WTB After Sundown MC

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun May 29, 2011 4:24 pm

'Obtain Elder power (Zombie Mastery)' is a Driving Passion, not a Master Passion. Greed is irrational.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun May 29, 2011 4:41 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:'Obtain Elder power (Zombie Mastery)' is a Driving Passion, not a Master Passion. Greed is irrational.

So obtaining large amounts of money is irrational because...

And obtaining a power which requires you to literally hunt down and murder someone more powerful than you, knowing that it will piss off a whole bunch of people also more powerful than you and set you back on your path to becoming Mehtar is totally rational because...

Yes, my character is irrationally greedy for the ability to create infinite zombie hordes under his command.

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Sun May 29, 2011 9:17 pm

I've made him a medical doctor, rather than an engineer.

Taysir Bukhari

Code: Select all

Strigoi
Universal Disciplines
  Fortitude &#40;+4 physical resistance&#41;
    Patience of the Mountains
    Revive the Flesh
    Restoration
    Indomitability
  Clout &#40;+1 strength&#41;
    Vigor
  Authority &#40;n/a&#41;
    Mesmerism &#40;Logic + Persuasion vs Willpower&#41;

Orphic Sorceries
  Lure of Destruction &#40;+2 death threshold&#41;
    Tongue of the Serpent
  Path of Blood &#40;&#41;
    Gift of Health

Universal Disciplines
 Discernment &#40;+2 Perception&#41;
  Supernatural Senses
Orphic Sorceries
 Path of Blood &#40;+2 to Medicine and Survival&#41;
  Theft of Life &#40;Logic + Medicine&#41;
Infernal Sorceries
 Progress of Glass &#40;+4 Drive&#41;
   Distant Reflection &#40;Logic + Operations&#41;
   Rain of Glass &#40;Logic + Operations&#41;

Agility 4, Strength 2+1 &#40;+4 vs Physical&#41;
Intuition 2, Logic 6
Charisma 3, Willpower 3
Edge 3, Potency 1, Power Maximum 13

Physical Skills &#40;19+6, 2&#41;&#58; Athletics 2, Combat 5 &#40;Cudgels&#41;, Drive 6+4 &#40;Cross Town Traffic&#41;, Larceny 3, Perception 4+2, Stealth 4
Social Skills &#40;14, 0&#41;&#58; Bureaucracy 3, Empathy 3, Persuasion 6, Tactics 2 
Technical Skills &#40;24, 2&#41;&#58; Electronics 2 &#40;Software&#41;, Medicine 6 &#40;First Aid, Internal Medicine&#41;, Operations 6 &#40;Lab Equipment, Repair&#41;, Research 6 &#40;Library&#41;, Sabotage 4 &#40;Disabling Stuff&#41;

Backgrounds &#40;35&#41;&#58; Medicine 6, Chicago Taxi Driving 6, Uzbekistan 5, Physics 4, Immigrants in Chicago 4, Ash Walkers Missions 4, Hell Mouths 2, Cauchemar Communes Procedures 2, Pipe Tobacco Afficionado 2.

Advantages&#58; none.
Disadvantages&#58; Compulsive Behavior*.

Master Passion&#58; Rage.
Cult&#58; The Ash Walkers.
Syndicate&#58; Cauchemar Communes.

Obligations
    Duty 2&#58; Young daughter from previous marriage, which broke up after arrival in the US.  Daughter is now 11, entirely Americanized, lives in nice Chicago suburb with her mother and step-father.

Resources
    Secrets 3&#58; Bottled dreams and nightmares.  A gift from his sire.
    Finances 1&#58; A taxi cab.
    Languages 2&#58; Arabic, Uzbek
    Destiny 2&#58; He has a magic pipe, the smoke from which always flows &#91;b&#93;towards&#91;/b&#93; the nearest/strongest source of infernal power, even over long distances.  If it's lit, it'll glow brighter and brighter as you get closer to a source of infernal power.

Equipment typically on person or in cab&#58; sunglasses &#40;even at night&#41;, dingy clothes, bag of live mustard seeds, cell phone belonging to cab company, silver-plated switchblade, wooden baseball bat, piece of iron chain.

removed extra quote tag. --Z

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Sun May 29, 2011 9:53 pm

@Catharz: The thing that's insanity with the Greed Master Passion is the level of obsession with gaining that power and the lengths you are willing to go to in order to achieve it, rather than that thing itself necessarily being irrational to want. The Zombie Mastery power is merely the current focus for his insanity-induced desire for acquisition.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun May 29, 2011 10:07 pm

Quantumboost wrote:@Catharz: The thing that's insanity with the Greed Master Passion is the level of obsession with gaining that power and the lengths you are willing to go to in order to achieve it, rather than that thing itself necessarily being irrational to want. The Zombie Mastery power is merely the current focus for his insanity-induced desire for acquisition.

