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Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

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Whipstitch
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Post by Whipstitch »

I'd like to tweak my Resources and Obligations a bit given that I'm running solo now instead of part of a five man band.

I'd like the following setup:

Duty 1: Loyalty to Ulmi
Stalker 1: Agent of the Stellar Oracles/Guardians who keeps tabs on Reborn.
Language 1: Italian
Language 1: Spanish
Destiny 1: Sombrero cordobes (Ignore overstimulation due to firearms)
Destiny 2: Giancarlo's Files (Magical Library)
Finance 2: Unmarked bills
Assets 3: Ulmi Hit Squad, Las Calaveras and two cane corsos (Jesus and Malverde).

The big change would be the addition of a second Obligation (the stalker) and Giancarlo's Files, a small magical library. While only a minor necromancer by Ulmi standards Giancarlo was once one of the Family's leading authorities on all things Infernal. And so Marco inherited an ugly, rusty green filing cabinet filled with coffee stained maps and documents written in a familiar hand. The crown jewel of the collection is a pair of thick three ring binders that smell of ashes and contain hand translations of the Necronomicon (Song of Swarms, Descent of Entropy, Progress of Glass) and the Laws of Ruin (Walk of Flame, Lure of Destruction).
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Chamomile
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Post by Chamomile »

Sounds good to me. On a related note: Could you come up with another name for your Finance background? I did a double-take when I saw you reference it the other day. Backgrounds should probably not have the same name as resources.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Sure thing. "Accounting" probably works well enough as a rough replacement.
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Post by Chamomile »

So I've been thinking about how advancement is going to work with only one player, and it occurred to me it'd probably be a wise idea to talk about it now before it's an urgent issue rather than at the end of the chapter when it is.

There are two main hiccups when you only have one player, the first is that every player gets an average of one karma token per chapter from another player, awarded based on doing something awesome. Assuming these player-awarded karma tokens are awarded evenly and never forgotten (which is kinda shaky but probably a good enough approximation), they make up fully one-third of the karma tokens awarded and therefore it kinda stings to lose it. On the other hand, the second problem is that the value of the karma tokens goes completely screwy when you have no one to bid against and therefore all cards cost one token always.

The solution I would propose is this: According to the book, major arcana are worth about four times minor arcana, so a minor arcana always costs one token and a major arcana always costs four. At the end of every chapter* we deal out cards according to the Minimum Awards method, dealing out cards until we hit one major arcana by default, or two if it's a more major turning point. If you basically "win" the chapter, you get three karma tokens, and if things don't really go so well for you, you make out with two. The upshot of this is that the per-chapter token income is probably going to be something like 2.75 tokens on average, which means you can fairly reliably snag a major arcana every other chapter with a minor arcana in between. This seems probably about half again as fast as you would expect a character in a party to advance, but considering you're already at the disadvantage of being 1/3 of the minimum assumed party size, that shouldn't be a huge problem.

*Note: I'm assuming a chapter is basically what we'd call an adventure in D&D. But maybe it's actually a session. According to CTRL+F, the book never actually elaborates, but since this is PbP going adventure-by-adventure is necessary anyway, because there are no sessions.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Well, one thing I'd note is that there's never really been anything that stops players from giving the Prisoner's Dilemma the finger and using largely cooperative bidding practices. In a Good Comrades scenario you can end up with minor to major arcana ratios in excess of 1 to 1 given that the group is making an effort to minimize orphan cards. Otherwise your assessment and suggested rate seems pretty reasonable.

As far as frequency goes, yeah, it's a big question and I don't have any good answers for you. From what i can tell Frank's terminology uses a Campaign>Chronicle>Chapter>Session format, but the bottom line is that the lines between campaign, chronicle and chapter often only seem obvious in retrospect--sometimes you're only a few bad rolls and an escaped villain away from something becoming an ongoing major threat that warrants being considered a chapter or chronicle in its own right.
Last edited by Whipstitch on Sat Oct 25, 2014 4:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Given the nature of this thread I figure anyone who really objects to double posts can go fuck theyself.

