Analysis of Troubled Design: After Sundown

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Lokathor
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Post by Lokathor »

erik wrote:Sometimes I think people forget there's a PM function on this board. Just sayin.
No, this is actually really relevant information to a lot of people besides just Orion.
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Post by shinimasu »

Whipstitch wrote:That doesn't really match my experiences. Tactics contributes to appeal to authority, several spells and the number of dudes allowed to contribute in a teamwork test. It's not a great skill for everyone but the coterie is better off if there's a character who can dust off their leadership skills for situations where you care about hitting high thresholds like with research tests. I also strongly disagree on the amount of clout a coterie can collectively throw around with starting resource points--the assets table seriously lists "National Guard" for 3 points, after all--but that's practically a separate argument since I think those tables are vague enough that I'd like to see Frank be more specific about how many dudes he's talking about in that section.
I forgot it contributed to teamwork tests, but I don't count it when used for a spell because I feel like a skill should be judged on its merit as an actual skill.

Tactics doesn't contribute anything unique to a spell, it's just a number you add to another number. Tactics as a skill however is a specific thing you do in specific circumstances to get a specific result. The specific thing as defined by the rules is "lead an army" and I guess how often you get to use the skill as a skill depends on how you define "army" and what kind of campaign it is. I'm sure it would come up, but I also feel like you could assign the teamwork threshold to the charisma score instead and not really lose anything of value.

In games where mass combat is not likely to be a thing that happens regularly (or at all) tactics is basically a skill tax for monsters with certain builds.
Last edited by shinimasu on Thu Feb 09, 2017 9:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Orion »

Dowsing Results Are Stupid (Because Dowsing Works Too Much Like Detect Magic)

There are two really important tropes that After Sundown's detection system should facilitate.
  • Some creatures, especially otherwordly ones, are so inherently unnatural that spiritually-aware people can sense their presence and track their movements. Demons and Ghosts should make disturbances in the Force.
  • People who come onto the scene of a ritual should be able to tell that power was raised and what kind of power was raised. When you get to the garage where the necromancer was raising zombies, it should be infused with death residue. Particularly mighty rituals should be screaming beacons of power that attract the attention of everyone sensitive or knowledgeable anywhere nearby, and which heroes can locate quickly enough to intervene. If you try to open a new Hellmouth or actually resurrect the dead or whatever, it should be "loud"and people who notice should have some idea what you're doing.
After Sundown tries to handle both cases with a unified rule for "detecting magic." The use of any can be tracked; sorcery powers detect as their own color, while universal powers detect as the color of the user. This is supposed to handle the "sensing occult rituals and analyzing occult crime scenes" thing because sorceries are powers, you can detect those powers, and it tells you what type they are. It's supposed to handle the "sense and track magical beings" thing because most monsters will use a variety of universal powers as they go about their lives, and they will detect as magic of that creature's color. It doesn't work very well.
  • This is a minor complaint, but dowsing only detects the actual use of powers. most creatures use powers most of the time so this isn't a big problem, but I really do think ghosts and demons and other extra-planar beings should radiate magic even if they stop using powers.
  • The dowsing rules are present-tense. As-written, you can sense magic that is being used but not magic that has already been used. The location where Reanimate or Banishment was used needs to detect as magic for some time afterwards.
  • Some creatures come pre-built with off-color sorceries that represent iconic aspects of their curse, which produces silly detection results.
  • A lot of sorceries have very similar effects to some universal powers or have the kind of effects that could be universal powers. While it makes sense that a death creature detects as death except when they start "casting spells" that happen to be infernal or something, the reality is that a lot of monsters arbitrarily flip into and out of "using sorcery" for no good fictional reason.
As a result, magical tracking wouldn't work properly if it were allowed -- everyone would leave a confused mess of all kinds of signatures. I have a solution in mind for this that will get its own post, hopefully later tonight. I have to go to dinner now. The point is, After Sundown needs to explain why Nezumi detect astral when then turn into rats even though they are infernal monsters, and also why turning into a half-rat war form still detects astral. Also why if a Nosferatu heals itself by drinking your blood that's astral magic but if it heals you by feeding you its blood that's death magic. Also, why behemoths are astral monsters whose claws leave orphic wounds, and why androids come with astral weather magic.

Also it needs to get rid of the word "orphic" because it's terrible.
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Post by Username17 »

OgreBattle wrote:Bureaucracy, Empathy, Expression, Intimidation, Persuasion, Tactics seems like a of social skills.
Yes.

At its core, AS is a V:tM heartbreaker. As such, it is intended for it to be entirely possible to run a 4 person team where every character does social stuff as their primary or secondary shtick.
Orion wrote:Would you have any interest in farming out or splitting up some of the primary writing the way you used to do with K?
Very much yes! I just... I'm not sure how to do it with this project, to be honest. With K we used to sit around a table or walk a dog while bouncing ideas off each other in person for quite a bit before we got down to writing. By the time we divided up which draft, we both knew much of what we were each going to write. With the book reports I do with Ancient History we have a built-in structure because we're reviewing a book in rough chapter order and also we have running IM conversations before and during the drafting sections. Also, K and AncientHistory and I have all chatted enough that we can write each others' voices pretty well.

