The Gaming Den

virgileso wrote:mortal luminary blue collar worker (such as a plumber, Italian descent)

might as well write up a barrel throwing ogre to go with it...

FrankTrollman wrote:

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:animals

Will do.



-Username17

That brings back memories.

A couple things:

Telekinesis seems to suck slightly. If it's only barely more accurate than a grabber hand, it doesn't seem like you'd be able to levitate a ring of keys off a nearby table and telekinetically unlock the door to your prison cell - which is clearly something you should be able to do. Can we give Telekinesis fine motor control without breaking things?

What does using disciplines look like? If I use Giant Size or Vigor, clearly I'm literally hulking out, but there are a whole lot of disciplines that I'd rather not let people know I'm using, especially (often) people other than my target. Say I'm being held at silver-knife-point by a coterie and I want to Shorten the Fuse to sow some chaos. (Or Blind the Senses, or any kind of Dominate at all, or many other, deadlier things.) Do I have any hope of doing this without everyone going, "Oh crap guys, he's using a discipline, kill him instantly!"


EDIT: Also, regarding Dominate.

When a character is compelled to do something which is against their nature (generally including following suicidal orders), they may spend an action dithering. They at this point lose an entire round of actions as they have their internal struggle, making an additional resistance check to attempt to shake off the effects.

How many times can someone spend their actions dithering to get more saves?

EDIT2: Also re: Dominate,

Dominate requires eye contact to function

Mob Mastery wrote:A character with Mob Mastery may affect a number of characters with their Domination powers simultaneously.

How do you get eye contact with multiple creatures at once? Do you just have eyes that move independently of each other that I don't know about? Or do you simply need Will to Power for Mob Mastery to be useful?

Gelare wrote:A couple things:

Telekinesis seems to suck slightly. If it's only barely more accurate than a grabber hand, it doesn't seem like you'd be able to levitate a ring of keys off a nearby table and telekinetically unlock the door to your prison cell - which is clearly something you should be able to do. Can we give Telekinesis fine motor control without breaking things?

Yeah, the grabber arm thing is a bit disappointing, but basically it seems like using the Force. You can grab the keys, but then you unlock the cell yourself.

Gelare wrote:What does using disciplines look like? If I use Giant Size or Vigor, clearly I'm literally hulking out, but there are a whole lot of disciplines that I'd rather not let people know I'm using, especially (often) people other than my target. Say I'm being held at silver-knife-point by a coterie and I want to Shorten the Fuse to sow some chaos. (Or Blind the Senses, or any kind of Dominate at all, or many other, deadlier things.) Do I have any hope of doing this without everyone going, "Oh crap guys, he's using a discipline, kill him instantly!"

The ones that specifically indicate that they are covert are covert. Others are specifically not masquerade breaking, so they probably don't look supernatural in any way (but possibly still odd or threatening). The main way to tell if powers are being used, aside from observing their effects, are things like compasses and petunias.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Others are specifically not masquerade breaking,

Right, thanks for reminding me. Can we get some more info on how Masquerade breaches are likely to go down? Maybe a chart mapping who cares about a PC committing a Masquerade breach by severity and publicness, and the likely consequences for someone who breaks the Masquerade? Will a PC's covenant or cult protect or hunt them? I apologize if all this is in the source oWoD and nWoD material; I've never played either of those games, and really like aWoD as a standalone game.

virgileso wrote:One of my players is running into trouble using Telepathy, since we don't know if/what resists Mind Reading, as well as the base time for the extended action.

Telepathy Chart is go.

Gelare wrote:Can we give Telekinesis fine motor control without breaking things?

Sure.

Gelare wrote:How many times can someone spend their actions dithering to get more saves?

Once per time they are ordered to kill themselves. Do you think that needs to be in there?

How do you get eye contact with multiple creatures at once? Do you just have eyes that move independently of each other that I don't know about? Or do you simply need Will to Power for Mob Mastery to be useful?

Added explanatory text.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Once per time they are ordered to kill themselves. Do you think that needs to be in there?

