Flashpoint: Warehouse Theft

Lenny's player wasn't here so they decided to take down the warehouse first since Lenny wasn't all that interested in all that stealthing about. Lhye had learned from the dwarven seamstress that there were nine dwarves, they used axes, shaved their entire bodies in respect to their elven 'god' (a man who probably failed the Starstone Test but they feel he'll be back soon), were incredibly ritualistic, and who accepted a shipment of food every Wealday morning (pre-dawn) before four of them set out to the market place (more out of ingrained habit than anything else).

Oh, and their mission giver from the Aspis Consortium arrived at their ship to confirm that they were going to do the mission and to give them a Bag of Holding I. He told them that the Aspis wanted a large darkwood trunk with a bronze finish across the hinges and the lock and that it should weigh half as much as the bag can carry. They could take everything else inside and keep the bag should they return the trunk to him. He also warned them how wide the Aspis' reach can be.

So they gagged and handcuffed the dwarven seamstress, Lhye used Disguise Self to become her, and the rest of them were smuggled in barrels of food (Marxus, Proteus' monkey, Archer, Lunjun) and water (Proteus). Lhye managed to goad the donkey into moving the cart and they reached the warehouse at a timely pace. The food was deposited inside, Lhye was paid 60 gold pieces and Lhye retreated with the cart out of sight.

The infiltrators came out of the barrels into the pitch darkness. Proteus created four 'fireflies' out of Dancing Lights and put them to the corners of this segment of the warehouse where a number of exotic weapons and other such things had been unpacked from a crate and laid across one table. A silver tipped boar spear, blow gun, masterwork Chelish Breastplate, masterwork bolas, masterwork harpoon, and a klar (a triceratops head turned into a shield). There was also a masterwork blood crystal trident and quadrons which Lunjun and Archer identified using Geography and Nature.

Marxus wrapped the pointy ends of these things with Lunjun to stow in the bag. Lunjun also finds 17 stone steles of varying sizes that are carved in polyglot with spells carved into them - a primitive spell book. Marxus also identifies the small lock box that contains the Lacedon-infected tablets which Proteus recognises as having a strong necromantic aura. They shove all of that into the Magic Bag barring the Darkwood Trunk.

Proteus locates the Darkwood Trunk behind a pair of crates by using Detect Magic and noticing a faint conjuration aura, strong abjuration aura, and moderate abjuration. They decide to open the trunk before delivering it but wait until they've snuck out of the warehouse (no sign of the dwarves) through the front door (as there's a dog in the back yard). They go down the streets a way and then Lunjun tries Knock on it twice and fails. Archer blows off the lock with one of his Gunslinger abilities with a natural 20! After all, they could repair the lock (which by this point they had identified as Elysian bronze) with Mending.

Archer heads over and opens the trunk and then sort of freezes and his face goes limp but no one makes the Sense Motive check (or has it as a skill, really) to realise what's going on. He opens the trunk top (still on the car) and they see a woman start to rise from the cramped confines, pale-skinned, dark-haired and with bright blue eyes. She wears a red amulet at her throat and a pale blue shimmering shawl that seems to ripple like water over a black dress. Belted at her hip is a morning star that seems to be almost silvery steel but which seems to reflect faintly golden whenever the light hits it.

Lhye recognises her as a vampire and somehow manages to goad the donkey into a sudden run and it takes a corner heading for the ocean. The others try to pile on the trunk lid to close it but fail the first time. Lhye's car chirrup-purs and hops into the trunk with her -- disturbing Lhye to no end. They manage to get the trunk closed but the bumpy cart disrupts Lunjun's concentration and he fails to cast Arcane Lock on the device from his scroll. She turns to mist and escapes through the hole in the lock and trails away from them.

They slow the cart, panic a bit, let the cat out, seal the trunk, and head back for the ship and the Aspis Consortium member to bald faced lie to him about how they'd delivered it as is. They're all very worried about the whole thing and Lhye is starting to wonder what this means about his patron if his cat - a representative of his patron - voted in favor of the vampire.

And therein the session ended. Tune in next time! Though next time won't be next week as game won't be on until the week after.

Conformat and Wow, Adventures in 3 Hours or Less?

Well, I went to my first roleplaying convention which was a rather small and intimate one down at the German Club. There were about fifteen or so games going and I got to try my hand at Deadlands (fantastic, by the way) and a strange and psychological World of Darkness game involving wisps of dreams and coming to terms with who we are and what we've done.