I could certainly imagine a similar situation for AS2 developing, and obviously it would make getting it finished much much quicker. But I don't know how to get from here to there.

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Post by DrPraetor »

In addition to revisions, proofing, and better tables/indexes, you also need some "players guide" type material that answers questions like:
[*] Can Strigoi go to the dentist?
[*] exactly how do the various power rituals and suchnot work or look?

and so on. You don't need the mopey shovelware that each White Wolf line would churn out for whatever type of supernatural, but you do need some brief, clear coverage on the major issues.

Some of the archetypes I came up with are too specific, especially as I went along. You really want the samples to be more like character classes than like full-fledged sample characters; I guess? But, they should be well-enough-optimized to be playable, that's pretty crucial.
Werepunk
Type: Werewolf
The werepunk was a snot-nosed kid, dumb and brave enough to go toe-to-toe with a werewolf in war form. He was probably protecting his spunky little sister, because underneath the rough exterior, werepunk has a heart of gold.
Core skills: Empathy, Intimidation, Combat, Athletics, Larceny, Sabotage.
Resources: Destiny 3 (necklace), Assets 2 (gangbangers), Contacts 1 (drug dealers), Finances 1, Duty 1 (sister)
Trappings: Hand weapon, small pistol, stupid tribal necklace that actually-is-magic, members-only jacket with a wolf on it.
The necklace warns him when supernaturals enter the material world nearby. Direction and rough distance is known. Range is 100 meters, +100 meters per point of their potency. Power source is Orphic.
Cult: Stellar Oracles
Inherent powers (skill): The Beckoning (Empathy), Repel (Intimidate)
Other powers (skill): Learn the Heart's Pain (Empathy), Banishment (Larceny), Mask of a Thousand Faces (Larceny), Lost and Found (Larceny.)
Advantages and Disadvantages: Extremely Competitive, Temperamental, Prideful

Knave
Type: Nezumi
The Knave may be a rat, but he's likable; either a lovable loser, or a lucky bastard that even his enemies have a soft spot for. He's a physician, but disgraced in some way - drug abuse or malpractice or both, before he turned.
Core skills: Expression, Survival, Larceny, Medicine, ???, ???
Resources: Contacts 3 (Akuma soul merchants), Science 3 (University Hospital), Finances 2, Secrets 1, Enemies 3 (screwed-over mobsters).
Trappings: Nice clothes, physician's implements.
Cult: Church of Set
Inherent powers (skill): Abyss of the Body (Medicine), Hide From Notice (Survival), Learn the Heart's Pain (Larceny), The Beckoning (Survival)
Other powers (skill): Suggestion (Expression), Attract (Expression), Aura of Decay (Medicine), Desire Reflection (Larceny).
Advantages and Disadvantages: Innocence, Diplomatic Incident, Red Taped

Hotpot
Type: Bagheera
At a certain point, you become so glamorous that your only choice is to kill for hire. That's called "work life balance", look it up.
Core skills: Combat, Drive, Stealth, Tactics, Persuasion, Rigging
Resources: Contacts 3 (People who hire sexy lady assassins), Finances 2, Languages 1, Secrets 1, Stalkers 1 (Fans).
Cult: Storm Lords
Trappings: Red sports car, sexy clothes, sexy weapons.
Inherent powers (skill): Hide From Notice (Stealth),
Other powers (skill): Rising Mists (Rigging), Lightning Strike (Rigging), Attract (Tactics), Dismissal (Tactics).
Advantages and Disadvantages: Attractive, Distinctive Appearance, Offensive to Animals

Eco-Warrior
Type: Nosferatu
People can be shallow and cruel. Nature may seem cruel, but it is primarily indifferent, which is better if you are shy, ugly and weird. The Eco-Warrior is a bit of a loose cannon, but fiercely loyal to the few friends she has. She knows a fair bit of science, especially for someone who hates the modern world so much.
Core skills: Combat, Survival, Intimidation, Electronics, Medicine, Research
Resources: Secrets 3, Science 2, Destiny 1 (Whisper Stones).
Cult: Chain of Coronis
Trappings: Unfashionable clothes, beat up camping gear. The Whisper Stones don't seem to do anything, but if they're wet they register as very powerful astral magic, useful for setting off a false trail or messing with electronic navigation equipment. Probably they're doing something evil?
Inherent powers (skill): Hide From Notice (Survival),
Other powers (skill): Thaumaturgical Forensics (Research), Blood of Acid (Survival), Aura Perception (Research), Telepathy (Intimidation).
Advantages and Disadvantages: Loyalty, Eerie Presence, Naive

