PC Creation: The Image vs The Detail

Now that I've been kicking around as a player, I've started to realise that the normal way I made characters (inspired by NPC needs and World of Darkness styles) aren't the only way.  It isn't even the best way.  What am I talking about?

I'm talking about detail-oriented character design.  You know the type.  You grab up a questionnaire, figure out your character's life story and how that has sculpted them, and then decide what sort of skills, merits and attributes would suit that kind of person.  It's very fitting for games that revolve around character because in anything that remotely resembles a sandbox you very much need to find your character's core and their motivation.

It can, however, cause trouble in a plot heavy game where the PCs must connect and work together, no matter what, and where there's little time given over to personal decision making or even connections to character history.  In action-oriented games where your stat-lines are all important in keeping you relevant, you really don't want to paint yourself into a poorer stat-line or feat-mix just because it makes sense for your character.

So in the latter case, and generally for one shots as well, you're often better building up an image of your character.  Think of it like a 2D representation with room for 3D growth as the campaign progresses, as the odd choice is decided upon and the odd quip is made.  In the meanwhile, prior to the campaign, you just need to decide on the *feel* and *look* of your character.

And by *look*, I most assuredly don't mean hair colour, height, weight and skin tone.  I mean whether they run around in plate mail with a pair of six-shooters or whether they're a gangly wild-eyed figure with a gnarled Rod of Extend.  Basically, decide on a colourful and interesting image which you can focus your stats around (i.e. what's the best build for armour + six-shooters) or, perhaps, if there's a particular mechanic you've got your heart set on you can instead build an image based off that instead (Cleave!).

Such a character often lacks the drive and motivation to persistently move a long-lasting sandbox campaign but can be absolutely brilliant in any other style.

There's probably other ways of creating a character, but these are the two main ones I've encountered.  Which one do you generally prefer?  And do you know any other main character creation styles?

So out of it....

Well I've been too out of it lately to pop up another Masks audio recording and I'm out of ones that I've previously gone through so ... we'll need to wait until next week.

In the meantime you can check out these cool LARP videos.

Vampire LARP: Blood-based Mini Games, Part 2

In my game, each vampire gets one roll prior to each session to determine howmuch blood they have gathered for it.  The city is now a dangerous place so it's not so easy to spend as many hours cruising and feeding without risk so one can't assume one will be arriving full at every gathering.  Any character may spend an additional downtime hunting.

Since you don't have to spend experience points on your hunting methods (except to boost relevant traits), it's well worth your time to invest in it with effort, downtimes or subtle manipulations at court to convince others to shift the economic landscape for you.  After all, if a charitable organisation gets most of the homeless off the streets then you're out of luck if they're your main prey, while if you demolish a large chunk of slum housing to put up a few larger single family dwellings OR shut down the psychiatric facilities and care homes then you'll have more food on the streets.

If too many people hit the same targets, then there's likely to be myths (campers have been more susceptible to flu lately) and also a reduction in targets (campers feel too uneasy to camp anymore).  There's also an increased risk that two vampires will hit the same target.  After all, even if there are 1000 campers in the Adelaide Hills in a single week there's a good chance that only 10 - 20 of them are in a convenient spot at any one time.  Problems can also arise if a vampire significantly fails their feeding check (roll a 1 on a d10 followed by another 1 on the reroll) which will generate either a personal plot (even on the dice) or a regular plot affecting the whole court (odds on the dice).

One of the questions asked of each player when they arrive is their preferred prey, area and hunting style and this default will be used until I'm informed of a change in tactics.  If too many vampires are attacking the same sort of people, areas, or (in some instances) using the same techniques, they'll generally all get a warning and will need to determine whether they themselves will change tactic or whether they'll force another to do so. 

 Techniques.

The first four of the below feeding techniques can be used on humans or animals (replace persuasion with animal ken and streetwise with survival) while the last option may only be used on animals.  The technique determines the dice roll used.

• Ambushing a victim (stealth, grapple, risk of discovery)
• Attacking a victim (brawl, weaponry, risk of victim's death)
• Convincing a victim to go with you to a bad location (persuasion, streetwise, risk of later retaliation)
• Feeding off an unconscious / sleeping victim (larceny, stealth, risk of discovery)
• Seducing a victim (empathy, socialize, risk of victim seeking you out)
• Majesty blasting a victim (Majesty, risk of victim obsessing over you)
• Dominating a victim (Dominate, risk of victim noticing memory gaps)
• Paying a victim, i.e. prostitute (resources, persuasion, risk of gaining a reputation)
• Animalism to call / subdue enough animals (Animalism, risk of myth making)

Prey

Some prey are easier to feed on than others, generally because they are either more numerous (allowing a single Kindred to reach more prey during the week) or because they are particularly vulnerable (allowing a single Kindred to feed more during the week).  The vampires' activities will affect the benefits and penalties involved, often in unexpected ways.  The precise bonuses / penalties will not be released to a player unless their character makes it their Lesser Work to study the herd.  The techniques chosen will also impact the bonus or penalty.  It is, after all, easier to attack an unsuspecting tourist than a petty criminal.  Thus only the first option will have an example.  The others will be listed simply as the general opinion of difficulty.  Naturally certain

