The live chat with Justin Achilli has passed. We thank Justin for his time and hope to see him again soon.

A log of the event has been included below:

Ryan: Before we begin the event, I know that we have many people here that are unfamiliar with your work. Could you tell them a bit about yourself, and your work?
Justin: Sure thing.
Justin: I've been with White Wolf for about ten years now.
Justin: In that time, I've worked on a variety of projects...
Justin: ...starting with the Rage card game, through the revised edition ov Vampire: The Masquerade...
Justin: and into the relaunch of the World of Darkness with Vampire: The requiem.
Justin: I've worked on over 100 books...
Justin: Covering all of the World of Darkness bases. I've written for everything from Wraith to Werewolf: The Wild West...
Justin: And developed everything from Changeling to ravenloft.
Justin: That's pretty much a short resume for me ;)
Ryan: "I was wondering if they're planning on releasing a new Mage book to go with Requiem and Apocalypse. I know this doesn't have much to do with Masquerade, but if you knew, I'd be glad to know :D"
Justin: Actually, Mage: The Awakening is out in stores right now.
Justin: It debuted at GenCon this year in limited quantities...
Justin: ...But everything is out there now and should be available at your local game store.
Justin: Awakening is a significant bit different from Mage: The Ascension.
Justin: It's probably the most different game from its original iteration.
Justin: but adaptable) form of "Atlantean" magic.
Justin: Of course, you don't have to use Atlantis if you don't want.
Justin: It could just as easily be Mu or Ultima Thule or the Hollow earth or however you want to customize it.
Ryan: "Many fans of White Wolf that I have talked with believe that the dice rules in the New World of Darkness systems are superior, and not as complicated as the Rules and Systems in the oWoD Books."
Ryan: "Do you recommend, for players whom stay with Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse, and Mage the Ascension, to adopt the Rules and Systems from the Core Rulebook of White Wolf's New World of Darkness into VtM, WtA, and MtA?"
Ryan: "If yes, then please explain why."
Justin: Awesome question.
Justin: Here's the thing:
Justin: Myself, I greatly enjoy the new WoD rules in comparison to the old ones.
Justin: I think they're tighter and more streamlined.
Justin: Now, would I suggest that you "port over" all of the old setting to the new rules?
Justin: No necessarily.
Justin: The old WoD functioned well for what it was -- the systems truly worked well with the setting.
Justin: It was a larger-than-life setting, with conspiracies and global horrors everywhere, and the setting was a little moer "cinematic."
Justin: In the new WoD, the emphasis is more on the local and the subtly strange.
Justin: You'll find that characters are, for a lack of a better word, "lower-powered," but only by comparison.
Justin: I guess the long answer short is that each game is best served by its integral rules.
Justin: If you want to translate them over, rock on, but they're really two different systems for two different gaming moods.
Justin: I know a lot of people are doing the translation, however. It's really a matter of personal taste.
Justin: That's sort of my "golden rule" answer ;) Whatever your troupe finds fun, indulge.
Justin: Next!
Ryan: "I have created many WW characters. There are merits and flaws in other venues, like Hunter, that seem perfect for my Garou. Is it appropriate to use a Hunter merit in creating a Garou? It is after all, all WW. Thanks. "
Justin: Another good question.
Justin: In my opinion, adapting the rules from one game to another is the highest level of critical thought.
Justin: It shows that you're thinking about what works, _how_ it works, and how you can create that experience with other parameters, say in adapting a Hunter function to a Werewolf function.
Justin: Three years ago, I would have suggested keeping them distinct and out of each other's yards...
Justin: ...Today, though, I'm really enamored of the toolbox approach, and choosing bits you like from one and bringing them into the other is what a good Storyteller does.
Justin: Of course, if you're a player, you should clear all this stuff with your Storyteller, but as long as you've thoought analytically about it, he'll probably be open minded.
Justin: Okay, gimme another!
