The Gaming Den

Lokathor wrote:

To the best of my knowledge

The PDFs I made are based upon the original text of the forum thread (I copied and pasted his BBcode in bulk into files which I then converted into LaTeX code), then Frank released his PDF which contained the small changes you mention and is his latest rendition of the rules as far as I know. However, he mentioned some of the changes that he made between the thread and his PDF, and as many of those as I could I included in my own PDF. Any unknown rule differences between my PDF and his are primarily accidental on my part.

Now, the "normal" PDF I just removed from my website. There, it's gone, don't worry about it. I hadn't updated it in ages compared to occasionally re-wording the other one, so it's "behind" so to speak. Now I'm only managing one version and you have one less version to complain about.

A history of After Sundown PDFs

Originally my standard PDF with all the art and stuff began work before Frank's PDF began work. Folks could see versions as I approached a finished project. As I recall, this was part of what got Frank to move ahead with starting on his own "now make it a PDF" plans.

However, because I was a lazy butt, Frank ended up finishing his PDF before I'd fully finished mine. At this point, his PDF made several changes to the rules that I copied over into my own (the altered damage and wound values you mention). Thusly, Frank was fully aware that his PDF and his forum thread didn't have matching rules any more. Also as far as I know, Frank only released a single version of his PDF, because he released it via a torrent file and that's basically impossible to update.

Then within a few months I fully finished my first PDF (I had been slacking on the city descriptions for ages). The page layout was sized so that you could have potentially sent it over to lulu and had them print physical copies. That never happened, but that was the idea for why I used the original page size that I did. Incidentally, I think that someone did have physical printouts of Franks PDF made a year or two later.

The "Tablet" PDF was because my first PDF showed up kinda poorly on my Nexus 7 (a type of 7 inch tablet). It started as just copying the normal PDF into a new folder and then removing the art and adjusting the page size so that the text showed up better. I made the pages narrower so that they wouldn't have to be zoomed out so far when displaying the whole page. I highlighted all the spots where it states what dice pool to roll in green, so that they jump out a little as you're scanning a paragraph. I also changed the ordering of the sections in the Danger chapter to better match my expectations of how they should be ordered (that is, all the health stuff is now next to itself). It worked wonders and I loved it so I figured others would too. I'm a bit of a "power user" with most things, so I figured that folks could handle having two versions to pick from on my website. That was my error, and I accept that. I should have only presented a single version for people to use.

However, I then compounded my error. As I ran a game with some folks, I would encounter edge cases in the rules that you naturally do with a first edition of a game. I'd ask these questions to Frank and then he would give answers and then I would put those answers into my tablet PDF and then re-compile it and put the new version on my tablet to run the game with. Sometimes I would also update my website with the newer tablet version. This is where a number of potential rules changes between Frank's PDF and my tablet PDF might have gotten into the mix.

Off the top of my head I have two major changes in my PDF compared to Frank's PDF:

• I took out the rule about "at the moment of death you instantly lose all your power points". Frank had it in there to prevent creatures with a Continual power source (or a lunar power source) and the Restoration power from always being able to bring themselves back super easily. However, given that the Restoration power has the special rule about your head and your heart needing to be connected for it to work then it's fine without any special PP loss because you can keep people dead by chopping off their head after you kill them. And that's totally a cool thing to encourage people to do, so there you go.
• I added a special use for Power Points so that you can use them to help resist incoming magic. By spending 1pp you can give yourself a +2 on any magic resistance test. This is because otherwise it's possible for some character types to have no way at all to use power points, which seemed dumb. Rather than change around power lists, I just gave everyone a new way to spend PP.

In the case of both of these changes I talked the matter over with Frank before putting them in. With the death thing he basically said "oh, Restoration does say that, huh. Okay then." and in the case of the second rule he at another point said that it was good enough to be included in a second edition of the game. So, I feel fully justified in those rules changes.

In the case of the Armor chart, I added Leather Jacket and Plate Mail to the chart without altering any of the existing entries. While this is a change, it's binary compatible with the original rules. People are gonna wear a lot of leather jackets and stuff, so I gave them a point of armor for it. Also, people should occasionally wear plate mail, so I gave it an armor entry.

If you can find any other major differences between Frank's PDF and my tablet PDF that I can't remember right now then I will happily comment on those as well.

After Sundown tablet version of pdf page 31 wrote:Sometimes players will want to play "monster hunters" rather than supernatural creatures. For an In Media Res story about Van Helsings, Watchers, and Whistlers, it is plausible to begin the story where the characters are not magical creatures and are instead badass human Luminaries fighting against the supernatural monsters of the week. In such a case the characters don’t start with a supernatural type or any disciplines, but they still may well have Resources and Backgrounds dealing with the occult because in an In Media Res story, the hunters have already done this sort of thing at some point in the past. Hunters get an Edge of 4 and an increase of two other Attributes of their choice. However, they have no Potency stat, so their attribute maximums are still 6.

Grek wrote:Revenants actually do have a masquerade-friendly way to get PP: It's called vampire blood. So that isn't itself a problem. The actual problem is that they all have Master Passion Hunger, carry the Z-Virus and can't end their Hunger frenzies without murdering several people. Which, of course, raises those people up as uncontrolled Shamblers. The net result is that a Revenant is compelled by their hunger to start up a zombie uprising multiple times per year. And THAT is what is unacceptable.

A Revenant can be playable, but only if they've been Mind Rooted.

Grek wrote:Well, there's the obvious downside of never feeling any emotion or passion ever again.

OgreBattle wrote:

Grek wrote:Well, there's the obvious downside of never feeling any emotion or passion ever again.

If you are incapable of feeling down about it then it's not really a downside for you. Sure it'll lead to trouble for your loved/hated ones but you don't care anymore.

Starmaker wrote:

OgreBattle wrote:

Grek wrote:Well, there's the obvious downside of never feeling any emotion or passion ever again.

If you are incapable of feeling down about it then it's not really a downside for you. Sure it'll lead to trouble for your loved/hated ones but you don't care anymore.

If you'll be incapable of expressing preferences, including for your own continued survival, you won't consider it as an acceptable solution in the first place.