Officer and a Vampire
Type: Strigoi
He's a vampire and a cop. No, not like the TV show: he's not Canadian, he's just very polite.
Core skills: Combat, Bureaucracy, Intimidation, Empathy, Artisan, Medicine.
Resources: Finances 3, Science 2, Assets 2 (Cops), Languages 1, Duty 2 (Police Officer.)
Cult: Hollow Ones
Trappings: Pistol, nightstick, badge. You don't need much else if you have the badge.
Inherent powers (skill): Mesmerism (Intimidation),
Other powers (skill): Cloud Memory (Artisan), Pain Drops (Combat), Dark Knight of the Soul (Intimidation), Light of Ennui (Artisan)
Advantages and Disadvantages: Eidetic Memory, Compulsive Behavior, Infectious Mood

Rainmaker
Type: Daeva
Has no weather powers, but he's somehow in television. The rainmaker loves having connections almost as much as he loves using those connections to show off. Sometimes that means landing a modeling or acting gig for a favored blood doll; sometimes that means finding or hiding secrets.
Core skills: Intimidation, Bureaucracy, Expression, ???, ???, ???
Resources: Contacts 3 (TV producers and agents), Finances 2, Secrets 1.
Cult: The Order Daziban
Trappings: Flashy clothes, business cards.
Inherent powers (skill): Attract (Expression)
Other powers (skill): Flames of Panic (Intimidation), Summons (Bureaucracy), Command (Intimidation), Conditioning (Intimidation)
Advantages and Disadvantages: Blatantly Magical

Clockmaker
Type: Baali
The clockmaker is interested in making an army of killer robots, because that would be awesome. If you try to talk to him about his feelings and motivations, he will tell you about killer robots and you will be forced to confront the terrible truth: that whatever you want isn't as cool and you'll have to live with the poor decisions that led you to *not* build an army of killer robots.
Core skills: Larceny, Intimidation, ???, Electronics, Artisan, Research
Resources: Destiny 3 (killer robot making equipment), Assets 3 (killer robots), Secrets 2, Finances 1, Enemies 3 (escaped robots). His killer robots are spawn, and it's a lot of work to condition each one after he finishes it - and they still tend to turn evil.
Cult: independent
Trappings: Weird sciency shit.
Inherent powers (skill): Command (Intimidation), Mesmerism (Intimidation), Aura Perception (Research), Light of Ennui (Artisan), Learn the Heart's Pain (Larceny), Cloud Memory (Artisan), Fire Starter (Research)
Other powers (skill): Conditioning (Intimidation), Phantasmagoria (Artisan),
Advantages and Disadvantages: Time Sense, Disloyal, Feared by Children

NGO Princess
Type: Dryad
She's blonde, she's perfect, she's beyond bipolar. She works for an NGO in order to save - whales? AIDS orphans? - something like that. But, especially if she's slighted, the perfect facade will crack and she's down to party - which includes killing whoever crossed her without remorse. It's "self care". Once the drugs and the murder and the drug murder have cheered her up, she's too busy doing good to let an occasional lapse in her humanity get her down.
Core skills: Combat, Stealth, Survival, Intimidation, Medicine, Research, Operations
Resources: Science 3, Finances 2, Secrets 1.
Cult: Hashshashin
Trappings: Cute pink sweater, cute pink clothes with sports logos, selfie stick, knives with hollow poison reservoirs, cute diary for writing and crossing out names of enemies.
Inherent powers (skill): Bitter Fruit (Survival), Grass Rope (Survival), Aura Perception (Research), Rising Mists (Operations), Enchanted Slumber (Medicine), Pain Drops (Combat), Puppetry (Medicine), Telepathy (Intimidation)
Other powers (skill): Shadow Casting (n/a), Cloak of Shadow (Stealth), Quickness (Combat), Alacrity (Combat).
Advantages and Disadvantages: Experimenter, Aimless, Flake

Theatre Goth
Type: Khaibit
He commands the dead - but what he really wants to do is direct. Unfortunately, his actors have a habit of dying during his productions, which makes it difficult to break out of the amateur theatre circuit. He finances his artistic endeavors with a variety of criminal enterprses and scams, but the other members of his cult do not respect him or take him seriously, which rankles.
Core skills: Combat, Empathy, Leadership, Expression, Medicine, Operations
Resources: Secrets 3, Finance 2, Assets 1 (Theatre Nerds)
Cult: Ash Walkers
Trappings: Puffy director pants, beret, pistols.
Inherent powers (skill): Eyes of the Night (Empathy), Summon Spirit (Operations), Compel Spirits (Empathy), Aura Perception (Empathy), Thaumaturgical Forensics (Medicine), Solid Darkness (Combat), Reanimate (Operations),
Other powers (skill): Deny the Gauntlet (Operations), Rain of Glass (Operations), Glimpse the Abyss (Expression), Frozen Note (Expression).
Advantages and Disadvantages: Haunted
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Post by Username17 »

