Changeling: The Lost
Oct. 20th, 2012 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckro“A storytelling game of beautiful madness.”
As the legends say, the Fae come in the night a steal away children. Sometimes, those children come back, but they come back changed…
Now that White Wolf is mostly defunct—and not traditionally publishing hardbounds anymore—I’m finally putting together a collection of New World of Darkness books. I got the core books for the New World of Darkness, Mage: The Awakening, Werewolf: The Forsaken (all of which I played when OblvnDrgn ran then a few years ago) and this, plus a few supplemental books.
Though I think (and have said before) that Mage: The Awakening has a much weaker setting and metaplot than Mage: The Ascension, I think this is at least on par with Changeling: The Dreaming. I think it actually works better for angst, horror and plot-driving than the original did. C:tD was the least “dark” of the Old World of Darkness games (at least until Mummy: The Resurrection, which was downright positive), as its biggest themes (fighting a slow, inevitable loss) were all mostly melancholy, punctuated with bright-eyed wonder. C:tL features characters who have suffered serious trauma that both psychologically scarred them and separately them from the world, an enemy that is immensely powerful and unpredictable, and just as much potential for politicking as ever.
Though for all I love the setting and the ideas, I’m less than enthused about the system. The magical powers available to changelings (“contracts”) are too weak, overall, and not really flexible in the slightest. Which is weird, given the fluff behind them: The changeling is enacting a contract between himself and whatever natural force he’s affecting to achieve a result; i.e. he flies by contracting with gravity that it won’t hold him down. But they took this in a very legalistic sense, rather than a business negotiation sense. Each power has an exact effect, and that’s all you can do with it. There isn’t even much wiggle room for improvisation within that (for example, the “summon element” powers only affect the element you’ve chosen for your character from the very start, they don’t give you a choice).
I think a lot of the problem is that, in the change-over to New World of Darkness, they fixed the game system to streamline it from game to game, to make all of the games easy to switch among and facilitate crossovers with equal-power characters. This is a mixed blessing—it makes the game easier to play, but it also means you can’t allow the kind of flexibility Mage: The Ascension or Changeling: The Dreaming powers had.
(This gripe is a combination of the fact that, as a player, I love being able to improvise and have a lot of flexibility in my abilities, which is why I like playing Mages, and always roll up a Sorcerer rather than a Wizard; and as a GM, I like giving my players a lot of power to make big things happen, so I can throw the big repercussions at them instead of coming up with actual plot. I suspect that if I ever came up with a really good idea for a plot in this setting, I’d modify the arts/realm magic system from C:tD and use that instead.)
Regarding story/system elements I really like:
I think Goblin Contracts are a cool way to do more-powerful magic: You can learn each one completely independently of your other magic, but they always have a drawback when you use them, and they have an additional catch if you don’t use them under the “right” circumstances. Like a well-done cursed magical item, they have an important benefit that you might not be able to turn down, but also a cost that you might not be willing or able to pay.
I really dig the concept of the Fetch—when the Fae steal someone, they leave a copy made of that person’s shadow and random junk, who continues to live their life believing themselves the real thing. And if the Changeling never returns, except for the fact that most fetches are infertile, no one ever suspects otherwise. The book has long discussions of Changeling characters killing their fetches, or what if the fetch died while they were gone, and the like. (When the Changeling returns, the fetch gets some supernatural powers to help it protect itself. Whether or not they know what’s going on is up to the storyteller.) There was also a short bit about reconciling with your fetch, and reabsorbing the shadow used to make it and the memories it has. But what I want to see is a story about a geeky Changeling who shows up, meets his fetch, and becomes best buddies as they recount all the possibilities for explaining their being two of them. (“They’re both Xander!” “You’re a robot!” “Time travel!” “Quantum clones!” “Mirror universe!”)
Then again, I’m also amused by the character concept of a Stockholm Syndrome Changeling, who was freed by other escaping Changelings but never wanted to leave, and is constantly worried about what her Keeper will do without her. Depending on the troupe, this could make for an interesting conflict or an utterly insufferable character who’s constantly trying to get the entire party killed.
Overall: Love the setting, middling on the system, though I might still use the character type in a NWoD crossover game. Now I just need a solid campaign idea.
