Mister Vampire OOC

[echoVanguard]

I have no objections to either of those. J-Rock would probably have a significant net of contacts with regard to supernatural crime by this point - it's very common in genre fiction to have detectives and PIs come with a suite of contacts and informants on the wrong side of the law that they're forced to work with over long periods, so any contacts he had with criminal elements like Harley and Marco would not necessarily be acrimonious (although they would certainly have an antagonistic element to them on both sides). I also like the idea of J-Rock being used as a fixer and go-to for the Cauchemar Communes, who have a bit of a problem in the manpower/infrastructure area compared to the other syndicates and would be more likely to pick up help piecemeal. That would be a way that he could know Andrus. Here's one likely map of connections:

Code: Select all

Harley --- (old criminal contact) --- J-Rock --- (previous client) --- Andrus
   |                                    |
   |                                    |
(drug trade)                            |
   |                                    |
   |                          (previous Person of
Marco -----------------------Interest in Ulmi case, other drug cases)
   |
   |
(potential card to play
against the Hashashin)
   |
   |
Adel

Since Adel is the only one of the party who has direct connections to the plot of the adventure, it's probably important to make sure at least one of the party has a direct line of interest to him (preferably something that ties in with that person's Driving Passion). Marco seems like the best bet - he would want to keep Adel close as a means of gathering information about the Hashashin, as well as potential insurance if they start anything. But that means keeping the fish nearby a lot and convincing them that you have an interest in their personal well-being/friendship, so that could work really well.

echo

[echoVanguard]

Omegon - I'm confused by your description of Andrus as a "bruiser"....his powers seem to be entirely stealth/intel based with a focus on confounding, manipulating, and scattering foes, he has no points in Intimidation, and his strength is below average. His origin story about beating a dude into a puddle of goo also seems inconsistent with the fact that Frenzy would bring his strength up to that of an ordinary human (although he does have a 6 in Combat). I could see him being an excellent infiltrator, operative, assassin, or even Cauchemar Spymaster, but not so much of an enforcer. Was this an initial characterization that wound up going in a different direction, or am I just being completely dumb and missing something?

echo

[Omegonthesane]

In my limited experience, bar and club scenes have enough overlap that plausibly Andrus and Harley could have met there. My first thought given those inputs is, he'd see a hot chick in what looks to him like a terrible situation and want to give her an escape plan.

And heck, she might have learned Progress of Glass from his books as a bonding moment - "this guy will let you stare at his sorcery tomes for the right price" seems like a hook for a lot of supernatural connections in After Sundown

[Whipstitch]

Was this an initial characterization that wound up going in a different direction, or am I just being completely dumb and missing something?

echo

By supernatural standards he isn't terribly impressive in a fair fight, but he does have fighting finesse as an advantage, which in many cases gives him a double digit pool to attack with alongside his high defense threshold, supernatural toughness shticks and uncommon weakness. If he wanted to kill some dumbass civilian extra mano a mano the only reason I'd bother rolling dice as the MC would be to figure out how long it takes or if there's enough gunfire or whatever to attract attention.

Regarding Adel and Harley: There's a couple obvious directions Hashashin-Setite relations could go in, with one option being chummy. It depends on how innocent Adel wants to be starting out, but both cults have an interest in drug trafficking and it's plausible that his family could hassle him into doing a couple low pressure jobs as a mule or go-between in an attempt to get the kid started on some gateway crimes before trying to give him another shove into the deep end of the pool. Meanwhile, giving people a "helpful" moral nudge is supposedly the Church of Set's entire reason for being. I imagine the conversation between Uncle Hash and Harley's bosses going something like this:

Uncle:"I'm at my wit's end, the kid has no heart for the family business."
Setites:"That's terrible, and our army of hookers, pushers and snuff auteurs is here to help."

Bonus points because it sounds like Harley was strong-armed a bit herself and could do a one-person Good Cop, Bad Cop routine along the lines of "I know it's hard, but seriously, selling drugs gets easier if you quit being such a baby about it."

[Prak]

Harley sold drugs of her own accord. It was putting on a smut show at a settite club she was strongarmed into doing by the CoS, and that was her supernatural origin

[Grek]

One thing I notice: Andrus has dirt on a people-smuggling ring. Harley is chummy with one too. I would propose that all three of these contacts be connected somehow: Harley's contact is on the "Smuggle illegal immigrants into the US" side of the deal and Andrus's seems to be on the "Smuggle people through Limbo to ???" side of things. But maybe they're both ultimately owned or sponsored by the same group. This can also tie back into Whipstitch's Adel-Harley connection. The Church of Set wants to get Harley to talk Adel into doing more crime as a favour to the Hashashin, and wants to get Harley in good with Andrus so that she can take her criminal work "to the next level" by making magical drugs and smuggling people through Maya.

