The Gaming Den

One thing I would really like to see in this game are some dinivation effects less powerful than Elder Divination. I've had a player ask to take a Destiny that was some kind of fortune-telling device, which seems eminently reasonable.

Some ideas I was considering for around a rating 3:

--D&D Augury effect
--tells you whether the answer to a specific question can be found in a specific library or database
--gives warnings of "natural" supernatural events, like spontaneously opening portals
--answers questions about the present state of some limited sphere (things which are underwater, for instance).

New York, she is up.

-Username17

New York wrote:the Mayor's Office constitutes its own supernatural group which acts as a miniature covenant and operates under the auspices of the city government. This organization, which is called the “Special Threats Bureau” is headed up by a Nosferatu known as “Anchor” who is sometimes called “The General.” All supernatural creatures under his command rise rapidly to the rank of “Lieutenant Detective Commander” and are empowered to call in regular human police to enforce the Mayor's will.

I'm confused. Does the actual mayor of actual New York have a group of 40 supernaturals at his command? Like, these guys serve Bloomberg? Also, there's a ton of typos, which I'll comb through later.

"it is simply unreasonable to expect that even a long term resident can't be expected"

Double negative?

"in New York, and t is pretty"

t -> it

Typo check:

landmarks throughout New York and considered treasures by people all over the world.

Should be "are".

Significantly more mortals, many of whom have been indoctrinated into Sorcery to become Cultists.

This sentence is a fragment.

going back to the drawing board of those city plans in social as well as engineering progress.

Something's not right there, maybe words are left out.

The WCL mostly does shipment embezzlement and drug running to fund itself in New York, and t is pretty well funded.

Should be "it"

a record store around 7th Avenue and W25th.

Could be West 25th, for clarity purposes.

The place is just off Mott street in Manhattan's crumbling Chinatown

This is actually not a typo at all, I just wanted to say that there's a fantastic Chinese restaurant near the intersection of Mott & Bayard St. I think it was called the Hsin Wong restaurant or something like that, in case anyone finds themselves in New York.

Which is not to say that supernaturals don't do stuff around her, because they do. But thy do it inside,

Two for one deal on that. "Here" and "they".

There's a few stylistic things, like your sudden and unexpected exclamation that there's alligators in the sewers being a glimpse through the curtain at your "jumping around" writing style, but whatever.

I'm going to take a stand here and say that I find the "between worlds" writeup unsatisfying, and would prefer something that doesn't allow for so many confusing edge cases. First the problems:

aWoD wrote: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.

So what happens if I'm in the mortal world and would like to extend myself into Shallow Maya, into a space where there is
1) Air
2) A large glass box filled with Water
3) Rock
4) Something more dense than air but less dense than water.
And why?

aWoD wrote:But it also means that if the same character puts down any object they are carrying or shoots a bullet that the object no longer attended will go to the Mortal World. And yes, this means that the character in question could “steal” objects from the Shallow Dreamlands by picking them up and putting them down again.

What counts as carrying? If I'm in Shallow Maya and the Mortal Realm and push aside a branch in my way or deflect with my hand a falling rock, or cup my hands beneath a sideways waterfall, does it wind up in the mortal world? What if I hug a tree with the intention to lift it, but it doesn't move because it's rooted to the ground? If I have Giant Size and Vigor up, can I port over entire trees at once, and what happens if they wind up in the same space as something else?


Now I've never played oWoD or nWoD, so maybe these are legacy things that have to stay and should be handled by DM's individually, but I'll offer these two potential solutions:
1) You can't be in between worlds. Period. Aura Perception gives you the vision abilities from Necromancy, Veil of Morpheus, and Names of the Blasphemies all at once, which can be sensory overload for people who aren't used to it.
2) There are specific points in space and time that are in two worlds at once. There is no difference between the Shallow Maya version of a magical forest mushroom circle and the Mortal Realm version, because they are literally the same place, and someone who steps into the circle on one side can step out of the circle into the other side. This does look strange to people standing outside the mushroom circle as they witness people run around and throw things that all disappear at the edge of the circle, but so be it. Also, Aura Perception gives you all the vision abilities, as above.

Thoughts?

(Note: I acknowledge that the second option also has some edge cases and potential loopholes. I could try to write up something more airtight, or, if necessary, happily fall back on option 1. In any event, I hope it is the case that it has fewer loopholes than the status quo.)

First question: probably you can extend yourself anywhere you could exist physically if you just used a portal and went there, so water and air are OK while rock is not. Therefore you need to have sufficient strength to shove the material there aside - in the 'pile of sand' example, your success depends on whether the pile is big enough that you couldn't move inside it. Simillarily, a watertight box completely filled with a liquid stops you, since it can't accomodate the additional volume of your body.

