The Gaming Den

Do you know what's hard to adjudicate? A member of the Order Tremere wishes to research information concerning four orphans kidnapped by mirror goblins five years ago, and gets 9 hits...

We should probably have:

• Dogs and wolves
• Rats/mice/hamsters
• Cats (both felis and panthera)
• Bats
• Bears
• Crabs
• Some selection of birds.
• Lizards
• Constrictor snakes
• Gorillas
• Crocodilians
• Bears
• Sharks
• Octopuses. Maybe squids, though the Kraken is Kaiju material.

Based on "stuff to turn into and interact with" and "behemoth baselines".

Quantumboost wrote:[list
[*]Crabs[/list]

En garde, bitches!

Birds that could be useful to stat include Doves/Pigeons, Crows, Ravens (if stat different from Crows), Peregrine Falcon, Turkey-necked Vultures, an Owl, and a Macaw parrot. Oh, and stats for a swarm of pigeons.

Those are all the birds I can think of that someone would be likely to see that might be statted significantly differently than any other bird. Sure, there are budgies and crap, but they're barely worth consideration, unless you totally go The Birds and send a swarm of sparrows to peck someone's eyes out. More likely they'll be pigeons, though, because that's usually what's available around cities, or seagulls (coastal cities make those more common) which are probably statistically indistinct. Crows, ravens, owls, and vultures all need statlines as birds of death. A member of the falcon species could be useful for "I turn into a generic hawk/eagle/thing" players. And parrots deserve a mention because of goofy murder plots. Also, I can totally see a particularly poncy Harpy keeping a pet hyacinth or something.

Cats should have a statline for housecats, cougars, and tigers, respectively, as those are the versions with the biggest stat gaps between them.

The only bats we need statted are vampire bats. For obvious reasons.

Specifically grizzlies are the most notable bear to stat, because black bears are pussies and polar bears are... polar.

Admittedly, I could probably do a lot of this myself. Hmm.

A few typos:
The link at the top of the page that goes to the Persona non Grata section is busted, possibly due to a stray space.
In Veil of Morpheus, Dreamstep:

For purposes of dispelling, Deamstep has 3 hits.

In Persona non Grata, talking about the Black Isz:

The playr characters may never meet Artemis Pender or learn what it is that he is doing

Also, can we get some of that clarification on the topic of the other worlds and being between them and being in several and who can see/interact with what?

What is the accurate/maximum range of Firestarter? Line of sight? Line of effect? (S)W?

Gelare wrote:A few typos:
The link at the top of the page that goes to the Persona non Grata section is busted, possibly due to a stray space.
In Veil of Morpheus, Dreamstep:

For purposes of dispelling, Deamstep has 3 hits.

Also, can we get some of that clarification on the topic of the other worlds and being between them and being in several and who can see/interact with what?

Should be fixed now. I added a section to the Worlds of Darkness called "Being in Between Worlds" that should sort that out a bit. Also reworked Veil of Morpheus and Names of the Blasphemies a bit so that they give equivalent peak-a-boo to Necromancy.

-Username17

That helps a little bit. So if I have a handgun and I'm using Aura Perception and five feet in front of me is a ninja in the mortal world and a shambler in the Shallow Gloom, and I fire, who gets hit? Do I get to choose, or do I make attacks against both of them or what?

EDIT: And what if I'm using a shotgun?

Gelare, that is a question so good that I appended a short paragraph in the rules just to answer it. How is that?

And yeah, I am not being cryptic about answering these questions to be a dick, I'm genuinely trying to get a grasp on what rules need more elaboration. Once everyone knows how the rules are "supposed" to work, it becomes a lot harder for them to find places where the rules are vague or unclear.

-Username17

One thing that I'm wondering, after building a character for a game; do Devotions count for the purposes of getting the "Advanced Discipline" abilities? Does a Reborn get +4 Initiative from Shifting Sands or just +2 from their Basic Celerity?

John drives a pickup truck full of bricks through a Shadow Gate into the Shallow Gloom. He parks it 15' away from the gate and then returns to the mortal world. He walks over to the location which corrosponds to the location of the bricks and then uses Auspex to bleed into the Gloom. Is he instagibbed by this?

Gorelock the Demon is in Shallow Limbo. He wishes to use Aura Perception to transport himself part way into the mortal world, so that he can snatch an extra into the Dark Reflection for eating. Does this require a Resistance Test? What if it is a human pulling a Goblin into the mortal world?

Frank,

Maybe I'm misreading this, but it seems that reading the rules strictly, if I Auspex myself into Shallow Dark Reflection and punch, I will hit the goblin in front of me; if I shoot a bullet, I hit the mortal instead (as it leaves the DR as soon as it leaves my gun.)