Orion wrote:
  • This is a minor complaint, but dowsing only detects the actual use of powers. most creatures use powers most of the time so this isn't a big problem, but I really do think ghosts and demons and other extra-planar beings should radiate magic even if they stop using powers.
  • The dowsing rules are present-tense. As-written, you can sense magic that is being used but not magic that has already been used. The location where Reanimate or Banishment was used needs to detect as magic for some time afterwards.
  • Some creatures come pre-built with off-color sorceries that represent iconic aspects of their curse, which produces silly detection results.
  • A lot of sorceries have very similar effects to some universal powers or have the kind of effects that could be universal powers. While it makes sense that a death creature detects as death except when they start "casting spells" that happen to be infernal or something, the reality is that a lot of monsters arbitrarily flip into and out of "using sorcery" for no good fictional reason.
Agreed.

One thing that I think may help (as well as make character generation a bit easier) is the removal of the Elder powers from the main list and the inclusion of a mighty rituals of vast power section. Things which leave a taint upon the Earth that you can find with a compass from across town like the portal in Stranger Things can be explicitly called out.

It can also be improved with improved nomenclature on Spells. When certain things are spells and other things are not, then we can determine what can and cannot be dowsed.

Another issue is the Nezumi rat form issue, which can be aided with the nomenclature that monsters treat certain paths of magic as universal. So not only do Nezumi not need to read books of dark sorcery to turn into a Rat, but they don't detect Astral when they do it.

And I do agree that extra dimensional monsters should detect as magic all the time.
Orion wrote:Also it needs to get rid of the word "orphic" because it's terrible.
It's an English word that happens to mean exactly what it's supposed to mean. If you can think of a better adjective, I'm all ears. But I can't think of one. It's a real word with a real meaning that is exactly what the game is talking about - so you're going to have to be a lot more specific than just saying you don't like it.

-Username17
Last edited by Username17 on Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Lokathor »

FrankTrollman wrote:Very much yes! I just... I'm not sure how to do it with this project, to be honest.
A github based situation seems simplest. There's an issues handler, project board thingy, you can make it a repo that's part of an organization and then add others to the organization so that others can quickly make commits, repos have their own wiki, all the stuff. You can also hook it up to Gitbook and you get results like this as a webpage, but it can also produce .epub, .mobi, and .pdf for you as downloads.

In terms of editing flow compared to just using MS Word on your desktop, you just edit the files (probably Markdown formatted files, but totally plain text files works as well and others can add the markup later), save them into wherever you checked out the project to on disk, "commit" the changes using the GihHub desktop client, and then "sync" the changes to upload it back into the main server. It's not too different from emailing a draft to someone, except that you're just throwing it at a central server instead of a particular email address.

Side Note: This year has an October with a Friday the 13th in it, so if we have a "playable enough" second edition by October I expect everyone to run some AS2 one shots.
Last edited by Lokathor on Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:12 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Orion
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Post by Orion »

I live in America but I have a flexible schedule and a large supply of amphetamine. IM is a very real possibility for me. I also think I'm already pretty good at imitating your authorial voice, so I think that if the goal were essentially for me to ghostwrite for you that would honestly not be difficult. I have no idea whether the reverse is true -- I'm not sure that I've posted enough here in my own voice (as opposed to in my attempt at the "house style") that anyone would be able to imitate it. This actually recalls some questions I wanted to ask but didn't have the time/energy/courage to ask about back when I was proofing and copy-editing AS1. Basically, how would you like AS to read? AS 1 seems to have started as essentially a series of opinion essays and tech demos, and it reads like a collection of essays more than it does like a conventional game book. "Professional" offerings like the 4th edition Shadowrun or 3rd edition D&D core books have tended to spend 99% of their words presenting the rules and maybe 1% explaining how and why those rules were written and what they are meant to achieve. They also tend to use relatively formal English without a great deal of idiom, slang, or regional dialect, and to be multi-author affairs that create a "neutral" authorial voice by blending out the individual contributors' personal tics. The RPG product most similar to AS as a reading experience is actually Apocalypse World. Both are single-author books that spend a lot of ink why the rules look the way they do, how they are meant to be used, and even how the author things RPGs in general should work. Both include essays advising readers on how to write their own material for the system. Both grab and hold reader attention by using a deliberately "edgy" tone and by playing up the idiosyncrasies in the authors' diction and prosody. Both lay out rules sections in the order dictated by the argument being made for the game, even when the resulting sequence is quite inconvenient for actually playing the game.

