crossover'. Sorry!
personally as someone who's been running a crossover splat for now about 5-6 years, one of the biggest issue is mixing the various books' goals and setting. Vampire tends to be more about political intrigue, Werewolves about hunts and fights, Mages about studying mysteries... it can be a bit hard to find a balance between these various types of plot, especially when some rules are very much built to work with everyone being the same thing.
I can see where this comes from, but honestly I don't see a problem with a vampire for instance going along for a hunt, even if he isn't especially good at fighting, or vice versa, this just creates a deeper story where everyone can shine. I am not saying you are wrong or anything, just sharing my opinion.
@@vxprado Yes, I strongly agree with this. I think it's up to the Storyteller to make sure that the chronicle includes a diversity of goals and approaches. (To be honest, I think CofD games normally work best that way anyway, using the full range of skills available to players)
A good house rule ive seen for cross splats involving Hunters is that 1. Hunters can still hang with people who are Supernaturals or Monsters, just not being them into the fold of compacts and let them in to the goings ons of conspiracies if the compact/conspiracy know theyre doing it. (Depends on compact/conspiracy ofc. Web of Pain be damned, the Lucifuge/Maledictum is gonna react differently from Task Force Valkyrie/VASCU if they find out you are working with a Demon. Compacts like the Union most likely wouldnt care either way so long as theyre people who contribute to the community.) 2. Character s can only contribute to a Hunter's tactics if they are on good terms with the Hunter. Tactics are good for rerolls and simply just allow for a lot of stuff with smaller risk than simply just a Mage or Beast doing it solo.
Multisplat games are why I love Chronicles. Like each of my players (and myself) feel more personally invested to a different supernatural type. I have a friend more into werewolves, one more into mages, one more into changelings, etc. There are problems and pitfalls to avoid, but no other game to my knowledge gets that urban fantasy feel like that . (if anyone has one please let me know)
Forgetting the setbacks is a bummer, but forgetting the rules in general have been the bane of me in multisplat games. Generally, players tend to expect the GM to know all the rules, and players tend to be a bit lazier in that regard, so, the more splats, the greater the cognitive load of the GM. The first commandment there is "know thy players" xD
Beast feeding isn't strictly traumatic, especially at low satiety (which honestly, you want to be at that most of the time). For example a hunger for power can be sated if you cut in line at a supermarket or a hunger for ruin can be stilled be breaking a cart of cabbages. Hunger for secrets is so easy to fill because boulevard press is full of exposing celebrities cheating their diets or meeting people behind cameras. Its what I like about beast. Once you start thinking about how to feed the beast, you can almost think of slapstick ways of doing it. Your vampire friend can have you as a bouncer and you just feed on asserting your power by arbitrarily disallowing people from entering the nightclub. Once you free yourself from the default assumptions in the book they are truely great allies to have.
I’m not sure if I’d call them default assumptions. The issue I have is that while mechanically a lot of what Beasts can feed on can be Mundane actions such as stealing a random person’s wallet the book does call out that feeding on a mortal is equivalent to a Breaking Point. Additionally there are recommended modifiers depending on the severity of the feeding, the less severe the less you are likely to get and you can fail feeding rolls. A lot of it is narrative surrounding the mechanics, but there is a line that says Family Dinner can only be used if the Supernatural Ally is feeding via a Hunt. So feeding from a Vampire eating from a Herd or blood bag isn’t going to grant Satiety. A lot of people do ignore that stipulation, which is fine and I don’t see anything wrong with making that change. But it’s not the intent of the game for Feeding to be mundane.
The instant you said PC's forgetting the negatives of the splat they are playing as you earned my sub, nothing drives me up the wall as much as that lol. There's always that one player you have to remember all of their negatives for them.😂
On the mages' side, I think the players are more difficult to manage than the characters, if the players are fine and in for the pitch, and willing to tell, like you said, a compelling personal horror story, no problem. But the temptation to minmax mages is certainly there, and it is frequent that players will fall for that temptation to power play
I've ran a multisplat chronicle (werewolf and sin eater, with a single mage character that was removed later because of reasons) and played in plenty more, first thing I suggest anyone doing this is thinking very carefully about whether or not to allow mage characters, the splat is, to put it bluntly, superior to all the others except mummies and demons, it's not about combat effectiveness, that is probably the easiest thing to deal with like you said, it's the fact that they can solve in a scene what other characters would need several sessions or even a chronicle to accomplish, they are better spirit hunters than werewolves, can play people like puppets better than vampires, deal with ghosts and the underworld miles better than a 2e sin eater (1e sin eaters were a lot better in their field) etc. Another big issue is mage players, I don't like to generalize but the vast majority of mage players I interacted with, took a gleeful enjoyment in derailing games, it wasn't even just multisplat games but even normal mage games, hubris is something that affect both the pcs and the players themselves so make sure you have good people playing them.
@@AwkwardGMCorbin A big part of the problem is also the system itself, if you follow the system raw, there are definitely ways to keep mages under control and make them think twice about blowing up buildings or use divinitation to see 30 years into the future. The problem with this is that, aside from the system being unreasonably complex (Deviant is by the same writer and has similarly needlessly convulted mechanics) it is very hard to do this without coming off as being adversarial towards your players, mostly because it's exactly what a good mage ST needs to be doing, if the players try to derail your chronicle, you have to fight back, this is one of the biggest reasons behind my dislike for the game.