That would put the net of relationships as looking like this:

Code: Select all

                                            
                  Harley                    
       mutual     /  |                      
       smuggler /    |                      
       friend / met  |                      
            /  thru CoS                     
          /          |                      
       Andrus--CoS--Adel                    
         |           |                      
         |           |                      
         |           |                      
       former      former                   
       client      client                   
         |           |                      
         | underworld|                      
         |  contact  |                      
       J-Rock------Marco                    
                                            

[echoVanguard]

Grek - that looks pretty close to complete. Need to add an additional line from Harley to J-Rock direct though, as she was also an underworld contact of his.

Code: Select all

+-----------------Harley                    
|      mutual     /  |                      
|      smuggler /    |                      
|      friend / met  |                      
|           /  thru CoS                      
|         /          |                      
|      Andrus--CoS--Adel                    
under-   |           |                      
world    |           |                      
contact  |           |                      
|      former      former                    
|      client      client                    
|        |           |                      
|        | underworld|                      
|        |  contact  |                      
+------J-Rock------Marco              

echo

[Whipstitch]

Harley sold drugs of her own accord. It was putting on a smut show at a settite club she was strongarmed into doing by the CoS, and that was her supernatural origin

Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was just that or if they were cracking down on freelancers in general thieves' guild style. Whatever, it's just details.


Far as Marco and Andrus goes, the Ulmi are good people to know if want to get a debit card from a credit union that won't give you the stink eye for being an undocumented were-rat.

[Grek]

I just realized that my character's life story is basically the plot to Drive. Right down to wearing a leather coat with a scorpion on the back and working as a stuntman/extra in Hollywood.

[echoVanguard]

Hey, beats mine. My character's backstory is the plot to 8 Man After.

echo

[Chamomile]

Alternatively, Robocop.

I put together an intro in proper LA style. Each of the five PCs has dialogue in it which, seeing as I have only the broadest overviews of who they are, is probably completely inaccurate to their character (in some cases the physical descriptions might not even be accurate) and is therefore non-canon, but I think it's a cool scene. Regardless, as a hook to get everyone involved (so, ignoring whether or not it properly represented the character's personality and focusing on if their connections were accurately portrayed), if it works we can make a thread for the game proper.

Out of curiosity, I'd like to know how many of the characters' personalities were accurately represented, though. I'm thinking I might be able to luck my way into 2/5.

[Whipstitch]

My only regret background wise was not slipping in more overt Office Space inspired bullshit into his life as a "normal" human. Because, let's face it: He wants to be the Godfather or the Prince of L.A.,* but sometimes evil magic isn't that helpful when your job often consists of patiently explaining voter registration to golem clients or or helping nezumi figure out how to handle the fallout from that tragic parking ticket incident.

*The Mak have a strong presence in Houston, so there's practical reasons for his affiliation, but after a few drinks you could probably get him to admit that having the sweetest title has a lot to do with his membership.

[Grek]

I think you got Adel pretty good. Just the right blend of fabulous and business.

[Omegonthesane]

Harley sold drugs of her own accord. It was putting on a smut show at a settite club she was strongarmed into doing by the CoS, and that was her supernatural origin

Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was just that or if they were cracking down on freelancers in general thieves' guild style. Whatever, it's just details.


Far as Marco and Andrus goes, the Ulmi are good people to know if want to get a debit card from a credit union that won't give you the stink eye for being an undocumented were-rat.

Heck, I originally had Ulmi ties in mind as the people who helped set him up, I just wasn't then certain how compatible that would be with being a Griffin Pack member. So, that one's doable.

The intro portrayal is more or less accurate, with the total impatience for visitors - and subtler signs of being ALWAYS ANGRY are more the actor's job than the script writer's, unless you think "happens to have a spare hand grabbing a stress ball in most scenes" is subtle.

[Prak]

Harley was fine, only thing is that she views J-Rock with more bemusement than rancor, though if he often bugs her, she'd probably be frustrated to hear from him.

[Whipstitch]

I'm fine with that intro. Marco keeps a lot of his feelings to himself anyway--personality wise he's often thinking "I can't believe this shit/these people" but he tends to keep that to himself until he freaks out Hitler Reacts style during a frenzy.