The world shifting concept is exactly the same as Astral Perception in Shadowrun, do you have a problem with it conceptually there?

The "item being carried" is the same criteria as Attended Objects in D&D, do you have a problem with it there?

Now, I'll grant you that things are a little different. The other planes are full of air and water and stuff, rather than nondescript astral goo. And I don't bother to distinguish between attended objects and lifted creatures. But that second one actually makes things a lot easier, since you no longer get into an argument as to whether an intelligent sword counts as an attended object or not.

Still, you're right that I should probably give a shout out to shifting into water.

-Username17

Shifting into another world should be as difficult and physically moving into that part of the other world would. You should be able to shift into a pile of dirt if you have burrowing and also spend a power point. Shifting into water is a difficult as diving; shifting into a rock is a difficult as walking through a stone wall.

Shadowrun: It is my understanding that the Astral world is an exact reflection of the stuff in the mortal world, with the exception of the various spirits (Watcher, Fire, Beast, etc.) floating about, so if you wanted to move the aura of a plant, say, you could not do so without either moving the plant in the material world or ripping the aura away and killing the plant. Whereas in the Shallows of aWoD you can totally move stuff around and while the shallows resemble the mortal world by default, they can be changed so that they do not with no corresponding mortal result.

D&D: Admittedly, the problem of transporting lots of stuff from the Material to the Ethereal by using Blink has not come up often.

I suppose I may have gone a little ways off the edge, but you've taught me nothing if not that the game rules have in-world consequences, and I have a lingering suspicion that something nonsensical yet effective can be achieved by people being dual-natured and moving around stuff in one world but not the other.

So if there's a table in the same location in the Mortal Realm and the Shallow Gloom, and I'm Aura Perceiving and go to pick up the table(s), how many tables am I holding and how much weight do I feel? What if there's a table in one location but not the other?

Gelare wrote:Shadowrun: It is my understanding that the Astral world is an exact reflection of the stuff in the mortal world, with the exception of the various spirits (Watcher, Fire, Beast, etc.) floating about, so if you wanted to move the aura of a plant, say, you could not do so without either moving the plant in the material world or ripping the aura away and killing the plant.

Uh... no. Spirits and physical objects and creatures do not interact with each other. So a spirit could be in your exact location. There's a Perception test to notice that happening. I recall the threshold being about 3. The auras and shadows are just appearances, you can perceive them but you can't interact with them in any way. Similarly, a spirit or "manifested" magician can be perceived but not interacted with from the physical world. If you activate Astral Perception, you become solid on both worlds, and you can't do it if someone is aura camping you - there are no telefrags in Shadowrun.

D&D: Admittedly, the problem of transporting lots of stuff from the Material to the Ethereal by using Blink has not come up often.

Well, the current rules are that the Blink Effect ends and the object reverts to its original plane of existence as soon as it leaves your hand. So you can grab some ethereal acid flasks and some physical acid flasks and throw them at appropriate targets.

Currently, I have the items revert to your original world so that you don't have to remember which side you picked up rocks from. Which does allow you to use Duality to smuggle items.

Gelare wrote:I suppose I may have gone a little ways off the edge, but you've taught me nothing if not that the game rules have in-world consequences, and I have a lingering suspicion that something nonsensical yet effective can be achieved by people being dual-natured and moving around stuff in one world but not the other.

Definitely. Here's the worst case scenario I can think of right now:

• One apparently unarmed but physically strong character walks into a building. He walks through security because there is nothing suspicious about him.
• Meanwhile, a group of his friends come in to the Shallow Limbo version of the same building, where there is no security because it basically doesn't exist. And they are armed like the main characters at the end of the only Matrix film.
• The first character extends himself into the astral and picks up his friends and puts them down in the physical world, guns and all.
• Cue fight music.

Now I'll be honest: that's kind of awesome. But it may be too good for something that can be achieved with two basic and one advanced discipline that don't even have to be on the same character (Auspex, Banishment, Deny the Gauntlet).

-Username17

I feel like I don't know enough about the world. Like, the following are probably important enough to at least warrant a few short paragraphs for those who are new to the game:

Why is there a Masquerade?
If humans are so dangerous, why don't supernaturals kill them all off?
If humans are so dangerous, why didn't supernaturals, who presumably look across a long time horizon, kill them all off before they became so dangerous?

Gelare wrote:
Why is there a Masquerade?

Because while humans can be fooled, it's still not the best idea to get the mob going. Sure, you might kill some of them...but they'd get you. And you're significantly outnumbered, and humans have this distressing habit of learning quickly.

