The Gaming Den

Depends on how wet "Getting Wet" entails. If an umbrella or heavy coat and hat are enough to handle moderate rain, then it's not especially dangerous. If one drop is a problem, then it is.

I think rain is fairly balanced with sun:
+ More unpredictable
- Less common, in most locations
+ Can rain for several days straight
- Rain can't get you through a window

As long as something like a water balloon or squirt gun doesn't qualify, I think getting wet works pretty well as a weakness. And as a power-preventing weakness, it doesn't deal any damage. Frankenstein's monster can go out in the rain just fine - he just can't use his special abilities while doing so.

Unlike sunlight, though, rain is a major atmospheric THING in WoD.

Witches need to be able to soar, cackling, through blinding rain. Frankensteins need to loom at you out of the storm.

Or so I would imagine...

That is a point. Maybe running water, but that's a lot less common than sunlight, pretty rare even if you count artificial running water like a firehose.

FrankTrollman wrote:I don't see how this could be true. Light moves at, well, the speed of light. So it's easy enough to blow down a wall and fill an entire battlefield instantly with sunlight. Throwing water balloons just isn't nearly the same thing.

If you can do that at night you're a pretty serious badass. A bog standard mortal can carry water around.

Draco_Argentum wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:I don't see how this could be true. Light moves at, well, the speed of light. So it's easy enough to blow down a wall and fill an entire battlefield instantly with sunlight. Throwing water balloons just isn't nearly the same thing.

If you can do that at night you're a pretty serious badass. A bog standard mortal can carry water around.

Of course they can, but they can carry guns with silver bullets around too.

If they can hit you with a water balloon, they can hit you with a submachine gun loaded with silver bullets. Getting a giant pile of aggravated damage also prevents you (in most cases) from spending power points.

The fact that a bucket of water works very similarly to a cold iron greatsword is actually a bad thing for would-be monster hunters, because multiple equivalent options is only valuable to the unprepared. Characters who are invested in developing a genuine arsenal want options that are truly different one from the other so that they have more tactics available when they hit battle music time.

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Now that being said, I would rather have each of the playable types have different kryptonite. It would be good if a team that was fighting a vampire could decide to make it a daylight raid because they knew it would screw the other guy over. But I'm kind of hitting a wall on that.

The basic problem is that if a piece of kryptnite emits "radiation" and can be carried around, then it's going to be way worse than sunlight. If a piece of radiation can't be carried around and doesn't radiate, then it's gong to be a joke. So garlic is way too powerful, because people can just wear the stuff and then automatically win. On the flip side, holy ground is way too weak, because the other gy can just voluntarily not enter.

-Username17

Some sulfur compounds could work as a weakness. It's associated with purification and with fire, but doesn't actually cause fire damage. Perhaps being in contact with pure-element powder or if it's burning nearby?

Updated to latest PDF alpha version at http://awod.googlecode.com/files/aWoD%20PDF%200.0.3.pdf.

Ice9 wrote:That is a point. Maybe running water, but that's a lot less common than sunlight, pretty rare even if you count artificial running water like a firehose.

FYI, the running water thing is strongly linked to the 'must be invited in' thing - all about established social boundaries. Vampires who can't cross running water are part of the 'vampires as metaphor for nobility' thing, because rivers were often used as natural borders between fiefs.

What if the weakness acted as a counter to Universal disciplines, similar to how salt/sand/seeds will counter sorceries?

Maybe the weakness can act as a constant bonus to resist tests for anyone under its protection.

Those are two ideas I'm pulling out of my aetheric arse, so they aren't contemplated very deeply.

So here's the chargen rules as they currently appear:

Character Generation

Scene opens on a ringing cellular phone. Camera pans back to reveal...