As the legends say, the Fae come in the night a steal away children. Sometimes, those children come back, but they come back changed…
Now that White Wolf is mostly defunct—and not traditionally publishing hardbounds anymore—I’m finally putting together a collection of New World of Darkness books. I got the core books for the New World of Darkness, Mage: The Awakening, Werewolf: The Forsaken (all of which I played when OblvnDrgn ran then a few years ago) and this, plus a few supplemental books.
Though I think (and have said before) that Mage: The Awakening has a much weaker setting and metaplot than Mage: The Ascension, I think this is at least on par with Changeling: The Dreaming. I think it actually works better for angst, horror and plot-driving than the original did. C:tD was the least “dark” of the Old World of Darkness games (at least until Mummy: The Resurrection, which was downright positive), as its biggest themes (fighting a slow, inevitable loss) were all mostly melancholy, punctuated with bright-eyed wonder. C:tL features characters who have suffered serious trauma that both psychologically scarred them and separately them from the world, an enemy that is immensely powerful and unpredictable, and just as much potential for politicking as ever.
Though for all I love the setting and the ideas, I’m less than enthused about the system. The magical powers available to changelings (“contracts”) are too weak, overall, and not really flexible in the slightest. Which is weird, given the fluff behind them: The changeling is enacting a contract between himself and whatever natural force he’s affecting to achieve a result; i.e. he flies by contracting with gravity that it won’t hold him down. But they took this in a very legalistic sense, rather than a business negotiation sense. Each power has an exact effect, and that’s all you can do with it. There isn’t even much wiggle room for improvisation within that (for example, the “summon element” powers only affect the element you’ve chosen for your character from the very start, they don’t give you a choice).
I think a lot of the problem is that, in the change-over to New World of Darkness, they fixed the game system to streamline it from game to game, to make all of the games easy to switch among and facilitate crossovers with equal-power characters. This is a mixed blessing—it makes the game easier to play, but it also means you can’t allow the kind of flexibility Mage: The Ascension or Changeling: The Dreaming powers had.
(This gripe is a combination of the fact that, as a player, I love being able to improvise and have a lot of flexibility in my abilities, which is why I like playing Mages, and always roll up a Sorcerer rather than a Wizard; and as a GM, I like giving my players a lot of power to make big things happen, so I can throw the big repercussions at them instead of coming up with actual plot. I suspect that if I ever came up with a really good idea for a plot in this setting, I’d modify the arts/realm magic system from C:tD and use that instead.)
Regarding story/system elements I really like:
I think Goblin Contracts are a cool way to do more-powerful magic: You can learn each one completely independently of your other magic, but they always have a drawback when you use them, and they have an additional catch if you don’t use them under the “right” circumstances. Like a well-done cursed magical item, they have an important benefit that you might not be able to turn down, but also a cost that you might not be willing or able to pay.
I really dig the concept of the Fetch—when the Fae steal someone, they leave a copy made of that person’s shadow and random junk, who continues to live their life believing themselves the real thing. And if the Changeling never returns, except for the fact that most fetches are infertile, no one ever suspects otherwise. The book has long discussions of Changeling characters killing their fetches, or what if the fetch died while they were gone, and the like. (When the Changeling returns, the fetch gets some supernatural powers to help it protect itself. Whether or not they know what’s going on is up to the storyteller.) There was also a short bit about reconciling with your fetch, and reabsorbing the shadow used to make it and the memories it has. But what I want to see is a story about a geeky Changeling who shows up, meets his fetch, and becomes best buddies as they recount all the possibilities for explaining their being two of them. (“They’re both Xander!” “You’re a robot!” “Time travel!” “Quantum clones!” “Mirror universe!”)
Then again, I’m also amused by the character concept of a Stockholm Syndrome Changeling, who was freed by other escaping Changelings but never wanted to leave, and is constantly worried about what her Keeper will do without her. Depending on the troupe, this could make for an interesting conflict or an utterly insufferable character who’s constantly trying to get the entire party killed.
Overall: Love the setting, middling on the system, though I might still use the character type in a NWoD crossover game. Now I just need a solid campaign idea.
