After Sundown Expansion Material

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

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Grek
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Post by Grek »

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Isn't "obedient slave" the Golem thing?

And Androids are not "nominally successful" replacements, at least in romantic roles, as demonstrated by their "Distinctive Flaw: Doomed Romance"
I was referring to Reanimate and zombies there, but sure. If you make a golem out of a corpse and it goes wrong, a homunculus can happen as a result. The key here is that a homunculus results from a necromancer trying to do one thing (make zombies, turn someone into a vampire, restore a loved one to life) and getting an unrelated soul in the body instead, who then prompting runs off with the corpse to live their own life.

Androids are nominally successful in that if you use the "upload a luminary brain into a robot body" procedure, you do actually get that luminary's mind and memories in the robot body. Likewise if you try to program an android from scratch - you get basically what you set out to do. It never works out, because After Sundown is based on horror movies, but the failure mode is more "crazy stalker robot" than "it came back wrong".
Lord Mistborn wrote:Yeah I'm not convinced you can make a new type of animate and have it work. They are based on human relationships gone horrible wrong, so making a new type requires a new relationship to base them on.
And so I included those. For emphasis:
Bogeyman: The relationship between artist and audience. The bogeyman is the ultimate obsessive fan, holding an artist at metaphorical gun point, forcing them to write or die. There's also a side of artist and art, where the bogeyman is a muse who haunts the artist's dreams and compels them to create, but the primary relationship is an artist who becomes a slave to the demands and unrealistic expectations of their fans. Maybe I should change it back to the working name of "Muse" to clarify.
Gargoyle: The relationship between the previous generation and the current generation. The gargoyle is an edifice, not just of stone or wood, but of society. It is both literally and figuratively a product of a bygone era, struggling to cope with an unfamiliar and often shocking society. Even the lucky few who are merely decades out of date still have trouble comprehending how much society has changed since they were first created, let alone the ones dating back to 990s Scotland.
Homunculus: The relationship between the incumbent and the unwilling heir. As previously mentioned, a homunculus is created when a necromancer tries to revive a body but gets someone else's soul instead. It's tragic and heartbreaking for both parties - the creator has their aspirations cruelly snatched from them at the last possible moment, while the homunculus is born into the world as both a disappointment and the owner of a body their creator likely wishes to repossess.
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erik
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Post by erik »

I would be inclined to have Boogeymen be NPC monsters, Gargoyles be a flavor of Golem, and Homunculi be a flavor of Frankenstein.

Getting an unrelated soul into a an animated corpse seems like Frankenstein through and through.

If I just read this "Their creator either wanted one person in particular (the person they were trying to resurrect/turn) or they wanted an obedient slave. Instead, they got someone who is their own person, and the creator can't undo that or force things to have happened differently."
I'd say, "Oh, a Frankenstein"

I get that you have a different angle for Homunculi and Gargoyles, but they're so close to Frankensteins and Golems that I think they make more sense as a variant than by trying to carve out their own conceptual space. Instead of creating a whole new class I'm more willing to be a bit wider on the fluff, allowing Frankensteins to either be misplaced souls in new bodies, or new souls in new bodies.

I don't see the draw for a full player character Boogeyman.
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Post by Prak »

When I read the blurbs, I thought "Slenderman, Tsukumogami, SniktbubWolverine"

Boogeymen would be cool, but may well be better as npcs as people said. Wolverine... eh, he can just be a Frankenstein, I guess. I suppose Gargoyle would work better as an npc too.

If one wants a new Animate, it seems like the next human relationship to base one upon is The Contract. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what that should create. I do like the idea of the Artist/Audience(or patron) relationship as a basis of a type of animate, but again, I'm not sure what it should create.
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You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Orion
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Post by Orion »

It should be obvious to everyone that After Sundown needs a new edition. It grows more obvious every time I play it, and after the IMHO thread it's starting to appear more urgent. I even got more questions from another source via PM. I missed this thread the first time around, which is a shame. By and large, Frank's proposals here are full of madness. I would have liked to get some input in on the ground floor. I have no idea if this project actually went anywhere, anyway, so maybe it's moot. Regardless, there <i>is</i> genuinely some great stuff here from Frank and others, and combined with my own intentions, I think there's a solid update to be made.

So I'm going to start writing a new edition of After Sundown. If Frank has moved on from his project, then I'll release it as After Sundown 2E. If he's still actively working on this, then I'd love to see what he has. It's possible that we can reconcile our goals and produce a join project. If he still intends to release a 2E and I still don't like it, then I will release mine as something like After Sundown Classic, After Sundown Revised, or After Sundown: Classic: Revised: The Orion Project. I don't have a release date or anything. I need to go through and make a full list of what needs to be done, do some test writing to see how fast I can work, find out whether I can farm anything out, and see what my schedule is like once I get a job. Assuming that I overcome my past failures and actually produce some material, I will look into making a Patreon to get some semi-professional art, compensate myself a little bit, pay for layout and copy editing if necessary, and if the demand is there maybe some printing.