This seems a bit odd. Working as intended?

@QuantumBoost: To the best of my knowledge, Devotions don't count for purposes of those bonuses because it isn't actually an Advanced (blank) discipline. Also, they don't mention those bonuses at all in the Devotions section. So Daeva don't get the advanced potence and presence bonuses merely by virtue of having flight.

@Endersdouble: Yup, that does appear to be how it works.

@Grek: Good point, the question of what happens when you DDoor into something is an important one.

Sounds like it's working as intended to me, much like blink and objects losing the buffed property when no longer attended.

How do you resolve someone using the Command "shoot yourself, twice" (assuming you already lost a round dithering)? Do you use your entire attack die pool, and is your threshold zero or is it (Agility+Combat)/2?

Do Shifting Sand allows total dodging of any attack at no action cost (be it bullet, claw, or bus), or does it increase the threshold to connect?

Are there any rules for forgoing sleep, be it mortal or supernatural?

Does Bind the Names cross planar boundaries? It seems odd that the King with Three Shadows only has a 5 hit naming on him, though I wonder if the spot the naming was done is highly guarded to prevent dispelling.

While bullets can be deadly to those vulnerable to iron, won't most bullets not actually deal aggravated damage because they're made of lead rather than iron? Even the jacketed bullets are largely copper coated rather than steel coated.

EDIT: Also, I'm having trouble finding the location for a 'Death Threshold' mechanic, which Lure of Destruction increases.

virgileso wrote:How do you resolve someone using the Command "shoot yourself, twice" (assuming you already lost a round dithering)?

Ha! You wish it were that simple. Command only lasts for one complex action to begin with, so "assuming you already lost a round dithering" means the Command is over. To continue you need to put in another quarter, which, being a separate Command, both in terms of a different activation of the discipline and a different literal word coming out of your mouth, means that it's subject to an entirely new round of dithering - which, we determined earlier, happens once per suicidal order.

EDIT: ...I think. Upon rereading it, maybe you dither and then spend up to one complex action carrying out the Command. Not 100% sure.

D-Doors int solid objects is a important question added the following:

...When a character moves completely from one world to another, they come out in the nearest place that they can fit, which in some cases will be several meters away from their relative location in the original world.

...An effect cannot extend a character into a solid object in the other world, so if a character is standing in empty space in the Shallow Gloom and there's a big pile of sand there in the Mortal World, an ability like Aura Perception would simply fail.

How do you resolve someone using the Command "shoot yourself, twice" (assuming you already lost a round dithering)? Do you use your entire attack die pool, and is your threshold zero or is it (Agility+Combat)/2?

There is no dicepool splitting in aWoD. That's an oWoD mechanic that did not work particularly well. You'd just shoot yourself. Twice.

While bullets can be deadly to those vulnerable to iron, won't most bullets not actually deal aggravated damage because they're made of lead rather than iron? Even the jacketed bullets are largely copper coated rather than steel coated.

Yeah, copper jacketed lead bullets are surprisingly useless against major opposition.

-Username17

Since you can totally just get steel core bullets for your assault rifle thats not even a real problem. Military ammunition often isn't lead in copper like the average sporting bullet.

FrankTrollman wrote:

How do you resolve someone using the Command "shoot yourself, twice" (assuming you already lost a round dithering)? Do you use your entire attack die pool, and is your threshold zero or is it (Agility+Combat)/2?

There is no dicepool splitting in aWoD. That's an oWoD mechanic that did not work particularly well. You'd just shoot yourself. Twice.

I was mainly wondering if you used your entire pool without penalty, or if you did the equivalent of "phoning it in" and not accepting net hits. And I guess actively dodging yourself goes against the command, so the targeting threshold is zero for shooting yourself?

Another issue: not a lack of clarity of rules, but still.

If I'm a character whose schtick requires reliable access to (say) Maya, how do I obtain this? The worlds are accessible by sorcery, but it's typically Elder as written. (I can force people into DR with Advanced, but that's not quite the same...)

Similarly, high level Resources might provide a gate--but the examples seem to imply that we're looking at R4 for reliable access. That's also probably (supposed) to be inaccessible at character creation.

Each realm is given flavortext for reliable access--dreams, mirrors, wells--but there's no system there. Am I missing how that's supposed to work? Can we get some system/crunch for how the things that "might get you to X" do so?

Also, would it be unreasonable to add a Advanced sorcery for each realm of "you step in/out of the shadows, fully"? I suppose the "out" part of the DR might be a little broken--that's supposed to be hard--and in practice the ability to walk in and out gives you pretty astounding infiltration, but is that game-breaking? Supernatural opponents surely guard the magical realms, too.