Cleaning up AS 1 copy was really very difficult for me because I didn't know what you wanted the book to even sound like. Trollman writing is easy to spot in large part because some of your go-to expressions are really very unusual to the point where I didn't know how to even edit a section for clarity without either making it "less Trollman" or going out of my way to leave in the quirks of your idiolect. I know that if you were Zeb, Monte, or Cook, and I were one of the other two or an editor or manager responsible for stitching together their book, I would tend to rework or ask you to rework drafts to avoid idiolectical phrases the other authors' would not use, that the audience might find distracting, or that were simply repeated with notable frequency. I would also have cut the references to the Glow Skulls and other things only Californians have heard of. Since this isn't WotC and AS was a single-author indie product, I wasn't sure whether you would want me to deliberately leave in stuff like "really very," "to even," and "to the point where," to deliberately take them out, or to leave them alone in passages that worked as-written without forcing myself to use them in any rewrites I did. If I were going to contribute any substantial amount of primary writing, of copy editing, or of literary editing, I would want to have a agreement up front about how to the finished product was intended to read: a Trollman book with some material contributed by Trollman impersonators? A Trollman-Anderson book with a blended prose style? Go full Baker and just have multiple authorial voices giving in-text commentary on each others' work?
Last edited by Orion on Fri Feb 10, 2017 9:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Username17 »

PowerBureaucracyEmpathyExpressionIntimidationPersuasionTactics
AuthorityXXXX
Celerity
Clout
DiscernmentXXX
Fortitude
MagnetismXXXXX
VeilX
Call of the WildXX
Chasing the Storm
Coil of ThornsX
Depths of DespairXX
Sands of MorpheusXX
Secrets of the EarthXX
TechnomancyXX
Descent of EntropyXX
Names of the BlasphemiesXX
Progress of GlassXX
Song of SwarmsX
Tangle of ArachneXX
Walk of FlameX
Lure of DestructionXX
Measure of FleshX
NecromancyXXX
Path of BloodX
Play of ShadowsXX
Symphony of SilenceXX

PowerArtisanElectronicsMedicineOperationsResearchRigging
AuthorityX
CelerityXX
CloutX
DiscernmentX
FortitudeX
Magnetism
Veil
Call of the WildX
Chasing the StormXXX
Coil of ThornsXX
Depths of DespairXX
Sands of MorpheusXX
Secrets of the EarthXX
TechnomancyXX
Descent of EntropyXX
Names of the Blasphemies
Progress of GlassX
Song of SwarmsX
Tangle of ArachneX
Walk of FlameXX
Lure of Destruction
Measure of FleshXX
NecromancyX
Path of BloodXX
Play of ShadowsX
Symphony of SilenceX

PowerAthleticsCombatDriveLarcenyStealthSurvival
Authority
CelerityXX
CloutX
Discernment
FortitudeX
MagnetismX
VeilXXX
Call of the WildX
Chasing the Storm
Coil of ThornsX
Depths of DespairX
Sands of Morpheus
Secrets of the Earth
Technomancy
Descent of EntropyX
Names of the BlasphemiesX
Progress of GlassXX
Song of SwarmsXX
Tangle of ArachneX
Walk of FlameX
Lure of DestructionXX
Measure of FleshX
NecromancyX
Path of BloodX
Play of ShadowsXX
Symphony of SilenceX

Does anyone think that any skill is over represented or under represented?
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Post by Schleiermacher »

Well, currently the numbers look like this:

Bureaucracy: 8
Empathy: 8
Expression: 8
Intimidation: 8

Persuasion: 7
Tactics: 6

Artisan 6
Electronics 2
Medicine 7
Operations 6
Research 6
Rigging 7

Athletics 3
Combat 5
Drive 3
Larceny 6
Stealth 4
Survival 6

I don't know your standards, but I'd be inclined to consider 5-7 an appropriate number of powers per skill, so that Bureaucracy, Empathy, Expression and Intimidation have too many, and Electronics, Athletics, Drive and Stealth have too few.

The skills that have too many are also among the most broadly useful skills in the game, which probably isn't a coincidence, and the skills that have too few, while they are very useful, are also the ones with the most strictly physical applications, which would make it hard to justify using them for powers except in obvious cases -there are only so many ways to do Stealth magic, you know? Electronics may be an even better example.
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Post by Orion »

