[Auditioning games] thoughts on Changeling: The Lost? (also, where is 2nd edition!?)

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I'm stilling looking for a go-to system to run "hidden creatures in a modern world" scenarios and I've been investigating Changeling: The Lost. Anyone have experience with it?

Also, where the hell is its 2nd edition? Isn't it seriously delayed by Onyx Path standards?
 
I've ran it. I thought it was a really good system (caveat subsystem of nWoD, one's opinion on those rules as the basis of a game may differ), but one which requires a strong hand of the GM and a clear idea of the type of game they want to run. Basically its a spiritual successor to Dark Ages:Fae rather than Changeling: The Dreaming.
 
I'm stilling looking for a go-to system to run "hidden creatures in a modern world" scenarios and I've been investigating Changeling: The Lost. Anyone have experience with it?

Also, where the hell is its 2nd edition? Isn't it seriously delayed by Onyx Path standards?
As of May 8th it's in 'Development' according to the Onyx Path website. As far as I can tell it appears to be a rules related editing phase. I'm betting with all the stretch goals from Kickstarters as well as Exalted 3rd Edition and Wraith 20 going off the rails they have a lot of stuff to get through which has meant that delivery dates have slipped.
 
C:tL is, hands down, the best CoD (nWoD) game. And this coming from a huge CoD fan.

C:tD always rubbed me the wrong way and even creeped me out a bit a times, but C:tL is a work of art.

It allows for a wide variety (fluff-wise, not so much crunch-wise) of character concepts. Vampires will be vampires, werewolves will be werewolves, but one changeling can differ from the other (in nature, outlook and appearance) as much as a vampire from a werewolf.

I'm glad to learn that C:tL2 is in the works, but C:tL1 also boasts the strongest supplement line of any White Wolf game ever. Seriously. All killer, no filler, as they say. Get them all if you can.

Our C:tL game was set in a town close to our own that's mostly settled by European (German and Slavic) immigrants, so we got to play with myths from these countries as well as native folklore and local history. It was a short game, essentially an extended multi-session murder mystery, but it had a ton of pathos as everyone sorted out their Durance baggage and it felt personal in the way I think V:tM always wanted to but never quite managed. (Bear in mind that I was playing an axe-swinging Ogre.) Man, I'd love to revisit that game.
 
It allows for a wide variety (fluff-wise, not so much crunch-wise) of character concepts. Vampires will be vampires, werewolves will be werewolves, but one changeling can differ from the other (in nature, outlook and appearance) as much as a vampire from a werewolf.

One of the potential appeals of C:TL to me is that you don't actually need any of the other WoD games because changeling concepts can cover them all, thereby serving as an efficient urban fantasy toolbox. Seriously, as far as I've seen you can make a changeling 'werewolf', 'mage', or 'vampire' pretty easily, and it doesn't come with any of the mythos baggage from those lines to slow things down. As someone who feels WoD games should not cross over into each other at one table, even as theme-diluting NPCs, this is a major plus.
 
I've ran it. I thought it was a really good system (caveat subsystem of nWoD, one's opinion on those rules as the basis of a game may differ), but one which requires a strong hand of the GM and a clear idea of the type of game they want to run. Basically its a spiritual successor to Dark Ages:Fae rather than Changeling: The Dreaming.

Sorry to come back to this, but could you tell me more about how your campaign went?
 
Changeling The Lost is a game where I absolute adore the setting and basic framework for why characters get together, what they do, how they congregate. It's the powers and the like where it falls flat on its face. It's from the era where OP wanted to stick to some notion of balance, and so they severely underplayed the powers of various character types. It doesn't hurt the game as much as the changes to Werewolf The Forsaken does, but for sheer coolness, there's a lot of lost potential in the various powers and perks of joining groups.
 
Sorry to come back to this, but could you tell me more about how your campaign went?

It was very satisfying, but one of those games I really could have only run with those particular players. In this case, ex-girlfriend and her girl/friend. And me being me I ignored any kind of setting the game tried to put forth, instead going with something akin to Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere mixed with Twin Peaks. One of the players was freshly escaped from Faerie, basically just passing through the Hedge with The Wyld Hunt at her back and landing in the real world in a state of shock, her memories of her life shattered. The other player was more savvy, regularly travelling between that world and this one, mainly dealing in Goblin Fruits as a sort of "drug dealer." The campaign largely revolved around the first girl finding her former life had been stolen by a doppleganger, including her husband (she ends up stabbing the Fetch in a fit of rage, at which point it turned into a lifeless wood mannequinn), and avoiding the creatures the Fae Queen who had taken her sent to retrieve her (starting with a redcap disguised as a creepy homeless man, then after they killed that, out of the corpse escaped The Hunter, leader of the Wyld Hunt). They eventually get proactive and slip back into The Otherworld by way of a Bogeyhole, in an attempt to discover the Fae Queen's True Name.
 
It's from the era where OP wanted to stick to some notion of balance, and so they severely underplayed the powers of various character types.

Have you been following the development of 2nd ed?

TristramEvans said:
They eventually get proactive and slip back into The Otherworld by way of a Bogeyhole, in an attempt to discover the Fae Queen's True Name.

Did they succeed? :grin:
 
Have you been following the development of 2nd ed?
Not really. I don't think the Onyx Path of today could really do Changeling The Lost the way they did it in the '00s. There's some really raw, exploitative ugliness possible in CtL, and like WtA and other things, I only see designers backing away from that stuff right now. (Obviously, that ugliness can get out of hand, such as in Exalted: The Infernals, but CtL seemed to hit that spot where it really worked for the game.)
 
Did they succeed? :grin:

Well, yes and no. Early on the first girl, Lana, in rediscovering her memories, found out she was pregnant and an accident led to a miscarriage just before she was abducted into Faerie (or so she thought, at that moment I decided the Faerie Queen was actually her child). When she and the other girl, Roxxy, went looking for a way to find out the True Name of the Faerie Queen, they ended up visiting a Butcher Shop called Gentle Annie's, deep in the cellars of which dwelt The Black Annis (from Scottish folklore, a blue-skinned hag with iron claws and teeth known for skinning and eating small children), who they attempted to get information from. In return for her help, The Black Annis demanded Lana's firstborn child. Lana agreed, believing that she had pulled a trick on Annis. Annis told her to locate The Lacuna, a mirror deep inside a cairn in The Otherworld that would reveal all secrets to whomsover peered into it.

The thing is Roxxy's main motivation in the game was to find a key that would allow her access to The Libraries of Horn & Ivory, deep in The Otherworld, which contain every book ever written and every book never written (a nod to Sandman, the player and I were both big fans). Secretly, she made a deal with the Annis that she would give her such a key when she presented the firstborn child to her, giving her a small bronze whistle to summon her.

Along the way Lana's character also ended up losing both of her hands. The first turned to dust when she accidentally touched earth/soil after living in Faerie. The second...well, when they traveled through the Bogeyhole (located in a child's closet) into Faerie, the ended up in a disproportionately small German-esque looking village where they encountered The Scissorman.

Escaping him, Lana now with no hands and Roxxy found The Cairn and travelled inside, where they were confronted by The Fae Queen. While Roxxy distracted the Faerie, Lana managed to slip past long enough to peer into the mirror and discover her True Name, that of her daughter, Annabelle. Upon speaking the name allowed, the Queen's glamour slipped away revealing the young girl of three years of age who burst into tears and reached out for her mother.

At which point Roxxy blew the whistle.

Out of the shadows burst The Black Annis, spearing the young child through the chest with her claws, and dragging her away screaming into the darkness.
 
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