I just want to say, after two years, I'm sorry to the Hunter fans for my dismissive jokes about it. I still regularly getting comments and messages about how those didn't go over well. Don't get me wrong, I personally still don't enjoy Hunter much when put against pretty much every other option here, but it isn't a bad system. My only experience with it before this system was a real bag of farts, but I shouldn't have let that color my commentary on it here. My jokes were a little too mean spirited, and for that I apologize. Next, fans of Beast...hi. That's all. ... ...ok fine, I'm sorry too. Beast doesn't have to be like how I describe it. I still don't want to be alone in a room with it, but I get it.
Hi, beast got me into this system. I just wish people could keep their opinions to themselves when it came to guides. There is a lot of articles on how its somehow the worst roleplaying system ever and this extends to just trying to find material to play the game. I'm glad people still play Beast though and that I could get my friends into it. also yeah beasts are very terrifying so not wanting to be alone with one I can understand.
Hunter can be a Lot of fun, beast... yeah no beast deserves the hate. And it feels weird to say it here, but this is hands down the best "how to play" video for CoD 2e. And yeah I know I'm being that guy here, but it would be amazing to get breakdowns for the mechanics of different game lines in the same manner eventually. It's so hard to find youtube tutorials for most game lines. But I'm not your boss, so do as you will.
@@clawgerber1992Beast was pretty fun when I played it. If people are playing Beast, as with *literally* any other storytelling / TTRPG you can pick and choose what you want to deal with. I personally don't care what my characters do, I'm simply exploring the mind and life of a fictional character, even if what they do is appalling. If it makes sense for the character to do, they'll do it. As a GM/Storyteller, if a player has an issue with what any other player's character does and that player's character was acting *in character*, that player with the issue will swiftly be killed off in game and removed from the group. These characters are not your self insert. Playing like that makes it so that when I'm the one running games, I have a pretty solid group that knows what they're getting into and don't cry about it when things they should have expected happen. This is a horror series of game lines. It should be *extremely* unsettling and keep you up at night after a session. Maybe sometimes *multiple* nights.
@wastingmylifeaway4898 The more I need to change a game system to be okay with / able to run it, the lower my opinion of a game system is. The CoD game books are already fairly difficult to parse (thus my being here for the tutorial lol), even before you get to game lines such as mummy and beast which both had me toss in the towel in favor of other options. And that is the thing, I could be playing any other ttrpg. So if I like the themeing of a ruleset that I don't want to use. I just adapt the themes to a rule set I like more. I'm also perfectly capable of divorcing my characters from myself. Idk where you got the idea that I wasn't from. And if you've got players having issues with each others characters, in an out of game sense, that's a player problem or failure to set the tone of the game. That's not on the game rules.
Mage the awakening would probably be the best choice considering it's one of the most complex ones. If you could cover it then it would help several people immensly so.
I'd love a Mage one. I try to figure if I understand the mecanics correctly because everytime I read it, I seam to catch a new thing but lost something in the way... Help!
From a veteran player: Great summery but you did forget a major thing. This video is all about the 2nd edition. The 1st edition of chronicles of darkness is different in a notable way and deserves mention, especially since many people prefer it to the revised 2nd edition. I’ve played both and their are enough differences to at least let viewers know that they should be aware. If you start buying books from one edition and expansions from another, elements won’t line up. Not even the XP system lines up.
Man when I learned about Beast and read about it I was psyched and loved the concept and I'm surprised that everybody seems to hate it. Scaring people doesn't really seem to be that much worse than drinking blood or all the other potentially amoral stuff the chronicles of darkness allow and encourage.
it came out around the same time someone on the white wolf team was exposed as a sexual abuser and pretended that beast is all about doing this, when in reality, you are right and said author worked on pretty much all the books. Beast has some issues in the book (notably, their opponents are one note manic zealots and are, honestly, way too weak to be real threat to the beasts) but most of it is just overblown nonsense. Whatever bad you can say about beast, you can say about the other books. But Beast doesn't have as much legacy and nostalgia
@@motokuchoma Yeah I had since learned about these events since making this post. I still love beast as a concept though and hope that it manages to work past these issues in the future.
@@houyo Most of the criticisms towards beast you can easily also make towards Vampire or Werewolf. The thing is, at the time beast came out that Chronicles or New World of Darkness was already on the decline sales-wise. So its easy to just pin this on beast being dumb and bad and evil than to make genuine examination. I love beast myself and I'm hoping I can convince a few more people to have a look at it.
Not only did you not miss anything important, you actually taught me, a veteran Storyteller, some stuff I didn't know. Somehow I never knew that you could spend willpower to turn a resisted roll into a contested one. 😅
Believe me, as I've started tackling some of my favorite systems with these How to Play videos, I've come across a few rules myself that I was shocked I never knew in all my years of playing. I think we all find our comfort zones in the rules, play with what we know best, and some things like that get forgotten.
I'm still salty at CCP for not letting White Wolf really lean into the New World of Darkness. We could have even gotten actually interesting video games featuring the much superior settings.
So cool there is still interest in the NWoD (or CoD) in the 2020s. It's still my fav system ever and managed to use it for several different stories: X-Men, Silent Hill, Sandman, Legacy of Kain, Persona, Shin Megami Tensei... And of course Vampire the Requiem + the rest of the templates. Love it so much, also for its ease of use: getting new players in is so easy!
@@Jimalcoatl I still prefer the first edition, simpler in many ways... But yeah, both versions are still amazing! Changeling is fantastic, but you need the right players to face its themes in an effective way.
I've been playing changeling the lost for years and I want to thank you for this video because I realized I've been playing some of the rules wrong. Very educational, keep doing what you do, keep being awesome. As for your question on individual monster splats I would say sure go ahead but prioritize showing off systems you love and make videos on the individual splats as a side project to be done when you have the time.
Any lover of Changeling is awesome in my book. Absolutely my favorite system in the system! And that's a good call to focus more on doing the ones I love.
hey, im new on changeling the lost, already reading the core rulebook for weeks and already writed some things for my fellows for a future campaign. can you give a hint how do i find more content of Changeling the Lost on web? a blog, channel, something like that. some of the rules, lore, even kith and other things felt pretty numb for me, even if i understand in theory.
Fantastic stuff. I found your channel through your "How to" videos on FATE and Cypher. Easily the clearest and most entertaining of any I've seen on explaining systems. Kudos.
Thank you so much! I constantly worry that these...educational(???) videos might be too hard to follow or too overloaded with info. Makes me happy to hear that they seem to be good enough for people to find them helpful.
Need Werewolf, Need Vampire, Need Mage, Need Changeling, Need Mummy, Need Hunter, Need Geist, Need Demon. 2nd Ed of course, don't need no Atlantas stuff. Oh and Dark Eras! I just got the bundle of Dark Eras books (and CofD 2e) on Bundle of Holding but it's just....so much text. I'm intimidated, I thought it was a series of adventures but may be more of a collection of time-period settings? Glad I decided to give the Chronicles a chance though. And thanks for this and all the other videos!
Wrote a long comment, deleted it, but basically - thanks for this video! It had been years since I'd played a session of these, and all the over-the-top character drama tied up in the various games made me forget how mechanically solid, competent, and interesting the underlying game system actually is.
I've been trying to learn to play Mage 2e. I've played some werewolf and, by comparison, I'd say Mage needs a tutorial. It's so cool and how it interacts with the other creatures is weirdly aggressive. I think werewolves just kill them on sight. There's a spell to turn a vampire into a chair. Permanently.
I believe it! I haven't dug too deep into this newer edition, but I remember reading Mage the Awakening when it first came out. EVERYONE in my group was confused by it. Took me so long to finally figure it out. I just pray that when I crack back into it for a video...that I've retained some of that initial knowledge...
Ooofda, so...I know they are like rote spells but not? I do know they require 3 success for an exception success instead of 5...and I wanna say you get one with every dot of Gnosis? Or maybe you just buy them with experience. It also may not require mana, but I might be misremembering that completely. As far as deciding, I think you just choose a spell you know and make it a praxis spell. Ugh, ok, I am not sure if any of that is right, and I am worried if I look it up now that I will fall into the trap of spending my entire morning reading the Mage book lol
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide The book does very little to explain, but we concluded that it can simply be a spell your capable of casting. Beit a rote or improvised spell. But if you choose a rote it doesn't act like a rote, in that it doesn't add the skill. There's a spell calculator we used, which I highly recommend for new people.
