aWoD: Continued

The Lunatic Fringe · Post by **The Lunatic Fringe** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 9:26 am

How about magic item stuff?

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:06 pm

There's still a lot of disciplines that don't specify what kind of action they take. I did another playtest recently, and there's a few offenders, starting with Flames of Panic. I'll get a more complete list when I have more time.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:56 pm

More magic item descriptions and the extended skill write ups would be lovely, I think.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:18 pm

I added a bit about magic items. Do people want literally a list of magic items? If so, how many? Are we talking five more, or ten more?

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 9:24 pm

Geography, politics, and/or PnG of those from the Deep end of the three worlds. More details about laws/traditions (enforcement especially) within the covenants would be nice, especially since there are likely some major differences in motivation and execution than what we're accustomed to (making it hard to predict, at best, between GMs).

EDIT: You can start with a soviet-era nuke, which resulted in many of my players contemplating having it and then using it. I'm trying to imagine what your house must look like if a copy of the Fat Man is your most valuable (many bottled dreams, I bet).

TavishArtair · Post by **TavishArtair** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 10:56 pm

A good place to be is to have a list of magic stuff long enough that you get a sample of one at each level. Obviously you cannot have an exhaustive list, but giving a variety of magical items such that people can look at their item and eyeball the existing list and say "this looks like a (better/worse) item than (this similarly-themed item)" or say "this item looks to be about as powerful as (this item) even though it does something different."

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 6:48 am

I agree with this. I'd like to see an example or two for each rank of Destiny and Secrets, explaining what it does and why it is valuable.

Otherwise, I know a "sack of weather" is a Rating 5, but I don't know what that means beyond the fact that it is apparently better than Preah Khan. So it's probably not just "you can make it rain whenever you want until you empty the bag". Maybe you can dump out several hurricanes at once? Maybe you can pull out various storm systems in a tangible physical form and trade them for stuff? There's a lot of potential for argument here, and a definite sample of what something might look like at each point on the lists could be invaluable. Plus AWoD magic items are fun to read about.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 9:18 pm

Added: Sample Bloodlines.

-Username17

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:01 am

So in working characters for Hunted in Pittsburgh, I've gotten a request by a player for more flaws and merits, as he thought that section was a little thin. He argued this:

Mainly I'd say that flaws should be fleshed out and divided into categories of mental/social/physical just like merits, and the current flaws should be the social flaws. Examples of physical flaws could be "out of shape: character gets winded easily and can't run at speed more than a short distance" or something to that effect. A mental flaw could be something like "Character is dyslexic, they can't recall text clearly unless they've had time to concentrate on reading it"

Note that some of this comes from the desire to flesh out Luminary characters more, and I realize some flaws will only be appropriate to them.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:05 am

Ooh, final decisions on Schticks would be handy as well, as a request from my players (I stand by my preference for laws and/or world culture).

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:16 am

It's true that there aren't really enough flaws to make the merits particularly useful...

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 6:30 am

Actually, people suggesting Flaws and Schticks would be super helpful.

-Username17

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 7:28 am

Flaws:
Flighty: Threshold to convince the character to do something else is decreased by 1.
Tempermental: Threshold for avoiding frenzies is increased by 1.
Depressing: -2 dicepool to cheer people up or make something sound positive.
Unattractive: Opposite of Attractive.
Guilty Look: Opposite of Innocence.
Submissive: Opposite of Loyalty.
Uncompetitive: Opposite of Extremely Competitive.
Sensitivity: Pick some condition (Agony, Fatigue, etc.) Double it's negative effects whenever your are effected.
Allergy: Pick some common material. Exposure to whatever it is makes you Fatigued.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 7:48 am

Is there any way for a race to forgo sleep, since Patience of the Mountains doesn't do it? What are the rules for sleep deprivation? I can imagine it working in a similar manner to a gradually increasing Agony or Overstimulation condition, depending on a cumulatively more difficult Body test or something.

Can magical diseases from Abyss of the Body spread like normal diseases, or are they not contagious beyond the host? Is the only way to cure a magical disease by dispelling it, or is there some other function/test? It's also really weird for some races to not be immune to disease; though I guess there was that one episode where the android Data got 'Cooties'.