I also ran a Vampire: the Requiem investigative horror game which turned out suitably tense (lucky for me, it was mostly improvised on my part) which had precisely one encounter with the enemy before the big finale and where the ending involved no combat but rather the luring of the enemy and the ringing of the bell. All of my players were one's I knew although I did get a couple that I'd never run for before so that was a good experience.

I did pretty well with five players considering only two had booked in beforehand and one was my fiance (such is life when you register your game four days before the con).

It's amazing how much plot and adventure you can get through in a con game. There was no wasted time ... yet people still developed their characters. There was conversation but it was more like movie conversation than real world conversation. It grew relationships, revealed personality, but didn't devolve into:

"Yeah, well, I dunno. Maybe it might be a good idea."

"Yeah, like that other idea?" (Recounts several anecdotes with other characters throwing in their bits and pieces)

Oh, and with all the usual converational "Hello." "Hello." "How are you?" "Good, I guess. And you?" "I'm all right." "That's good."

Not to say that realistic conversations aren't good. It's just that after running so many games filled with realistic conversation and procrastination, I was literally gobsmacked that even a simple adventure could be completed in under six hours. I was seriously under the impression that a simple adventure required at least two sessions of 4 - 5 hours each if you didn't want to compress the entirety of Act III (and some of Act II) into the final hour.

I've been trying to run episodic games for awhile before giving up and running semi-episodic sandboxes. Yeah, these still have 'adventures' and 'missions' but they're not expected to be resolved in any particular number of sessions and you can pick up more of them as you go along. Its only very recently that I managed to get a nice investigative horror episodic game in the style of Supernatural with my fiance and I figured that one only worked because it was a solo game.

Yet there before me were games involving between 5 - 6 players and while one did run over time and would've required 4 1/2 hours to properly finish that's still well under the eight hours that I would normally require (if not more).

Again, these aren't complaints about my particular player set. I think part of the trouble with a continuing campaign is that you want to establish deeper background ties, you don't have the sense of urgency that propels you to action and to snappier dialogue, and you have baggage from earlier sessions and plans for later sessions that all affect what you do and how you do it. In a stand-alone, you can't get distracted by the past because you don't really have one.

Has anyone else had the experience of believing well and truly that an adventure can't be completed in only a few hours? Or do you have the opposite problem?

Skill Under The Spotlight: Computer

This is probably one of the easiest skills to understand but, oddly enough, it's one of those skills that people rarely think to use unless there's literally a password protected computer in front of them flashing the words ENTER PASSWORD. That's a huge shame because a lot of information is held online and potentially accessible to a hacker. Plus there's all sorts of proactive uses for it that can help you out.

Create a workable database to speed up research times (Wits + Computers).
Do research in online databases and the internet (Intelligence + Computers).
Operate complex computer program (Intelligence + Computers).
Create computer programs (Intelligence + Computers).
Knowing facts about hardware and software (Intelligence + Computers).
Entering information into computers (Resolve + Computers).
Working with a computer on a time limit or under pressure (Composure + Computers).
Creating a user-friendly web-site that hits the top of the Google search (Manipulation or Wits + Computers).
Crashing a web-site so that no one can access it (Intelligence + Computers).
Hack into secured systems (Intelligence + Computers).
Hack into a system secured by a system administratior (Intelligence + Computers vs. sysadmin's Intelligence + Computers, whoever attains successes equal to the opponents overall Intelligence + Computers first, wins).
Secure your system (Intelligence + Computer).
Counter a hacking attempt on your computer (Intelligence + Computers vs. their Intelligence + Computers, whoever attains successes equal to the opponents overall Intelligence + Computers first, wins).
Enhance an existing software program to give yourself an equipment bonus for later skill uses (Intelligence + Computers).
Build a superior computer for an equipment bonus for computers (Intelligence + Computers).
Build a computerised control system for a vehicle or other machine (Intelligence + Computers).
Automate a process (Intelligence + Computers).
Analyse data with a program (Intelligence + Computers).
Find holes in an electronic security system that can be exploited / patched (Wits + Computers).
Cover up the masquerade by stating that photographs of the supernatural are the result of special effects using facts and suggestions drawn from your electronic experience (Manipulation + Computers).
Actually do special effects on photographs (Intelligence + Computers).
Create certain fake I.D.’s (Intelligence + Computers - or Larceny with a specialty).
Understand programmable electronics (such as a VCR) (Wits + Computers).
Create a computer virus, trojan horse, or similar program (Intelligence + Computers).
Insert details of your false identity into certain key databases (Intelligence + Computers).
Remove all mention of you (or another person) from certain key databases (Intelligence + Computers).
Input all the right information into various databases that the government keeps an eye on in order to flag someone as a possible terrorist to National Security Organisations (Intelligence + Computers and a prior knowledge of the sorts of things they look for and what databases they have access to).