• Homeless (+4) (approx. 500 highly vulnerable and accessible people)
• Intoxicated
• Campers
• Tourists
• Patients
• Lonely Singles
• Petty Criminals
• Prostitutes
• Junkies
• Nightshift Workers
• Opportunistic
• Livestock
• Pests

Location

Certain areas include a feeding bonus which actually provide extra blood earned per roll as though they had gained an automatic success.  These bonuses are divided by the number of vampires hunting there.  Thus, if the CBD rack has +6 blood attached to it and five people feed there than the first vampire to feed there gains 2 blood while the others gain 1 extra blood apiece.  Initiative, in this case, is determined by a Wits + Streetwise roll.  These areas include (with numbers being examples rather than what I will necessarily be using):

• CBD Rack (9) +3 in late February / March
• Glenelg / Brighton Rack (6) +3 in warmer months
• Livestock Farms (6)
• Abattoirs (5)
• Burgeoning Port Adelaide Red Light District (4)
• The Parade (2)
• Other range of pubs (2)
• Late night cafes, restaurants and coffee houses (2)
• Slum housing (2)
• Medical Facilities (2)
• Warehouse districts (1)
• Adelaide Hills (1)
• Office Car Parks (1)
• Beaches (0) +2 in warmer months

Bear in mind this is all just examples as I'll doubtless alter them as I get closer to the game creation time.

Dungeon Crawls Are ... Fun?

Well it's happened.  I never thought it would, but it has.  I am officially enjoying a dungeon crawl as a player.  I didn't think it possible.  After all, there's no story.  The only roleplay involves the brief asides the various characters make toward each other and a few of the decision points.  Yet it somehow feels satisfying, despite the fact that everything takes longer than in a videogame.

Setting aside my surprise at enjoying such light and airy entertainment, I then wondered at how it could possibly be better than a videogame.  Our miniatures and maps were hardly equivalent to a videogame's splendour and it's not like I'm one of those imaginative visionaries who creates an epic visual environment within my own head.  So why did it perfectly hold my attention?

Well, for one thing, we all got along.  Being in a social environment and playing in a team that genuinely gets along, complete with gentle IC ribbing and playful asides, is wonderful!  I've never gotten into multiplayer videogames despite people's assurances that this could be fun because I've always worried that they would be full of goons.  That's what you get for growing up female.  Not only do you lack multiplayer experiences from your childhood (since few girls play videogames and my game console was a Sega Master System anyhow which lacked many multiplayer games) but you also hear about how a whole bunch of credits live on the Internet wanting to pick on girls.

The latter point likely being true, judging by the number of anecdotes I hear, though I tend to be pretty lucky and could always play LAN-style anyway so it shouldn't really hold me back.

Anyway, random tangent aside, I realised that roleplaying games actually have something videogames don't ... a different set of pacing.  Videogames move so fast, especially this sort of fantasy game, that you can barely take a breath to enjoy one thing before you're whisked off to the next.

As an example, we entered a room with an incongruous trash pile to one side.  We ignored it.  Then the next time we passed we used Detect Magic and Detect Evil on it.  When we were about to leave, one of the players stared at the section on the man with a thoughtful look in his eye.  "You want to search it, don't you?" I asked.  Yup, he does.  Pulling back the trash, he reveals a treasure chest.  My PC saunters over to unlock it and ... is attacked by a Mimic.

Now think about this same situation in a videogame.  You don't eye off potential time wasters in a videogame.  I would just rush through that trash pile to see if I picked up anything OR there'd be a OOC button indicator over the trash pile which, being one of the few action commands available on the level I'd undoubtedly press OR I'd just run straight past it.  There's so many other goodies in the next bit that I'd largely forget what I'd passed.

Now it'd be different in a game like Outlast where you don't *run* anyway.  You cower and slowly slink about.  But in an action-based fantasy game?  You'd rush about!  So, while both are certainly good, they deliver different experiences beyond a pen-and-paper game's laggy combat (imagine waiting a minute for a swing to resolve in a videogame).

I also adore Pathfinder alchemists.  I don't know if I'll ever play anything else.  I've been a sorcerer and a rogue several times before yet have always found them too limited.  With an Alchemist I have some cool levels of damage output, some flavour options (explosive, cold, acid), a few spells to choose from and some neat little skills - especially Disable Device.  While I never feel overpowering, I do always feel relevant.  It's great!

Vampire LARP: Blood-based Mini Games, Part 1

LARPs need competition between the players to survive (more often than not).  How much competition and the kind of competition may vary from simple and relatively benevolent (kill more zombies than your colleague) to complex and relatively malevolent (insidiously affect your life so that your child rejects you).  When a particular game setting puts a lot of emphasis on a certain resource, it's certainly worth using it as a goal to compete over.

With vampires, that resource is: blood.

In my LARP, blood will be sourced through a few methods and each one has it's own sort of mini-game attached.  I'll chat about them more specifically in later posts.  For now, the primary three folks need to worry about include:

• Hunting.
• The Rack.
• Herd.