FrankTrollman wrote:It can also be improved with improved nomenclature on Spells. When certain things are spells and other things are not, then we can determine what can and cannot be dowsed.
Are you saying that non-Spell powers will no longer be detectable? I'm in favor of that change, but it is a change, since AS 1 explicitly said that dowsing detects stuff like Devastation which is clearly not a Spell.
Another issue is the Nezumi rat form issue, which can be aided with the nomenclature that monsters treat certain paths of magic as universal. So not only do Nezumi not need to read books of dark sorcery to turn into a Rat, but they don't detect Astral when they do it.
Can a Nezumi learn Transformation without reading magic books, and if so do they cast it as an Astral or as an Infernal spell?
It's an English word that happens to mean exactly what it's supposed to mean
It may be an English word, but it's not one that most of your readers will know, and honestly it's only an English word in the sense that "Buddhist" is -- it's just an English adjectival suffix on the name of a foreign group. It's also a stretch to say that it means "exactly what the game is talking about." Everything online uses it either more specifically than AS (to describe or refer to a specific historical movement of Greek and Roman mystery cults) or too broadly (using it to mean occult or mysterious in a general way) or just outright differently (as a synonym for oracular).
so you're going to have to be a lot more specific than just saying you don't like it.
It's a very ugly word, both by itself and in context. "rf" and "mf" are sounds that are used in German, but that American English speakers don't like to use or hear; when they do show up in modern English it's typically in loan words and foreign names (like Orpheus). "-ic(k)" is also typically considered an ugly sound and I think most English speakers would agree that "-ly" adjectives, "-al" adjectives sound much nicer, "-ish" adjectives sound slightly nicer, and a variety of rarer forms like "-ary," "-ical," and "-ual" are also preferable. Using "orphic" in AS is also a sin against parallelism. Why use 2 -al words and then throw in an -ic word? The obvious partner for Infernal magic and Astral magic would of course be Umbral magic, but I would also consider Deathly.

EDIT:
Electronics may be an even better example.
Electronics probably shouldn't even be a skill in a game with a short skill list that is supposed to beings from places and times that don't even have electronics.
Last edited by Orion on Fri Feb 10, 2017 11:21 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Prak »

Well, I know that there are differences between myself and others, but if you'll have me, I can at the least do copy stuff and make writeups sound good.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by Username17 »

Orion wrote:Are you saying that non-Spell powers will no longer be detectable?
Yes. You can now detect spells, enchantments, and otherworldly presences. Detecting the mere past presence of supernatural creatures or the spending of power points requires the use of powers.
Orion wrote:Can a Nezumi learn Transformation without reading magic books, and if so do they cast it as an Astral or as an Infernal spell?
Yes.
Electronics probably shouldn't even be a skill in a game with a short skill list that is supposed to beings from places and times that don't even have electronics.
That is a possibility. Electronics is a pretty good skill though. And you don't want ancient golems and and vampires and shit to wake up as excellent computer hackers or whatever unless that is their actual shtick.

What you could do is to dump Electronics instead of Sabotage, but then give Background requirements to do things with computers and such. So you would roll Larceny + Intelligence to hack, but you'd need a Computer background to do that.
Why use 2 -al words and then throw in an -ic word? The obvious partner for Infernal magic and Astral magic would of course be Umbral magic
All your other arguments seemed totally insane. But "It rhymes, and you know it rhymes" is a hard argument to refute. Umbral it is.

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Post by Orion »

shinimasu wrote:basically a skill tax for monsters with certain builds.
Describing it as a "skill tax" would be accurate for many games, but in this case it actually misses the point. Skills are plentiful in Sundown and people can just pay skill taxes without any trouble. The problem is not that "Tactics: 6" strains skill point budgets but rather that it strains disbelief. "Disbelief taxes" are all over the place in Sundown.

PCs in After Sundown are very good at doing things. To be clear, I'm not saying that they each do some specific things well; I'm saying that they are all masters in the art of "doing stuff." According to the difficulty chart, 2 hits is enough for "professional" challenges. A starting Media Res PC gets enough stat and skill points to buy 3 points in every skill and raise every stat to 3.3. They also get 11 skill specializations and passive discipline bonuses to various skills and stats. A true generalist PC would be able to reliably do professional-level work in any field. Adventures, of course, tend to provide a lot more "extreme" scenarios than merely "professional" ones. Fortunately, AS 1's skill list is padded out with some extremely niche offerings. There's plenty of "dump skills" like Animal Ken you could skimp on to pump up the stuff you actually care about, and lots of characters can scrape together 12 dice to roll on extreme tasks in everything they actually care about. If you tell players to sink 5-6 points into 2-3 random skills for magic reasons, they won't complain that they need the points for something else. They will complain that it doesn't make sense for them to have those skills.

Seriously, every time I've sat down with a non-Denner to make an After Sundown characters, the player has complained that they got too many skill points and didn't want to spend them.
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Post by Chamomile »

Concerning writing style, I am strongly in favor of organizing things to be less of a series of essays and more of a reference that is easy to navigate. I don't mind the strong voice of the writing and I think that having that voice will help it to stand out and get people reading, which is good for a game that has almost nobody willing to give it a try just on the strength of its title (unknown) and premise (very intentionally the same basic premise as an existing well known game). Without anything else to serve as a hook, After Sundown does at least benefit from the fact that if you can get someone to read one page, they might be having enough fun reading it to keep doing it just for fun, hopefully long enough to actually like the game.