So there you go, that should keep you hackers busy.

By the way you can find the core article with all of the other likely links over here.

Game Translation: Metro 2033

This is a first-person shooter with some serious survival horror leanings based on a book written by Dmitry A. Glukhovsky where humanity in Russia have retreated into a series of subway stations after a nuclear war with America. You play a character called Artyom has to get help from the Rangers before his Home Station is overrun by mysterious creatures known only as the 'Dark Ones'. On the way he must deal with mutants, Nazis, Communists, and ghosts as well as strange psychic attacks that he barely manages to throw off.

This is a hard game because it tries to play things realistically. There's no Pause-Game-Inventory-Search and then Click-Button-To-Accept-All here. You must painstakingly hover over the item you intend to pick up that is on the person and then pick it up before moving to the next item. This is really painful, not to mention dangerous, when people start shooting at you while you do it.

The easiest way to model this in a pen and paper game is to simply describe the person, their clothing, and any obvious equipment and then let the players describe what they're taking / searching in the order that they take it or search it. Generally they can get it all on board so you won't have to count it down round by round but if someone is searching a body while their friends provide covering fire or if you just want to ratchet up the tension you could certainly go into rounds. This would work out particularly well if the first few times you decide that something will attack them on, say, round 3 and that they'll only get the first few rounds to gather things up.

Artyom also has to use a gas mask and in poisonous gas and irradiated areas you have to ensure the filters don't run out before you either a) replace them, or b) move into a safer area. To make matters worse, your gas mask can become cracked and damaged and leak in some of the nasty stuff which will then quickly kill you. This is trickier to do as it's yet another timer (and time is a tricky thing in roleplaying games) so you're better off using a rule of thumb such as that each filter lasts an in-game hour unless you're planning to give them VERY short-term filters in which case you could count it in minutes. If you're doing it in minutes, an egg timer that can be laid on its side while you're describing rapid events can work out quite nicely. That way the players eyes can be glued to the running sands.

The enemies are pretty iconic (Nazis and Communists) but you still sometimes feel a bit bad killing them when you overhear them talking about their kids. You're somewhat armoured by the fact that it's a war zone and this is just what soldiers have to do sometimes so it's not as disturbing as it would be if they were civilians or police officers. This is the kind of dark and gritty world where making players hesitate about killing people is a good idea, especially as stealth could well be an option.

Reloading is realistic. No Click-Button-And-It's-Done. Oh no, you get to sit through the animation and hope you have time. Since reloading takes time (and most games actually do include a reloading time), to duplicate this effect you'll need an ammo counter per gun and have the players erase or tick them off as the bullets are used. Yeah, it's a bit of extra fiddliness but it works for an apocalyptic resource-centered atmosphere.

Silencers aren't precisely silent and the enemy won't ignore it if it is used nearby. It'll make enemies suspicious and alert, perhaps prone to checking out what happened, but they won't automatically know someone's shooting. This is pretty easy to do. If they fire the gun, treat it as though they made an unfamiliar sound and have the NPCs make Listen checks. If they fail, they don't notice it. If they succeed, they heard it but don't really pay attention to it.

You can still carry however much ammunition you like although you're limited to only a few choices in weaponry. So carrying capacity is kind of applied. In a game like this, though, bullets (being currency as well) definitely matter so you'd be best off creating an ammo counter and ensuring it is consistently applied.

Broken bottle and other ground clutter can really ruin your stealth which is easily modeled through modifiers to a character's stealth checks if they move across it. Also, there's a number of traps that you'll notice if you're careful but if you're running for your life or in the middle of a gunfight than you'll probably plough into them. Again, make them roll a modified Perception check unless they're specifically walking through an area and paying careful attention.

Well I feel safe.

