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[nWoD] The God-Machine

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8t88:

--- Zitat --- Blood & Smoke
--- Ende Zitat ---

Was ist das denn nun wieder?
Ich dachte die neue Kampagne heisst "Strix Chronicals"?! wtf?

Wisdom-of-Wombats:

--- Zitat von: 8t88 am  1.05.2013 | 03:25 ---Was ist das denn nun wieder?
Ich dachte die neue Kampagne heisst "Strix Chronicals"?! wtf?

--- Ende Zitat ---

Blood & Smoke: The Strix Chronicles um genau zu sein :)

Nin:

--- Zitat ---[the following is an excerpt from the Introduction]
Introduction
Something is out there, something bigger than ourselves. It permeates our world and possibly even stretches into other worlds, other dimensions, and other times. Its power can be felt everywhere; it is the silent manipulator of all of human history. It has a plan, but we are not privy to it.

If it desired our extinction, we would stand no better chance against it than the dinosaurs did against the meteor impact that ended their reign. Anyone who has witnessed the way it casually uses and discards humans to achieve its ends, however, knows it isn't benevolent. Only the most fanatical cultists devoted to it would say otherwise, and even they realize that their faith cannot preserve them from the object of their worship if it decides their death serves its purpose.

It is the God-Machine.

No human mythology ever conceived of a god so alien to the mortal mind. Its power would make gods of storms and catastrophe tremble in fear. Its foresight makes goddesses of prophecy and destiny seem blind by comparison. Unlike those anthropomorphic deities, the God-Machine cannot be reasoned with, appealed to, or appeased. In the cold eyes of the God-Machine, individual humans are of negligible consequence except insofar as they either further its plans or disrupt them.

The vast majority of humans live their whole lives without knowing the God-Machine exists, even if they are unknowing servants of its schemes. They're the lucky ones. Encounters between mortals and the God-Machine often do not end well for the mortal. People see something the God-Machine intends to keep secret — or they are singled out as the right shape of person for a particular task, the right size cog with the right number of teeth — and they disappear. Most never reappear; those who do usually end up as a John or Jane Doe in a morgue months or years later and miles away. The rest return marked by the experience — twisted in body, broken in mind, or just empty somehow. Once in a while someone returns seemingly whole but without any memory of what happened, where they are, or how they got those mysterious scars. Rarely, a mortal slips away from the God-Machine's schemes with her recollections intact, but even these escapes might be part of the God-Machine's plan.

Supernatural creatures are perhaps more likely to know of the God-Machine, but even they know next to nothing about its workings and even less about its ulti-mate purpose. The ability to wield occult powers does not make beings incapable of superstition. Quite often they assume the God-Machine has something to do with them — a creation of ancient mages, perhaps, or some remnant of power left by a forgotten spirit that is still weaving humanity into its elaborate tapestry. This is no less superstitious nonsense than any that is entertained by the God-Machine's mortal cultists. When faced with something as vast and inscrutable as the God-Machine, imagining it is the product of something within one's knowledge and experience can be a comfort.

Comfort is the enemy of true understanding.

Theme and Mood
Theme: The Hidden System
The God-Machine is a literal machine that spans the Earth and has tendrils in other worlds, dimensions, and times. Cogs turn in the background; the best that most people, supernatural or otherwise, can ever do is peer deep enough into the dark to see the wheels turning. Admittedly, they usually misunderstand what they've seen and make up their own stories. Sometimes they see a little piece of it right purely by accident. Sometimes lightning flashes at exactly the right time and someone sees the cogs in the God-Machine, full and clear. Then the moment passes, and the witness still knows no more about the purpose of all those mechanisms.

Cogs in the Machine
Like all machines, the God-Machine has a purpose, but humans aren't equipped to understand it. Mortals who seek understanding of the God-Machine are like the four blind men trying to describe an elephant by touching just one part of it. The God-Machine is less like an elephant, though, and more like an entire ecosystem. Those feeling around blindly to understand its workings are more than likely going to draw some wildly inaccurate conclusions about it. Its inscrutable system has math and physics and numbers and paperwork and machinery and timetables and we're not privy to any of it. It's not our business, except insofar as the God-Machine needs us to make a cog turn right.