Insomniac/Narcoleptic: Sleep is difficult and less fulfilling. The character requires more time to get a full night's rest; or the test to resist sleep deprivation penalties is more difficult (lower dice pool? higher threshold? required tests occur sooner/more frequently?)

Mistaken Identity: The character can pass as a near twin of someone locally infamous, resulting in negative mistaken identity.

Oppressed Minority: The character belongs to a group to which they are commonly discriminated against by a group they can readily encounter.

Kick Me/Tunnel Vision: It is difficult for the character to multitask, especially in Close Combat. Their Combat skill is considered two (one?) lower for purposes of actively resisting more than one enemy.

Crimes of Passion: Additional master passion.

Monstrous (Supernatural): The character has an additional tell identifying them as inhuman associated with their respective race.

Aura (Supernatural): Without actually performing magic, the character can be detected as if constantly performing Basic magic of their race's source.

Thin Blood (Supernatural): The threshold to counter the character's magic is reduced by one.

Subservient: It is difficult for the character to openly defy or disrespect any figure of authority.

Disloyal: The character would sell their grandmother for a nickel. The threshold to convince them to turn on those they feel loyal to is decreased by 1. This even applies to magic, and the character effectively loses three dice to resist Dominate and similar effects if they are being made to turn their allies.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:04 am

Added a few magic items.

-Username17

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:05 am

Also, new languages seem really, stupidly expensive, and overall not worth a merit. I'm not sure what an appropriate cost would be, but a Merit seems too much.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:54 am

DragonChild wrote:Also, new languages seem really, stupidly expensive, and overall not worth a merit. I'm not sure what an appropriate cost would be, but a Merit seems too much.

I totally agree with you there. This is why I think I am leaning towards making Skill Schticks a reality. I haven't gotten a lot of votes on that concept, but I think I am going to do it. I'l give out a couple of those with each skill specialization, and letting people buy familiarity and then fluency with a language for a skill schtick.

Needs a lot of skill schticks though. Combat schticks are shit simple to write. Pick a nonstandard combat maneuver, "make it a feat" and you're golden. But it's more difficult for other skills. After all, most skills do "stuff" - so any skill schtick you make becomes something that the skill can't normally do. Which is fine for dicepool gambits like "increase your dicepool in exchange for worse penalties if you fail" or "take a penalty to reduce the base timeframe of a task."

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 1:42 pm

I had wondered if languages could be learned with background points, since it both opens up the ability to use other backgrounds with people you ordinarily couldn't speak with, and would be less of a mechanical burden on the system than Schticks.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 3:01 pm

Yeah, languages as backgrounds seems like the best route. Whether it's 'classically educated', 'weaboo', or 'German Brazilian'.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 3:27 pm

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:27 pm

virgileso wrote:I had wondered if languages could be learned with background points, since it both opens up the ability to use other backgrounds with people you ordinarily couldn't speak with, and would be less of a mechanical burden on the system than Schticks.

Well, Backgrounds is probably a bad place for them, because they are frankly much much better than normal backgrounds and don't work like backgrounds do in pretty much any way.

What if they were a Resource?

-Username17

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:50 pm

Actually, Frank, I think Backgrounds is a fine place for them.

If you take (latino street gangs) you can speak spanish, if you take (chemistry) you can speak german, if you take (academia) you can read latin, all with effectiveness scaling with the level of your background.

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:44 pm

Orion wrote:Actually, Frank, I think Backgrounds is a fine place for them.

If you take (latino street gangs) you can speak spanish, if you take (chemistry) you can speak german, if you take (academia) you can read latin, all with effectiveness scaling with the level of your background.

So if you take "Saturday Morning Cartoons" you can talk to little kids? And if you take "Oil Rigs" you can speak arabic? I mean, you could justify it, but some backgrounds might be a bit of a stretch.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:39 pm

A resource could work, but it'd be difficult to justify it being more than a 3-point for polyglot level mastery.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:57 am

So I think that I'm not going to do schticks. Languages are now a Resource. Added some Flaws and divided them into three categories. I'm not sure if I want to do "Supernatural" Merits and Flaws. It's a possibility.

I will probably throw in some combat maneuvers as what are effectively schticks just for the Combat skill specializations. Idea being that you specialize in a Combat Style and your style comes with some maneuvers or some shit.

-Username17