Enemies are certainly supernatural horrors, often tough as nails, and can damage you quite easily if you let them. Luckily you have a quick natural healing rate so if you can grab some breather room you'll heal up. While having tough monsters (high Damage Reduction, Spell Resistance, Armour, and other such details) isn't too difficult, characters in games that don't have Cure Light Wounds are going to be in trouble. This shouldn't be as much of an issue as it sounds, however, if you allow stealth as a feasible option because combats take so long that the players really shouldn't be wading through multiple hordes of enemies. Especially not in this sort of game.

Flashlights and night vision goggles both run on battery power and will slowly tick out and leave you blind unless you use the hand cranked generator to re-power them. Re-charging them is easily done unless you happen to be in combat at the time. Again you could use a timer but you're better off being pretty vague about it since its something that they should be able to do so long as they remember it. Heck, it could be used just for flavor. When they take a break you could just mention that they recharge everything. You don't really need to dump them blind in the middle of a battle.

A campaign based around Metro 2033, or including elements of it, should appeal to Tacticians who are most likely to make the best out of bad situations, using stealth and cunning to back up combat strategies to achieve their objectives. Action Heroes will love the adrenaline-fuelled combats, dangerous situations, running for their lives, and getting involved in some exciting decisions, but may well find themselves running low on ammunition unless they really love the idea of a Knife Party.

Explorers may well waste some of that ammunition and a chunk of time taking a look at things that they probably shouldn't, but at least that's sure to add to the horror feeling as they will actually pay attention to those creepy little cues you have sprinkled around like Easter Eggs. They're also more likely to remember those creepy warnings you gave about certain locations a few sessions back because their main drive is to see something new and explore odd locations.

Investigators won't have so much to do but you could keep them satisfied with clues about Life Before The End as well as details on What Happened Since so that they can piece together the location's history. They're the ones most likely to figure out why that station was abandoned if you give them th chance. Doing it like this will also pay dividends with any Explorers, of course, who'll find the location all the more intriguing. Not that most players won't benefit from interesting back histories, it's just that these guys and, to a lesser extent Explorers, are the ones more likely to piece it together.

Communicators will love the idea of the world and likely get quite excited by the whole thing but will make it play out differently if they get their way. Their excited by people and how they live and survive in such a place and will want to spend long periods of time around the fire swapping tales with Rangers and just living a day in the life of a survivalist in a post-apocalyptic future. A little bit of this is okay, just make sure that they're aware as a player that the primary focus of the game is on completing stated objectives.

You can find the trailer for the game over here. If you'd like to read the sort of tropes that Metro 2033 series used, you can find them here.

For the next Game Translation, you have a choice of these: Left for Dead, Half Life 2, Silent Hill, Project Zero, The Suffering, Skyrim, Gears of War, Mass Effect, Dracula: Origins, Realms of the Haunting, Dragon Age 2, and pretty much any survival horror or horror game. If no one picks anything by next week, it'll be Skyrim.

If you want to see the list of games I've done thus far, you can find the Game Translation series starter over here.

Flashpoint: Discovering the Warehouse

Lieutenant Marxus and Commander Archer return to the ship's berth after hours of attempting to wrangle people to re-fit the ship only to find a mopey looking Proteus (trying to scare Archer into thinking his ship is missing) and a half-stunned Lhye (his player was battling a major tension head ache and had scoffed a fair bit of pain killers). He asked what happened to the ship and Proteus gives a rather dazed response that isn't exactly a lie but is mostly gestures. Lhye, on the other hand, recounts what happened.

The ship itself is sitting a lot higher out of the water line as the bilges had been pumped revealing that the lower deck had been flooded and that it's actually a two-decker sloop rather than an ungainly pinnace.

"So the ship was flooded up the mid-deck?" asked Archer disbelieving. "Yet she still floated?" He gave the ship a new look of appreciation. "What is she made of?"

Marxus Lorelli gave a quick run down of his experiences with the old captain. "He was a viciously efficient man but not a very clever one. We attacked several coastal villages and took the survivors as slaves to be sold in Diobel to a mysterious Keleshite man who kept changing his name - but who wasn't the man who spoke to you earlier. They might be connected, though."

He continued: "During one of the raids we stumbled across some strange man's home and they boxed up everything and took it on board. I don't know much of what they found, other than that there were stone tablets, but all of the people involved in that side of the raiding party, including the 2nd Lieutenant came down with a fever and eventually turned into those Lacedon that were barricaded into the forward compartment."