Indeed, and there are two hypoethical ways to get it:

1) To grow in power over the course of a century or so.

2) To violently murder someone more powerful than me in a way that pisses off other people more powerful than me.

Choosing option 1 wouldn't be particularly greedy.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Mon May 30, 2011 12:05 am

It would probably be an artifact of some sort rather than an Elder supernatural:

The destruction of powerful elders gives off a flash of power that empowers those present or leaves dark fluid which will empower those who drink it or some similar rite of power theft that is generally available to several characters at once. Siphoning the power out of an elder is generally frowned upon by supernaturals (even in the Cauchemar Communes) and is called “Titaning” (or by snarkier members of supernatural society that don't care for Chronos references: “Quickening”). Having taken down a Ifrit and gained Potency well before one's time is a fast way to gain respect as well as power – but it also causes many members of supernatural society to regard the characters as dangerous loose cannons no matter what their reason for the battle was.

Similarly, powerful artifacts can be Titanized under certain circumstances, and various tomes and places of power exist that can imbue a character with Elder Powers that would normally take them decades to master. However, it is important to note that characters are not normally going to be “entitled” to gain Potency or learn Elder Powers over the course of the stories. They come as rewards for completing especially difficult chronicles or defeating particularly powerful antagonists.

Destroying an elder seems to just give raw Potency.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon May 30, 2011 4:53 am

I vote for IRC. The best times for me are during normal working hours in the Chicago time zone, but I recognize that that may not work for peoples. Failing that, Tuesday or Thursday evenings or Saturday mornings are also workable.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon May 30, 2011 5:24 am

I can probably hit any given IRC time right now other than 4-6PM Chicago time with 90% accuracy, but things pop up, and sometimes I can't, and I have no idea when things will pop up.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon May 30, 2011 2:00 pm

You can have it be your Driving Passion and your Master Passion, if you like.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon May 30, 2011 2:19 pm

Orion wrote:You can have it be your Driving Passion and your Master Passion, if you like.

But it doesn't need to be, because he wants other things.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon May 30, 2011 3:25 pm

Kaelik wrote:So obtaining large amounts of money is irrational because...

...you're going to gamble it all away, or store it in a secret vault with no purpose but to swim in it.

Since the MC has spoken, I'm not going to try to make an issue out of this. But here's the text describing the Greed master passion:

Master Passion Greed
“I feed the mouth that bites me.”

A character with Master Passion Greed is dominated by a need to have things. Not necessarily “valuable” things according to disinterested onlookers, and certainly not all things that have value – even to themselves. Greed is at its heart the irrational feeling of the need to acquire, since we don’t even notice it (much less condemn it with such a judgmental word as Greed) when people act upon their desires to acquire things that are necessary for their survival or lifestyle. And those characters who are mastered by their greed become fixated on acquiring specific things.

At any given time, a character driven by Greed will have something that they “must have” and will take special effort to get it on a regular basis. Actual frenzies may occur when a character gets “very close” to their current goal and suffers a setback. Greed is a fickle mistress, and once a character achieves their goal, it will fall to them to find a new goal and pursue that (although in some cases this may be as simple as “get a lot of money” followed by “get even more money”).

Master Passion Greed can deeply affect a character’s life even when they are not in frenzy. The rotating obsessions can lead to a destructive cycle of accumulation and spending. Once the character gains the money they were after, they may well spend it all on boats and other frivolities and then go back to hunting for money.

Of all the master passions, Master Passion Greed works best in children’s literature, and you can find a tremendous number of examples of its placement in stories and cartoons for that reason. Players may be tempted to channel Gromgold or Gargemel, and this is not unreasonable. But it’s not just antagonist wizards that are like this in stories. Many anime characters such as Lina Inverse can give a good template for the cycle of desire.

Actual frenzies from Master Passion Greed usually involve a destructiveness brought out by sheer frustration. Having gotten so close to their goal only to be thwarted, the character hurls themselves in a last ditch (often obviously futile) attempt to grab on to their desire. Things in the way are blasted with everything at their disposal and clear dangers and social conventions are completely ignored. Think the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Key skills are Stealth, Empathy, and Rigging. Master Passion

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon May 30, 2011 4:01 pm

1) Yes, I read the section of the text, apparently you haven't, because you are making a thoroughly irrational argument for why it my character can't have an "irrational feeling of the need to acquire" for and Elder Power, that mostly revolves around repeatedly stating that he can't, without ever giving any reason at all.