Characters in the World of Darkness run the gamut of power. Normal human extras are slaughtered in groups by monsters run amok in the fine tradition of slasher movies the world over. And yet even those monsters live in terror of even larger monsters from the ancient past. It can best be thought of in terms of regular horror movies going on simultaneously with the events from Hellboy or Queen of the Damned. The Characters are created at a point just before the story starts. And thus, the point where the characters begin is dependent upon what kind of story is being told:

• The Origin Story: The characters begin with little or no knowledge of the supernatural as human Luminaries. Over the course of the story they discover magical powers within themselves, attain magical powers, or simply come into conflict with supernatural agents.
• The In Media Res Adventure: The characters begin having already been supernatural creatures for some time. They have come to terms with what they are, they have made social connections amongst other supernatural creatures, and they are already members of supernatural organizations.
• The Power Fantasy: The characters begin already powerful within the context of supernatural society. Each character is a thing to be feared, whose name is uttered in whispered tones by creatures who themselves inspire fear in mortal hearts.

Characters for an Origin Story
Don't be silly, there's no such thing as vampires.

In an Origin Story, the characters are, or at least believe themselves to be mortal humans. As such, the player creates their character as if they were a mortal human Luminary. Generally over the course of the story, the player characters will be embraced by vampires, mauled by werewolves, or even discover that their memories of growing up in Indiana are digital imprints and they've been a robot the entire time. But becoming cursed with magic powers or discovering that they have had them all along is something that doesn't happen until after character generation. This makes characters who are substantially better than normal humans and makes sure that they have a diverse set of competencies. They are the Protagonists, after all.

• Attributes:
  All of a character's attributes start at 1. The player then prioritizes their Physical, Mental, and Social attributes, distributing 1 point to one pair, 3 points to another pair and 5 points to the last pair. Then they get 2 additional points that they can place anywhere they want. An individual attribute cannot be higher than 6 on character creation.
  Luminaries begin the game with an Edge of 3.
  
  Active Skills
  A character's Active Skills start at zero. The player then prioritizes their Physical, Social, and Technical skills, distributing 11 points to one set, 16 points to the next set, and 21 points to the last set. Then they get 6 points they can place anywhere they want. An individual skill cannot be higher than 6 on character creation. The character then chooses three skill specializations. Remember that they also gain a specialization for each Technical skill they have trained.
  
  Backgrounds
  A character starts with 27 points of Backgrounds. No Background can start higher than rating 6. An important thing to note is that a character in an Origin Story has a job, some social networks and maybe a family. They almost certainly don't have Backgrounds like “Camarilla Society” or “Black Spiral Ethos.”
  
  Resources
  The player chooses one 3-point Resource, one 2-point Resource, and one 1-point Resource. At the Storyteller's discretion, a player may be able to buy more Resources with Obligations. Mortal humans are not normally able to take Destiny or Secrets.
  
  Motivations
  Human characters do not normally have Master Passions. However, they still do have Driving Passions and Ethical Taboos. So the player should define some for their character. The player should really think about what their character wants, and what their character is willing to do to get what they want.
  
  Qualities
  Characters can have Merits and Flaws, but the number of the one should equal the number of the other.

Sometimes players will want to skip the portion of body horror that goes with actually transforming into a supernatural creature. In these cases the characters can have their transformations already applied, and then tell the origin story of the characters being introduced to supernatural society.

Characters for an In Media Res story
Whether you like it or not, you're in the middle of a war that has been raging for the better part of a thousand years.

In Media Res is the storytelling technique of beginning the narration in the middle of the action. It can be exciting and engrossing, and can lead to greater audience attention, especially if the origin story is somewhat tangential to the primary events of the story. Somethings the story will go back in flashbacks to produce the past events that led to the circumstances with which the story began like in Pulp Fiction or Memento, and other times the action will simply continue towards conclusion like Ocean's Eleven or Three Kings. In any case, those are all solid pieces of In Media Res storytelling and you should watch those movies if you haven't already.

Characters for an In Media Res story begin with all the introductions to supernatural society well out of the way. They are already known by and cognizant of the major Covenants and they already have membership in a cult (if they want one) and have come to an understanding of the basic score of the World of Darkness. They are supernatural creatures themselves, and have been that way for long enough that neither using their powers nor seeing others use their powers actually surprises them any more. An In Media Res story is a good place to start for groups that want to tell stories about events in the World of Darkness rather than ones exploring their character's reactions to the World of Darkness, and as such it is considered the default game.

• Attributes:
  All of a character's attributes start at 1. The player then prioritizes their Physical, Mental, and Social attributes, distributing 2 points to one pair, 4 points to another pair and 5 points to the last pair. Then they get 3 additional points that they can place anywhere they want. An individual attribute cannot be higher than 7 on character creation.
  Luminaries begin the game with an Edge of 3.
  