Ryan: "Why has White Wolf never put out much information on Clan True Brujah? One fact that was given out, is that the many of them along with Members of the High Council, had gone into Torpor in an effort to avoid Troile's Get from hunting them down. If this is fact, in the new edition, what part did the sleeping TB's play if any and were they found?"
Justin: The True Brujah were both few and intentionally mysterious.
Justin: Troile's progeny were more accessible, and the True brujah were more of an interesting curiosity than a clan that really should have been in any sort of spotlight.
Justin: You knew when some guy said, "I'm a True Brujah" that weird stuff was afoot, and properly so.
Justin: It's a "niche" clan, good for a very specific application, sorta like the Kiasyd and the Salubri.
Justin: They're good at doing what they do, but that thing is very specialized and finite and never really had the same sort of mass appeal and function as the larger clans.
Justin: More questions!
Ryan: "Regarding the True Brujah: Considering the great Discipline powers held by the Ancients and Methuselahs such as:"
Ryan: "Auspex - Spirit Link, Psychic Assault, Omniscience, Precognition; Presence - Dream World;, Temporis - Hall of Hades Court, Rewind Time, Clio’s Kiss, Summon History, and Tangle Atropos’ Hand to name a few... Surely Brujah with his mighty powers knew what was coming..."
Justin: Hah -- do you think so?
Justin: That was one of my favorite parts about the Antediluvians.
Justin: You never knew what they actually knew, or what they had surmised, or what they'd sussed out from other Kindred.
Justin: One of the things I tried to pull out of Vampire: The Masquerade -- the level-10 Disciplines.
Justin: I thought that the Antediluvians should be mysterious, and you should never really know what they're capable of.
Justin: I also thought that one of the scariest things about the Antes was they were so old and alien, you really didn't know what or if they thought at all.
Justin: Their minds had been so monstrous for so long, that they might not even think in the linear method that we understand with our feeble human minds.
Justin: To get back to the original question, who's to say Brujah didn't see it coming? Or didn't want it? Or it wasn't all a massive trick of misdirection?
Justin: Wheels within wheels... ;)
Justin: Next!
Ryan: "In your estimation would it not be feasible that the whole diaberlie by Troile was staged, and that Brujah is still controlling from a hidden location or grave? I have a 10 year nonstop running IRC VTM channel where a Storyline of a True Brujah and an Assamite were pushed back in time by a Mage to the year 594 BC."
Justin: Absolutely possible.
Justin: That's one of those mysterious Antediluvian things.
Justin: I loved that "they were the last generation to have true mastery over life and death," which is a memory paraphrase from the Masquerade core book.
Justin: I think any of the Antediluvians may well eclipse what we think we know.
Justin: You see that a bit with Augustus Giovanni and Tremere -- they're a lot closer to the conventional notion of thinking people than we associate with brujah and Troile and Nosferat and the really old, old ones.
Justin: In fact, I wrote up a little non-canonical synopsis that suggested [Ventrue] even survived Gehenna, which was his consummate victory over all other Kindred.
Justin: But I'm a jerk like that, always playing favorites ;)
Justin: So, yeah, any treachery you can imagine from an Antediluvian is possible...
Justin: ...up to and including faking their own deaths, never existing at all, or even being entirely different individuals than what we thought we knew.
Justin: That's scary -- that's great stuff for the burgeoning paranoia of the World of Darkness.
Justin: Another!
Ryan: "In the Assamite Clan book, it lists Haqim as 2nd Generation. Does this mean Caine didn't have a number? And does that fit in with the mention in V:RE of 'Generation of Vampires' between Caine and the 2nd Gens?"
Justin: Awesome. I'm glad people still twig to that.
Justin: _I_ always liked the idea that Caine had no generation.
Justin: He couldn't be first generation -- he couldn't be one generation removed from himself.
Justin: That always made for interesting possibilities like [Haqim] being second-generation, or Enoch, Irad and Zillah being first generation and there being a "missing generation" of Kindred somewhere.