@@WaterTheBoy If your a skateboarder and you self teach yourself a trick. As you get better at it, it becomes less difficult, taking less concentration being more automatic. This trick gives you a more nuance into skateboarding in general and in particular what you need to learn and what you need to work on. It is Imago and Imago is how you envision and form a spell in your mind which in turn forms in the real world. Think of it as visualizing the skateboard trick and then practicing it until you could do it and then doing it so often you don't think about the steps anymore just the output and results.
Best guide for the game I have seen so far. Would like to see you do more on the specific denizens of darkness. Keep up the good work! I would specifically like to see mage or hunter in the future.
I feel like the internet is STARVED for WoD and CoD game explinations. There are pleanty of them for lore, and I love that, but when it comes to actully running the game, you don't get as much of a good explination of how to even get started or what a normal campaign or session looks like. I have had my hands on Changling the Lost for the longest time and I always wanted to play it, and I think this can actually help as a good jumping off point. Thank you 😊
I have been thinking about leaving a comment on this video for awhile. Honestly, I think this is the best introduction to the game on UA-cam that I have found so far (shout out to Awkward GM Corbin for having another solid one) and I can definitely see myself showing any potential future players this video to give them a good idea on how the game works! While alot of people got introduced to White Wolf's World Of Darkness through the classic lines, my introduction to White Wolf games in general was actually from a blind purchase of Vampire The Requiem 1E while I was looking around in a tabletop gaming store as a teenager. The "New World Of Darkness" games replaced D&D for my friend group as what we always played behind the cafeteria during lunch at school. I actually didn't end up playing any classic World Of Darkness games until I was an adult. The Chronicles Of Darkness will always have a special place in my heart for this reason. I would love it if you eventually covered all of the game lines separately, I think it would help alot of people looking to branch out into one of the game lines they have yet to try in a more digestible way than consuming another entire 300+ page rulebook first. Either way, I am looking forward to future content, and thanks for the spectacular work so far!
Beast is a great game. You just need to see it from the perspective of "you are playing a MONSTER". Not a Vampire trying to hold humanity, a woof looking for balance or a Promethean longing for it, a true monster. And if you don't like roleplaying as a monster/evil character, just don't be, the game gives you plenty of rules to survive without the need of traumatizing humans. But, it is true the core leave several things not clear, the Player's Guide is a most to truly understand the setting.
Yeah, I really don't give Beast a very fair shake in this videos. My initial interactions with it were pretty bad, possibly just because of the people I played with. I think that really painted it in a more negative color for me, which isn't totally fair, especially for a system that really tried to take some interesting chances. I'm looking forward to eventually reading it again and making a video for it.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide The chronicles of darkness discord and the onyx path discord is full of fans and even writers who has a more clear understanding of the setting and could help for a future video or game session. Truly great video btw, I am sharing with all my players.
If it was truly about playing the bad guy, it wouldn't be constantly trying to justify Beasts with the whole "teaching lessons" crap, making Beasts into a minority analogy, making Heroes an oppressors analogy (Thaddeus, anyone?), or making the whole Homeco-opps, I mean, Devouring a trans analogy. Don't even get me started with the Player's Guide. That book didn't save Beast; it was the final nail in the coffin.
@@Crapcarp555 Yes and no. The issue here is that Beast was very poorly developed. Those lessons ideas were shoehorned into the game after the developer got some criticism on kickstarters and, as he did a horrible job, could not find a better way to address those critics. But you can simply ignore and nothing will change at all, showing that is not a core concept of Beast.
@@erlanpietrosemoli7748 That's only true for the "teaching lessons" concept. It's not the case for the "Beasts = oppressed; Heroes = oppressors" subtext. They even outright state it in the KS draft, and they compare Beasts to poor people in the final book's introduction on major themes. How about the example character portrayed in the book (as in, a character the developers have designed to be something that they intend players to create themselves)? Remember that example feeding they wrote where she gets a teen-opps, I mean, frat boy to choke on his own vomit? To say nothing of Conquering Heroes's sample characters. Like Null Snyper being a Gamergate allegory, or how several of the Hero characters are gay and were emotionally abused by Beasts as a means of making them more sympathetic (as if the only way of doing so is turning a character into an oppressed minority). And the PLAYER'S GUIDE? Y'know, the supplement that gave us the Talassi Family, which were cursed by a Hero to be grapists. Yeeeeeeah. Oh, I'm not the bad guy, I only commit grape because my oppressors made me do it! And let's not forget the sidebar that tries to justify human sacrifice. And that's just shit from the top of my head. Beast is fucked up.
Behold, engagement! It would be very cool to get a little about how Clues work. Given that this is primarily an investigation-driven game, this mechanic deserves a once-over. For splats, covering Mage and Werewolf would be great, since they got a full-on rewrite from 1st edition nWoD. Thanks for all you do!
You are wanted! Honestly, my problem is just the way the book handles some of their stuff, with edginess and the way it approaches stuff. I think there is some good system stuff in there that the right player/storyteller can turn into a darned good time. Honestly, I usually keep my negativity out of these videos, and I feel bad for being a butt to a system with a few flaws, when let's be honest...most systems have problems we overlook, so why should Beast be any different.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide No problem, i agree there are some issues with the way some things are approached and handled. I just really like idea of it. Wondering, what are some changes you would do to make it more acceptable and less edgy.
8:00 Minor correction (2 years late to the party, but still). On a Chance Die, you DO still apply the 10-Again rule. It's part of what I love about the game: No matter HOW many dice you roll, there's ALWAYS a chance of success or failure. I've personally seen someone roll THIRTY dice for an action and fail, and I've also seen someone get an Exceptional Success with only a Chance Die.
So, this may have been updated in later releases of the book, but on page 69 of the book I have it says... "If your pool drops below one die, you instead roll a single chance die. The chance die only counts as a success if you roll a 10, which you do not reroll. Any other result is a failure." Copies and pasted directly from the pdf. Again, they may have changed this ruling for future releases, so I'm happy to be corrected.
Reuben. And thank you for making this. I’m getting back into this game got the first time since nwod first came out. I’m using this video to prep my players for their first session.
I learned a LOT. I'd heard of Vampire (both), but I didn't know it was a portion of a more general system. I saw a lot to like about the system such as the damage track and the success/fail system. I will want to learn more.
This is probably the best how to play series of ttrpgs I've seen yet. I'd probably would want to see videos on geist and mage personally. Hope to see more of this stuff in the future, cheers! 🥂
Chronicles is my favorite RPG game setting and all the denizens that fall under it. Werewolf is my favorite of them all but so many of the other ones have their own interesting aspects. It great to see some videos on it and getting into mechanics. So many channels on Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy dungeon crawling not much on Chronicles or World of darkness (unless it's just Vampire the Masquerade)
make a video for each book bruh, please. i've been playing this system for like years now and i still feel like there's so much to learn. i'm gearing up to run a game set in medieval times and my players are all different supernaturals. i'd love some more content to watch while i do my research. screw beast tho!
First, that sounds awesome! And second, I really do think I will, though how quickly that will happen is...hard to say lol. I am definitely most familiar with Changeling, Vampire, Werewolf, Geist, and Demon, so they might be where I start. Or I might just try to go in order. I'm not 100% sure, but after finishing this video, I know I was left hungry for even more Chronicles of Darkness content, so it is likely to happen.
God I love you. I m new to the world of darkness and was trying to figure out what the hell is the New world of darkness and the diferences between vtm and vtr are etc. Just the beginning of the video made everything so much clearer.
I may be a year late, but thank you for such an informative video. Planning on running a Hunters game for my partner who has never played a TTRPG before.
As a complete noob to this system (I was introduced to d&d as my first TTRPG a year or so ago). Our DM wanted to run this system for me and my hubby so sent us this link. It is a very easy to follow, helpful and funny guide and we now feel much more prepared to jump into it! So thank you very much :) Also, I like tuna mayo & cucumber sandwiches, he likes marmite and cheese. Judge however you see fit
Great video, I don’t think that there is any more to tell, but I’ll like to hear about vampire the Requiem, I have always loved the intrigue in the world of the dead
A note on dice results: You can opt to get a dramatic failure when you fail with a regular roll. This nets you a beat, which eventually results in experience points to improve your character.