I was thinking about Driving Passions and how I don't really want to screw myself out of Edge refreshes OR babysit the motivations I have listed and this is the suggestion I've come up with:

Marco's goals boil down to acquiring power with the express purpose of using it to acquire even more power--Master Passion Greed does that to a man. So I came up with three situations in which I think invoking Driving Passion bennies may be appropriate:

1. Gaining a shiny new job title. Marco'd be quite pleased to be named Sheriff or other similar title and would obviously be chuffed to be named Mehtar, Princeps or Ulmi elder.

2. Gaining immortality or otherwise defying the usual cycle of death and rebirth the Reborn labor under. Many in the supernatural community take a dim view of people who've only managed to stay in the game for a mere century and so it'd obviously burnish his credentials if he gained the potential to become a true elder Kindred.

3. Drinking in the power of a fallen foe or destroyed artifact as lightning and Queen dramatically flare in the background. I mean, c'mon, duh.
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Post by Chamomile »

Yeah, if you don't double-post I'm not likely to see it. Which is something which would apply even if there were more than two people in this thread.

All the stuff with Driving Passions sounds good to me. It also brings up a question. Edge refreshes once per chronicle. We've basically hashed out that a chronicle is a unit of time somewhere between a full campaign and a single chapter, but exactly how long is that? Right now I'm placing it about as long as one arc of about 4-7 chapters, mostly because in my notes the campaign is already divided up into arcs of that length. That means Edge is going to be a pretty limited resource, and I think that's the intent. In any case, there should be a chance to acquire status, life extension, or (rarely) Potence about once every chapter or two, so that'll hopefully help out with regards to that.
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Post by Chamomile »

I feel like I should probably point out that while I do like to use real things like the actual Patton State Hospital, real gangs like MS13 and the Latin Kings, etc. etc., and I try to portray them mostly accurately with the exception that they're also being manipulated by one or more secret societies composed entirely of people-eating monsters and their friends, I am probably going to inevitably mess a few things up. Particularly since getting accurate information on some of these topics is really hard and I don't want to dither about doing research too long before making a response to keep the thread rolling. Any mistakes made will have to be chalked up to the fact that this is an alternate universe with vampires and things shook out a little bit differently here.
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Post by Whipstitch »

That's fine. Besides, US gang alliances are most rigidly organized within the confines of prison anyway. It's not particularly weird for Set X to feud with Set Y out in the wider world even if their parent gangs are ostensibly neutral or allies.
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Post by Chamomile »

So, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't have access to the bruiser statline I use for most mooks, including both las Calaveras and the Ulmian squad.

S:3 A:3 I:2 L:1 W:2 C:2
Skills: Athletics 2, Combat 4, Drive 3, Perception 4, Stealth 3, Intimidation 4, Tactics 2

Supernatural bruisers are basically always either vampire thralls or mutants. Both get Patience of the Mountains which they use to go around wearing flak vests under their jackets basically all the time they can get away with wearing jackets. Mutants get Supernatural Senses which makes them harder to ambush and thralls get Revive the Flesh which they can use to extend their health bar by quite a bit if they survive the first wound. Bots are also a great option, since they get not only PotM but also the neat trick Nimble Feet which allows them to make full use of their fairly awesome Vigor power. The only reason these guys aren't super common mooks is because having killer robots be the standard cannon fodder just seems weird in a way that vampires and mutants does not. Maybe it's just because Buffy/Angel is the only show from the genre I've ever watched all the way through.

If you want mooks that are either outside the standard (i.e. someone who's got their threes in Intuition and Charisma, or in Logic and Intuition, and whose skills are likewise set up to be a negotiator or a research assistant rather than a brute) you can try and find some using either Charisma + Background (for Las Calaveras or attempts to recruit local supernaturals) or Logic + Bureaucracy (for requesting replacements/reinforcements from the Ulmians). Which really just means that you can formally request or socially interact new mooks, but you cannot burglarize or research them (even if that concept is kind of darkly hilarious).