2) Yes, spending money and not spending money are the two uses of money that exist. Those are the two things that someone who obtains a lot of money are going to do. Again, why does that make obtaining lots of money greedy, but obtaining a large zombie army not greedy? I could use my Zombie Army to conquer the world, or I could sit around hording zombies. Those are the two possibilities for a zombie army, using and not using, just like money.

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Mon May 30, 2011 9:18 pm

we don’t even notice it (much less condemn it with such a judgmental word as Greed) when people act upon their desires to acquire things that are necessary for their survival or lifestyle.

I think CatharzGodfoot is arguing that any sensible person, wishing to maintain a spouse, a dog, 2.8 children and a 2 car garage in the suburbs, would naturally seek to acquire an army of shambling undead, as a hedge against uncertainties in the housing market.

That said, I do think your Greed is too specific. It'd be better to have "Greed: Necromantic Power", instead; which is basically the default state for Khaibit, for example.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue May 31, 2011 1:53 am

DrPraetor wrote: That said, I do think your Greed is too specific. It'd be better to have "Greed: Necromantic Power", instead; which is basically the default state for Khaibit, for example.

The thing is, he isn't greedy for "Necromantic Power" He's greedy for "A huge army of undead under his command." Since Zombie Mastery is actually the only way to have that, it's just subbed in.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:35 am

Kaelik wrote:
DrPraetor wrote: That said, I do think your Greed is too specific. It'd be better to have "Greed: Necromantic Power", instead; which is basically the default state for Khaibit, for example.
The thing is, he isn't greedy for "Necromantic Power" He's greedy for "A huge army of undead under his command." Since Zombie Mastery is actually the only way to have that, it's just subbed in.

Look, I'm only going to repeat this once.

Wanting a zombie horde is completely normal. It's even beneficial. Master passions are supposed to result in some kind of pathology, but in this case the only pathology would be not wanting an army of the undead at your command.

That said, I'd be willing to concede it as a valid Master Passion if you also collected ideal bodies for the time that you can raise them all up.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:50 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Look, I'm only going to repeat this once.

Wanting a zombie horde is completely normal. It's even beneficial. Master passions are supposed to result in some kind of pathology, but in this case the only pathology would be not wanting an army of the undead at your command.

Look, I'm going to keep repeating this until you get it through your thick skull.

Wanting money is completely normal. It's even beneficial. Master Passions are supposed to be a representation of your pathology, and you can be pathologically obsessed with something that normal people want normal amounts of. That's what addiction, and nymphomania, and greed, and hoarding are.

It's a pathology to not want money, but it's also a pathology to want too much money.

Or, to quote, you know, the actual Master Passion in question:

"Greed is at its heart the irrational feeling of the need to acquire"

"Not necessarily “valuable” things according to disinterested onlookers"

Wait, so, why did Frank type not necessarily valuable things if you aren't allowed to ever want something valuable? Why didn't he say "Never valuable things to disinterested onlookers"?

Oh right, maybe he's not stupid, and you can desire something that is valuable to disinterested onlookers.

"and certainly not all things that have value"

Wait, why didn't he say "And certainly not things that have value"? Does that mean characters are allowed to be greedy for things that have value, what the fuck, but Carthaz knows all, and he knows that you are only allowed to want something that has no use to you whatsoever.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:18 pm

Oh god Android Mayor(s) Daley please tell me you have room for one more player.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:19 pm

I'm going to pass, for scheduling reason, Mask, so rock and roll. Will be interested to hear about this game, tho.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 6:51 am

The following proposals are on the table:

Weekdays
Tuesday or Thursday Nights
Saturday Morning or Afternoon

Anyone not listing their availability for those times within 48 hours will not have their preferences regarded.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 1:48 pm

Available everything except 3:30-6:30 PM Eastern Time on M-Th.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 3:15 pm

Pretty much anything but 5 to 10 PM Tuesday and Thursday or 7 to 11 AM Saturday. EST.

I'm going to be dropping off picking up my wife at the lab most every weekday, which takes about 15 minutes. Generally around 11 AM and 5:30 PM, but can vary wildly.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 6:15 pm

I'm at work 9-5 PST weekdays and occasionally have an afternoon game Saturdays. I'm not available Thursday evenings.