  Active Skills
  A character's Active Skills start at zero. The player then prioritizes their Physical, Social, and Technical skills, distributing 14 points to one set, 19 points to the second set, and 24 points to the last set. Then they get 6 points they can place anywhere they want. An individual skill cannot be higher than 6 on character creation. The character then chooses four skill specializations. Remember that they also gain a specialization for each Technical skill they have trained.
  
  Backgrounds
  A character starts with 35 points of Backgrounds. No Background can start higher than rating 6. It is entirely reasonable for a character to have been out of mortal society long enough that they don't have any “Corporate Culture” or “Service Work” type Backgrounds. On the other hand, it's equally plausible for such a character to have been keeping up appearances in the mortal world (or even being involved in mortal affairs when the story begins) and thus have such Backgrounds. Mixing characters who don't know how to handle themselves in a 7-11 with streetwise modernists in the same Coterie can be a good roleplaying hook.
  
  Resources
  The player chooses one 3-point Resource, two 2-point Resources, and one 1-point Resource. The player must take an Obligation of rating 3 or less, but they get to buy an extra Resource for taking that Obligation as normal. At the Storyteller's discretion, a player may be able to buy more Resources with more Obligations. Some characters will have retreated entirely from the mortal world or have been out of circulation long enough as to make no difference. As such, it is entirely possible that the character has no access to Resources in “mortal life” at all. It's not weird for characters to begin an In Media Res story living in a cardboard box in an alley with no job or registration in government documents.
  
  Motivations
  The character in an In Media Res story presumably has a Master Passion. If it's not the same as the default one for their supernatural type, there should be a good in-character reason for that. While they are supernatural and non-human, they should presumably still have Driving Passions and Ethical Taboos. So the player should define some for their character. The player should really think about what their character wants, and what their character is willing to do to get what they want.
  
  Qualities
  Characters can have Merits and Flaws, but the number of the one should equal the number of the other.
  
  Magical Transformation
  Characters in an In Media Res game have been supernatural for some time and have developed some tricks that are their own in addition to having a mastery of their form and the basic powers that come with it. The character has the 6 Basic and 2 Advanced disciplines common to their type, and have developed 2 Basic Disciplines and an Advanced Discipline that are theirs. In addition, the character knows one Basic or Advanced Discipline that must be from a Universal Discipline or the Sorcery that their Cult (if any) specializes in. The character has a Potency of 1 and a therefore a Power Reserve of 13.
  
  Place in the Worlds
  The character is involved with Supernatural Society. They already are a citizen of one Covenant or another (this need not be the dominant Covenant in the city the story begins in, the character could easily have spent formative years elsewhere or under the tutelage of another who was).If the player wishes their character to be a member of one Cult or another, they can simply declare that on character generation.

Sometimes players will want to play “monster hunters” rather than supernatural creatures. For an In Media Res story about Van Helsings, Watchers, and Whistlers, it is plausible to begin the story where the characters are not magical creatures and are instead badass human Luminaries fighting against the supernatural monsters of the week. In such a case the characters don't start with a supernatural type or any disciplines, but they still may well have Resources and Backgrounds dealing with the occult because in an In Media Res story, the hunters have already done this sort of thing at some point in the past. Hunters get an Edge of 4 and an increase of two other Attributes of their choice. However, they have no Potency stat, so their attribute maximums are still 6.

The Power Fantasy
I will crush you

Characters in a Power Fantasy game have the strength to throw their weight around and challenge other powerful creatures in personal conflicts. There are unfortunately no firm guidelines that can be given to what marks a good Power Fantasy Character. A chronicle where the characters are expected to ultimately square off against some wicked Ifrit may well have characters come in with a Potency of 2, while a chronicle where the characters were ultimately going to be up against The King of Three Shadows would expect characters with a Potency of 6 or even 7.