For the algorithm! 38:17 I don't know the system so the character sheet part felt a bit clunky. Especially when you jumped from part to part. Idk how much of a help this is but I'd like to suggest going over the character sheet as a whole in brief with necessary background info before breaking into parts with the details. Or maybe a supplement series with character creation.🤷 Ps any hints on what systems you may cover next? Thanks
I've been looking at covering Cortex Prime, but I'm open to suggestions! And thank you, that is a REALLY good point about giving an overview of the sheet before covering sections in detail!! Definitely going on my checklist for future HtP videos
Making videos about all the different Splats would be a Herculean task! I couldn't say which one should be first but a few comments say pick the ones you like best. The counter argument would be "Pick the best for last" but its up to you. Breaking down the game system this way makes it easier to digest and teach others with so thanks for the video!
I know I'm a couple of years too late but this is great and concise. I really want to run a game of this again. I'm going to look and see if you made any of those book specific videos because I desperately would like a summary like this.
Sadly, I have not. So many games to talk about, so little time to dedicate to talking about them. I know there is a channel out there that has done a lot of in depth coverage of the Chronicles of Darkness games though!
Thanks so much for this. I'm starting a CoD campaign with some people who still have oWoD preconceptions. Hopefully, this explanation will save me having to do it. :P Moar plz!
Great explanation of the new ruleset. I did sent your vid to my players. We are planning a new chronicles of darkness campaign which is starting in the near future. Will be new to me as I am used to the nWoD ruleset.
this is one of the best "How To" videos I've seen about CofD, I'm a fan of the CofD line of games. I've been using these rules wrong but that is what makes each table different right? XD anyways, great video! hope you do the other lines as they're awesome in their own right. CofD line is underappreciated imo.
First off, thanks for that amazing tutorial, it really helped. But I would love if you could go deeper into the various systems, more specifically Vampire and Werewolf.
This is a really excellent description and summary of the system. I just wondered why you skipped the clues sub-system when you did cover the social combat sub-system. Very recommendable, and I think I will use this to prime new players. Thanks!
I covered social maneuvering because it tackles something that I think other more popular games don't do nearly as well, and it is something people would really have an interest in. Honestly, the system for clues, chases, and all that are great, but to keep these videos as easily digestible as possible, I have to pick and choose just how much I pack into them. Not sure if I always make the right call, but I try.
That is a great video! CofD is quite complex as I can see but you've done a remarkable job explaining it. I hope your work will attract more viewers because you do deserve them. I'm interested in doing my own hack based on this system and further explanations of the Denizens would be great. I'd like the Hunter and the Mage ones. But yes, doing the one you like is better for everyone's experience
I havent gotten to play much of the 2e era games (other than a little bit of Demon, which is effectively 2e). Like you I worry that I'm missing the forest for the trees sometimes when reading the rules, but as as far as I can tell, you seem to be accurate and not missing anything huge (and seem to acknowledge where there is extra detail/nuance that you glossed over). I reckon you've helped me have some more confidence that the game does in fact work the way that it looks like it does from my reading.
Not enough people are into Geist, so I am always happy to meet another fan! Was literally just thinking about an idea for a Geist campaign last week, so this comment put a huge smile on my face!
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide It's just such a good game, and 2e fixes a lot of the thematic/mechanical mess 1e had. Plus who doesn't like to be a spooky boi with a best frenemie attatched at all times?
Thanks for the video, it was really helpful. I'm going to be starting a Chronicles game in May and my storyteller recommended you because I've never touched the system before. I'm still a little confused and I'll probably need to watch this a few more times but I'm better than I was before watching. I would have really liked a brief overview of the different skills but I understand you felt pressed for time.
Will you ever make a video on other CoD books? This is insanely good, I have ADHD so it's difficult for me to read the entire core books and understand the rules on my own, but videos are much better. I'm obsessed with the lore of the hunters and the mages, I'd love to see a vid about them! :D
Thank you, and that's a good question! The short answer is...hopefully, but I can't make any promises! The longer answer is I love and play so many TTRPGs and want to bring attention to all of them, not to mention I love showing off VTTs and whatnot. This has lead to me having waaay too many video ideas and not nearly enough time to tackle them all, especially since this channel is 100% a hobby and work of passion. However, even with all the many video ideas I have, tackling the various CofD books has always remained on my To-Do list, as I have a ton of love for the system and many of the settings. If and when I get around to them, I imagine I might have to approach them as shorter videos, maybe around 5 minutes each, but we shall see. I've honestly been getting a decent number of comments about this in the last couple months, which really does keep that stuff on my radar. Thanks again, I really appreciate it!
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide That's so cool!!! And yes!! Short videos with some kind of visual diagram to roughly explain the logic of each splat would be great for example! :D I've been scouring UA-cam and haven't found a single CofD video guide that comes close to the level of quality on this one.
First of; you're quirky and funny and that is great! And kind of a miracle if you're trying to find a video on Chronicles of Darkness! Most people are dark and gloomy. So keep doing what you're doing and if you could find the time to make one of these wonderful videos about hunter, I would be very much obliged.
I've played or added npcs from almost every denizen book. Except Beast, caused fudge that noise. Also, much like those below, I'm learning new things as an old dog
I would be really interested in a video covering the game Geist: the Sineaters. It truly is a great game. I find your videos a great resource for visual learners who want to play these games, but go cross-eyed when trying to read through the rule books. The books are great for reference, but often i find the barrier to entry (ie. reading the core book plus whatever game line you are running) can deter new players from even trying out the hobby. Thanks for great videos!
I think I may have just played in some...less than great hunter games with some people who were maybe a little too into Buffy for my taste hehe. I really should give it another go.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide that's a shame, it can be built in such a broad way, going super focused on one hunter trope/show/archetype for a campaign seems like defeating point to me. Better to keep it bit more generic and let players build hunters with a bit of variety
I'm a bit late to the party, but I'd love to see an in-depth guide for Geist. The concept itself fascinates me for years, I every now and then catch myself reading the core rulebook as a fiction novel instead, imagining all sorts of situations and short stories fitting this or that explanation, but I find it a bit hard to conceive what a campaign would truly look like (same for Wraith, but more appealing in practice) and I coukd never form a group, nor have I found engaging-enough videos about it on YT, despite its conceptual brilliance and innovation. I feel like it's such a shame and waste of potential that it is not brought up and explored as much as some other classic "denizens"...
after reading the changeling book and writing a campaign i started work on a campaign! I got 2 of the players to make characters already but tomorrow... we start... AND I DON'T KNOW THE PROPER RULES FOR COMBAT?! but this video FIXED THAT! and it also filled in alot of gaps for me in other places too! Thank you SO MUCH for doing this! Saved my bacon! New Sub
Absolutely fantastic tutorial man. I have never played it, b it they’re is so much that fascinates me about this system that I would want to include in a game of my own. Thank you for making this video! (btw My favorite sandwich is probably the outlaw signature sub from subway. That thing is sooooo good.)
This has excited me to no end!! I don't know if you're still looking into whether you want to make a tutorial for these other "game modes" or "Denizens". Still, if you do I agree with the top comments, Mage 2e seems to be the single hardest ttrpg to get into as a know-nothing beginner. Your perfectly digestible tutorials would be the perfect foot in the door for anyone like myself that just can't quite understand how to play it! Personally, I'm also very interested in the logistics of getting multiple denizens to work together in one campaign! The idea of a Mage bumping into a werewolf or vampire and running with them to solve mysteries just scratches that nice Dresden Files itch that I'm always looking for in these ttrpgs! And finally, thank you for this well-worded and easy to understand video! :D
I'm about to start running this system and this was a brilliant refresher, and from what I have heard about Beast the Primordial's creator it makes that system even worse. but aside that you video was great.
Hunter: The Vigil does not deserve such disrespect. That game slaps hard! If you do it right, it's a game about the wake left behind by supernatural creatures. The broken families, the missing loved ones, the terrible curses and blights left behind by all the other splats. It's about making the powerful creatures who played with you like a toy actually have to pay for once in their privileged, sociopathic lives. You know all those people you ate and woodchipped in your vampire games? Hunters are the ones who make you pay for it. It's also about trying to put together the pieces of a world infinitely bigger than you and with far more teeth. About trying to survive and maybe make it just a little less shit. It's about building a community and supporting each other when you're preyed upon by things you barely understand. And eventually it's about turning the tables and teaching the things that bump in the night that you can fucking bump back.