How to Use This Book
The God-Machine Chronicle is a default chronicle for the World of Darkness, giving players and Storytellers a framework for chronicles involving mortal characters. It also revises some of the core rules, though you still need the World of Darkness Rulebook to use this book. The God-Machine Chronicle also includes updates to the core World of Darkness rules to make them fit the intent of the setting, as well as some new options accessible to mortal characters.

The God-Machine itself is a cosmic power, but its various schemes run the gamut from local stories affecting a handful of people all the way up to pan-dimensional enterprises that threaten the entire world with catastrophe. A God-Machine chronicle begins with a few tiny glimpses of the hidden system and gradually expands into levels of tremendous complexity of purpose. Characters who seek to understand or oppose the God-Machine's designs flirt with madness, death, or worse. They are mice running around in an enormous clock. One false step and they will find themselves ground into paste between its unfeeling gears.

This book is aimed at a gradual revelation of the hidden system over the course of many stories, but even if you don't want to make the God-Machine the focus of your chronicle, much of what you'll find in this book can be dropped into just about any chronicle with a little bit of modification. The God-Machine is one of those great unknowables that are Out There doing something mortals and supernatural creatures alike cannot comprehend. Maybe some element of the God-Machine's plan runs contrary to the characters' goals, or maybe they stand to gain something by furthering one of its projects. Whether you use a little or a lot, the feeling of suddenly realizing you're a very small fish in a very large tank is one that can really add depth to almost any chronicle.

Because human misunderstand has no boundaries, God-Machine cultists have nearly as many faces as there are cogs. One group of fanatical mortals will fight to the death to keep outsiders away from a demon-tainted playground because the God-Machine has told them the demon will escape if the playground is disturbed. Elsewhere, a sorcerer offers the God-Machine the souls of an entire town in hopes of currying favor with it, and the characters might be the only thing standing in his way. Even the unwitting servants of the God-Machine can be dangerous, not to mention fraught with moral peril. The cop with a warrant for your arrest on some pretense cooked up by the God-Machine's servants probably has no idea that you won't live long enough to call your lawyer if you're taken into custody, but does your battle against one of the God-Machine's schemes justify killing him?

Contents
The God-Machine Chronicle begins with this Introduc-tion and advice for Storytellers on how to use the rest of the book. The Introduction explains the methods the God-Machine uses to accomplish its goals in the world and how characters are likely to make first contact with its projects. It talks about the ways mortals and supernatural beings alike respond to encounters with the God-Machine, including an assortment of myths and other hooks that can Storytellers can use to create their own God-Machine stories. Finally, it discusses what is probably true about the God-Machine based on the small amount mortals and supernatural beings know about it.

Chapter One: Building the God-Machine Chronicle explains how to build a chronicle that focuses on the God-Machine. It includes deciding the scope or tier of the game and developing the setting. It also provides advice on creating characters and adopting a style of play conducive to God-Machine stories. Finally, it provides four chronicles built from the Tales provided in Chapter Two with enough added detail that a troupe can segue from one to another with minimal work.

Chapter Two: Tales of the God-Machine showcases the many ways the God-Machine's designs can bubble up to the surface in a chronicle. It includes twenty different stories — some of limited scope, others of cosmic scale — that Storytell-ers can use in a God-Machine chronicle. They also illustrate the process of building God-Machine stories by providing a blueprint Storytellers can use to design their own scenarios, and provide the necessary framework to use the chronicles in Chapter One.

Chapter Three: Cogs in the Machine provides sample characters that can be used to draw players' characters into God-Machine stories. These include several examples of the God-Machine's servants, scholars, and dupes suitable for each tier. Also provided are 20 angels (the spiritual servants of the God-Machine), one for each of the Tales in Chapter Two.

Appendix: Rules Revisions provides system changes, additions, and updates to some of the World of Darkness core rules.[the following is an excerpt from the Introduction]
Introduction
Something is out there, something bigger than ourselves. It permeates our world and possibly even stretches into other worlds, other dimensions, and other times. Its power can be felt everywhere; it is the silent manipulator of all of human history. It has a plan, but we are not privy to it.