To hash out a quick system for it (it's lucky that I've gotten so used to making difficulty charts for this system lately):

1 hit: Standard human extras
2 hits: Standard spawn, unusual extras
3 hits: Unusual spawn, standard human Luminary
4 hits: Unusual human Luminary, standard supernatural Luminary
5 hits: Unusual supernatural Luminary
6 hits: 2+ Potence supernaturals

Where "standard" means "exactly the same as what I have in my notes for when I need an NPC on short notice" and "unusual" means "the same basic statline but you can rearrange which numbers get plugged into which attributes/skills."

That chart is just the baseline, however. The threshold goes up and down based primarily on two factors: How much of the city you control, and how many recruits you've lost recently. It also varies based on how much people know, in that the loss of your entire Ulmian hit squad to a werewolf attack won't stop you from recruiting non-supernaturals, even Luminaries, because they are not part of those circles and have no idea. The amount of the city you control also makes a very large difference, according to the following chart (note, these modifiers apply to the threshold needed, so positive is bad and negative is good):

+3: Minor presence and at war (You Are Here)
+2: Minor presence, small presence and at war
+1: Small presence, moderate presence and at war
+0: Moderate presence, significant presence and at war
-1: Significant presence, overwhelming presence and at war
-2: Undisputed regional hegemon

When recruiting replacements from the Ulmians, you can ignore the "at war" modifier so long as you aren't recruiting Luminaries. When you're recruiting Ulmian spawn, you aren't convincing the spawn themselves, you're convincing their Luminary masters. This means that all they really care about is whether or not you are successfully taking over the city and expanding Ulmian influence, and they pretty much do not care at all how many spawn they have to sacrifice to that cause, because it is very easy to just make more thralls and only slightly harder to make mutants.

Having more control of the city also helps you retain the people you recruit. Regardless of how awesome your montage rolls are, a 2+ Potence supernatural will not hang out with you for very long at all if you can't make him a mehtar or something.

Hopefully this system will help both to make it really feel like you're gaining more power as you absorb more territory and also will help to balance out the fact that every faction has at least one dude who is supposed to be tough for a party of four and may well be close to impossible for a party of one. Also, addendum: In case it's not obvious, you don't have to roll on this chart (and sometimes don't have to roll at all) to get named characters to join your party for a team-up. Getting people to join the Makhzen (or a public front group) and permanently become your partner/minion is different from, say, convincing Kit Strive to help you dust the Vermille twins - Kit Strive hates Lestrand and everyone who works for him, so persuading her to help with a job like that is going to require a lot less than six hits and if she owes you a favor that's not even a thing you'd have to roll for.

And this post is already way too long, but I've been meaning to bring this up for a while now: Since Mister Vampire has been through several non-After Sundown incarnations (some of which is still evident in that, for example, Lestrand is sort of grafted onto the Covenant) there's a lot of stuff that contradicts After Sundown lore that's been in most other incarnations. Most notably the fact that LA is not a Makhzen stronghold (although Marco is looking to correct that). Another major one is the way Limbo works, and since I like my way a lot better, I'd prefer to convert to it, though I'm not going to insist on it since it is very much reasonable to say that this was not the game you signed up for. That said, if you don't care one way or another, I much prefer my version.