So what are my beefs with Frank?
  • No new monsters. Frank has written at length about two problem. First, games have too much content and not enough consistency. A mystery game only works if the players can remember the solution set, and it doesn't work if every major NPC is a unique "steve". Second, core rulebooks are too long. They're unwieldy as physical artifacts (though that's probably not a problem here) and they're just bloated and intimidating for new readers even on PDF. After Sundown 1 had 18 playable monsters because Frank has decided that was the optimal number. That hasn't changed, and there's no reason to double that for the new line. They can go in a supplement if people want them.
  • Power bloat. This one I'm not sure about. It's clear that the game needs more powers. That's lots of stuff people want to do that can't easily be done, and probably new disciplines needed to flesh out some of the existing non-player monsters in a satisfying way, especially if we want playable Asuras and stuff. The devotions which are moved will take up slots in existing disciplines. I'm not really sure how many more powers are necessary; maybe Frank will be vindicated when I get there. Still, I suspect that his proposal is too much. The original game had about 110 selectable non-Elder powers. Frank proposes to cut 21 devotions, then add about 66 new powers to the existing disciplines, then add more disciplines (I don't know how many, but presumably at least 3) with 7 each. We're talking about jumping from 110 powers for starting characters to 176. That seems like too much. I also have no idea how this is all supposed to work with Elder powers. Going 3-4-2 is kind of an odd structure, but I guess it works. Adding a pile of new elder powers could be done -- that's lots and lots of stuff that's in-genre but too good for Advance -- but it risks breaking the setting or at least breaking investigation. I *think* that some of the new Advanced powers could be scaled-down from existing Elders. It's possible that you could get rid of Elder powers entirely and just let people advance entire disciplines to Elder-tier and unlock enhanced effects for their older stuff. I don't know what if anything Frank had in mind.
That's ... pretty much the whole list actually, based on this thread. I thought there would be more. I vaguely remember some other thread about expanding or revising AS where Frank had more fleshed-out proposals, including something to do with Witches that I didn't much like. Okay, so what am I keeping?
  • No Devotions -- I never liked them. They're obnoxious to deal with because they're tucked at the end of the power list and if you're making your first character by flipping to the disciplines your monster type buys you into, you don't see them. Keeping track of which you qualify for is a pain. Also, many of them are vague or stupid and will be cut, not relocated.
  • A few more powers
  • Revisions to shape-changing.
  • Expanded write-ups for the non-human monsters for more identity and more playability
  • More flexible witches with fewer required powers* (but see below)
So what do I want to do with the page count saved on powers and monsters?
  • More mechanics for environmental conditions. Most PCs can breathe water and fishmen with underwater cities are a core type, yet there are currently no rules about underwater combat, underwater spellcasting, or swimming. There are rules for holding breath but they're really weird. Rules for ash storms in Limbo, and if swarms of hungry insects in Limbo are a thing, then rules for that.
  • 3 or 6 example other-world locations (deep and bleed).
  • Bloodlines, Tribes, and Schools
  • Examples of skill use. Frank mocks other games that have a generic DC list with outputs like "awesome" and"super great," but AS basically has that chart. His version is more useful than most, but not good enough. The current game gives lots of threshold examples for drive and social skills, a few for medicine and acrobatics, and virtually none for technical skills or larceny. That needs to be fixed.
  • At least 3 example rituals and maybe a couple more example artifacts. Examples of useful things you could buy with Secrets. But the new edition isn't just about new content. It's not even primarily about new content. It's mostly about cleaning up what's already there. How?
  • Presenting information in a rational order. Like Frank's D&D "books," AS is organized more like a collection of essays than any kind of reference or rule book. That makes it enjoyable to read but difficult to play. I'd ideally like to preserve that feel, but this simply has to be re-organized a bunch. This probably gets its own list. The detailed write-ups of the other worlds have to come after a basic description of this world -- like that there is a masquerade and that it and general law and order are enforced by globe-spanning syndicates. Essays about character motivation can't be shoved in between defining the stats and listing the build points for starting characters. The list of cults probably shouldn't be shoved between that and skills, unless it's strictly a list that points to full write-ups elsewhere. Combat probably shouldn't be between social and weather, and weather definitely shouldn't come between "combat actions, attacks, defense, damage, and special conditions" and "armor, healing, and death." Non-Human monsters should probably come after the magic chapter, not before. Frenzy and Taboo should be in the social or magic chapters, not the MC grab-bag. Merits and Disadvantages should be with other character creation stuff. Magic items should be listed with "magic" or "resources", not after "leveling up", "various cities", and "sample NPCs".
  • Power reform. Certain overly-broad, vague, or un-counterable powers are clarified or cut. (Poison Heart and Echoes of the Muse, especially. Also Supernatural Senses and Telepathy) Powers that suck are cut (Sensory Damper).
  • Spellcasting reform. We need to know what you have to do to activate sorcery.
  • Sorcery/Universal boundary reform. AS tells us two things about sorcery: that unlike universal power, sorcery can be dispelled by counter-magic, and that it is learned rather than innate. Unfortunately, none of that is true. There are universal powers that can be dispelled, sorceries that explicitly can't be dispelled, and sorceries that cannot, in practice, be dispelled. There are creatures that obviously got sorcery without studying it, and creatures who got universal powers by reading books. All of this needs flavor text, and some of it needs mechanics.
  • Nomenclature reform. The power names are simply too flowery and in some cases too similar. (Abyss of the Body and Descent of Entropy are too close conceptually to share the vertical metaphor) The Sorcery disciplines will be stuff like Beasts, Storms, Names, Reflections, Corruption, and Decay)
  • Skill reform. Characters get too many skills points, and there are too many skills. I seriously have players struggling to spend their points because they already bought everything their character should know. It doesn't help that there's such a huge utility gap between the great skills and the mediocre ones and you more than enough points for everything good. This leads us into...
  • Dicepool reform. Dicepools for magic powers are super weird. They are the reason characters needed to get so many skill points in the first place. Characters have to pick up skills they have no intention to use just so their powers work. The incentive to min-max your casting pools amplifies the flavor problem by forcing people to build super-experts in random stuff. It's also super frustrating to work out what skills you even need or are likely to need for future magic. Max dicepools are also flagrantly unbalanced. Some spells run off Strength, which a starting character can add +15 to with magic. Others... don't. Some run off skills a starting character can get a +4 passive bonus to; others don't.
  • Dispel Reform. It's unclear in many cases what the "source" of an effect is or how to defend against it. It's also unclear in some cases what's an instant effect and what's a permanent effect, in D&D terms.
  • Starting-Powers reform. It's not just Witches who have too many fixed powers; it's everyone. First off, 12 total powers is a good number for experienced gamers to start with, but a little high for novices. 4 selections is about the minimum acceptable customization, so to create a newbie-friendly 10-power game, you need to go down to 6 fixed. That's a good idea anyway, because for many monsters we had to make weird choices to make it to 8. Does every android really need to summon wind? Cutting back the fixed powers also enables a lot of the proposed expansion monsters to be built off the core.
  • Spawn reform. This one is a matter of taste, and I could be talked out of it. I feel that there's room to fill the enormous power gap between the spawn provided and the Luminary monsters with something that can be a genuine combat threat while still being a crazed un-person. Is there some reason a spawn vampire couldn't have Vigor? That a Killbot couldn't have Quickness?
  • Human* Luminary reform. This one is also a matter of taste, and may lead us too far into Steves. There are tons and tons of stories about basically normal people who have an Advanced power they may or may not control and that may or may not be driving them insane. The write-up for Walk of Flames name-drops Carrie. Carrie currently doesn't work as a Witch Spawn, because she needs Fire Starter, not Hand of Flame. She also doesn't work as a Ba'al because she can't control minds or negate emotions. There are similar stories about humans gifted with Telepathy, Telekinesis, Psychometry, or Beckoning. EDIT: Or Purify the Mind or Cleanse the Body.
Last edited by Orion on Wed Aug 05, 2015 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