While it's never been my cup of tea, at least for what I want out of the W/CofD games, I totally get why folks love it! I just couldn't help but poke a little fun.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide Honestly I can respect that. Sorry if that came out harsh. It's just that I deeply love this system so much. It kinda saved my life a little. Some of us have had monsters preying on us for a long time. When that happens the concept that you could overpower them alone is so alien to you as to make it ludicrous. But the concept of you having friends who are just barely organized enough to help you get out? The idea that your monster got cocky and hurt one too many people? That you might just be able to believe. Hit me up if you want a four session pickup campaign.
@@jessamynpratt5068 Not harsh at all! I really appreciate the perspective, and honestly, I think it's a great comment for people who see this video and are interesting in Hunter despite my snarky bs! Frankly, you've succeeded more than anyone else in getting me interested in giving Hunter another try. Eventually I hope to cover each of the books in CofD, so when I get to Hunter I may just have to take you up on that offer so I can present in the best possible light. As much as I poke fun, I do want my channel to generally be a positive experience.
Was really hoping you would go over the 1st edition as well, since that is (in my humble opinion) the better version... but, this is a good video for me to show to my group to explain why we don't play 2nd :D. LOL. Love it! Also, I have to say that I adored when you said "track down the werewolf that kicked my butt" the text on the screen said "get myself killed"... truer words have never been spoken, lol.
This is an excellent crash course! I have been getting back into WoD and introducing friends to it as well and this was just the refresher I needed on core mechanics. Anything else is pure gravy, I am excited to see you do the other core books. (hilarious most of my groups have been mixed gamelines, it works well as long as the story teller is willing to be familiar with the various books) I have heard good things about Deviant though, which is finally out. Also don't feel bad about not liking Beast, I recall the community backlashing really hard when it was released so you are super not alone. It wasn't what was advertised and like you said it's basically Sociopath The Tabletop Game. All other books give you a choice of being a jerk or not as whatever creature you play as, Beast does not. Plus the whole lack of actually being a monster of myth you might as well be some really edgy human supervillain straight out of an iron age comic book so it doesn't even fit thematically very well with the rest of the other books.
I like your presentation style. This is my first time playing a d10 system, and we're doing changling. Would love to see you do the rest of CoD but this definitely helps!
3:05 it's a funny gag (love the mummy!) but... the Camarilla isn't a thing in Requiem- except as a footnote in Kindred history. 'I have a meeting with the Invictus' would make more sense here.
This is true and something I always forget. Almost all my time playing VtR was GMed by someone who started in VtM, and they heavily incorporated VtM lore into our VtR games. So I was basically..."raised" with the Camarilla as extremely present and plot relevant in Requiem. I have barely begun to show my entire ass when it comes to VtR lore 🤣
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide to be clear, I did like the video. There aren't too many outsiders perspective takes on the whole setting. I would definitely watch videos that take a deeper dive into each of the individual game books.
It's a shame the base dice system doesn't see the same broad genre adaption as Savage Worlds, probably by my far favorite to the point of making way too many homebrew conversions than I'm proud to admit.
This was great! I bought the original "New World of Darkness" when it first came out, and minus a few quibbles, I really liked it. I later downloaded the God Machine Rules Update (before they decided to revamp it as WoD 2e, then CoD), but I've been too lazy to read the entire thing, so I never really knew what was changed between editions. Looks like I might give the new version a try at some point.
I was a bit reluctant at first, but they made a lot of great changes between the editions, and some that might be a little more divisive (as memory serves, and I might be wrong, Vampires went from decently powerful to terrifyingly powerful with the right build, which I know some folks didn't jive with at the time). Overall, pretty good updates to a lot of the books that I've really grown to love.
Glad I found your channel getting ready to run a chronically of darkness game after years of not. A figured it be a fun refresher. Also hey! I still like beast...well at least the idea of the them *sighs* if they only didn't rewrite it into how it is now. Still love the idea. Also slightly insane cause gonna be doing a multi splat game.
I think you sold Hunter short, it is a game about the blurry line between righteousness and blind wrath. In one of the fiction stories (The Cat Lady from Horror Recognition Guide), a character finds out an old lady kills people's pets so she can shapeshift. The old woman isn't evil or anything just...wanting to see the world from a different perspective and have a body that works. The hunter decides to kill the woman by torching her house with the woman inside. Afterwards the character says she'll inform her friends the day after so they can kill all the cats in town just to be on the safe side. It isn't too difficult how this can go from killing a vampire to deciding to murder a small town, because they came into contact with the vampire and might be their ghouls. This is also why Slasher became a great expansion to Hunter. It delves into stereotypical slashers, but also hunters that went more than a bit too far after their ethics and methods became extremely questionable from all the killing they've done. This expansion was integrated into the second edition Hunter book.
I felt like this gave me a good understanding of the overall system. I would have liked a small summary of what the denizens can do mechanically. Like do werewolves play like a barbarian? Do vampire's revolve around drinking blood? Do changelings focus on healing or what do they do?
I really didn't touch on that, did I. The best I can say is that since each book is designed to be played but itself (ie. a game of all vampires) there is a lot of variety for each (typically 5 templates). Vamps tend to deal with stuff around their society, but not always. Werewolves have packs and tribes and deal with spirits and other stuff, but don't have to... There's a lot of variety that I don't think I'll cover in this comment because I just woke up hehe. But I appreciate the comment and think I may just have to make a video on this
Hey, I’ve been playing WoD/CofD games for years, and this was a GREAT video. Please do videos for each game line, except Beast - because we all know why. Also, which VTT would you recommend for running a CofD campaign?
Thank you! I think one of the best I've come across is Foundry, as it has a good mod for a number of the games. I'm not sure how many at this point, but it was a decent selection. Otherwise I think Roll20 is still the most robust option, unless you decided to build your own sheets in One More Multiverse, which would be amazing but also pretty time intensive
I just want to say, after two years, I'm sorry to the Hunter fans for my dismissive jokes about it. I still regularly getting comments and messages about how those didn't go over well.
Don't get me wrong, I personally still don't enjoy Hunter much when put against pretty much every other option here, but it isn't a bad system. My only experience with it before this system was a real bag of farts, but I shouldn't have let that color my commentary on it here. My jokes were a little too mean spirited, and for that I apologize.
Next, fans of Beast...hi. That's all.
...
...ok fine, I'm sorry too. Beast doesn't have to be like how I describe it. I still don't want to be alone in a room with it, but I get it.
Hi, beast got me into this system. I just wish people could keep their opinions to themselves when it came to guides. There is a lot of articles on how its somehow the worst roleplaying system ever and this extends to just trying to find material to play the game. I'm glad people still play Beast though and that I could get my friends into it.
also yeah beasts are very terrifying so not wanting to be alone with one I can understand.
Hunter can be a Lot of fun, beast... yeah no beast deserves the hate.
And it feels weird to say it here, but this is hands down the best "how to play" video for CoD 2e. And yeah I know I'm being that guy here, but it would be amazing to get breakdowns for the mechanics of different game lines in the same manner eventually. It's so hard to find youtube tutorials for most game lines. But I'm not your boss, so do as you will.
Are you gonna still make ones for each setting?
@@clawgerber1992Beast was pretty fun when I played it.
If people are playing Beast, as with *literally* any other storytelling / TTRPG you can pick and choose what you want to deal with.
I personally don't care what my characters do, I'm simply exploring the mind and life of a fictional character, even if what they do is appalling.
If it makes sense for the character to do, they'll do it.
As a GM/Storyteller, if a player has an issue with what any other player's character does and that player's character was acting *in character*, that player with the issue will swiftly be killed off in game and removed from the group.
These characters are not your self insert.
Playing like that makes it so that when I'm the one running games, I have a pretty solid group that knows what they're getting into and don't cry about it when things they should have expected happen.
This is a horror series of game lines. It should be *extremely* unsettling and keep you up at night after a session. Maybe sometimes *multiple* nights.
@wastingmylifeaway4898 The more I need to change a game system to be okay with / able to run it, the lower my opinion of a game system is. The CoD game books are already fairly difficult to parse (thus my being here for the tutorial lol), even before you get to game lines such as mummy and beast which both had me toss in the towel in favor of other options.