The important consideration is that characters in a Power Fantasy game should roughly equal bonuses. Although it is important to note that characters in such a game will be expected to be more divergent in capabilities. The nature of the dicepool system means that specialists in any field will roll more extra dice in their specialty than the other characters do than in an Origin Story or In Media Res game. It can lend the air of a game of rocket launcher tag in Doom or Unreal. Which for a game where things are supposed to feel powerful is fine.

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-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:distributing 11 points to one set, 16 points to the third set, and 21 points to the last set.

distributing 14 points to one set, 19 points to the third set, and 24 points to the last set.

"the third" should be "another" or something like it.

In such a case the characters don't start with a supernatural type or any disciplines, but they still may well have Resources and Backgrounds dealing with the occult because in an In Media Res story, the hunters have already done this sort of thing at some point in the future.

(emphasis mine)

Monster hunters are time travelers? Sweet!

Thank you.

-Username17

Why don't Dominate and Obfuscate have passive benefits?

Also, Swarm Song doesn't do anything passively after Basic and Symphony of Silence doesn't after Advanced.

Orion wrote:and Symphony of Silence doesn't after Advanced.

The other ones are actual properties of the disciplines at the moment, but I can answer this one: the PDF version 0.0.1 doesn't have the most recent version of Symphony of Silence, the new one up above (and the source code for a while now) has the full Discipline powers (the Elder one is passive sonar).

Ideologies
It is everyone's goal to have things be more like the way they wish that they were.

When we use the word ideology, we naturally think of the big political, religious, and economic ideologies that have shaped the 20th century and created the world we live in. But while the demands and counter demands of Imperialism, Capitalism, Fascism, Communism, and Fundamentalism have certainly torn the world apart and put it back together in a form that would be both unrecognizable and incomprehensible to the people of even the 1800s, these kinds of big ideas are generally not supported monolithically by nations or even individuals. There are few people indeed that argue for pure fundamentalism in any real way (even the Amish make concessions to modern medicine sometimes), and no one outside the looniest of ideologues who argues for actually pure Capitalism or Communism without intrusion by the other as anything but a ludicrous rhetorical strategy.

But beyond that, the fact of the matter is that mos people don't actually care how it is decided what plots of land will grow lettuce or how it is determined where that lettuce goes to be distributed to various kitchens and ultimately to salad plates. It's not the kind of thing most people think of at all. So when we talk about Ideologies of characters, we are not particularly concerning ourselves with the character's personal beliefs on the extent to which the public should be invested into the oversight of and decision making process that determines the production and distribution of agricultural products, or what form that extent of public interest should take in terms of participation and representation of individuals. We're talking about what people think they should be doing and even more importantly, what they think other people should be doing. A character's ideology determines what actions they find praiseworthy. Some characters think that a person going to war is praiseworthy because it is brave, others because it shows commitment, and still others because it involves killing those people over there. On the other hand, different people think that a person going to war is disappointing because it is violent, others because it implies support for the current regime, and still others because it involves killing those people over there. Every action you can take can be lauded or condemned by rational people for facets about it that are essentially identical. There is truly nothing that a man can do (including nothing) that can be universally seen as good or bad.

A character's Ideology should be ranked, what are the things that people could do that would most offend your character's sensibilities? What are the things that people could do that would most impress your character with that person's virtue? Note that this is the character's actual visceral responses, not the answers they would give to a questionnaire that others might read. Lots of people say they think the ten commandments are important, but how many people are in reality more offended by rape (which is not against any of the ten commandments) than by carving statues (which is)? A good start would be to write up twelve things: six things that your character would be impressed by, and six things that your character would be offended by. Note that just because a character has an ethical taboo against doing something does not mean that they lose respect for other people who do those things. It really can go either way. A character with Princess Ethics might be in awe of people who have the courage to squash bugs and turn to them for help. On the other hand, another character with Princess Ethics may feel that people who do gross things have cooties and thus not want to touch them or be near them for fear of having to think about the gross things that they do. It is entirely common for there to be contradictions available, where the character looks at the same action from two or more angles and gets different decisions on whether something should be honored or despised.

• Example: Eric is a pretty chivalrous guy, and likes to think of himself as an especially manly man. He's wary of people who aren't religious or who don't conform to his expectations of gender roles.
  • Honor: bravery, confidence, pulling your weight, holding your liquor, knowing sports trivia, women who dress sexy.
  • Despise: hurting women, acting gay, renouncing Christianity, hurting people for extended periods of time, snitching to the cops, making things ugly

The important consideration is that characters in a Power Fantasy game should roughly equal bonuses.