I feel less strongly about whether major contributors should be mimicking the Trollman style or doing their own thing, but I favor the latter. While strong disagreements should be left out because that encourages people to rehash those arguments at the table and makes it less clear what the rules actually are (even if, from a strict RAW perspective, the actual rule is spelled out clearly, in actual play people will be going from memory a lot and may remember the thing that writer X talked about preferring but ultimately conceded to writer Y as being the actual rule), otherwise having the game be a series of essays, demonstrations, and flash fiction between two or more writers only helps it stand out from the crowd more. In fact, if you're going that route, go whole hog and have individual sections have individual attributions. Let the combat rules be "by Frank Trollman" and the dowsing rules be "by Orion Anderson" or whatever. Come up with moderately spooky symbols to assign to yourselves and put it in the margins for easier identification. Make it very obvious that this is a collaboration between different people with strong, individual voices but a shared vision.

Also, I mentioned flash fiction. You need more of it. The pieces tucked away in the back of After Sundown were not that evocative, involved little that would resemble actual gameplay or which illustrated conflicts at all, and weren't even identifiable as fiction as opposed to a sudden soliloquy by the author as some kind of weird outro. After Sundown was one of the first things I read after finding this forum, and I didn't know Frank well enough to know that he wouldn't just do something like that, so his first person fiction at the end seemed like he was just describing his actual real life for some weird reason until I got a few paragraphs in and it became obvious that this wasn't "why I'm fascinated with spooky vampires" and "I am a fictional person who has personally become a vampire." This is the drawback of having a strong voice in your writing, and it's easier to get around if you label your fiction more clearly, with a title and a header and by having the first one be third person rather than first (you can put in your own Da Vinci Forward Regular joke here).
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Post by virgil »

I'm in agreement with Chamomile in terms both organizing things for use as a reference and keeping the strong voice. I'm all for contributing where I can as well, but I'm unfortunately the type of person that needs direction (we need this ToC made to not look terrible, write flash fiction related to Strigoi porn dungeons for the Advancement chapter, etc)

As far as what I think needs to be done - we still need a Hide'n'Seek system, setting notes for underwater locations and rules for being wet. Something to help sell the advancement system better; my players still don't like the idea of an adventure ending where one player gets a big thing and another gets nothing due to complete lack of interest in what was randomly drawn, or feel that bidding XP risks breaking up a game.
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Post by Whipstitch »

shinimasu wrote:I'm sure it would come up, but I also feel like you could assign the teamwork threshold to the charisma score instead and not really lose anything of value.
Due to the genre I'd actually argue that you lose quite a bit that way because some minionmancy archetypes are cunning or forceful but otherwise pretty socially inept. Necromancers don't necessarily want much leadership since shamblers are dumb as shit pretty much no matter what you do but lycanthropes can get a fair bit out of summoning a pack of animals and heading up a search party.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Orphic seems odd; but it's a word that people do understand; although explaining that it relates to Orpheus often helps; and recounting the story of Orpheus' journey to Mictlan to rescue Eurydice from Hades gives players the understanding that this is the dark underworld of Adventure Time (whose Death is dating Life); or Pan-Human myths of deadly underworlds (the "three worlds" model is pretty much everywhere on Earth; Heavens; Earth; Underworld. Which can translate to 'Olympus', 'Cosmos', 'Hades'; if using only one language map).
Orion wrote: Seriously, every time I've sat down with a non-Denner to make an After Sundown characters, the player has complained that they got too many skill points and didn't want to spend them.
Background skills, I'll concede; are difficult for people to grok in AS1; I ended up reflavouring them as: Academic, Recreational, and Secret; to better clarify their definition to non-WoD players that many of AS's diction choices reflect.

Even then, I told players to treat their Background skills as "floating" points, to be spent when they felt made sense, or helped to advance the plot. Marking down the amount of unspent points on their character sheet.

Interestingly enough; while leveling up, magic (such as Sorceries) were always scooped up by players. While skill points tended to be ignored. Languages was something else that got picked up a lot, but not so much the other backgrounds.

Also, more examples of backgrounds would be nice.

I'd also like to mention that the essays which explain the reasons that the rules are the way they are are really good at helping to make the rules easier to understand from a refereeing point of view. Placing them in the end of the book, as an appendix might be a way to present the overall book in a game ready format for people new to the content. The dispersed nature of character creation information throughout the book is a complaint I've recieved from many non-Denners. This also makes me realize that (while considered common for RPGs rulebooks today) the 3e PHB chapter layout of starting with the character creation chapters was an improvement even the 1990's 2e PHBs that TSR last produced. With character creation was at the start, and not a couple of chapters in where the players might miss it; the rulebooks were better able to communicate with new players.
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Post by JigokuBosatsu »

Orion wrote: "characters end up specifically being awesome at surgery and rock music."
Image
Don't forget martial arts and race car driving.