Chamomile!Limbo has way fewer sapient inhabitants, and in fact for several of the inhabitants it's not even really clear if they're even sentient. Goblins get shuffled over to Maya (where they get to frolic with a number of other fairies I haven't really figured out and, given we're concerned mostly with Mictlan and Limbo, I don't really have to), spriggans are no longer a thing, and trolls are renamed oni and become non-sapient, uncommunicating monsters who respond only to the invisible will of more powerful demons and spend most of their time engaged in some bizarre ritual for completely unknown purposes. Their faces are always concealed by some kind of mask, from actual Japanese oni masks to hunks of rusted metal bolted over their faces (assuming there actually are faces under there). So oni are channeling Pyramid Head even stronger than trolls were. Demons are largely unchanged - akuma and asura aren't super common but they exist and are the same as they are in vanilla After Sundown. Ifrit have only the minor change that they do not have a unified true form. An Ifrit not only can look like whatever it wants, but its true form is wholly unique to begin with.

The role of lower-level mooks in Limbo is taken up by mirror children and howlers. Mirror children look like regular human children in worn out clothes and a mask resembling the face of a porcelain doll. The mask is the actual demon, and like the oni it is apparently mindless and obedient to the invisible will of greater demons. The human host, always between the ages of 8 and 13, is completely mute and incapable of exerting will in any way. It is not commonly known whether the abducted children are aware but helpless, unconscious, or dead. It was unintentional, but while reading through the section on mirror goblins I discovered that Frank explicitly cites Silent Hill's mumblers as inspiration. Mumblers replaced grey children, the inspiration for mirror children, in the PAL version of Silent Hill. So I've undone the PAL censorship and didn't even realize until just now.

Howlers are the replacements for spriggans. They are skeletally thin headless dogs with a gaping, bloody maw on their neck stump, out of which jut razor-sharp ribs. Out of this maw shoots a prehensile barbed tongue that can strike anything within Short range for 4 damage. Their front legs can unfold and their body telescopes outwards to allow them to stand up to eight feet tall. Going from one to the other requires a Simple Action and does not have any effect except allowing them to see over barriers and reducing them to a maximum speed of a slow search - although since they have lots of Celerity that's about as quick as a regular person's rapid jog. They have Quickness and Alacrity in place of the spriggan's giant size and war form.

Mirror children and howlers are the most common denizens of Limbo, and akuma and oni are less so, but still not too hard to find. Asura are rather rare and ifrit are (thankfully) extremely rare. Since akuma, while technically capable of speech, usually don't bother, finding someone you can actually talk to in Limbo can be pretty damn hard, and that's sort of how the place works - I prefer the place to be a lot more Silent Hill than Frank does, and Silent Hill really doesn't work as well when the people trapped within its clutches are isolated. The inhabitants of Limbo are not merely alien, they are (for the most part) unthinking. You can't have a conversation with them, period.
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Post by Whipstitch »

My big concern is that Maya already serves as an alternate world with a non-sapient theme and even there you have Jalus tribes and dreamers to interact with. Without the Mirror Goblins and their namesake Market I feel like Limbo would if anything be hitting the prison plane concept too hard--Mirror Goblins are surprisingly dangerous, but compared to Akuma or Asura they're less threatening potential business partners. The place can and should be unpleasant to go to, but go to far and it only matters as a place you can get Banished to.
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Post by Chamomile »

Firstly, here are the resultant wound tracks after that fight we just had in the main thread:

Front Lookout: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Side Lookout: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] INCAPACITATED

Thug 1: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] INCAPACITATED
Thug 2: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Thug 3: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Thug 4: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Thug 5: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] DEAD
Thug 6: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Thug 7: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Thug 6: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL

Mutant 1: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] DEAD
Mutant 2: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Mutant 3: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Mutant 4: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] INCAPACITATED
Mutant 5: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] INCAPACITATED
Mutant 6: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] INCAPACITATED

Marco: [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Calaveras 1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras 2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras 3: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras 4: [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras 5: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras 6: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras 7: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras 8: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras 9: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Calaveras X: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Ulmian 1: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Ulmian 2: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [ ]
Ulmian 3: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Ulmian 4: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Ulmian 5: [X] [X] [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Ulmian 6: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
The even-numbered Ulmians are vampires, which means #2 there can (and honestly, probably would have already) heal himself up using Revive the Flesh, I honestly just didn't want to look up the exact rules for that when I was already working with the rules for melee combat, ranged combat, suppressive fire, movement, and a bunch of other things I'd learned but never memorized. Turns out Revive the Flesh is super straightforward anyway. Oh, well, everything turned out pretty awesome for Marco, so whatever.