And that is the thing, I could be playing any other ttrpg. So if I like the themeing of a ruleset that I don't want to use. I just adapt the themes to a rule set I like more.
I'm also perfectly capable of divorcing my characters from myself. Idk where you got the idea that I wasn't from.
And if you've got players having issues with each others characters, in an out of game sense, that's a player problem or failure to set the tone of the game. That's not on the game rules.
Mage the awakening would probably be the best choice considering it's one of the most complex ones. If you could cover it then it would help several people immensly so.
I’ve been playing CoD since 2006 and I still can’t wrap my head around Mage.
Mage is always the deep end of this rabbit hole
Mage sucks
I'd love a Mage one. I try to figure if I understand the mecanics correctly because everytime I read it, I seam to catch a new thing but lost something in the way... Help!
Yes, I'm really interested in mage, would love a guide on that
From a veteran player: Great summery but you did forget a major thing. This video is all about the 2nd edition. The 1st edition of chronicles of darkness is different in a notable way and deserves mention, especially since many people prefer it to the revised 2nd edition. I’ve played both and their are enough differences to at least let viewers know that they should be aware. If you start buying books from one edition and expansions from another, elements won’t line up. Not even the XP system lines up.
This is hands down the best explanation of chronicles of darkness. Most concise, helpful visuals, information tracked for easy skip to's. Thank you!!!
Man when I learned about Beast and read about it I was psyched and loved the concept and I'm surprised that everybody seems to hate it. Scaring people doesn't really seem to be that much worse than drinking blood or all the other potentially amoral stuff the chronicles of darkness allow and encourage.
it came out around the same time someone on the white wolf team was exposed as a sexual abuser and pretended that beast is all about doing this, when in reality, you are right and said author worked on pretty much all the books. Beast has some issues in the book (notably, their opponents are one note manic zealots and are, honestly, way too weak to be real threat to the beasts) but most of it is just overblown nonsense. Whatever bad you can say about beast, you can say about the other books. But Beast doesn't have as much legacy and nostalgia
@@motokuchoma Yeah I had since learned about these events since making this post. I still love beast as a concept though and hope that it manages to work past these issues in the future.
@@houyo Most of the criticisms towards beast you can easily also make towards Vampire or Werewolf. The thing is, at the time beast came out that Chronicles or New World of Darkness was already on the decline sales-wise. So its easy to just pin this on beast being dumb and bad and evil than to make genuine examination. I love beast myself and I'm hoping I can convince a few more people to have a look at it.
Not only did you not miss anything important, you actually taught me, a veteran Storyteller, some stuff I didn't know. Somehow I never knew that you could spend willpower to turn a resisted roll into a contested one. 😅
Believe me, as I've started tackling some of my favorite systems with these How to Play videos, I've come across a few rules myself that I was shocked I never knew in all my years of playing. I think we all find our comfort zones in the rules, play with what we know best, and some things like that get forgotten.
I'm still salty at CCP for not letting White Wolf really lean into the New World of Darkness. We could have even gotten actually interesting video games featuring the much superior settings.
So cool there is still interest in the NWoD (or CoD) in the 2020s. It's still my fav system ever and managed to use it for several different stories: X-Men, Silent Hill, Sandman, Legacy of Kain, Persona, Shin Megami Tensei...
And of course Vampire the Requiem + the rest of the templates.
Love it so much, also for its ease of use: getting new players in is so easy!
CoD is mechanically the best version of the d10 Storyteller System, imo. Also, C:tL is amazing.
@@Jimalcoatl I still prefer the first edition, simpler in many ways... But yeah, both versions are still amazing! Changeling is fantastic, but you need the right players to face its themes in an effective way.
@kalythgaming First edition is good. I personally prefer the beats mechanics, social conflict, and combat of 2e/CoD, but both are a good time.
I'm gonna recommend this video to anyone interested in CofD.
Great video,and unexpectantly funny at times.
Thank you so much! If I can get more people interested in this system by helping them learn it, I will consider this video a success!
I've been playing changeling the lost for years and I want to thank you for this video because I realized I've been playing some of the rules wrong. Very educational, keep doing what you do, keep being awesome.
As for your question on individual monster splats I would say sure go ahead but prioritize showing off systems you love and make videos on the individual splats as a side project to be done when you have the time.
Any lover of Changeling is awesome in my book. Absolutely my favorite system in the system!
And that's a good call to focus more on doing the ones I love.
hey, im new on changeling the lost, already reading the core rulebook for weeks and already writed some things for my fellows for a future campaign. can you give a hint how do i find more content of Changeling the Lost on web? a blog, channel, something like that. some of the rules, lore, even kith and other things felt pretty numb for me, even if i understand in theory.
Fantastic stuff. I found your channel through your "How to" videos on FATE and Cypher. Easily the clearest and most entertaining of any I've seen on explaining systems. Kudos.
Thank you so much! I constantly worry that these...educational(???) videos might be too hard to follow or too overloaded with info. Makes me happy to hear that they seem to be good enough for people to find them helpful.
Need Werewolf, Need Vampire, Need Mage, Need Changeling, Need Mummy, Need Hunter, Need Geist, Need Demon. 2nd Ed of course, don't need no Atlantas stuff.
Oh and Dark Eras! I just got the bundle of Dark Eras books (and CofD 2e) on Bundle of Holding but it's just....so much text. I'm intimidated, I thought it was a series of adventures but may be more of a collection of time-period settings? Glad I decided to give the Chronicles a chance though. And thanks for this and all the other videos!
Wrote a long comment, deleted it, but basically - thanks for this video! It had been years since I'd played a session of these, and all the over-the-top character drama tied up in the various games made me forget how mechanically solid, competent, and interesting the underlying game system actually is.
I've been trying to learn to play Mage 2e. I've played some werewolf and, by comparison, I'd say Mage needs a tutorial.
It's so cool and how it interacts with the other creatures is weirdly aggressive. I think werewolves just kill them on sight.
There's a spell to turn a vampire into a chair. Permanently.
Someone at least explain Praxis to me! Not simply what they are, but how you decide your own!
I believe it! I haven't dug too deep into this newer edition, but I remember reading Mage the Awakening when it first came out. EVERYONE in my group was confused by it. Took me so long to finally figure it out.
I just pray that when I crack back into it for a video...that I've retained some of that initial knowledge...
Ooofda, so...I know they are like rote spells but not? I do know they require 3 success for an exception success instead of 5...and I wanna say you get one with every dot of Gnosis? Or maybe you just buy them with experience. It also may not require mana, but I might be misremembering that completely. As far as deciding, I think you just choose a spell you know and make it a praxis spell.
Ugh, ok, I am not sure if any of that is right, and I am worried if I look it up now that I will fall into the trap of spending my entire morning reading the Mage book lol
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide
The book does very little to explain, but we concluded that it can simply be a spell your capable of casting. Beit a rote or improvised spell. But if you choose a rote it doesn't act like a rote, in that it doesn't add the skill. There's a spell calculator we used, which I highly recommend for new people.
@@WaterTheBoy If your a skateboarder and you self teach yourself a trick. As you get better at it, it becomes less difficult, taking less concentration being more automatic. This trick gives you a more nuance into skateboarding in general and in particular what you need to learn and what you need to work on. It is Imago and Imago is how you envision and form a spell in your mind which in turn forms in the real world. Think of it as visualizing the skateboard trick and then practicing it until you could do it and then doing it so often you don't think about the steps anymore just the output and results.
Best guide for the game I have seen so far. Would like to see you do more on the specific denizens of darkness. Keep up the good work! I would specifically like to see mage or hunter in the future.
Hunter all the way
I feel like the internet is STARVED for WoD and CoD game explinations.
There are pleanty of them for lore, and I love that, but when it comes to actully running the game, you don't get as much of a good explination of how to even get started or what a normal campaign or session looks like.