On the first read through it was a little unclear. I had to read it a second time before coming to the conclusion that they dither, and then if they fail to resist, kill themselves.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:Once per time they are ordered to kill themselves. Do you think that needs to be in there?

On the first read through it was a little unclear. I had to read it a second time before coming to the conclusion that they dither, and then if they fail to resist, kill themselves.

Charm effects have always been among the things to need clarification, because PCs in general seem to get kinda pissed when their tricked out Celerity-Potence-War Form character is ordered to immediately turn around and gut two of their pals. So barring stuff like loyalty ethics, can you dither on stuff like "kill thy buddies," or only on "kill thyself"?

Also, side note, is there some secret reason why War Form does aggravated damage instead of lethal? Cause it seems to make it kinda redundant that Bagheera get War Form and Touch of Darkness. Especially since, as near as I can tell, aggravated damage on NPCs has about the same effect as any other kind of damage, since no one really expects most NPCs to go and heal offscreen.

Gelare wrote:So barring stuff like loyalty ethics, can you dither on stuff like "kill thy buddies," or only on "kill thyself"?

You can dither on anything that you could be forced to do by contradiction.

Gelare wrote:Also, side note, is there some secret reason why War Form does aggravated damage instead of lethal? Cause it seems to make it kinda redundant that Bagheera get War Form and Touch of Darkness. Especially since, as near as I can tell, aggravated damage on NPCs has about the same effect as any other kind of damage, since no one really expects most NPCs to go and heal offscreen.

War form does aggravated damage, I assume, for historical reasons: It's always done aggravated damage. But yeah, I wondered about the touch of darkness/war form overlap on bagheera too. It does allow them to claw out of a shipping crate without resorting to war form, but that seems a little pointless. It's much cooler if they transform before escaping.

Either solution (dropping ToD from bagheera or aggravated damage from war form) seems fine.

As far as NPCs healing offscreen...
You bet they do! It you fuck up a werewolf with regular old lead shot and she gets away, you should expect to see her hale and hearty after the next moonrise, if not sooner. If you kill a vampire with a broadsword and don't stake her to a rooftop, you can pretty much guarantee that you'll see her again.

A thought on weakening substances: should they have "defensive" applications?

It seems, intuitively, that standing out in the sun should prevent a vampire from Dominating you or lightning you on fire, even if the vampire himself is in the shade. Likewise, Witches probably shouldn't be able to read your mind if you're underwater. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how a comparable alcohol-based defense would work. You're protecting from promethean sorcery if you're intoxicated?

Gelare wrote:
Also, side note, is there some secret reason why War Form does aggravated damage instead of lethal? Cause it seems to make it kinda redundant that Bagheera get War Form and Touch of Darkness. Especially since, as near as I can tell, aggravated damage on NPCs has about the same effect as any other kind of damage, since no one really expects most NPCs to go and heal offscreen.

Good point. I had it doing Agg damage because that's what the War Form of the Tzmisce and Garou did in previous editions of WoD, but you're right: it's totally not necessary for it to do agg damage inherently. Changed.

Orion wrote:A thought on weakening substances: should they have "defensive" applications?

It seems, intuitively, that standing out in the sun should prevent a vampire from Dominating you or lightning you on fire, even if the vampire himself is in the shade. Likewise, Witches probably shouldn't be able to read your mind if you're underwater. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how a comparable alcohol-based defense would work. You're protecting from promethean sorcery if you're intoxicated?

That's a cool idea, and I am not sure how to implement it.

-Username17

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

Gelare wrote:So barring stuff like loyalty ethics, can you dither on stuff like "kill thy buddies," or only on "kill thyself"?

You can dither on anything that you could be forced to do by contradiction.

Ha. Alright then.

As far as NPCs healing offscreen...
You bet they do! It you fuck up a werewolf with regular old lead shot and she gets away, you should expect to see her hale and hearty after the next moonrise, if not sooner. If you kill a vampire with a broadsword and don't stake her to a rooftop, you can pretty much guarantee that you'll see her again.

Sure, but those guys sound like luminaries. I can't speak for other groups, but I like to send my players up against mobs of mirror goblins and such, and no one really cares what kind of damage they're taking.