It looks like my and Catharz's scheduling as far as the listed choices go are exact opposites. >_<

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 7:13 pm

Quantumboost wrote:I'm at work 9-5 PST weekdays and occasionally have an afternoon game Saturdays. I'm not available Thursday evenings.

It looks like my and Catharz's scheduling as far as the listed choices go are exact opposites. >_<

Actually, it looks like they match up pretty well.

9 AM to 5 PM PST is 12 AM to 8 PM EST.

Saturday afternoon could work for everyone as long as you're not gaming that day. Depending on Orion's week day, that could also work.

And I could probably make time Tuesday night if it comes to that.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 9:47 pm

Okay. The cough and the visiting friend have both been resolved, as has an unexpected ER visit for a friend. Now I just need to come up with the first plot hook... as soon as that's done, I'll throw it out here and we can play-by-post it unless and until we find an IRC time. In the meantime, reviewing people's sheets moar.

EDIT: Also in case it wasn't clear: Kaelik is totally right about how Master Passion Greed works. The writeup says that at any given time you have a goal. The goal may be more reasonable or less reasonable. What's unreasonable is the way your character reacts if they are thwarted in the pursuit of their goal, which is by murdering everyone.

Also: I will let people use specialization for discipline activation.

Kaelik:

I'm very excited about your character, he looks like fun. A couple of rules quirks and some questions to flesh out.

--I was 100% wrong about magic books and witches.

--You need to specify the type of poison you generate.

--I don't understand your Research Specialty, nor am I certain what you want to get a "Kidnapping" bonus to.

--Where did you get 60 Soulless? I'm not saying you can't have them, but I wanna know how you got access to that many bodies, since it probably pissed somebody off.

--Actually, you have another resource coming to you. Media Res get 3221+X where X= rating of your obligation. You could explain the bodies with Assets or Secrets or something. If you don't wanna buy them as a resource, fine, but I reserve the right to have people come looking for them.

--How is your character planning to rise through the Makhzen? What are his duties for Daziban? If it's okay with you, I'm gonna assume that the Chicago Makhzen cell's Codicier is also a Mehtar, and that you've been doing favors for him.

--PS: Congrats on playing a pitch-perfecting rendition of the Archivist and the Social Climber simultaneously!

Edit: Quantum,

I could be making an arithmetic error, but it looks like your stats are 1 point too high.

Why does your character Despair? Can you elaborate on that for me?

Also: since a reliable portal to another world is a rating 3 resource by itself, I'm assuming the rating 2 "dreamland hideout" doesn't come with one. Do you have someway to access it I'm forgetting about? If not you may want to reconsider

However, you do have another resource coming to you. (it's 3221+X where x= your obligation's rating) So maybe you can rejigger things to afford a Dream Circle as well as the hideout.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:26 pm

Orion wrote:--You need to specify the type of poison you generate.

I'm not sure, because I'm genuinely not understanding how the poison rules work, still, so I don't know what I want.

Orion wrote:--I don't understand your Research Specialty, nor am I certain what you want to get a "Kidnapping" bonus to.

Neither do I, I was basically basing it off of the whole 1) started working at a Nuclear Power Plant, so looked up how those things work. 2) Researching how to be dead so that he doesn't die stuff. 3) Want to apply it to my Fire Starter, if you reconsider specialties given what Frank said over in thread. Because yay net hits.

Kidnapping is because I imagine most of my combat usage is going to be/was using Shadow tentacles to capture people at night, using the grab + mouth covering + carry off option, so that's the specialty I was looking at. It might also apply to using my poison on people, depending on what poison I choose, and how those rules work.

Orion wrote:--Where did you get 60 Soulless? I'm not saying you can't have them, but I wanna know how you got access to that many bodies, since it probably pissed somebody off.

Well, probably lots of sources. For example, I could grave rob some, and sometimes, if I find a prime specimen, I might want to capture them using above shadow grapple attack to capture them and kill/raise them. I'm sure there are a fair amount of police and/or family members who might be pissed, but probably don't know it's me they are pissed at, though an occasional luminary human would probably end up assaulting me over having stolen their boyfriend every once in a while I would hope. Or maybe a Luminary cop with some balls awesome detective skills Sherlock Holmesing after me.

Orion wrote:--How is your character planning to rise through the Makhzen? What are his duties for Daziban? If it's okay with you, I'm gonna assume that the Chicago Makhzen cell's Codicier is also a Mehtar, and that you've been doing favors for him.

That sounds good. For duties, I assume mostly book hunting type activities, and the occasional move X from Y to Z with a giant Truck.