I have had my hands on Changling the Lost for the longest time and I always wanted to play it, and I think this can actually help as a good jumping off point. Thank you 😊
I have been thinking about leaving a comment on this video for awhile. Honestly, I think this is the best introduction to the game on UA-cam that I have found so far (shout out to Awkward GM Corbin for having another solid one) and I can definitely see myself showing any potential future players this video to give them a good idea on how the game works! While alot of people got introduced to White Wolf's World Of Darkness through the classic lines, my introduction to White Wolf games in general was actually from a blind purchase of Vampire The Requiem 1E while I was looking around in a tabletop gaming store as a teenager. The "New World Of Darkness" games replaced D&D for my friend group as what we always played behind the cafeteria during lunch at school. I actually didn't end up playing any classic World Of Darkness games until I was an adult. The Chronicles Of Darkness will always have a special place in my heart for this reason.
I would love it if you eventually covered all of the game lines separately, I think it would help alot of people looking to branch out into one of the game lines they have yet to try in a more digestible way than consuming another entire 300+ page rulebook first.
Either way, I am looking forward to future content, and thanks for the spectacular work so far!
Beast is a great game. You just need to see it from the perspective of "you are playing a MONSTER". Not a Vampire trying to hold humanity, a woof looking for balance or a Promethean longing for it, a true monster. And if you don't like roleplaying as a monster/evil character, just don't be, the game gives you plenty of rules to survive without the need of traumatizing humans. But, it is true the core leave several things not clear, the Player's Guide is a most to truly understand the setting.
Yeah, I really don't give Beast a very fair shake in this videos. My initial interactions with it were pretty bad, possibly just because of the people I played with. I think that really painted it in a more negative color for me, which isn't totally fair, especially for a system that really tried to take some interesting chances. I'm looking forward to eventually reading it again and making a video for it.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide The chronicles of darkness discord and the onyx path discord is full of fans and even writers who has a more clear understanding of the setting and could help for a future video or game session. Truly great video btw, I am sharing with all my players.
If it was truly about playing the bad guy, it wouldn't be constantly trying to justify Beasts with the whole "teaching lessons" crap, making Beasts into a minority analogy, making Heroes an oppressors analogy (Thaddeus, anyone?), or making the whole Homeco-opps, I mean, Devouring a trans analogy.
Don't even get me started with the Player's Guide. That book didn't save Beast; it was the final nail in the coffin.
@@Crapcarp555 Yes and no. The issue here is that Beast was very poorly developed. Those lessons ideas were shoehorned into the game after the developer got some criticism on kickstarters and, as he did a horrible job, could not find a better way to address those critics. But you can simply ignore and nothing will change at all, showing that is not a core concept of Beast.
@@erlanpietrosemoli7748 That's only true for the "teaching lessons" concept. It's not the case for the "Beasts = oppressed; Heroes = oppressors" subtext. They even outright state it in the KS draft, and they compare Beasts to poor people in the final book's introduction on major themes. How about the example character portrayed in the book (as in, a character the developers have designed to be something that they intend players to create themselves)? Remember that example feeding they wrote where she gets a teen-opps, I mean, frat boy to choke on his own vomit?
To say nothing of Conquering Heroes's sample characters. Like Null Snyper being a Gamergate allegory, or how several of the Hero characters are gay and were emotionally abused by Beasts as a means of making them more sympathetic (as if the only way of doing so is turning a character into an oppressed minority).
And the PLAYER'S GUIDE? Y'know, the supplement that gave us the Talassi Family, which were cursed by a Hero to be grapists. Yeeeeeeah. Oh, I'm not the bad guy, I only commit grape because my oppressors made me do it! And let's not forget the sidebar that tries to justify human sacrifice.
And that's just shit from the top of my head. Beast is fucked up.
Behold, engagement!
It would be very cool to get a little about how Clues work. Given that this is primarily an investigation-driven game, this mechanic deserves a once-over. For splats, covering Mage and Werewolf would be great, since they got a full-on rewrite from 1st edition nWoD.
Thanks for all you do!
As someone who likes Beast i feel bad, like that one family member everyone doesn't want around
You are wanted! Honestly, my problem is just the way the book handles some of their stuff, with edginess and the way it approaches stuff. I think there is some good system stuff in there that the right player/storyteller can turn into a darned good time.
Honestly, I usually keep my negativity out of these videos, and I feel bad for being a butt to a system with a few flaws, when let's be honest...most systems have problems we overlook, so why should Beast be any different.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide No problem, i agree there are some issues with the way some things are approached and handled.
I just really like idea of it. Wondering, what are some changes you would do to make it more acceptable and less edgy.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide Yeah the core book was poorly edited, check the player's guide. It is an amazing gameline but got a rocky start.
8:00 Minor correction (2 years late to the party, but still).
On a Chance Die, you DO still apply the 10-Again rule. It's part of what I love about the game: No matter HOW many dice you roll, there's ALWAYS a chance of success or failure. I've personally seen someone roll THIRTY dice for an action and fail, and I've also seen someone get an Exceptional Success with only a Chance Die.
So, this may have been updated in later releases of the book, but on page 69 of the book I have it says...
"If your pool drops below one die, you instead roll a single chance die. The chance die only counts as a success if you roll a 10, which you do not reroll. Any other result is a failure."
Copies and pasted directly from the pdf. Again, they may have changed this ruling for future releases, so I'm happy to be corrected.
Definitely would appreciate a deeper dive into its sister systems at some point.
I skimmed the core CofD, and Changeling: The lost rulebooks and was left confused about a great deal. This video is exactly what I needed!
Stumbled across this looking for a refresher on the system. It covers everything you need to know to get back into the swing of it.
Reuben. And thank you for making this. I’m getting back into this game got the first time since nwod first came out. I’m using this video to prep my players for their first session.
Just want to say this was a great breakdown. I have watched it multiple times. I would love to see more CofD content but its so far and few between.
I learned a LOT. I'd heard of Vampire (both), but I didn't know it was a portion of a more general system. I saw a lot to like about the system such as the damage track and the success/fail system. I will want to learn more.
I have recently fallen for changeling the lost. So i would love to see that
This is probably the best how to play series of ttrpgs I've seen yet. I'd probably would want to see videos on geist and mage personally. Hope to see more of this stuff in the future, cheers! 🥂
Chronicles is my favorite RPG game setting and all the denizens that fall under it. Werewolf is my favorite of them all but so many of the other ones have their own interesting aspects. It great to see some videos on it and getting into mechanics. So many channels on Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy dungeon crawling not much on Chronicles or World of darkness (unless it's just Vampire the Masquerade)
make a video for each book bruh, please. i've been playing this system for like years now and i still feel like there's so much to learn. i'm gearing up to run a game set in medieval times and my players are all different supernaturals. i'd love some more content to watch while i do my research. screw beast tho!
First, that sounds awesome!
And second, I really do think I will, though how quickly that will happen is...hard to say lol. I am definitely most familiar with Changeling, Vampire, Werewolf, Geist, and Demon, so they might be where I start. Or I might just try to go in order. I'm not 100% sure, but after finishing this video, I know I was left hungry for even more Chronicles of Darkness content, so it is likely to happen.
God I love you. I m new to the world of darkness and was trying to figure out what the hell is the New world of darkness and the diferences between vtm and vtr are etc. Just the beginning of the video made everything so much clearer.
I've played Nwod/Cofd for MANY years and this will be my go to, to send to new players whenever I start a new game!
This was one of the best Chronicles videos on UA-cam, I’d love to see more!
Just recently found your channel and have really enjoyed your how to videos. I learn better in video format than reading and really appreciate them.
Thanks for this! Can't wait to play my first game on this tonight!
Oh god.. Love your vids, man!
Very, very easy to understand and weird sidenote, I love the BGM you choose for your vids
Keep up the good work!
Having tried running this system, I want to congratulate you on helping me understand it even better. And to realize its just too chrunchy for me.
I may be a year late, but thank you for such an informative video. Planning on running a Hunters game for my partner who has never played a TTRPG before.
As a complete noob to this system (I was introduced to d&d as my first TTRPG a year or so ago). Our DM wanted to run this system for me and my hubby so sent us this link. It is a very easy to follow, helpful and funny guide and we now feel much more prepared to jump into it! So thank you very much :) Also, I like tuna mayo & cucumber sandwiches, he likes marmite and cheese. Judge however you see fit
This video was so useful. Thank you very much
Great video, I don’t think that there is any more to tell, but I’ll like to hear about vampire the Requiem, I have always loved the intrigue in the world of the dead
A note on dice results: You can opt to get a dramatic failure when you fail with a regular roll. This nets you a beat, which eventually results in experience points to improve your character.