Justin: That's scary, too -- if the Antediluvians are creepy, inscrutable, godlike monsters, what if there's a "secret enemy" even more potent than them? *Shiver*
Justin: It sounds like you guys are really getting into the details of what makes the setting compelling. As a creator, that's really very cool to witness.
Justin: Another!
Ryan: "Will White Wolf ever link the new Vampire to the old one?"
Justin: Heh. I knew that question would come up ;)
Justin: I don't see it happening. The creators and principals want to keep the new World of Darkness distinct from the old one.
Justin: While they share a few common elements, they're independent entities.
Justin: That's not to say players who like to see stuff from the old WoD can't adapt it to the new -- we talked about that a little above -- but much of our efforts are directed toward building a new experience rather then simulating the previous one.
Justin: Rock me another question, Amadeus.
Ryan: "One of the greatest books produced by White Wolf, in My humble opinion, was The Erciyes Fragments. In looking at it's facts along with the Book of Nod and Revelations of the Dark Mother.. White Wolf did an amazing job of linking the Christians Fall of Man with Vampires, up to and including the Hebrews Lilith Myth."
Ryan: "What I wonder is, considering the time line spanning these two books.. why didnt White Wolf also include 'The Giants that roamed the land' and 'the Sons of God that bred with the human females' as some sort of supernaturals? Since the Erciyes Fragments was based upon only one fragment, couldn't others hold perhaps this idea"
Justin: Cool question.
Justin: One of the things we always bear in mind is that the World of Darkness we see now isn't always how the World of Darkness was.
Justin: There's nothing saying "the giants that roamed the land" didn't exist at one point but not in the modern nights.
Justin: Likewise with the intimated angels.
Justin: On the other hand, introducing those to the old WoD... well, that place was already pretty overpopulated.
Justin: They're great ideas as written precedent for scaring the hell out of your players.
Justin: "Holy smokes, was that an _angel_?"
Justin: But the more you define things, the more mystery you take away, and some element of the unknown always has to be there for a horror game.
Justin: They're sort of our way of giving Storytellers carte blanche to fine-tune the details of their own worlds.
Justin: [Actually, I always thought of "the giants that roamed the land" as good analogues for a proto-Changeling race.]
Justin: Next!
Ryan: "There is mention in the fragment of '3 by 10' instead of '3 AND 10' is there significance there? Possibly 30 Antediluvians instead of 13? In the Giovanni Chronicle: The Last Supper, Japheth is stated to have been embraced around 7,000 BC. Isnt that out of line with embrace of other Antediluvians?"
Justin: Remember that Japheth was a Methuselah, not a proper Antediluvian.
Justin: Also, YES!
Justin: I put that three-by-ten in there to spook people, too. Again, it's the unknown.
Justin: If we know only 13 of the true clans, _what else is out there_? *cue creepy music crescendo*
Justin: It was a possible explanation for other clans that might have surfaced.
Justin: I also liked the idea that clans may have come and gone. Again, the WoD we see tonight isn't necessarily how the WoD always is or was.
Justin: Clans may have passed into obscurity like the Cappadocians or vanished entirely from the memories of the Damned.
Justin: And another!
Ryan: "One of the previous questions, about the 'giants that roamed the earth' way back refers to the Nephilim. They were killed by the great flood (noah's ark and what not), however being half angel their souls were immortal and remained as unclean spirits, such as ones that Jesus later expels. Question: Did Jesus, the apostles, or any of them religious guys ever interact with vampires?"
Justin: I'm sure they did.
Justin: But that's something I didn't want to make vampires complicit with.
Justin: I always thought making historical figures vampires sort of reduced the effect.
Justin: It softens the impact of human evil if you can just say, "Oh, vampires are actually responsible for that."
Justin: I know the question doesn't necessarily suppose that Jesus was a vampire.
Justin: We do definitely know that the Kindred were all up in Biblical history, from Caine himself on downward.
Justin: I'm sure Christ came across some Kindred.
Justin: He probably banished them with His purity or even reversed the curse, making them human again much like healing a leper.
Justin: Another!