So Carrie's a Baali who doesn't have all her powers yet.

Which doesn't change the fact that there needs to be some kind of mechanic for not-quite-there-yet supernaturals.

I can see the argument for fewer fixed powers - but I suspect any new Lycanthropes or Leviathans will need their own types even if Spider Vampires and Ebola Vampires can just have the right set of optional disciplines, and even if "their own type" boils down to e.g. "Rokea count as Werewolves, but turn into sharks instead of wolves".
Last edited by Omegonthesane on Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Orion »

I made a factual error. I don't believe a starting character can get more than +15 to Strength.

I don't know anything about "Endala" spider vampires and this thread is one of the top Google hits, and I'm too rushed to dig deeper. Without knowing the lore, i'm inclined to think that Strigoi do everything you want a spider vampire to do. They have OCD, they have poison fangs, they has hypnotism. Slap on Clinging and Beast Form and you're done.

The Lycanthropes in After Sundown are global curses. We maybe know where they started but they've gotten around, spread to all ethnicities, and created a recognizable type who have kin in every city. Polynesian were-sharks don't have that and never will. They shouldn't be a strain of lycanthropes, they should be a tradition of Witchcraft made with liberalized power picks, or a degenerate line of Deep Ones. If the latter, shark-spawn are created when human extras wound a shark and swallow its blood, and luminary humans who are attacked by sharks can become the shark by killing it and consuming the blood accidentally or on purpose.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Orion wrote:I made a factual error. I don't believe a starting character can get more than +15 to Strength.

I don't know anything about "Endala" spider vampires and this thread is one of the top Google hits, and I'm too rushed to dig deeper. Without knowing the lore, i'm inclined to think that Strigoi do everything you want a spider vampire to do. They have OCD, they have poison fangs, they has hypnotism. Slap on Clinging and Beast Form and you're done.
"Most Strigoi are strongly associated with snakes, however fundamentally they are venomous rather than serpents. The Endala bloodline, for example, takes Beast Form (spider) and Clinging and mostly consider themselves to be spider vampires instead of snake vampires."

alternately, "Most Endala consider themselves their own 'type' of vampire, but most occult experts disagree. They are spider-related instead of snakes, but mechanically they are just Strigoi whose optional starting powers include Clinging and the Beast Form of a spider."