For the algorithm!
38:17 I don't know the system so the character sheet part felt a bit clunky. Especially when you jumped from part to part. Idk how much of a help this is but I'd like to suggest going over the character sheet as a whole in brief with necessary background info before breaking into parts with the details. Or maybe a supplement series with character creation.🤷
Ps any hints on what systems you may cover next? Thanks
I've been looking at covering Cortex Prime, but I'm open to suggestions!
And thank you, that is a REALLY good point about giving an overview of the sheet before covering sections in detail!! Definitely going on my checklist for future HtP videos
Making videos about all the different Splats would be a Herculean task! I couldn't say which one should be first but a few comments say pick the ones you like best. The counter argument would be "Pick the best for last" but its up to you. Breaking down the game system this way makes it easier to digest and teach others with so thanks for the video!
I know I'm a couple of years too late but this is great and concise. I really want to run a game of this again. I'm going to look and see if you made any of those book specific videos because I desperately would like a summary like this.
Sadly, I have not. So many games to talk about, so little time to dedicate to talking about them. I know there is a channel out there that has done a lot of in depth coverage of the Chronicles of Darkness games though!
The comical part of explaining each system is great.
Thanks so much for this. I'm starting a CoD campaign with some people who still have oWoD preconceptions. Hopefully, this explanation will save me having to do it. :P
Moar plz!
This helped alot, I was overwhelmed reading the guidebook but this made it easily digestible
Thank you so so so much. Needed this to make a homebrew horror oneshot. You are very good at making concise explanations that are easy to understand!
I'm so glad to hear it helped! I adore this system and am always so happy when I can help others get into it.
Great explanation of the new ruleset. I did sent your vid to my players. We are planning a new chronicles of darkness campaign which is starting in the near future. Will be new to me as I am used to the nWoD ruleset.
this is one of the best "How To" videos I've seen about CofD, I'm a fan of the CofD line of games. I've been using these rules wrong but that is what makes each table different right? XD anyways, great video! hope you do the other lines as they're awesome in their own right. CofD line is underappreciated imo.
This is a viewer showing interest in you making more CofD videos
First off, thanks for that amazing tutorial, it really helped. But I would love if you could go deeper into the various systems, more specifically Vampire and Werewolf.
This is a really excellent description and summary of the system. I just wondered why you skipped the clues sub-system when you did cover the social combat sub-system. Very recommendable, and I think I will use this to prime new players. Thanks!
I covered social maneuvering because it tackles something that I think other more popular games don't do nearly as well, and it is something people would really have an interest in.
Honestly, the system for clues, chases, and all that are great, but to keep these videos as easily digestible as possible, I have to pick and choose just how much I pack into them. Not sure if I always make the right call, but I try.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide , makes sense. Thank you so much for taking your time to reply, and thank you for the awesome video!
solid refresher course i think. There is so many books in this one so good work
That is a great video! CofD is quite complex as I can see but you've done a remarkable job explaining it. I hope your work will attract more viewers because you do deserve them.
I'm interested in doing my own hack based on this system and further explanations of the Denizens would be great. I'd like the Hunter and the Mage ones. But yes, doing the one you like is better for everyone's experience
I havent gotten to play much of the 2e era games (other than a little bit of Demon, which is effectively 2e).
Like you I worry that I'm missing the forest for the trees sometimes when reading the rules, but as as far as I can tell, you seem to be accurate and not missing anything huge (and seem to acknowledge where there is extra detail/nuance that you glossed over).
I reckon you've helped me have some more confidence that the game does in fact work the way that it looks like it does from my reading.
"Geist is Awesome" aaahhh I see you too are a man of quality
Not enough people are into Geist, so I am always happy to meet another fan! Was literally just thinking about an idea for a Geist campaign last week, so this comment put a huge smile on my face!
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide It's just such a good game, and 2e fixes a lot of the thematic/mechanical mess 1e had. Plus who doesn't like to be a spooky boi with a best frenemie attatched at all times?
Thanks for the video, it was really helpful. I'm going to be starting a Chronicles game in May and my storyteller recommended you because I've never touched the system before. I'm still a little confused and I'll probably need to watch this a few more times but I'm better than I was before watching. I would have really liked a brief overview of the different skills but I understand you felt pressed for time.
Will you ever make a video on other CoD books? This is insanely good, I have ADHD so it's difficult for me to read the entire core books and understand the rules on my own, but videos are much better. I'm obsessed with the lore of the hunters and the mages, I'd love to see a vid about them! :D
Thank you, and that's a good question! The short answer is...hopefully, but I can't make any promises!
The longer answer is I love and play so many TTRPGs and want to bring attention to all of them, not to mention I love showing off VTTs and whatnot. This has lead to me having waaay too many video ideas and not nearly enough time to tackle them all, especially since this channel is 100% a hobby and work of passion.
However, even with all the many video ideas I have, tackling the various CofD books has always remained on my To-Do list, as I have a ton of love for the system and many of the settings. If and when I get around to them, I imagine I might have to approach them as shorter videos, maybe around 5 minutes each, but we shall see. I've honestly been getting a decent number of comments about this in the last couple months, which really does keep that stuff on my radar.
Thanks again, I really appreciate it!
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide That's so cool!!! And yes!! Short videos with some kind of visual diagram to roughly explain the logic of each splat would be great for example! :D I've been scouring UA-cam and haven't found a single CofD video guide that comes close to the level of quality on this one.
First of; you're quirky and funny and that is great! And kind of a miracle if you're trying to find a video on Chronicles of Darkness! Most people are dark and gloomy. So keep doing what you're doing and if you could find the time to make one of these wonderful videos about hunter, I would be very much obliged.
I've played or added npcs from almost every denizen book. Except Beast, caused fudge that noise. Also, much like those below, I'm learning new things as an old dog
Loved the video. Clarifies a lot of doubts I had.
I want to see a Geist: The Sin-Eaters HtP.
Please do the MAGE! Great work by the way!
Incredibly good presentation.
Please make videos for each book! I'd love to understand each one and maybe play them!
I would be really interested in a video covering the game Geist: the Sineaters. It truly is a great game. I find your videos a great resource for visual learners who want to play these games, but go cross-eyed when trying to read through the rule books. The books are great for reference, but often i find the barrier to entry (ie. reading the core book plus whatever game line you are running) can deter new players from even trying out the hobby. Thanks for great videos!
hunter is so so good, my favourite by far; though Changeling and Deviant are also fun
I think I may have just played in some...less than great hunter games with some people who were maybe a little too into Buffy for my taste hehe. I really should give it another go.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide that's a shame, it can be built in such a broad way, going super focused on one hunter trope/show/archetype for a campaign seems like defeating point to me. Better to keep it bit more generic and let players build hunters with a bit of variety
Thanks for these videos. The core chronicles book was on sale on drive thru recently. So I was curious if I should buy. your videos helped.
I'm a bit late to the party, but I'd love to see an in-depth guide for Geist. The concept itself fascinates me for years, I every now and then catch myself reading the core rulebook as a fiction novel instead, imagining all sorts of situations and short stories fitting this or that explanation, but I find it a bit hard to conceive what a campaign would truly look like (same for Wraith, but more appealing in practice) and I coukd never form a group, nor have I found engaging-enough videos about it on YT, despite its conceptual brilliance and innovation. I feel like it's such a shame and waste of potential that it is not brought up and explored as much as some other classic "denizens"...
after reading the changeling book and writing a campaign i started work on a campaign! I got 2 of the players to make characters already but tomorrow... we start... AND I DON'T KNOW THE PROPER RULES FOR COMBAT?! but this video FIXED THAT! and it also filled in alot of gaps for me in other places too!
Thank you SO MUCH for doing this! Saved my bacon!
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Glad I could help! And changeling is so good! Hope you have a blast!
Absolutely fantastic tutorial man. I have never played it, b it they’re is so much that fascinates me about this system that I would want to include in a game of my own. Thank you for making this video!
(btw My favorite sandwich is probably the outlaw signature sub from subway. That thing is sooooo good.)
You're amazing! Thanks for the several lessons on everything. Understandable without being simplistic.