Related: I went through a full five rounds of combat without bothering to stop and ask if you wanted to change tactics and also assumed you'd be burning some Celerity on this. I wanted to keep things moving (particularly since this combat, while pretty big, wasn't really a boss fight or anything) rather than continuing to ask questions I probably should've asked all at once, but while we're here, what is the SOP concerning when you activate disciplines? Should I assume you don't unless you say otherwise, that you pop Celerity every time you have the points and a major combat is incoming, or what?

Re: Limbo, the other wing of why I like my version of Limbo/Maya better is actually that Maya gets way more sapient life in it, and if we're going to have a plane where almost nothing can hold a conversation I'd prefer it be Limbo, where the paralyzing isolation is sort of the point, rather than Maya, which becomes altogether less nasty in my version (because it's shipped a bunch of nastiness off to Limbo, presumably). The goblins bring their market with them when they go to Maya, there's a bunch of elves and sidhe and nymphs and other things plucked from Greek and Norse mythology and English fairy lore, with a bit of Wonderland thrown in at parts, and all fed through a horror lens. It's not a super nice place and jaluses still spend all their time hiding because all non-jalus inhabitants will often kill them for food and/or fun, but there's people you can talk to and entire societies hidden in the trees. So Maya looks really wild but if you know just where to look it's actually bursting with hidden pocket societies. Although given that those pocket societies are pretty isolationist and devoid of tech (not a big fan of metal working up there - once people learn how to smelt bronze it's only a matter of time before they figure out iron), you might say it's still pretty wild. But at least it's sapient wildness. Point is, the place is a giant wilderness pulled from iron age myth without any iron age civilizations cluttering it up, which makes it actually quite similar to D&D but without the cities or towns. You still even get royal quest NPCs, they're just always fairy kings and never regular kings.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Yeah, Marco's likely to use Celerity virtually any time Initiative gets rolled. He has a maintenance free power schedule and I purposely built him so the bulk of his combat powers are relatively Power Point friendly--it'd take a lot for him to burn through 10 power points in a scene like a Lycanthrope. Plus, a single extra IP isn't even a Masquerade violation--any Luminary can blow an Edge for a temporary boost--so really the only Celerity power he'd have to throttle down a bit in public is the Nimble Feet. I have no idea whether Shifting Sands constitutes a breach or not, but given that he dislikes being shot in the face that's another power he's trigger happy with given that his soaks are mediocre and he has no healing powers.

His other two combat powers are pretty self-explanatory. Water Prison is a fun way to punish people for bringing buckets and fire hoses to a gun fight. Meanwhile Curse of Failure is totally covert, so if he thinks he can get the drop on someone he'll use that before initiating combat and gleefully make them reroll their resistance/soak successes. There's also edge cases where using it in lieu of a second attack can be smart against things who obviously have ginormous soak pools, but unless he gets in the habit of fist fighting trolls I doubt that'll come up too much.

Speaking of fists, can fighting with your bare hands benefit from the two "weapon" fighting damage bonus if you're willing to take the -2 dice penalty and/or have ambidexterity? I know it sounds a bit dodgy at first but considering that boxing and MMA aficionados love to gush about people who have knockout power from both sides it hits me as plausible enough to be investigated. Besides, bumping up the damage code from 0N to 1N isn't going to set the world on fire.

As for the other stuff, I can understand the appeal of a more classical fantasy Maya landscape but I think I'd prefer to stick with a standard AS setup for familiarity's sake.
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Post by Chamomile »

Dual-wielding fists sounds alright. If it brought an otherwise inferior weapon into competition with your front-runners like handguns or crowbars (for concealable ranged and melee damage) or assault rifles or giant weapons (for non-concealable) I'd be more concerned, but knives and chairs are almost as ubiquitously available as fists so it's not like much is really changing by buffing them up with a certain advantage.