If it desired our extinction, we would stand no better chance against it than the dinosaurs did against the meteor impact that ended their reign. Anyone who has witnessed the way it casually uses and discards humans to achieve its ends, however, knows it isn't benevolent. Only the most fanatical cultists devoted to it would say otherwise, and even they realize that their faith cannot preserve them from the object of their worship if it decides their death serves its purpose.

It is the God-Machine.

No human mythology ever conceived of a god so alien to the mortal mind. Its power would make gods of storms and catastrophe tremble in fear. Its foresight makes goddesses of prophecy and destiny seem blind by comparison. Unlike those anthropomorphic deities, the God-Machine cannot be reasoned with, appealed to, or appeased. In the cold eyes of the God-Machine, individual humans are of negligible consequence except insofar as they either further its plans or disrupt them.

The vast majority of humans live their whole lives without knowing the God-Machine exists, even if they are unknowing servants of its schemes. They're the lucky ones. Encounters between mortals and the God-Machine often do not end well for the mortal. People see something the God-Machine intends to keep secret — or they are singled out as the right shape of person for a particular task, the right size cog with the right number of teeth — and they disappear. Most never reappear; those who do usually end up as a John or Jane Doe in a morgue months or years later and miles away. The rest return marked by the experience — twisted in body, broken in mind, or just empty somehow. Once in a while someone returns seemingly whole but without any memory of what happened, where they are, or how they got those mysterious scars. Rarely, a mortal slips away from the God-Machine's schemes with her recollections intact, but even these escapes might be part of the God-Machine's plan.

Supernatural creatures are perhaps more likely to know of the God-Machine, but even they know next to nothing about its workings and even less about its ulti-mate purpose. The ability to wield occult powers does not make beings incapable of superstition. Quite often they assume the God-Machine has something to do with them — a creation of ancient mages, perhaps, or some remnant of power left by a forgotten spirit that is still weaving humanity into its elaborate tapestry. This is no less superstitious nonsense than any that is entertained by the God-Machine's mortal cultists. When faced with something as vast and inscrutable as the God-Machine, imagining it is the product of something within one's knowledge and experience can be a comfort.

Comfort is the enemy of true understanding.

Theme and Mood
Theme: The Hidden System
The God-Machine is a literal machine that spans the Earth and has tendrils in other worlds, dimensions, and times. Cogs turn in the background; the best that most people, supernatural or otherwise, can ever do is peer deep enough into the dark to see the wheels turning. Admittedly, they usually misunderstand what they've seen and make up their own stories. Sometimes they see a little piece of it right purely by accident. Sometimes lightning flashes at exactly the right time and someone sees the cogs in the God-Machine, full and clear. Then the moment passes, and the witness still knows no more about the purpose of all those mechanisms.

Cogs in the Machine
Like all machines, the God-Machine has a purpose, but humans aren't equipped to understand it. Mortals who seek understanding of the God-Machine are like the four blind men trying to describe an elephant by touching just one part of it. The God-Machine is less like an elephant, though, and more like an entire ecosystem. Those feeling around blindly to understand its workings are more than likely going to draw some wildly inaccurate conclusions about it. Its inscrutable system has math and physics and numbers and paperwork and machinery and timetables and we're not privy to any of it. It's not our business, except insofar as the God-Machine needs us to make a cog turn right.

How to Use This Book
The God-Machine Chronicle is a default chronicle for the World of Darkness, giving players and Storytellers a framework for chronicles involving mortal characters. It also revises some of the core rules, though you still need the World of Darkness Rulebook to use this book. The God-Machine Chronicle also includes updates to the core World of Darkness rules to make them fit the intent of the setting, as well as some new options accessible to mortal characters.

The God-Machine itself is a cosmic power, but its various schemes run the gamut from local stories affecting a handful of people all the way up to pan-dimensional enterprises that threaten the entire world with catastrophe. A God-Machine chronicle begins with a few tiny glimpses of the hidden system and gradually expands into levels of tremendous complexity of purpose. Characters who seek to understand or oppose the God-Machine's designs flirt with madness, death, or worse. They are mice running around in an enormous clock. One false step and they will find themselves ground into paste between its unfeeling gears.