"I'd thought he was just transporting them," said Archer.

"No, they were crew," said the Lieutenant. "Once. We started back but after that incident with the Chelish ships was in such a hurry he didn't sound the leads as we passed close to the Hen's Teeth and some volcanic activity - we'd heard rumors of sea quakes - must've shifted up some more teeth. He hulled the ship pretty fierce on top of them and we started taking in water."

"Stupid," said Archer."

Lieutenant Marxus nodded. "We made it to Diobel and he had to sell all of his cargo and his slaves through his old associate (he named the guy whose house was torn down a few sessions ago) even stripping out and selling parts from inside his ship and they tugged it down a very secret strip of sea lane that allows for a deeper draft. Not sure how we made our own way out without them - it was pretty specific and she'd taken on so much water she should have been grounded."

"So why are you being so helpful?" demanded Lhye, always suspicious on the Chelish.

Lieutenant Marxus shrugged. "I'm considered a criminal in Cheliax because I worked for Captain Dubois but I would have been executed as a traitor if I had committed mutiny against him. You've managed to free me from him without me needing to mutiny. I've no reason to obstruct you."

"Will you be loyal now that you have a new captain?" asked Archer, eager to finally have a Lawful crew member onboard other than Wellard.

Lieutenant Marxus nodded.

From there they turned their attention to the Warehouse Quest though they figured they should assassinate the Whorehouse Reincarnating Slaver first as there'd be less repercussions than a theft. They turned their attention to information gathering. Lieutenant Marxus went down to the unofficial registry office to learn more about local warehouses in that area and with a very nice natural roll of 16 (as he has no Diplomacy) he managed to learn that the property was owned by a group of beardless dwarves who are thought to be a cult that have a seamstress female dwarf called Kallarsk as their main contact with the rest of society. He didn't manage to find out anything about their wares - such questions would've shown too much interest (required a higher check to pull off).

Proteus used Oratory to tell tales in pubs that might set people talking about that particular warehouse. The first tale wasn't as well-suited AND he got a 1 on his Listen check but he made up a second one just for giggles that ended up being quite appropriate (being about dwarves bested by Caiden Caylean in a drinking contest) and though he got a low Listen check he still overheard the phrase 'beardless dwarves'.

Archer and Lhye (Lhye used Disguise Self to appear to be a female human prostitute) walked by the warehouse and noted that there was a shorter vegetable warehouse on one side, a taller fish warehouse on the other, that it was two roads down from the main docks, and behind it by a few dozen yards was the curving cliff side (curving because people had cut out rock whenever they needed it, thus weakening the cliff ironically enough). Further down were a number of boat houses where people built boats.

The wooden warehouse itself had no windows but had ventilation grilles (wooden) under the eaves of the two-storey building, one main door at the front, and three main sliding doors at the back platform. The back platform area was fenced with wooden posts that weren't all that high (about 4 feet) and revealed a broken cart and a Rottweiler-like dog. There was no sign of guards and no sign of any magical alarms.

Lenny looked after the ship during and this and Lunjun went to the markets to see if he could find an Invisibility or Alter Self scroll to learn from. I used the random rolls from the Game Master's Guide for a town of that size and picked 7 scrolls (scrolls being the only Minor Items in the area) that broke down to 1 0-level, 3 1-level, and 3 2-level spells. Unfortunately, there was no scroll that he sought but there was a Knock spell that he did purchase. Regrettably, he failed to study it (rolled a 1) and will need to wait until he increases his Spellcraft (next level) but to give it to Lhye would destroy the spell for his familiar to learn it.

Lhye then walked through the markets as a male dwarf to ask about other dwarves in the area. His Disguise check was fantastic (natural 20) and his Bluff pretty good (natural 18 plus lots) but his actual Gather Information check was low (no Diplomacy, so it was around a 7). Since he probably should have went from Disguise straight to Diplomacy rather than having to roll three dice I took pity on him and gave him the basics.

There's a group of beardless dwarfs (male) who walk around in orange hooded robes with white striped markings. They only go for the main market day (Wealday in Diobel) and normal travel in groups of four. He didn't get any more information than that.

So he became a dwarf woman (another natural 20 on Disguise) and headed to speak to the seamstress and there it ended.