Ryan: "I've played with the new system a bit, and after playtesting through a theoretical situation involving a score of blind, rock-throwing children and a vampire, it seems to me that sometimes the 'Chance die' system gives a bit too much likelihood of even one success! Got any tips for dealing with that?"
Justin: Indeed.
Justin: It's all a part of how the systems are used.
Justin: Dice are there to represent the element of chance -- you roll them only when the outcome of the action shouldn't be pre-ordained.
Justin: It then becomes a matter of storytelling style.
Justin: I'd never even bother rolling dice for 20 blind, rock-throwing kids.
Justin: I'd say, "They miss. twenty times" or I'd say, "Unsettlingly, the children throw their rocks with eeries accuracy, pelting you with a hail of stones."
Justin: There's really not a lot of drama involved with "_Maybe_ the rock-throwing kids hit you."
Justin: Why are they there? What purpose do they serve in the story?
Justin: It's like other combat -- if you put a gun to a dude's head and fire, he's dead. Don't bother rolling dice. If he survives, that's some weird fluke or event that _the Storyteller imparts meaning to_ moresoe than a simple, arbitrary throw of dice.
Justin: Good question -- it leads to considerations of larger storytelling style.
Justin: next question!
Ryan: "What is the real scoop on Ravnos' death? Was he really destroyed? Did he actually survive? Also what was the motivation behind his awakening?"
Justin: Stone cold dead.
Justin: We had him awaken to show that the World of darkness was not a static place.
Justin: For lots of people, all the answers were available.
Justin: They settled into comfortable states, knowing the ins and outs of the world and its secrets.
Justin: By taking that comfort away, you reintroduce an element of danger to the world.
Justin: What people thought they knew -- the omnipresence and inevitability of the Antediluvians -- turned out not to be the case.
Justin: It's uncomfrotable when things change, especially things you thought you could trust.
Justin: I've always said that Vampire shouldn't necessarily be a wholly comfortable experience. It should creep you out a bit, make you jump, make you fear.
Justin: Showing that even the greatest monsters the world had left weren't invulnerable made the Kindred fear for their own existences, which they may have taken for granted before.
Justin: Next!
Ryan: "In many games I have been story telling at, my players just will not 'throw me a bone.' They do terrible things all the time, such as slapping bartenders and burning important documents left for them to find. I know these things are open ended, but without some guidance the players are just sitting in the dark. Any suggestions or tips to help 'guide' players to the most interesting/correct choices?"
Justin: Awesome question.
Justin: My answer for that is often one of enforcing responsibility for actions.
Justin: If your players burn an important document, they don't solve the mystery.
Justin: The "Midnight Killer" or whatever gets away with it.
Justin: The Prince is disappointed in the characters, who were supposed to be handling it. Other Kindred lose faith in them.
Justin: Mechanically, you might wish to give them a temporary hit to Status to reflect this loss of esteem.
Justin: You might confiscate rewards given to them in the past by figures of authority. If these characters can't stop the Midnight Killer or whatever, they obviously shouldn't enjoy the benefits of the Rack -- that feeding ground is off limits to them.
Justin: Likewise with players whose actions are always violent.
Justin: You slap a bartender, the bouncer throws you out of the bar.
Justin: Sure, you migt kick the bouncer's ass, but eventually, you're going to run into a bouncer who puts your eeth on the curb and kicks you in the back of the head.
Justin: Players who kill cops, for example, are going to earn a lot of attention.
Justin: Violence is always trouble. If the violence in your chronicle takes on a more sinister tone, players will respect it more and resort to it less.
Justin: One of my maxims is, "The World of darkness doesn't have combats. It has maulings, beatdowns, assaults, and brutality."
Justin: Hope that helps.
Justin: It may be that you need players less dependent on violence and radical tactics.
Justin: Another!
Ryan: "Could you talk a little about the interaction between writing the background stories and creating the actual gaming system? Which do you start with, or is it a more fluid process?"
Justin: Cool question.