This book is aimed at a gradual revelation of the hidden system over the course of many stories, but even if you don't want to make the God-Machine the focus of your chronicle, much of what you'll find in this book can be dropped into just about any chronicle with a little bit of modification. The God-Machine is one of those great unknowables that are Out There doing something mortals and supernatural creatures alike cannot comprehend. Maybe some element of the God-Machine's plan runs contrary to the characters' goals, or maybe they stand to gain something by furthering one of its projects. Whether you use a little or a lot, the feeling of suddenly realizing you're a very small fish in a very large tank is one that can really add depth to almost any chronicle.

Because human misunderstand has no boundaries, God-Machine cultists have nearly as many faces as there are cogs. One group of fanatical mortals will fight to the death to keep outsiders away from a demon-tainted playground because the God-Machine has told them the demon will escape if the playground is disturbed. Elsewhere, a sorcerer offers the God-Machine the souls of an entire town in hopes of currying favor with it, and the characters might be the only thing standing in his way. Even the unwitting servants of the God-Machine can be dangerous, not to mention fraught with moral peril. The cop with a warrant for your arrest on some pretense cooked up by the God-Machine's servants probably has no idea that you won't live long enough to call your lawyer if you're taken into custody, but does your battle against one of the God-Machine's schemes justify killing him?

Contents
The God-Machine Chronicle begins with this Introduc-tion and advice for Storytellers on how to use the rest of the book. The Introduction explains the methods the God-Machine uses to accomplish its goals in the world and how characters are likely to make first contact with its projects. It talks about the ways mortals and supernatural beings alike respond to encounters with the God-Machine, including an assortment of myths and other hooks that can Storytellers can use to create their own God-Machine stories. Finally, it discusses what is probably true about the God-Machine based on the small amount mortals and supernatural beings know about it.

Chapter One: Building the God-Machine Chronicle explains how to build a chronicle that focuses on the God-Machine. It includes deciding the scope or tier of the game and developing the setting. It also provides advice on creating characters and adopting a style of play conducive to God-Machine stories. Finally, it provides four chronicles built from the Tales provided in Chapter Two with enough added detail that a troupe can segue from one to another with minimal work.

Chapter Two: Tales of the God-Machine showcases the many ways the God-Machine's designs can bubble up to the surface in a chronicle. It includes twenty different stories — some of limited scope, others of cosmic scale — that Storytell-ers can use in a God-Machine chronicle. They also illustrate the process of building God-Machine stories by providing a blueprint Storytellers can use to design their own scenarios, and provide the necessary framework to use the chronicles in Chapter One.

Chapter Three: Cogs in the Machine provides sample characters that can be used to draw players' characters into God-Machine stories. These include several examples of the God-Machine's servants, scholars, and dupes suitable for each tier. Also provided are 20 angels (the spiritual servants of the God-Machine), one for each of the Tales in Chapter Two.

Appendix: Rules Revisions provides system changes, additions, and updates to some of the World of Darkness core rules.

--- Ende Zitat ---

Vash the stampede:

--- Zitat von: Nin am 30.04.2013 | 21:42 ---http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/114078/World-of-Darkness%3A-The-God-Machine-Rules-Update
(PDF, kostenlos)

--- Ende Zitat ---

Selten ein so beschissenes PDF gehabt. Ständig bricht mir der Drucker ab, weil sein Speicher voll läuft. Und nur wegen diesen verfluchten Brief-InGame-Flavour-Seiten (z.B. S.159-161 [S.12-14 im PDF]). Alle kann ich leider nicht umgehen, weil ja auf manchen auch noch wichtige Texte stehen. Dreck! >:(

Wisdom-of-Wombats:

--- Zitat von: Vash the stampede am  1.05.2013 | 16:07 ---Selten ein so beschissenes PDF gehabt. Ständig bricht mir der Drucker ab, weil sein Speicher voll läuft. Und nur wegen diesen verfluchten Brief-InGame-Flavour-Seiten (z.B. S.159-161 [S.12-14 im PDF]). Alle kann ich leider nicht umgehen, weil ja auf manchen auch noch wichtige Texte stehen. Dreck! >:(

--- Ende Zitat ---

Dafür ist es kostenlos... Tipp: Schreib ne Rezi bei DriveThru über das Druckverhalten.

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