If humans are so dangerous, why don't supernaturals kill them all off?

Because they can't. Especially in the last century, what with weaponry taking a big jump forward.

If humans are so dangerous, why didn't supernaturals, who presumably look across a long time horizon, kill them all off before they became so dangerous?

Because the supernaturals alive back then were....

Conservative, in a word.

They lived in a world where the lowest levels of society (ie., most of society) might as well be a different species. They likely had no idea that humanity would pull itself up so high. They had no respect for the 'herd' and I imagine would be pretty discontented if they knew what the 'herd' had done now.

You have to remember, the idea of the general population being worthy of consideration is a pretty recent idea. Peasants weren't given any respect because, well, they're PEASANTS.

So now the problem can't really be fixed. And humans are coming up with crap like the Internet and Cell Phones and new ways to transfer information quickly. All it'd really take is one bright one with a bit of luck with the technology, and they're all fucked.

Gelare wrote:Why is there a Masquerade?

There is a Masquerade because most supernaturals believe that keeping humanity in the dark about their existence is the most safe and profitable option.

Gelare wrote:If humans are so dangerous, why don't supernaturals kill them all off?

Because humans are too dangerous . Also, that kind of action would make some supernaturals (ghouls & vampires) very angry and very very hungry.

Gelare wrote:If humans are so dangerous, why didn't supernaturals, who presumably look across a long time horizon, kill them all off before they became so dangerous?

Most supernaturals are products of humanity. There may be prehuman prometheans, but most prometheans are part of what makes humans so dangerous. Presumably god-kings liked having lots of human slaves, and weren't willing to kill them all of in case they became dangerous. Also, remember that technology is an accelerating process. For thousand-year old creatures, it might be difficult to realize just how dangerous humans have become.

Notice that just among two people, when I ask why supernaturals don't kill humans instead of maintaining the Masquerade, I've gotten:
1) They simply can't kill everyone
2) They like having slaves
3) They have to keep someone around to eat
4) They don't realize how dangerous humans are
5) They're too conservative

Those are all fine answers, but they're probably not the only answers. And since the aWoD write up contains information on why humans are basically screwed, including:

aWoD wrote:The Police are no help at all.
Telecommunications are Shoddy
People Don't Travel Much

As well as the fact that Dominate and Mask of a Thousand Faces exist and would seem to allow pretty easy access to being or controlling the most powerful humans on the planet, I feel like it's incumbent on the write-up to also include information on why supernaturals don't just kill everyone at least as prominently.

Added a couple of animals and a section on Human and Supernatural Law to the Persona non Grata section.

I am getting the impression that people would seriously like a book about the history of each of the major Covenants. My count is already over 140k words, so going into too much more detail on the King of Three Shadows or the Camarilla would seem to require an extra book on the subject(s).

Now to slog through the Skills. I hate Skill Descriptions with a dull passion.

-Username17

I'm not sure if every Covenant, Cult, and Important Supernatural Individual needs the history book treatment.

However, that last section you just added in Persona non Grata really managed to give a lot of information and flavor without taking 17K words to do so. More of that nature would be exceedingly useful, I think, especially for people who don't necessarily have a huge amount of experience with o- or nWoD.

FrankTrollman wrote:I am getting the impression that people would seriously like a book about the history of each of the major Covenants. My count is already over 140k words, so going into too much more detail on the King of Three Shadows or the Camarilla would seem to require an extra book on the subject(s).

Limbo, Gloom, and Maya could all have setting books, although The King of Three does seem to be cropping up as an iconic character.

Also, it seems like Giant Size kicks War Form right in the face. I mean, compare:
[*]Wolfman McGee gets +3 dice to melee attack dice and a damage 4 melee attack.
[*]Pyramid Head gets +6 dice to her melee attacks and her sword does 6 damage.
[*]Wolfman McGee gets +2 dice to her ranged attacks.
[*]Pyramid Head could also pull out an 8 damage machine gun.

Sure, in both cases you're doing to much damage it's overkill against anybody but Pyramid Head. Nevertheless...

If aggravated wounds displace lesser wounds if the track is already full, do lesser wounds inflicted upon someone whose track is full of aggravated do nothing or do they just bring the victim from 'attempting to stabilize' to 'dead'? And I'm assuming Net Damage 6+ for any attack just flat-out kills, or does it 'downgrade' to terminal wounds? How exactly does Edge save you from death (not everyone's played Shadowrun)?

Blicero wrote:I'm not sure if every Covenant, Cult, and Important Supernatural Individual needs the history book treatment.