Frank wrote:

Orion wrote:A thought on weakening substances: should they have "defensive" applications?

It seems, intuitively, that standing out in the sun should prevent a vampire from Dominating you or lightning you on fire, even if the vampire himself is in the shade. Likewise, Witches probably shouldn't be able to read your mind if you're underwater. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how a comparable alcohol-based defense would work. You're protecting from promethean sorcery if you're intoxicated?

That's a cool idea, and I am not sure how to implement it.

-Username17

A couple dice should suffice. Since the condition of "the power turns off" is your own immersion in the substance, then I think removing it a step from you would give a potential for it to happen. If your target is mostly immersed in the substance, you get a notable dice penalty to your activation. A full immersion in the pure substance could ratchet up the penalty to "blatantly ridiculous", but it might still happen now and then. I see no reason to change the "guaranteed not working" point from "throw the vampire into the sunlight." It should always be a better idea for the vampire hunters to chain your coffin to a truck and pull you out personally.


If you have a multi-target effect and one of your targets is in the sunlight or whatever, you either exclude them (if you can) or pay the price for attempting to throw your magic against a warded area.

Yah, either lose 2 dice on a roll or have +2 extra successes needed for affected/targeting disciplines. Either seems like a pretty reasonable modifier that is substantial but not insurmountable. My preference is for requiring a couple extra successes, but meh. Players who succeed feel badass for rolling better, rather than having had something taken away.

I'm not sure I'd bother with making gradations of penalties for more extreme coverage by substances. I'd rather have no real time spent arguing about how much coverage someone has for being buzzed versus hammered, in a swimming pool versus a heavy rain versus a light rain, etc. I don't see much joy had in caring about how much coverage someone has so long as everyone agrees the defensive substance is worth taking into account.

erik wrote:Yah, either lose 2 dice on a roll or have +1 extra successes needed for affected/targeting disciplines.

Fixed.

But honestly I'm not too hot on the idea myself.

Can we get some info on how to open, close, create, and seal portals to the various other worlds? Like, if there's a mirror spewing out fey and we want to get it to stop, can we...smash the mirror? throw sand at the mirror? If I shoot the mirror from the front, does my bullet go through to the other side?

Also, how do Shallows work? If I'm in Shallow Limbo, can mortals see me? If I get eviscerated by a mirror goblin while in Shallow Limbo, how does that appear to mortals? Can things in Deep Limbo see things in Shallow Limbo? If mortals can see me in Shallow Limbo, why can't they see Mirror Goblins there? If I can't be seen in Shallow Limbo but can influence stuff in the mortal world, to what extent can I do so and how does it look to mortals?

Gelare wrote:Also, how do Shallows work? If I'm in Shallow Limbo, can mortals see me? If I get eviscerated by a mirror goblin while in Shallow Limbo, how does that appear to mortals? Can things in Deep Limbo see things in Shallow Limbo? If mortals can see me in Shallow Limbo, why can't they see Mirror Goblins there? If I can't be seen in Shallow Limbo but can influence stuff in the mortal world, to what extent can I do so and how does it look to mortals?

Shallows reflect the mortal world. Think of when things initially go crazy in Silent Hill, or the shallow Gloom in Night Watch, or the few times in Constantine where hell just looks like a burning version of where he is. In a sense, it's a set of different 'skins' or 'themes' for the world that you're viewing. You can only see into the shallows from the mortal world if you have aura sight.

I do think that having sorceries of the appropriate types mirrored somewhat in the shallows would be interesting. So that when someone pulls down some strong mojo, a person with aura sight will see crazy things starting to happen in the Dreamlands first. That would mean that they don't need to use dowsing tools, which I'm fine with.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:In a sense, it's a set of different 'skins' or 'themes' for the world that you're viewing. You can only see into the shallows from the mortal world if you have aura sight.

Yeah, but so what? There's stuff in the Shallows, right? Ghosts and zombies and mirror goblins and stuff that can kill me while I'm wading around, right? Or is that not the case? I mean, if I'm in the Shallows, it's just a skin, so I'm not invisible or gone from the mortal world, right? But there's still totally stuff that can kill me, otherwise I'm not sure why we care about the Shallows. So would mortals just see me get sliced up by an invisible stalker if some Mirror Goblin decided to shank me in the Shallows?