I think you mean "..should HAVE roughly.."

OK, so it should be minimally playable at this point. The current version is Here. So that's hopefully in time for the people who wanted to do games this weekend. Still don't have skill descriptions up, and there's going to need to be a Background skill expansive description thing. Also there should be some more stuff in the Danger chapter. Going to throw down:

• Rules for Fatigue (you can't run forever, and Mike Meyers can)
• Rules for Nonmagical Healing (if you don't have medical care, 3 Normal Damage heals to 1 Lethal).
• Rules for hide and Seek.
• Rules for car chases (Drive Skill features prominently).
• Some more combat actions I haven't thought of.

Right now I don't think the full description of everything you can do by spending an Edge is anywhere. That should go... somewhere.

The Kryptonite rules aren't up. A bunch of the subtypes don't have their flavor text bullshit like the thing where Bagheera are hated by Cats. Also I would like those things to have mechanics. Norsferatu hideousity s probably going to end up just being a bonus to Appeals to Force.

Obviously, there is only 1 city writeup, leaving space for 7 more. San Francisco is the next one on the to-do list. A character creation descriptive walkthrough has to be done. And the Personna non Grata section hasn't even been touched (that's the Rogue's Gallery).

Ugh.

In case you were wondering:

Book	Words
Dogs of War	88k
Midnight Roads	93k
aWoD	96k
Mysterious Places	99k
Second Sight	126k

Looks like in total it's going to about hit Second Sight once the Character Samples and shit are in there. That would put it at 160 pages if printed by White Wolf.

-Username17

Is there any WoD cannon that we want to keep which strongly affects Vancouver Island or Duluth? I was thinking of writing them up as, respectively, a refuge of the Deep Ones where the WCL is duking it out with whatever holds sway in the UK (did the Sabbat retain power after they became Anglican?) and a werewolf den.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Is there any WoD cannon that we want to keep which strongly affects Vancouver Island or Duluth? I was thinking of writing them up as, respectively, a refuge of the Deep Ones where the WCL is duking it out with whatever holds sway in the UK (did the Sabbat retain power after they became Anglican?) and a werewolf den.

There is a book called Dark Alliance: Vancouver written in part by Nigel Findley. While I am an open Findley fan, the fact is that this book is extremely missable. There are too many powerful elders and the prepackaged adventure basically sets fire to the entire setup anyway.

As far as I know, Duluth has never been given an official anything.

-Username17

Something I've noticed which would probably come up in play: in the "Slaying Monsters" section, Wood is listed as being super effective against Ghosts, but in the Ghost entry it says that Silver does that.

Hey Frank, in the aWoD collection in IMOI, the section on Basic Attributes: Physical, Mental, and Social is written twice, one right after the other. Just FYI.

Thanks guys. Fixed.

I m provisionally going with Alcohol, Water, and Sunlight for kryptonites. Not super happy about it. Water happens unpredictably and it can be summoned, but you can poison people with alcohol and nail them with a vodka squirt gun. No sure that balances out. It's definitely different, but I am not sure that the positives balance in the hands of trained monster hunters.

-Username17

Any chance for an alternative of the Tarot deck in the character advancement? I'm not likely to find one in Saigon plus I have an aversion to Tarot decks after knowing to many wanker wannabe wiccans in my fragile youth.

That file is some sweet shit BTW. I can't wait for it to be completely finished

ckafrica wrote:Any chance for an alternative of the Tarot deck in the character advancement? I'm not likely to find one in Saigon plus I have an aversion to Tarot decks after knowing to many wanker wannabe wiccans in my fragile youth.

That file is some sweet shit BTW. I can't wait for it to be completely finished

Yeah. I can slip some regular card equivalencies in there. A problem is that even with both jokers and the official rules of poker, a bicycle deck is only 55 cards while a Tarot deck is 78. It means that when dealing out lesser arcana and greater arcana that you have to decide how many of each ahead of time.

-Username17

OK. San Francisco by Night is up.

-Username17

Jubilations!