Also: Apologies for the delay. There was Thanksgiving.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Yeah, I've been busy too since I'm essentially cooking for three thanksgivings this year since one family couldn't really do anything until today.
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Post by Chamomile »

So, my current plan for handling stealth, since the rules as written don't seem to cover this sort of thing:

When sneaking about, you roll Stealth+Agility versus Perception+Intuition. If the other guy beats you by at least two hits, he spots you and there is a fight. If he beats you by one hit or you tie, he's heard you but doesn't know exactly where you are. You can hide at which point we use the standard hide and seek rules - with a tied roll, the searcher usually spends exactly as much time as it takes to search a room, with an extra hit, he'll spend a bit of extra time. Some searchers, especially non-spawn guards who have nothing else to do, might be more thorough.

If you fire a suppressed weapon and miss, three dice get rolled. So long as at least one of them is a hit, then the stray shot goes into an empty room or out a window and is unnoticed, the person/s in the room hit talk themselves out of reporting it ("won't I look ridiculous reporting a gunshot to the police and then it turns out to be loose wire popping a bit of plaster or something else that surely happens in old buildings sometimes"), it goes straight into the head of the only witness, or in some other ways is not reported and is not a problem. Worth taking into account that an unaware opponent is very likely to be hit and for tons of damage if you get into adjacent range with them.

If an enemy or a frenzied mutant fires an unsuppressed gun, the jig is up. It'll be audible throughout most of the building and while most people won't recognize the sound, Manfield sure will, so stealth has failed.
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Post by Chamomile »

Health update post-boss fight:

Code: Select all

Marco: [\] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Catherine Stewart: [+] [\] [\] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Ulmian Mutant 1: [*] [*] [*] [+] [\] [\] [\] [\] [\] [\] INCAPACITATED
Ulmian Thrall 2: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Ulmian Mutant 3: [*] [*] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] INCAPACITATED
Ulmian Thrall 4: [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] TERMINAL
Ulmian Thrall 6: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Thrall 2 is frenzied and drinking from Mutant 1.
Last edited by Chamomile on Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:27 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Whipstitch »

For the most part everything came up Marco, so I'm not too fussed about it, but I would note that between Finesse Fighting and Devastation Marco can use his Agility for most melee attacks. Also, Devastation lets him count as 6 dudes for the purposes of outnumbering an opponent, so he's likely insta-gibbing any mooks sporting less than 5 combat skill. I have him use guns a lot largely because suppression is just that damn good and is in some ways less suspicious.

Also, I really should have asked about this prior to you going through all this work, but how many modes of hand to hand combat can a single combat specialization apply to? Frank listed by "martial style or weapon," which leaves things open to a fair bit of interpretation--His example character knows Pencak Silat and Silat is potentially a whole mess of crap. If we're going with a generous interpretation then I intended eskrima mostly to represent dual wielding sticks, machetes or knives as well as some empty handed work. If we're going under a more narrow interpretation than I'd rather he know how to use medium sized cleaving blades/swords (specifically machetes/big bolo knives) than anything else. I don't really care which way you go, since the generous interpretation scratches my power gamer itch and the narrow way means I finally have an excuse to spend my next specialization on mastering lucha libre.
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Post by Chamomile »

It isn't uncommon for a single specialization to cover about 1/3 of everything you would ever expect to use a single skill for, especially the physical skills, so having eskrima cover unarmed and a wide variety of related weapons is fine. Marco got the bonus specialty dice in this fight, I'll make sure to apply his powers/advantages properly next time. This first chapter is intentionally a bit of a softball specifically to try and work out kinks like this in a low-stakes environment, hopefully all the kinks are worked out now because we're just about through with the warm-up.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Yeah, it's all good. I know this stuff is tricky to include constantly given we don't have the benefit of real time and are stuck with improvising non-standard character sheets.
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Post by Chamomile »