However, that last section you just added in Persona non Grata really managed to give a lot of information and flavor without taking 17K words to do so. More of that nature would be exceedingly useful, I think, especially for people who don't necessarily have a huge amount of experience with o- or nWoD.

Concur.

Giant size HAS to have better stats, it comes with the downside of being giant. Also, you don't get it free with your frenzy.

Orion wrote:Giant size HAS to have better stats, it comes with the downside of being giant. Also, you don't get it free with your frenzy.

OK, so with giant size you're 3.5m tall, and with war form you're only 3m tall. Is that really such a big difference?

virgileso wrote:If aggravated wounds displace lesser wounds if the track is already full, do lesser wounds inflicted upon someone whose track is full of aggravated do nothing or do they just bring the victim from 'attempting to stabilize' to 'dead'? And I'm assuming Net Damage 6+ for any attack just flat-out kills, or does it 'downgrade' to terminal wounds? How exactly does Edge save you from death (not everyone's played Shadowrun)?

I do need to write in the death margin rules. Short answer: 6 is still terminal, 7+ is instantly lethal. Things get too swingy if there's a 1 hit difference between incapacitation + dying and "heads explode."

And yes, you can upgrade someone from incapacitated to dying with normal damage if they are full up on lethal or aggravated. Coup de Grace with a bar stool if you want.

Edge works like Drama Points or Narrative Imperative, allowing you to change the plot so that something vaguely plausible happens to get you out of an apparently lethal situation.

-Username17

Advantages of Giant Size:

--More STR means bigger scenery destruction
--More STR, Armor means better soak
--Big weapons do more damage
--Better melee dicepools

Advantages of War Form:
--Significantly more maneuverable. Hardly anybody is naturally 2 meters tall. 1.7 is a much more reasonable figure. That means a war form is like 2.6 meters, which means the giant size is like 35% taller. The War Form also has better agility and--presumably--can run on all fours, making low ceilings much less of a problem.
--better gun dice pools, dodge dicepools
--a natural weapon, so you don't have to carry a gun or sword to be fairly effective. A giant-size punch does 2N, a bite does 4.
--free and fast activation with frenzy

So, I have been thinking of putting in a set of D&D-esque Skill Tricks, in part to cover the nWoD Combat Styles options and also to make knowing languages easier. I am not sure how many of these to hand out, and such possibilities include "One per session" or "some fraction of your value of the skill" or even just "one per specialization." It would look something like this (though obviously of course, a much longer list):


Schticks

Characters who specialize in a skill may select one or more Schticks related to that skill. These schitcks represent special tricks, maneuvers, and talents that a character can do that sets them apart from other characters who may have the same skills but lack the specialized training. Anyone can negotiate a deal, and those who have a good Persuasion skill may be able to do it very well – but not everyone can negotiate in Mandarin Chinese. A schtick is something that another character could plausibly pick up over the course of the adventure by training to do so, not by the use of any sort of magical awakening.

Athletics Schticks

• Conserve Breath: The character can hold their breath for ridiculous amounts of time, staying under water for extended periods or even convincing onlookers that they have died.
• Combat Archery: The character may use their Athletics skill in place of their Combat skill when attacking enemies in combat with a bow or crossbow.
• Extreme Sprinting: The character may overextend themselves while performing a Draining Sprint, achieving even greater speed at the cost of tiring themselves out faster. The character's speed is increased by 1/6th instead of 1/10th for each Athletics hit, but this level of speed can only be maintained for one round before fatigue sets it.
• Free Running: Once per round, the character may “Go Faster” as a Simple Action instead of a Complex Action, but they suffer a -2 penalty on any other action they take that Initiative pass.

Combat Schticks

• Multi-Attack: The character can simultaneously threaten a large number of enemies, by attacking as a Complex Action, the character can attack a group of enemies with a melee or automatic weapon. The maximum number of enemies that can be targeted is the character's Combat skill.
• Brutality: The character can inflict Lethal damage with a weapon that normally does Normal damage.
• Defensive Combat: The character can attack in such a way to defend themselves. The character takes a -3 penalty on their attack, and the threshold to hit them is increased by 1. This can be used once per round, and only affects opponents they are aware of.
• Bodyguard: The character can redirect one attack to themselves per round without compromising their own defense.

Expression Schticks

• Language: A character can learn a new language as an Expression Schtick.
• Famous: The character's works are known in the appropriate circles, allowing them to trade on their notoriety and others to find out more about them.
• Dead Language: A character can read a dead language such as Cuneiform or Linear A as an Expression Schtick.
• Pigment Blending: The character can make their own paints from raw materials. The character knows how to get vibrant and lasting blues, yellows, reds, and blacks from natural ingredients.