No objections in principle here and I'm not currently in a position to research any objections to details.
Orion wrote:The Lycanthropes in After Sundown are global curses. We maybe know where they started but they've gotten around, spread to all ethnicities, and created a recognizable type who have kin in every city. Polynesian were-sharks don't have that and never will. They shouldn't be a strain of lycanthropes, they should be a tradition of Witchcraft made with liberalized power picks, or a degenerate line of Deep Ones. If the latter, shark-spawn are created when human extras wound a shark and swallow its blood, and luminary humans who are attacked by sharks can become the shark by killing it and consuming the blood accidentally or on purpose.
That makes Rokea a bad example, it doesn't necessarily mean other Werewolf types don't deserve their own splat types, in flavour text if not so much in mechanics. I mostly picked were-sharks because were-bears didn't come as quickly to mind and seemed to be more easily retrofitted as a Werewolf bloodline strain.

Given that Asuras are in as a Provisionally Playable, any concepts that have enough legs to be worth including are probably worth including in core, I say expecting that this will be in the low single digits.
Last edited by Omegonthesane on Wed Aug 05, 2015 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by Username17 »

I am fully aware that I have been falling behind on writing. I'm working a lot at the hospital and we're buying a house and I just haven't had the time I want and need to sit the fuck down and unwind by writing things down and pursuing personal projects. Some day I will have a schedule that has honest to goodness blank spaces in it, and I can do the kinds of writing shit down that I want to. Possibly soon even, not really sure.

Also, I'm aware that After Sundown badly needs a new edition.

The biggest thing I'm looking at doing is revamping dice pools. Just for starters, normal stats are going from 4 to 9. It really helps at the low end to have "normal people" have numbers available to the system that are worse than them.

I don't really buy Orion's power bloat numbers. I think you're underestimating how much load is taken off the players by moving all the Elder powers to the Mighty Rituals of Vast Power section. Victory of Typhon is a cool thing, but there's no particular need for the players to have to flip through it when making their characters or plotting their advancement. Taking the obscure powers and moving them off to the side makes the remaining disciplines more handlable, which makes a considerable amount of room for a few extra disciplines and also more powers that are within a player's reach.

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Post by Orion »

FrankTrollman wrote:The biggest thing I'm looking at doing is revamping dice pools. Just for starters, normal stats are going from 4 to 9. It really helps at the low end to have "normal people" have numbers available to the system that are worse than them.
Good, I like this. I might have started at 3 so that the shittiest humans average 1 hit, but w/ever.
I don't really buy Orion's power bloat numbers. I think you're underestimating how much load is taken off the players by moving all the Elder powers to the Mighty Rituals of Vast Power section. Victory of Typhon is a cool thing, but there's no particular need for the players to have to flip through it when making their characters or plotting their advancement.
I missed this part of the proposal. It's a good idea. Maybe it even solves the power bloat problem; I'm not sure. There were 44 elder powers in AS 1 and 21 devotions. Together, you're cutting 65. (Some of the devotions will come back in in a minute). You want to add 3 powers to most of the 22 disciplines we already have. If I remember correctly, there are extra powers in authority, discernment, and silence. That means it takes 63 powers to bring the existing disciplines up to the new 7-piece standard. In other words, you have basically the same number of powers AS1 did, before you add new disciplines. AS1 had room for a few more disciplines, so that's fine.

Except, I'm not convinced that taking out an Elder is equivalent to adding an Advanced. Yes, people had to waste time flipping past them. But they got to flip past them. You're still proposing a huge increase in the options available to new characters and in the capabilities they have to assume opposition might possess.
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Post by OgreBattle »

FrankTrollman wrote: Also, I'm aware that After Sundown badly needs a new edition.

The biggest thing I'm looking at doing is revamping dice pools. Just for starters, normal stats are going from 4 to 9. It really helps at the low end to have "normal people" have numbers available to the system that are worse than them.

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Any of these changes influenced by ideas you got from Asymmetric Threat, or do you plan on having different systems for the two
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Post by Blicero »

The other main thread I know of that talks about fixing after sundown is here: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54590& ... sc&start=0

One thing that the game also desperately needs is better guidance on how to run a campaign. Something like a default structure with mechanisms in place for generating adventures.

You could just add a paragraph that says something like "The default structure of an After Sundown adventure is 'Cult leader offers PCs mission, PCs do mission.' Keep doing this until the PCs develop their own goals". Or you could outline how to set up a more dynamic sandbox structure for the game. These blog posts offer an example of how to do the latter for a city-based game:
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/ ... art-i.html
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/ ... ii-in.html
With this being a sort-of prequel to those:
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/ ... exmap.html
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Since proposals for After Sundown 2e include reducing the number of fixed powers to 6 per splat (so that the four optional powers in In Media Res make it 10), I thought I'd go ahead and do that and see how much rage my poor decisions induced how much of it makes it into the final version.

My proposals also include informally ditching the Core Discipline thing, because some of the splats needed to dip four disciplines to be able to do the things I thought made them "them".

A few of the splats (Daeva, Troglodyte, Mi Go) have two proposed power sets. The first two were because Daeva and Trogs both have a Devotion in their starting power set and I didn't feel like committing to keeping both its prereqs; the third was indecisiveness.