Pretty sure that being in the shallows does actually make you invisible to people outside of the shallows of whatever world you are in.

Gelare wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:In a sense, it's a set of different 'skins' or 'themes' for the world that you're viewing. You can only see into the shallows from the mortal world if you have aura sight.

Yeah, but so what? There's stuff in the Shallows, right? Ghosts and zombies and mirror goblins and stuff that can kill me while I'm wading around, right? Or is that not the case? I mean, if I'm in the Shallows, it's just a skin, so I'm not invisible or gone from the mortal world, right? But there's still totally stuff that can kill me, otherwise I'm not sure why we care about the Shallows. So would mortals just see me get sliced up by an invisible stalker if some Mirror Goblin decided to shank me in the Shallows?

As far as I know, you're only ever in one world at a time. If you're in a school in the shallows of the Dark Reflection getting murdered by goblins, someone can walk through the exact same halls in the mortal world looking for you and they'll never find you, unless they end up in TDR too.

Actually, Aura Perception will extend you so you're in both the Shallows and the Material World - at which point you can have the "invisible shanker" situation. But that's pretty much the only time I can see that that comes up. The other powers either let you only see into the Shallows (like the voyeuristic Veil of Morpheus powers or the Basic Necromancy benefit) or actually be there and not also in the Mortal World.

Oh, updated version of the PDF is on the aWoD googlecode site (http://code.google.com/p/awod/downloads/list). We're at 207 pages so far.

Alright, I might as well be specific.

aWoD wrote:Each of these worlds have two levels. One can go to the first level where interaction with the mortal realm is still possible, and one can go to the deeper level where it is not. In short, like in Silent Hill it is possible to straddle the worlds where you can still open and close the door of your house and see what's on the stove but demons from the Dark Reflection can attack you. It's also possible to be all the way in the Dark Reflection, where things are a terrifying hellscape and nothing makes any sense.

I presume that's referring to the Shallows and the Deep, respectively. So if you're opening the door to your house from the Shallows, that would indicate to me that you're affecting things in the mortal realm. One of my questions is, are you an invisible force doing these things in the mortal realm, or are you just yourself doing them, but also at the same time getting attacked by demons, something which explicitly happens in the Shallows (see above).

aWoD wrote:A character using Aura perception can bleed themselves into other worlds and see and interact with the things that are there. This extends them only into the Shallows, and they are still in the material world. Activating or deactivating Aura Perception is a Simple Action.

And yeah, there's at least one way to occupy both the material world and the Shallows at the same time. Which would be...confusing, to say the least. If there's copies of some object in the same location in both worlds, which do you interact with? What if there's two people in the same location in both worlds? I dunno, I've always enjoyed extraplanar stuff in games, I just like to have a thorough understanding of what's going on.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

erik wrote:Yah, either lose 2 dice on a roll or have +1 extra successes needed for affected/targeting disciplines.

Fixed.

But honestly I'm not too hot on the idea myself.

Damn. I actually was aware that losing 2 dice is not nearly the same as requiring +2 successes then had a total brain fart as I rushed the post before heading out the door. I am in favor of the +2 successes needed (full well knowing that that requires about 5-7 more dice rolled on to succceed, making it a pretty big deal but not a deal breaker).

I like the idea of mortals who are somewhat in the know having a means of defense. Nothing rock solid, but something enough to make them have a hope of surviving in lucky circumstances that as a fringe benefit makes them may make them unreliable witnesses due to their eccentricity ("Dude, why is there salt all over your apartment?") or inebriation if they try to speak out about the supernaturals they've seen. Some drunk at the bar who insists that the alcohol protects him, or an informant who insists only on meeting out in the heavy rain could be worth having.

So I think there is a game reason for having it (something to put in the tool kit for lone mortals), and flavor reason for having it (is cool).

I stand corrected.

First pass on Armor rules. It comes just before Healing.

What animals do people want?

-Username17