Justin: We did both simultaneously, but we knew _the end we wanted to achieve_.
Justin: That is, we knew we wanted the new World of Darkness to have a local, mysterious, nervous feeling.
Justin: From there, we built the social structures that reinforced that feel, and we made the rules suitable for creating those effects.
Justin: We had long pow-wows, often taking individual details to the table and discussing how best to handle them.
Justin: For example, one of the original system ideas for the new WoD was to have three different dice types.
Justin: Each die had a different target number.
Justin: Your attributes were 8 and higher, your skills were nine and hire, and thr modifier/tool dice were 10 and higher.
Justin: A kind of interesting idea, but it was a mechanical monster.
Justin: You had to devote your attention to three different dice and count three different numbers and then add them all together -- it got really heavy and bogged down the play.
Justin: That didn't facilitate susnpenseful horror, so we dropped it in favor of something that moved more quickly.
Justin: Something that put you back in the creeping dread of the story. Quick and easy. Roll dice. Action resolved. Now, where did that corpse go?
Justin: The same with setting, and concurrently.
Justin: If the setting element didn't invoke the proper sense of horror, we cut it.
Justin: Blood Sorcery originally belonged to a clan in the new WoD, the "Brujir." As we messed with that idea, it made the "Brujir" feel like a class from a fantasy game, not a secret familial line of vampires. Justin: So, the "Brujir" went away and their magic became Cruac, the purview of a social structure and not a clan/ innate ability.
Justin: "Theban Sorcery" was also originally "Edenic Sorcery," which had a much closer tie to Biblical origins. We scrapped that, too, because we'd already done the Biblical horror in the previous game, and wanted to explore a new hore -- and not give anyone something they thought they could depend on.
Justin: Okay, I'll do two more, Ryan. Hit me with your best shot.
Ryan: "There are many rp games who are still 3rd ed. Since white wolf ended that with TOJ, many of the STs are starting to expand it ourselves. Are there any books which go in to the justicars more deeply and would WW frown on us expanding from where they ended as our player base prefers VTM?"
Justin: Keep it alive!
Justin: By all means, evolve a growing body of fan-supported material. We're nothing without the support of players.
Justin: The book Archons and Justicars is probably the best resource for the general phenomena of the justicars, but always liked Kindred Most Wanted and Children of the Inquisition for characterized applications of the principles.
Justin: Okay, one left. Make it a doozy!
Ryan: "Your ideas regarding neonates who seem to think they can mouth off to the Prince or other kindred of status? I run across players who get huffy and quit the channel, because one of the Elders takes no more. How you feel this should be handled?"
Justin: If I was an elder and someone popped off to me,I'd really handle it as my personality determined.
Justin: For some elders, that's an almighty kicking-of-the-ass.
Justin: For most, though, I imagine they'd nurse the slight and then SCREW THE NEONATE when it had the most gravity.
Justin: Oh, you'd like to feed in my domain? Too bad you acted like a chump at Elysium.
Justin: You need help against Belial's Brood or the Sabbat? Maybe you should have considered that when you gave me the finger.
Justin: The unlife of a neonate is determined by his elders -- and that includes not just "elder" but ancillae as well.
Justin: That's not to say they control his every move, but the existing society is theirs.
Justin: If they choose not to welcome a whelp with an attitude problem, that's their right.
Justin: As Mr. Burns says, "Revenge is a dish best served cold."
Justin: Smithers, have that man whipped!
Justin: ;)
Justin: Well, crew, thanks for coming by.
Justin: It was awesme to hang out and tak to everyone.
Justin: I'm sorry if I missed any questions, but we'll get to them when we do this next time, eh?
Justin: You guys rock.
Ryan: Thank you for joining us, Justin. I'll have chat logs for the entire White Wolf community to read available. I'll put them on the website and email them to you as well.
Justin: Oh, and rmember that the game is nothing without you.
Justin: We're just dudes who make books. You're the ones who turn them into memorable stories.
Justin: Thanks for keeping the faith!
Justin: See ya, guys!

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