Where possible I was aiming for anyone with a particular power source to have at least one of its sorceries. This is specifically why I had Reborn keep Summon Spirit instead of Nimble Feet.

Werewolf Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Beast Form (Basic Call of the Wild)
    Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
    Vigor (Basic Clout)
    Quickness (Basic Celerity)
-Advanced Powers -
  • War Form (Celerity / Clout Devotion)
    The Beckoning (Advanced Call of the Wild) [Strength+Survival or Charisma+Empathy]
Nezumi Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Beast Form (Basic Call of the Wild)
    Tongue of Beasts (Basic Call of the Wild)
    Hide From Notice (Basic Veil) [Agility+Stealth or Intuition+Survival]
    Learn the Heart's Pain (Basic Names of the Blasphemies) [Charisma+Empathy or Intuition+Larceny]
-Advanced Powers -
  • Hide in Plain Sight (Advanced Veil)The Beckoning (Advanced Call of the Wild) [Strength+Survival or Charisma+Empathy]

Bagheera Starting Powers


- Basic Powers -
  • Nimble Feet (Basic Celerity)
    Vigor (Basic Clout)
    Touch of Darkness (Basic Lure of Destruction)
    Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
-Advanced Powers -
  • War Form (Celerity / Clout Devotion)
    Alacrity (Advanced Celerity)
Nosferatu Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
    Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
    Gift of Health (Basic Path of Blood)
    Hide From Notice (Basic Veil) [Agility+Stealth or Intuition+Survival]
-Advanced Powers -
  • Restoration (Advanced Fortitude)
    Hide in Plain Sight (Advanced Veil)
Strigoi Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
    Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
    Bite of the Serpent (Basic Lure of Destruction)
    Gift of Health (Basic Path of Blood)
-Advanced Powers -
  • Restoration (Advanced Fortitude)
    Indomitability (Advanced Fortitude)
Daeva Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
    Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
    Attract (Basic Magnetism) [Willpower+Expression or Charisma+Tactics] // Fire Walking (Basic Walk of Flame)
    Gift of Health (Basic Path of Blood)
-Advanced Powers -
  • Restoration (Advanced Fortitude)
    Flight (Clout / Magnetism Devotion) // Flames of Panic (Advanced Walk of Flame) [Logic+Intimidation or Agility+Survival]
Frankenstein Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Nimble Feet (Basic Celerity)
    Quickness (Basic Celerity)
    Vigor (Basic Clout)
    Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
-Advanced Powers -
  • Devastation (Advanced Clout)
    Quicken Sight (Advanced Celerity)
Golem Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Hide From Notice (Basic Veil) [Agility+Stealth or Intuition+Survival]
    Mask of a Thousand Faces (Basic Veil) [Agility+Stealth or Charisma+Larceny]
    Vigor (Basic Clout)
    Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
-Advanced Powers -
  • Devastation (Advanced Clout)
    Lost and Found (Advanced Veil) [Agility+Stealth or Intuition+Larceny]
Android Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Vigor (Basic Clout)
    Clinging (Basic Clout)
    Light of Ennui (Basic Descent of Entropy) [Charisma+Artisan or Charisma+Empathy]
    Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
-Advanced Powers -
  • Devastation (Advanced Clout)
    Contradiction (Advanced Descent of Entropy) [Charisma+Artisan or Charisma+Bureaucracy]
Deep One Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Aura Perception (Basic Discernment) [Intuition+Empathy or Logic+Research to determine supernatural type]
    Dream Vision (Basic Sands of Morpheus) [Charisma+Expression or Logic+Research]
    Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
    Command (Basic Authority) [Willpower+Intimidation or Logic+Persuasion]
-Advanced Powers -
  • Telepathy (Advanced Discernment) [Willpower+Intimidation or Intuition+Empathy to read minds]
    Conditioning (Advanced Authority) [Willpower+Intimidation or Logic+Tactics]
Troglodyte Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Aura Perception (Basic Discernment) [Intuition+Empathy or Logic+Research to determine supernatural type]
    Hide From Notice (Basic Veil) [Agility+Stealth or Intuition+Survival]
    Clinging (Basic Clout) // Touch of Darkness (Basic Lure of Destruction)
    Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
-Advanced Powers -
  • Psychometry (Advanced Discernment) [Logic+Research or Intuition+Empathy]
    Burrowing (Veil / Clout Devotion) // Hide in Plain Sight (Advanced Veil)
Mi Go Starting Powers
Editor's note: Wasn't sure if I wanted to have to swap out Telepathy or not give Mi Go Abyss of the Body, so you get both options like with Daeva and Troglodytes