LARP Considerations: Pull Toward Division vs. Cohesion

I'm in the midst of designing a campaign game that sits somewhere between the Adventure style (modules, external plots, NPCs) and the Elysium style.  It's an awkward position to be in as the two styles vie and compete with each other but it's also the best spot for me to be in because my LARP is only now getting off the ground and I don't have oodles of cast and helpers available to ensure there's enough plot for everyone, while on the other hand I'm too much of a meddler to sit back and let an  Elysium style LARP just happen.  Mostly because I'd get bored with having nought to do but process rules and dice checks.  (NB: My lack of understanding of what exciting bits such a LARP would contain obviously shows in my ho-hum attitude toward it.)

The trick, naturally, is that a PvP arena tilts toward divisiveness while a PvE arena tilts toward cohesion.  After Persephone Trent provides you with the financial requirements to undercut the cult, Gary Dodd provides you with the arms and Dimloch provides you with the physical clout, it's hard not to feel a little bit beholden.  When your very existence depends on that one time the Wyrm pulled you out of a burning river and carried your legless body through miles of the Underworld to safety, you start to overlook the minor issues that would normally drive you apart.

At the very least, as a group you start to look down on petty divisions when those divisions could spell the end of everyone.  External threats are a great way to boost internal consistency and identification between members.

Naturally vampires (as this is a Vampire game I'm talking about) are innately pulled toward divisiveness, but everything that is human about them pulls toward cohesion when it seems to be the only way forward.  Short of building concrete division points into your character (you see spirits as a source of information, I see spirits as corruptive demons), most things can quickly be overlooked or healed.

Yet cohesion removes a major source of conflict: the clash of characters.  Unless the storyteller has enough cast and assistants to ensure a constantly flowing plot where everyone feels relevant most hours of the night, there's going to come a time when they will sorely need the characters to clash.

So what to do?

I look toward post-apocalyptic tales for guidance.  In a post-apocalypse, most of those who survive are at least a little selfish and paranoid (same as vampires).  They huddle together in confined spaces because that is precisely what keeps them safe (Torrens Island provides refuge for my vampires from the "spirit" incursions) but those confined spaces also make resources more precious, especially in terms of space (there's only so much square feet to go around).

In most post-apocalypse stories there is a chance for betrayal from within to either improve one's own odds or because one wasn't who you thought they were (Strix can possess vampires).  These treacheries and confusions can also stem from an inherent distrust of certain aspects of the world, whether superstition or reality (don't let the lights go out).  An ambiguous disaster could also cause the individuals involved to become paranoid toward each other (were you involved in this?) or toward certain other groups which are allies to some but not others (mages serve these entities, spirits are demons, werewolves are corrupted).

And, as always, the resources themselves become scarce and dangerous to maintain (blood, money).  Sometimes these resources conflict with one another (improve one Rack at the expense of another, improve one set of Herd at the expense of another) and the people involved must deal with those conflicts.

Sometimes those conflicts are the dramas of life, both petty and entertaining.  Romances, exaggerations, anecdotes which cast oneself in a brilliant light, an entertaining joke told at another's expense, a game of chess or a boxing match, or an argument over ownership of something that could technically belong to both.

All of these aspects and angles can be a part of the rich tapestry that also includes investigations, ambushes, throwing off assaults on one's territory, cleansing poisoned wyrm's nests, learning coils and proving one's worth to the overall organisation. 

Perhaps, it is possible, that in a single covenant game we may have the most diverse range of conflicts than in other sorts of games because when one isn't forever at each other's throats, one gets to deal with the complications that arise from life (let alone unlife).  Perhaps it is possible to play with the best of both worlds.

Musing on Masks: Episode 18

CAMPAIGN SUMMARY: James Paterson, Australian private investigator in New York, has been hired to investigate Sydney Silvers who went missing only a night or two ago but whose home was found ransacked by the receptionist. He's escaped Mogens home after discovering that the man had been doing some sort of chemical experiments on his enemies and that there would be both a ritual and a scarcely defended laboratory available to deal with at the same time.

EPISODE SUMMARY (Dilemmas): Wherein James Paterson, Australian private investigator in New York, must decide whether to assault Mogens head on or infiltrate his research facility instead.

CONSIDERATIONS: It always comes back to dynamite.  It was interesting watching this situation develop because the Half Moon Cult adventure really doesn't consider the possibility that players might choose to attack Mogens during (or before) the ritual rather than assaulting the laboratory.  It took a bit of gentle convincing to direct him toward the laboratory since a frontal assault on a ritual tends to be distinctly suicidal.

My player's mind, regrettably, isn't as geared toward Cthulhu genre conventions, however, and so he desperately sought out a way to be in two places at once.  I managed to push him in the right direction but I do believe that we would have had a Half Party Kill if this weren't a solo campaign as half the group would doubtless have tried their hand at the ritual.  Which wouldn't be so bad if there were some support for that in the adventure, which unfortunately there is not.

I still like the Half Moon Cult as an adventure but it does need to be thought through before being used.