Seriously though, I am hopeful to see a new edition of AS. I loved the idea but feel like it needed some... road grime, I guess? (to borrow a term from music criticism) Good luck on making it happen!
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Post by DrPraetor »

The table should also include an "*" or "**" for the skills that benefit from the passive bonus of the power. So Path of Blood would get an "*" on medicine and survival because it gives +1/level to each; descent of entropy gets a "**" for... medicine (diagnose an ailment, which needs rules btw), research? (or whatever skill goes into "reconstruct an event from evidence" tests?), electronics and operations (and artisan? what other skills would you use to repair things?).

You know how I feel about the number 7.
Internal Alchemy (Umbral)
[*] Internal alchemy. This lets you make drugs inside your own body. In addition to being able to get high at will or poison yourself (if desired), you can optimize your body for some task; this costs a power point and provides a +2 bonus to a skill of your choice, but you also poison yourself (as Rat Poison.) As soon as the poison stops doing damage (or if the damage is somehow prevented), you lose the bonus. You can also dose yourself with any drug or poison you know how to make.
[*] Hands without shadow. In addition to not casting shadows, your attacks cannot be dodged (that is, your threshold is not increased if the target takes a dodge action.) This works with bullets, for whatever reason.
[*] Stave off monkey. You can step down the time for your recharging ritual. Does nothing if you are not on the ritual schedule.
Advanced:
[*] Dim Mak. This does not work with bullets. After striking with an unarmed attack (even - perhaps especially - if you do no damage), you may inflict a dose of "Toxic" poison (as per Tongue of the Serpent.)
[*] Contract of the Fox. Spend 1 power point to match the initiative of 1 enemy for 1 combat round; you also gain additional initiative passes, if they do.
[*] Walk the way. Travel from a shadow gate to any shadow gate you have previously visited.

Masonry (Infernal)
Basalt temples where the angles are wrong. Mainly this is for demons but of course some Deep Ones get it too.
[*] Prison without walls. By arranging the furniture in a room and/or drawing some mystical designs, you can create a prison that no-one, except you and people you assist (by physically pulling them out), can escape. There are no physical barriers but anyone in the room will find it impossible to leave, even if they can see the door. This takes an hour; if you have at least six pieces of suitably creepy furniture, it can be done covertly. Otherwise you have to draw magic symbols on the walls and it is overt. Breaking free of the room is an extended test (maybe? I need to think about the mechanics. It's not that great a power even if it always works.)
[*] Around the corner. When you make a roughly 90 degree turn in any hallway, you can come out in any other hallway in the same building. This power does not work if there are observers around the corner you are traversing, unless you also have Hide in Plain Sight.

Advanced:
[*] Doom. You can shift an entire building into the shallows of the Dark Reflection. This is covert if you have 24 hours, free access to most of the building and a team of contractors to place mirrors in inauspicious locations, saw some doors at strange angles and so forth; working by yourself, you can do it in 4 hours but this requires evil glowing runes and is overt.
[*] Gateway. A gateway leads from the mortal world to some particular place - of your choosing! but you must have been there before personally - in the Dark Reflection. So you can travel infinite distances as long as you don't mind ending up in hell. The gateway is a specially constructed room full of glowing symbols and junk - the mere existence of the room is overt and a breech of the vow of silence. Traversing the gateway inflicts a box of normal damage (not resistable), and anyone entering the room must make a Willpower + Research test (1 hit) is travel through the gate by accident.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

I thought the plan was to eliminate discipline passive skill bonuses.
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Post by DrPraetor »

Even for stuff like Vigor? I'm not sure how I feel about that.

In general, yes, bonus dice are boring.

BUT, within genre, super-strength, super-charisma (and I suppose super-intelligence but that's harder for the engine to model) need to exist as powers and they need to involve rolling qualitatively-larger piles of dice.

So I don't think Vigor or Magnetism would be able to pull their narrative weight without dice pool bonuses.
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Post by Lokathor »

If there's a power that says, "You get a passive +2 Strength" then that's one thing. Because you keep track of it by writing it on your sheet and it's very clear and easy to understand.

However, if you have a power that says "You can walk up walls and along the ceiling" and then you just have to remember later that it's from Clout so you get a +1 Strength, but you don't get another +1 Strength when you get another Clout power, then that's just a load of nonsense and should be cut.
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Post by Username17 »

The intention is to cut the passive skill bonuses, but not the passive attribute bonuses. So Clout still gives you strength, and Fortitude still gives you bonus soak, but Progress of Glass doesn't give you bonuses to Drive. The intention here is to give all the disciplines that would give you skill bonuses other passive effects that are less of a min/max requirement.

Ideally, we shouldn't be telling people that their character concept needs to go learn fire magic in order to get the appropriate dice pool targets. But fire magic can still do cool things and it should.

It's part of an ongoing effort to rejigger dicepools so that they aren't leaning so hard on the assumptions of SR4.

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