[echoVanguard]

A couple of characterization notes for J-Rock:

1. He has flat affect, which means he usually shows no emotion at all (except in the throes of Frenzy). Other than that, his mannerisms are pretty much those of Jesse Porter from Burn Notice.
2. He almost always prefers to have conversations in person. People can hang up on you if you ask a question they don't like, but asking the same question from within punching distance is a different story.

echo

[Chamomile]

The IC thread is up. The idea here being that your first post would be your character arriving on the scene and figuring out how to go about investigating. I was going to start it at the crime scene but then I remembered that there is a place called Exposition Park in Los Angeles and could not resist setting the opening narration there.

[Whipstitch]

Ya know, the mutant guy in the intro reminded me that I forgot to ask about what I can expect out of my Ulmi goons Asset, given that there's a pretty wide chasm between the two extremes listed on the Resources page. Personally, I'm more interested in them being a somewhat discrete renewable resource than I am in sheer bad assery or on-hand quantity--they're obviously less portable than a scorpion swarm and I'm willing to have them be less powerful than a barely controlled bottled poltergeist in a straight up fight but I really want them to be able to hassle Extras without leaving a steaming turd on the Vow of Silence. Likewise, it'd be nice if I could get my red shirt collection restocked at the end of chapters as long as I'm in good standing with the Ulmi. So, maybe a small handful or maybe even just a duo or trio of Cultists with a single Khaibit power like Eyes of the Night? That'd make them basically just some Extras with mild bonuses to bushwhacking and intimidation.

[Chamomile]

Being that they're more valuable than a pack of gangbangers but less valuable than a ghoul family (which presumably contains a luminary or two), I'd say "pack of Extras who know about the Masquerade" would be about right. About five spawn who are replaced at the start of each chapter, but the Ulmians will not be pleased if they have to send you a new mook every week or if you lose the whole team all in one go.

[Prak]

I wanted a clarification with the Secrets background. It says "The examples are for the most valuable item a character with that level of Secrets might own." Which I take to mean the resources are cumulative. So if you have 2 points of Finance, you could reasonably expect to have a house and a vehicle.

With two points of Secrets, could I reasonably expect to have a hideout in the dreamlands and a pet baby behemoth or comparable?

[Chamomile]

Pretty much all of the resources are cumulative. In fact, at some point you get into an exponential thing where a character with Finances 6 can seriously give away Finances 1 stuff like Halloween candy and not even care. Resources just give you a general idea of what the most valuable thing you have access to, with the assumption that you probably have access to a number of less valuable things in the same category because this is how these things go. It's usually pretty easy to see how this follows: Someone with a house is virtually guaranteed to also have a car. Marco has an Ulmian hit squad at his command, so of course he can get some common street criminals to do what he wants. If someone has an amulet powerful enough that it's sought after by other supernaturals, you can guess they probably have at least the odd spellbook or more minor enchanted item lying around.

Unfortunately, it is really hard to figure out how this works for Secrets because I have no idea what most of the things they're talking about even are and the ones that I do know about I don't really know the supernatural market value of (I can see how a hideout in the Dreamlands would be useful, but I don't have the slightest idea how many kittens it's worth). But yes, it is safe to say that if you have Secrets 2, then you probably have one or two of the Secrets 1 stuff lying around.

[Prak]

One of the things I was working toward in character creation, which got ditched for starting as a functional fixer, was a butterfly motif. I'm still hoping to pick up some Song of Swarms as the game goes on. Could Harley have a pet caterpillar behemoth back home?

[Chamomile]

Yeah, having baby Mothra back home would be fine.

Also, it has just now occurred to me that I never figured out how dice rolling was going to work. For this last one I just found a dicepool roller online and did it myself, but if you guys have any suggestions as to what the official dice rolling rules be, I'm open to them. Typically I like to have everyone roll where everyone else can see, but I don't know if we can do that in this format.

Also: J-Rock got 7 successes which is seriously off the charts (as in the successes chart literally does not go that high), so if there is basically any physical detail you'd like to know about the scene and how it might relate to the break-in, feel free to ask.

[echoVanguard]

I think what I got was pretty good, although the number, approximate heights, and genders of the various robbers would also be good. I'm picturing some serious Sherlock Holmes stuff where J-Rock can infer a good deal from extremely minor evidence. Lastly, if I'm making wishes, I wouldn't mind a clue as to the supernatural type of the strong robber.

echo