And with Grant's job offer, Chapter I has officially come to a close, so it is time to dole out advancement cards. Since Marco is quite decisively victorious, you've got three tokens to play with, and since this is a relatively minor chapter, we're drawing cards 'till the first major arcana comes up. Your cards are:

8 of Pentacles: +1 to a Technical skill used this chapter
9 of Pentacles: +1 to a Technical skill of your choice and am I sure I shuffled these properly
6 of Cups: +1 to Expression
The World: Learn a Basic or Advanced power of your choice
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Post by Whipstitch »

Nice.

It's a questionable use of a token, but fuck it, Marco's taking the 9 of Pentacles and learning Artisan: Drawing. That way he can sketch out his visions for people and doodle in his journal. He works exclusively in black and white and while untrained he has a (un?)natural talent for chiaroscuro.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Dunno what the deal with dropbox is but here's a copy pasta of the sheet. I'm afraid the formatting is pretty ugly though.
Marco Romero
Gender: Male
Physical Age: Late 20s
Supernatural Type: Reborn (Lunar Schedule, Weakened by Water, Dealt Aggravated by Iron)
Master Passion: Greed (resist w/ Willpower + Stealth)
Driving Passion: Form true Makhzen domain, become Prince
Cult: Ulmian (Preferred Sorcery & Resources: Necromancy, Secrets and Science)
Syndicate: Makhzen

Damage Track
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
Death Threshold: 5
Physical Resistance: 6 Mental Resistance:6 Social Resistance:8
Power Points: 13/13
Potency: 1
Edge:3

(Attributes and skills featuring an asterisk are boosted to that level by non-situational bonuses and specializations are in

parentheses)

Strength:3* Intuition:3 Willpower:5 (6 for Socialization)
Agility:7 Logic:3 Charisma:1 (2 for Socialization)

Physical Social Technical
Athletics:5 Animal Ken:0 Artisan:1(Drawing)
Combat:5 (Eskrima) Bureaucracy:2 (Govt.)(Business) Electronics:1(Repair)
Drive:1 (Aggressive Driving) Empathy:6 Rigging:6 (Ropes & Pulleys)
Larceny:2 Expression:3 Medicine:0
Perception:8* Intimidate:7* Operations:5 (Repair)
Stealth:7* Persuasion:3 Research:1 (Archives)
Survival:0 Tactics:6 Sabotage:1 (Disabling Stuff)

(Extra vehicle types: Oversized & Construction equipment)

Social Backgrounds
Real Estate & Construction 2
State Bar of California 3
Nightlife 3
Teamsters 3

Academic Backgrounds
American Southwest History 2
Ballistics 3
Accounting 4

Occult Backgrounds
Makhzen Politics 3
True Prophecy 2
The Ulmians 4
LA Crime 3
Undead 3

Powers & Disciplines

Basic Celerity (+2 to Initiative Tests, powers collectively cost 3 Power Points for a scene.)
Quickness (+1 Initiative Pass)
Nimble Feet (Quadruple movement speed, rough terrain does not hinder actions.)

Basic Play of Shadows (Orphic)(+1 to Stealth and Intimidate)
Shadowcasting (+2 to avoid notice or attract attention as desired. Dispelled with 3 hits.)

Basic Necromancy (Orphic)(Can see Ghosts)
Summon Spirit (Draw ghosts to location with a Logic 3 + Operations 5 roll. Consult page 205 for threshold tables.)

Basic Magnetism (+1 to Socialization tests with Willpower or Charisma.)
Attract (A Complex Action which ensures the affected targets hear you out. Roll Willpower 5 + Expression 3, with hits

determining number of targets affected.)