This has excited me to no end!! I don't know if you're still looking into whether you want to make a tutorial for these other "game modes" or "Denizens". Still, if you do I agree with the top comments, Mage 2e seems to be the single hardest ttrpg to get into as a know-nothing beginner. Your perfectly digestible tutorials would be the perfect foot in the door for anyone like myself that just can't quite understand how to play it!
Personally, I'm also very interested in the logistics of getting multiple denizens to work together in one campaign! The idea of a Mage bumping into a werewolf or vampire and running with them to solve mysteries just scratches that nice Dresden Files itch that I'm always looking for in these ttrpgs!
And finally, thank you for this well-worded and easy to understand video! :D
I'm about to start running this system and this was a brilliant refresher, and from what I have heard about Beast the Primordial's creator it makes that system even worse. but aside that you video was great.
Hunter: The Vigil does not deserve such disrespect. That game slaps hard!
If you do it right, it's a game about the wake left behind by supernatural creatures. The broken families, the missing loved ones, the terrible curses and blights left behind by all the other splats.
It's about making the powerful creatures who played with you like a toy actually have to pay for once in their privileged, sociopathic lives. You know all those people you ate and woodchipped in your vampire games? Hunters are the ones who make you pay for it.
It's also about trying to put together the pieces of a world infinitely bigger than you and with far more teeth. About trying to survive and maybe make it just a little less shit. It's about building a community and supporting each other when you're preyed upon by things you barely understand. And eventually it's about turning the tables and teaching the things that bump in the night that you can fucking bump back.
While it's never been my cup of tea, at least for what I want out of the W/CofD games, I totally get why folks love it! I just couldn't help but poke a little fun.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide Honestly I can respect that. Sorry if that came out harsh. It's just that I deeply love this system so much. It kinda saved my life a little.
Some of us have had monsters preying on us for a long time. When that happens the concept that you could overpower them alone is so alien to you as to make it ludicrous.
But the concept of you having friends who are just barely organized enough to help you get out? The idea that your monster got cocky and hurt one too many people?
That you might just be able to believe.
Hit me up if you want a four session pickup campaign.
@@jessamynpratt5068 Not harsh at all! I really appreciate the perspective, and honestly, I think it's a great comment for people who see this video and are interesting in Hunter despite my snarky bs! Frankly, you've succeeded more than anyone else in getting me interested in giving Hunter another try.
Eventually I hope to cover each of the books in CofD, so when I get to Hunter I may just have to take you up on that offer so I can present in the best possible light. As much as I poke fun, I do want my channel to generally be a positive experience.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide Sounds like a plan. Don't hesitate to reach out and I'll throw something together.
Was really hoping you would go over the 1st edition as well, since that is (in my humble opinion) the better version... but, this is a good video for me to show to my group to explain why we don't play 2nd :D. LOL. Love it!
Also, I have to say that I adored when you said "track down the werewolf that kicked my butt" the text on the screen said "get myself killed"... truer words have never been spoken, lol.
Was Gifited a couple of these books and this video makes me really excited to run a cod/wod campaign!
This is an excellent crash course! I have been getting back into WoD and introducing friends to it as well and this was just the refresher I needed on core mechanics. Anything else is pure gravy, I am excited to see you do the other core books. (hilarious most of my groups have been mixed gamelines, it works well as long as the story teller is willing to be familiar with the various books)
I have heard good things about Deviant though, which is finally out.
Also don't feel bad about not liking Beast, I recall the community backlashing really hard when it was released so you are super not alone. It wasn't what was advertised and like you said it's basically Sociopath The Tabletop Game.
All other books give you a choice of being a jerk or not as whatever creature you play as, Beast does not. Plus the whole lack of actually being a monster of myth you might as well be some really edgy human supervillain straight out of an iron age comic book so it doesn't even fit thematically very well with the rest of the other books.
Man this was so helpful!! Now i can start and prepare a session for my group! Hope there will be more Videos about CofD
There absolutely will be! I am jumping around and covering a lot, but I would like to eventually cover ever other main book.
A series of videos for the different races systems would be neat :D
Thanks for the great vid.. helps me to prepare my group for our first CofD Season
I like your presentation style. This is my first time playing a d10 system, and we're doing changling. Would love to see you do the rest of CoD but this definitely helps!
I've been playing this since it was released you did a good job breaking it down I'd like breakdowns of the denizens if you feel like it
3:05 it's a funny gag (love the mummy!) but...
the Camarilla isn't a thing in Requiem- except as a footnote in Kindred history. 'I have a meeting with the Invictus' would make more sense here.
This is true and something I always forget. Almost all my time playing VtR was GMed by someone who started in VtM, and they heavily incorporated VtM lore into our VtR games. So I was basically..."raised" with the Camarilla as extremely present and plot relevant in Requiem. I have barely begun to show my entire ass when it comes to VtR lore 🤣
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide to be clear, I did like the video. There aren't too many outsiders perspective takes on the whole setting. I would definitely watch videos that take a deeper dive into each of the individual game books.
It's a shame the base dice system doesn't see the same broad genre adaption as Savage Worlds, probably by my far favorite to the point of making way too many homebrew conversions than I'm proud to admit.
This was great! I bought the original "New World of Darkness" when it first came out, and minus a few quibbles, I really liked it. I later downloaded the God Machine Rules Update (before they decided to revamp it as WoD 2e, then CoD), but I've been too lazy to read the entire thing, so I never really knew what was changed between editions. Looks like I might give the new version a try at some point.
I was a bit reluctant at first, but they made a lot of great changes between the editions, and some that might be a little more divisive (as memory serves, and I might be wrong, Vampires went from decently powerful to terrifyingly powerful with the right build, which I know some folks didn't jive with at the time).
Overall, pretty good updates to a lot of the books that I've really grown to love.
Glad I found your channel getting ready to run a chronically of darkness game after years of not. A figured it be a fun refresher.
Also hey! I still like beast...well at least the idea of the them *sighs* if they only didn't rewrite it into how it is now. Still love the idea.
Also slightly insane cause gonna be doing a multi splat game.
I'd love if you could do a video on the books of Vampire and Hunter! Please please please please!
my favorite sandwich is a panini where you use hummus as the condiment between fillings and bread. cheese is of course a must as well.
I really hope you do make a video for all of the books because your videos are really good
Thx very useful, cleared up some doubts I had
I think you sold Hunter short, it is a game about the blurry line between righteousness and blind wrath.
In one of the fiction stories (The Cat Lady from Horror Recognition Guide), a character finds out an old lady kills people's pets so she can shapeshift. The old woman isn't evil or anything just...wanting to see the world from a different perspective and have a body that works. The hunter decides to kill the woman by torching her house with the woman inside. Afterwards the character says she'll inform her friends the day after so they can kill all the cats in town just to be on the safe side. It isn't too difficult how this can go from killing a vampire to deciding to murder a small town, because they came into contact with the vampire and might be their ghouls.
This is also why Slasher became a great expansion to Hunter. It delves into stereotypical slashers, but also hunters that went more than a bit too far after their ethics and methods became extremely questionable from all the killing they've done. This expansion was integrated into the second edition Hunter book.
Please make your Videos about CofD! Perfect explanation!!!
I felt like this gave me a good understanding of the overall system. I would have liked a small summary of what the denizens can do mechanically. Like do werewolves play like a barbarian? Do vampire's revolve around drinking blood? Do changelings focus on healing or what do they do?
I really didn't touch on that, did I. The best I can say is that since each book is designed to be played but itself (ie. a game of all vampires) there is a lot of variety for each (typically 5 templates). Vamps tend to deal with stuff around their society, but not always. Werewolves have packs and tribes and deal with spirits and other stuff, but don't have to... There's a lot of variety that I don't think I'll cover in this comment because I just woke up hehe. But I appreciate the comment and think I may just have to make a video on this
Thank you so much for this guide!
Hey, I’ve been playing WoD/CofD games for years, and this was a GREAT video. Please do videos for each game line, except Beast - because we all know why. Also, which VTT would you recommend for running a CofD campaign?
Thank you!
I think one of the best I've come across is Foundry, as it has a good mod for a number of the games. I'm not sure how many at this point, but it was a decent selection. Otherwise I think Roll20 is still the most robust option, unless you decided to build your own sheets in One More Multiverse, which would be amazing but also pretty time intensive
Woot Woot
I would vote either Promethean or Mage for a vid.
Both have systems (Pilgrimage and Magic respectively) I know could use some explanation.