- Basic Powers -
  • Small Witness (Basic Swarm Song) [One small witness per Intuition]
    Body Colony (Basic Swarm Song)
    Supernatural Senses (Basic Discernment) // Abyss of the Body (Basic Descent of Entropy) [Strength+Survival or Charisma+Medicine]
    Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
-Advanced Powers -
  • Telepathy (Advanced Discernment) [Willpower+Intimidation or Intuition+Empathy to read minds] // Aura of Decay (Advanced Descent of Entropy) [Strength+Artisan or Charisma+Medicine]
    Magnify the Swarm (Advanced Swarm Song) [Charisma+Animal Ken or Willpower+Survival]
Reborn Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Quickness (Basic Celerity)
    Supernatural Senses (Basic Discernment)
    Summon Spirit (Basic Necromancy) [Logic+Medicine or Logic+Operations]
    Attract (Basic Magnetism) [Willpower+Expression or Charisma+Tactics]
-Advanced Powers -
  • Shifting Sands (Celerity / Magnetism Devotion)
    Psychometry (Advanced Discernment) [Logic+Research or Intuition+Empathy]
Fallen Starting Powers
- Basic Powers -
  • Attract (Basic Magnetism) [Willpower+Expression or Charisma+Tactics]
    Repel (Basic Magnetism) [Willpower+Intimidation or Strength+Tactics]
    Deny the Gauntlet (Basic Progress of Glass) [Logic+Operations or Intuition+Stealth]
    Mask of a Thousand Faces (Basic Veil) [Agility+Stealth or Charisma+Larceny]
-Advanced Powers -
  • Dismissal (Advanced Magnetism) [Charisma+Tactics or Willpower+Intimidation]
    Desire Reflection (Veil / Magnetism Devotion) [Charisma+Empathy or Intuition+Larceny]

Icarid Starting Powers


- Basic Powers -
  • Hide From Notice (Basic Veil) [Agility+Stealth or Intuition+Survival]
    Supernatural Senses (Basic Discernment)
    Curse of Failure (Basic Depths of Despair) [Willpower+Sabotage or Willpower+Rigging]
    Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
-Advanced Powers -
  • Dark Night of the Soul (Advanced Depths of Despair) [Willpower+Sabotage or Willpower+Intimidate]
    Hide in Plain Sight (Advanced Veil)
Witches are in line to become the Steve splat for 2nd edition as far as I know, so this is less meaningful for them, but if we were to cut down to 6 not-fully-optional powers, I'd be inclined to really embrace the Steve angle.

Baali Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Aura Perception (Basic Discernment) [Intuition+Empathy or Logic+Research to determine supernatural type]
    Any Basic Infernal
    Any Basic Infernal or Universal
    Any Basic Infernal or Universal
- Advanced Powers -
  • Any Advanced Infernal
    Any Advanced Infernal or Universal
Dryad Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Aura Perception (Basic Discernment) [Intuition+Empathy or Logic+Research to determine supernatural type]
    Any Basic Astral
    Any Basic Astral or Universal
    Any Basic Astral or Universal
- Advanced Powers -
  • Any Advanced Astral
    Any Advanced Astral or Universal
Khaibit Starting Powers

- Basic Powers -
  • Aura Perception (Basic Discernment) [Intuition+Empathy or Logic+Research to determine supernatural type]
    Any Basic Orphic
    Any Basic Orphic or Universal
    Any Basic Orphic or Universal
-Advanced Powers -
  • Any Advanced Orphic
    Any Advanced Orphic or Universal
Last edited by Omegonthesane on Sat Aug 22, 2015 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

First of all, Devotions are definitely out. The original concept originated in White Wolf as a means to get around the limits of having five dot disciplines that had to be taken in order. After Sundown uses a streamlined version, but the basic reality is that After Sundown does not have five dot linear disciplines in the first place so Devotions are a solution looking for a problem.

What's going to happen instead is that each discipline is going to get more basic and advanced powers. And the Elder Powers will be cut out of the basic magic chapter altogether and be given as examples in the Mighty Rituals of Vast Power section. So every discipline is going to be flashing 7 powers around in chapter 8. War Form is simply one of the Clout options, Monstrous Self is simply one of the Fortitude options.

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Post by RadiantPhoenix »

Wasn't there something about every Baali having the hypnosis power and every Dryad having the potion power, and something else for Khaibits, as their 'identity'?
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Yeah, my main concern with Devotions in the above list was less "are they still in" and more "which chain are they a prereq of" since I was whacking it out reasonably quickly and couldn't be bothered to think hard about which one merited the pick for the two cases where it mattered for the purpose of making a rules-legal power set.
RadiantPhoenix wrote:Wasn't there something about every Baali having the hypnosis power and every Dryad having the potion power, and something else for Khaibits, as their 'identity'?
I never felt 100% comfortable with Infernal Witches not having an Infernal Sorcery as their core discipline, and used that as an excuse to torch almost all identity from the Witches in favour of making them as Steve-friendly as possible.

This was in part going to be preparation for a rant addressing Orion's above point about people who encounter the supernatural and get some of its power without becoming monsters - specifically, that we call such people Witches in After Sundown, the fact they got there gradually and unknowingly doesn't make them a different type of monster.
Last edited by Omegonthesane on Sun Aug 23, 2015 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by erik »

I guess I posted it back in 2013, but my googledoc spreadsheet of After Sundown playable monsters and powers may be of utility to some folks if they're wanting to shuffle stuff around. Could copy my spreadsheet and do it on whatever medium is preferred, or if someone wanted to make a community editable spreadsheet.

I dunno, I just find it helpful to design with spreadsheets.
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Post by malak »

Orion wrote:[*]Skill reform. Characters get too many skills points, and there are too many skills. I seriously have players struggling to spend their points because they already bought everything their character should know. It doesn't help that there's such a huge utility gap between the great skills and the mediocre ones and you more than enough points for everything good.