Advanced Trail of Tears (Astral)(Flair for negativity gives a +4 bonus to social tests when arguing against any proposal, fact

or course of action.)
Curse of Failure (A Covert Simple Action which forces the victim to reroll their hits on a test taken at a later date. Roll

Willpower 5 + Rigging 6 versus target's Willpower.)
Water Prison (Spend a Power Point and a Complex Action to create 3-d "solid" shapes out of water. May capture opponents with an

Agility 7 + Combat 5 ranged attack test. Marco's Water has 5 Strength.)

Advanced Discernment (+4 to Perception Tests, may notice Veiled things without taking a Careful Search.)
Supernatural Senses (Free Action. The threshold to resist overstimulation is increased by 2.)
Psychometry (View described past events involving the touched target. Roll Intuition 3 plus Empathy 6. Cost is 1 Power Point

plus an additional Power Point per Timeframe past 1 minute.)

Advanced Clout (+2 to Strength)
Clinging (Spiderman stunts have threshold lowered by 2. Can traverse walls at rate of Steady Walk and can traverse ceilings at

rate of a Careful Walk with no test required.)
Devastation (Can project force along the surface of any touched object out to a range 2 meters per Potency. Can "outnumber" or

attack multiple opponents in melee as if he were 6 men. Any weapon he can wield two handed without penalty is a weapon he may

also use in a single hand.)

Magnetism/Celerity Devotion
Shifting Sands (Can lolno danger or take blows meant for other targets for the cost of a Power Point. Must commit to the

decision before soaks are rolled. May reroll social tests if the test in questsion generates no hits.)

Disadvantages
Distinctive Appearance: His left hand pinkie and ring fingers are missing two joints each.
Diplomatic Incident: Stellar Oracles
Oppressed Minority
Prideful

Advantages
Fighting Finesse
Ambidextrous
Attractive

Resources & Obligations
Duty 1: Loyalty to Ulmi
Stalker 1: Agent of the Stellar Oracles/Guardians who keeps tabs on Reborn.
Language 1: Italian
Language 1: Spanish
Destiny 1: Infernal Tome: Walk of Flame, Names of the Blasphemies, and Progress of Glass
Destiny 1: Sombrero cordobes (Ignore overstimulation due to firearms)
Destiny 2: Giancarlo's Files (Infernal Library: Song of Swarms, Descent of Entropy, Progress of Glass, Walk of Flame, Lure of

Destruction)
Finance 2: Unmarked bills
Finance 3: Ludicrous amount of cocaine
Assets 3: Ulmi Hit Squad, Las Calaveras and two cane corsos (Jesus and Malverde).

Favored Gear:
Maroon '73 Monte Carlo big block with bug-out bag and armored poncho in the trunk.
Pair of Glock 19s
Vintage Zegna wardrobe, typically suits and sport coats
Silver boot knives
Cigarettes & lighter
Water bottle

Taboos
Privacy & Solidarity Ethics

Ideology: Gangster
Honors: experience, knowing the score, expertise, self-discipline, clever hustles, being good in a fight, sexy women
Despises: being a sucker, picking battles you can't win, racism against Mexicans and Italians, being out of shape, abject

cowardice, snitching on him or his allies
Last edited by Whipstitch on Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Chamomile »

Apologies for the current delay. It's finals week. Finals are now over, so thread will probably resume sometime tonight or maybe tomorrow, depending on how long it takes me to recover.
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Post by Whipstitch »

I thought of something I want to add to my pile of long term downtime plans: Marco'd like to make an effort to recruit and support a stable of local gear heads and wheel men. I know that his hitmen are above average drivers, but well, California is where car chase films happen, and he'd love to get many of the Calaveras up to a similar standard behind the wheel and maybe someday recruit a few luminaries in the process. Basically, he's willing to blow some of his cash reserves and connections on becoming the villain from a Fast & Furious movie--he'll sponsor chop shops, crooked dealerships and street races, with the most talented people who arise from that being put in charge of running cars, drugs and guns across the border.
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