A basic gateway from one world to the other is a Rating 3 Resource (see: Shadow Gate). And it's a pretty big deal. A gateway that has multiple access points or is in any way portable is a rating 4 or higher Resource (Mirror Nexus at 4, Yggdrasil at 6). These things totally exist, but they also get writeups in city descriptions. The fact that the World Crime League has a Fairy Ring gets a passing mention in the San Francisco section.

But yeah, it's a pretty big deal to be able to jump from one world to another. Putting defenses on the Shallow Maya, the Shallow Gloom, and the Shallow Dark Reflection is really a lot of work, and most people can't do that.

-Username17

OK, that gives me a better idea of the baseline (and I'm guessing that the sorcery is as intended then--you don't want starting characters walking past any IRL defenses in Maya?)

I would still like some inkling of a system for (say) dreaming into Maya. Can my character with Astral powers and knowledge it exists reliably do it?

I'm assuming that if you do 6+ damage in one attack, or more damage to someone who's terminal, the victim flat-out dies?

FrankTrollman wrote:First Pass of the Persona non Grata chapter is up.

This coming week, plans are:

• Telepathy Examples
• Sugarland
• Armor
• Disease Fleshing Out
• Gangs of New York
• D&D Thoughts (Unrelated)

Anyone have any specific characters or whatever they want added to PnG?

-Username17

Frank, could we get a new list of things to come? I ask because I have a couple of friends interested in the aWoD project and they want to know how much is missing from the current incarnation. Furthermore, having a list of what you already have in the pipeline could help if anyone else wanted to write some of the other missing fluff or crunch.

Shatner wrote:
Frank, could we get a new list of things to come? I ask because I have a couple of friends interested in the aWoD project and they want to know how much is missing from the current incarnation. Furthermore, having a list of what you already have in the pipeline could help if anyone else wanted to write some of the other missing fluff or crunch.

Sure. Much of what I have been doing since finishing my Winter Exams could only credibly even be called research (going to museums with my girlfriend, getting caught up with Supernatural, Burn Notice, and Fringe, that sort of thing). And a good chunk of what I will be writing up for aWoD is "by request." That is, people are playtesting stuff already and giving reports on things that are too weak/powerful/vague and I will try to do stuff about that.

But here are things that are on the burner directly, by chapter:


Skills:

• Not all of the skills have paragraphs or sample specializations. Most of them are fairly self explanatory, but they all need some kind of text before it can be considered a final draft.
• Debating adding "skill tricks" for people who specialize their skills. These would include the special combat maneuvers discussed earlier, but also include other tricks for other skills. Since every skill would need at least six skill tricks (since you would gain one for every two points in a specialized skill), these tricks would be a textually extensive subsystem.

Danger:

• Expanded Hide and Seek. Right now it's really only a step up from "just wing it" and I need to make a chart for base search times.
• Fatigue. It's important, and it needs to get done eventually, although I am sort of writer's block on how to make a fatigue subsystem that wouldn't be super annoying. My first draft got deleted instead of posted because it was too fiddly.
• Diseases. Going to add the Great Wasting, but also need a paragraph or two about getting sick.

Character Options and Motivation:

• If I go through with the skill trick subsystem, a section on choosing your skill tricks would go in here.
• A bunch more merits and flaws need to go down. Some of the merits might seriously get ported into Skill Tricks. Having "Languages" available as a skill trick in various social skills might go a long way towards giving us the kinds of 8 language speaking characters that we want. Not sure.
• This section feels unfinished to me, but I am not sure what I am going to add.

World at Night: [*] Chicago
[*] New York
[*] Possibly a section on international jetsetting with the Carthians, Camarilla, Sabbat, and World Crime League.[/list]
Persona non Grata:

• Finish the Animals
• Make some more sample horde monsters (generic zombie pack, generic plant guard, etc.)
• Write up some more characters.
• Write up some more special equipment.
• This section could seriously never end.

I think that's all for now. Of course, I am certain that other people have noticed flaws and gaps that I have not, and I'll try to get to them too.

Since of the ten or so people I play with on a regular basis, only one of us has ever played anything WoD-related other than this, I'd appreciate some more detail on the Masquerade, what happens when you break it, what the consequences are for a character and what the consequences are for supernatural society, etc. At what point can you expect to gain a luminary monster hunter as a stalker, at what point do you get called into your Priest's office for a stern talking-to, at what point do you get monsters from other cults or covenants as stalkers, at what point does your own covenant turn on you, etc.