I wonder why there is a combat skill. Being bad at not dying to supernatural horrors seems like a bad character concept, and having to decide between putting points into expression and combat should not be a thing (or: why should it?).


To me, it seems these skills could be combined:

- Social Engineering (Persuasion/Bureaucracy/Intimidation)
- Expression/Artisan
- Rigging/Sabotage/Larceny
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Post by Whipstitch »

malak wrote:
I wonder why there is a combat skill. Being bad at not dying to supernatural horrors seems like a bad character concept, and having to decide between putting points into expression and combat should not be a thing (or: why should it?).
It may be ill-advised for PCs, but NPCs are using the same mechanics and there's certainly a niche for hapless extras who outright suck at fighting. Beyond that, there's a fair chunk of character builds for whom the Combat skill really only sees play as a reactive defense vs. melee specifically. I'll grant you that topping off your defenses is always nice if you can swing it, but having a mediocre Combat score is by no means a death sentence in a game with Fort powers and a whole mess of illusions and diplomancy. Hell, if you take Shifting Sands you can still dodge things even if you dumped Agility AND Combat.
Last edited by Whipstitch on Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Lokathor »

Yeah, Willow and Xander have low Combat, but they do have other important skills that add to the group (well, Xander is just kinda a warm body, but whatever).
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Post by Prak »

Well, Xander becomes mildly important in the later seasons. He's the guy who repairs shit after the vampires/demons wreck it, and has some mild bard/morale-guy traits.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Layout
I said it long ago; and everyone seemed to think I was wrong when I did so; but the layout for AS 1e is only good if you followed the whole project being created from start to finish. Its scattered related sections make it very difficult for use as a game playing book.

Combat: Missing Mechanics (?) (Drowning/Suffocation)

Despite the almost comprehensive nature of the rules compared to other supposed RPG system (after reviewing 80-90 other systems to see if there was anything I could add to AS; I realized most are MTP or a wargame; not cohesively structured RPGs); I did find one thing missing from the rules for the Combat chapter: how drowning and suffocation work for people who aren't immune to such already.

It's truly just an edge-case; but D&D at least has some sort of rules for it, so it's probably not impossible to add a mechanic for it.

Most likely, fitted in somewhere into the "Damage over Time" table.

Creatures

One direction that I've gone in terms of Character Type reforms has been to both maintain the original projects goal of “no more creature types”; as well as to use those existing types to categorize any possible creature based monster in human mythos. Through a combination of expand the existing categories until they contained their furthest possible related species taxonomically; or removing certain species from certain monster types if the fit wasn’t ideal; and in a few cases to change which species were associated with different types originally.

This led me to also change which monster types are in which category based on the habits of the species.

Example:

Vampires
[*]Salamanders: fire dragons (Infernal; Reptiles [Birds, Snakes, Turtles, Crocodiles, Dinosaurs (Dragons), Newts, Salamanders]
[*]Cthulhii: tendriled maws (Astral; (Aquatic) Achitinous Invertebrates (Nudibranches, Cephalopods, etc.)
[*]Gargoyles: grotto covens (Orphic; Insectivora (Chiroptera (Bats), Moles, Badgers, Shrews, etc.))

Werebeasts
[*]Bastite: the eyes of Ra (Infernal; Felid, inc. Hyenas)
[*]Bunyip: scions of Sirius (Astral; Caniforma: Vulpid (Wolves), Ursine (Bears) & Pinnipeds (Seals, etc.))
[*]Kobalts: glacial gnomes (Orphic; Rodentia (Rats, Mice, Capybara, etc.), Langomorphia (Rabbits, Beavers, etc.))

Artificals
[*]Simulacrum: flawed perfection (Infernal; Decorative)
[*]Robota: tireless labour (Astral; Productive)
[*]Frankenstein: cyber organism (Orphic; Regenerative)

Sourcerists
[*]Warlock: selfish traitor (Infernal; Prophet of Fire & Blood)
[*]Druid: addled alchemist (Astral; Prophet of Poison & Pain)
[*]Shaman: ghost master (Orphic; Prophet of Death & Cold)

Vrtrans
[*]Ziz/Rephaim: sky children (Infernal; All Arthropods (inc. Spiders, Lobsters, Crabs, Insects, etc. etc.))
[*]Leviathan/Deep Ones: kelp guard (Astral; (Semi) Aquatic Vertebrates (Sharks/ Rays/ Skates, Freshwater/Saltwater/Abyssal Fish, Frogs/Toads, etc.)
[*]Behemoth/Troglodyte: antediluvian ogres (Orphic; Primates) [Yes, primates; this took me so long to figure out]

Metahumans
[*]Fetched: lost & fallen (Infernal; Charming Soulthieves) ['Fetched' came after many attempts at getting a name that indicated both infernal and lost soul connotations]
[*]Taken: beyond mortality (Astral; Deranged Denatured) [still not satisfied, but works better than Intoxicated, Poisoned, Metahuman, & others]
[*]Reincarnate: dead again (Orphic; Ancient Souls)

Restricted Creature Types

Fairy-Devils (Base Elements)
[*]Asura-Yazata (Formed Gaseous Elements)
[*]Cherubim-Baalor (Composite Metallic/Semi-Metallic/Non-Metallic Elements)
[*]Ifrit-Mayar (Ghostly Radioactive Elements)

Goblin-Demon (Protistic Life; I once wanted these to be ungulate/cetecean based)
[*]Lorax-Dwarves (Cannibalistic Virii)
[*]Gigerian-Elves (Mitosising Bacteria)
[*]Oni-Titans (Multicellular colonies)

Elder Things [Plants]
[*]Venus Mantrap
[*]Triffid Enta
[*]Winged Pods

Shoggoths [Ungulates/Cetaceans]
[*]Satyrs (pygmies)
[*]Dark Young (large)
[*]Centaurs (unnatural)
[*]Kaiju (gigantic)

Zombi (The words Shambler; Soulless and Revenant aren’t as terrifying to a player who didn’t follow the creation of After Sundown than descriptions more in line with their capabilities)
[*]Walk-Puncher (Careful Walk, Punching, Unviral)
[*]Run-Spitter (Running, Spitting, Viral)
[*]Talk-Master (Commanding, Communicating, Cephalovore)

Ghosts (These however, were very clear to players what they can, or cannot, do)
[*]Will-o-Wisp (Massless, Mindless, Inch-wide)
[*]Poltergeist (Massdrive, Mindblank, Hand-wide)
[*]Wraith (Massed, Mindful, Body-wide)

Cosmology

Another departure from original AS. No more "mortal" world being separate from the rest of the setting, or even totally distinct universes. Our universe is simply a part of the Astral section of the metaverse; an area simplified into being simply "the universes where the big bang didn't stay compressed (Infernal); or hyper-expand (Orphic)").

Overall, I'm aiming for a smaller cosmology, borrowing from human myths of stacking alternate universes (hot & cold hells), and recurring global human myths of the universe being a snake biting its own tail. One third of the mobius strip like shaped multiverse is the "infernal"; one third "astral" and the last third "orphic"; and the entire thing "turns" as infernal explodes* from orphic; cools down into astral; which then dissipates into orphic.

*: Universes tend to explode/reform inside of the previous one; apparently a universe wide heat death is unlikely.

While this makes Elder Things, and Shoggoths return to their place as "alien space monsters"; the sheer distances needed to travel are obviated by methods that to any rational observer would imply "they came from an other universe". It also makes Cthulhii and Deep Ones correctly associated with Astral power sources


Resources

Unfortunately; it's actually pretty hard for most players to invent a new Resource description. Most players will use the listed examples, and not invent new ones.

Determining scale of magic items to their resource dots is also left unsaid; which makes it harder for players to describe magic items that aren't "magic [weapon]".

Others

[*]Handling Equipment: My ad hoc solution was for players who have Finances can afford 1 piece of "equipment" that allows them to buy successes at the same rate that armour allows a wearer to buy soaks (3:1 vs 4:1).
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Thu Sep 10, 2015 9:14 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by virgil »

Would the game benefit from using the rules for addiction and some of the mentor spirit disadvantages as seen in Shadowrun 4th?
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Post by Username17 »

virgil wrote:Would the game benefit from using the rules for addiction and some of the mentor spirit disadvantages as seen in Shadowrun 4th?
Shadowrun 4's addiction rules aren't great. Not the worst, but not fantastic. Addiction rules are something I'm on the fence about. On the one hand, it's a thing that is very genre appropriate. On the other hand, it's really hard to make rules that are both remotely realistic and remotely playable. Heck, it's hard to do either of those things.

It's just a very fine line before it makes characters unplayable. Hell, actual heroin addicts sleep for 14 hours a day and when they don't get their fix in time they are paralyzed with vomiting and convulsions for four actual weeks. There isn't a lot of room to accurately portray that and still have a cooperative storytelling game happen.

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Post by Whipstitch »

virgil wrote:mentor spirit disadvantages as seen in Shadowrun 4th?

Off the top of my head I can't really think of any mentor spirit penalties that are worth adding. Most of them are just straight up skill penalties and the behavioral ones I remember have a lot of overlap with current disadvantages, passion and ideologies. I suppose it's possible that there might be some good ones I'm forgetting, but basically the net you're casting here is wide enough that I think you'd be better off suggesting advantages and disadvantages individually.
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Post by Lokathor »

FrankTrollman wrote:It's just a very fine line before it makes characters unplayable. Hell, actual heroin addicts sleep for 14 hours a day and when they don't get their fix in time they are paralyzed with vomiting and convulsions for four actual weeks. There isn't a lot of room to accurately portray that and still have a cooperative storytelling game happen.
If an addiction that can't be fed makes a character unplayable, that seems fine to me. That's what an addiction should do. If a character does end up getting incapacitated by an addiction, you can either do a "6 months later" cut as they're getting out of rehab (and still fighting recidivism of course), or that player can play a different character for a while if the rest of the group doesn't want to jump ahead in time. Then again, probably half the party is ageless monsters, so jumping ahead 6 months or whatever doesn't seem like it'a always a big loss.
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