As most such investigation and research checks are generally done independently by my players I offered to let them tell me their research plans over the week and I can roll for them to give them more information. It would still help them to know what the dwarves are capable of and how they tie into the society as well as any defences inside the warehouse. Especially if they're planning to get in and out without anyone noticing for a few hours.

Character Generation in a LARP - Movie Tie-Ins

Any character can work in any LARP so long as you're willing to make it work in a way that makes sense within the game world. If it doesn't make sense and dealing with your character slams other players out of the mood and atmosphere that they're trying to enjoy than they're likely to become irritated and even avoid you. Characters that are obviously derived from pop culture can often irritate other LARPers because they tend to damage the fourth wall and remind people that this is a game because they rarely fit the game they've been ported into.

Altair is an awesome character from Assassin's Creed but that's because he fits the rest of the game quite well. He is an epic assassin and has a vibe that is exotic and generally confident which is fun to embrace but he also requires a fair bit of suspension of disbelief that is often inherent in high action genres. I mean, that man is obviously well-armed yet he can just step amongst a group of monks and blend in? Or leap multiple storeys into hay bales? That makes James Bond look realistic.

This isn't to knock Assassin's Creed or other tales in those genres. Its just that when you bring that character into the political turmoil of, say, Vampire: the Requiem, then you invoke all the wrong associations and burst other players out of their hard won atmospheric bubble. Not only that but if you want to do anything with the sort of smooth style of Altair than you're going to either be disappointed by the generally gritty and consequential Vampire tropes OR you're going to damage other people's enjoyment by enforcing a very different style of gameplay.

It's like if you were watching James Bond and he kept stepping into a Jane Austen-style romantic drama plot. It wouldn't make much sense and the two genres would fight it out tooth-and-nail until the whole thing was a chaotic mess. While you can have fun with that, ask yourself if that's the what your other players want? If so, fantastic. A game of clashing genres certainly would keep everyone's interest in how it all bangs together, especially when it careens into an entirely new genre.

If they wouldn't enjoy it, then why do it? Either you'll get disappointed (more likely as you're outnumbered by the other players) or they will be.

Even if your movie tie-in is from a compatible genre it's likely to dent the fourth wall as the other players are going to find it difficult not to think about that movie when they're dealing with you. Odds are you're going to want to add your own flourishes to the character and when you do that they may be distracted with thoughts of how that's not precisely how the actual character would have responded. The other trouble is that even if you pick a character from a movie that has similar tropes to Vampire, that character was designed for another plot and still may be a round peg in a square hold when ported over into the game.

Now that isn't to say that you can't take inspiration from movies and create quite a good character modeled off of them. That's what a lot of authors and screenwriters do. If you take Sherlock Holmes and port him straight into Vampire you'd have trouble as there's a number of assumptions built into his character (like the fact he's a good guy who wouldn't chill out with murderers) but that isn't to say that you couldn't play a high-humanity drug-addled investigator who plays the violin. Its simply that you'll get more buy in from other players if he's not called Durlock Foams, was Embraced in the Victorian Era yet behaves as though he were still a human from that time, and has a ghoul doctor as a companion who still treats him as a slightly baffling equal rather than his beloved master. Throwing in a ready-made genius nemesis that you've wrangled the Storyteller into creating for you is the final nail in the coffin as far as a straight port is considered.

Instead, take that high-humanity drug-addled investigator who plays the violin concept and work on it some more. When were they Embraced? The obvious answer is the Victorian Era but that's going to introduce a trade off - Victorian style (which does fit Vampire's genre conventions at least) ancillae (giving you more social and political clout and a longer history of successes) will clash with actually being the best in the business.

Humans tend to find it difficult to change their work methods often enough to stay up-to-date and vampire minds just aren't as malleable as human ones. Is your ancillae really likely to be the best in our world of forensic science and DNA analysis? Perhaps he still is simply through fancy footwork, a reliance on his powers of observation, and the ability to rely on certain vampire powers. Even so, how has he dealt with the fact that modern science has gone leaps and bounds ahead of him?

Perhaps he does have an assistant, but rather than be a professional medical doctor she's a forensic analyst and computer expert who likes to be on the cutting edge (bonus points if you can get another player to play this person). Perhaps he simply despises modern science for encouraging a lazy brain in order to disparage what is beyond his comprehension. Perhaps he joined the Ordo Dracul specifically to try to work on his kindred weaknesses in order to strive to stay up-to-date with science ... or perhaps he joined the Carthians and encourages them to goad him to modernising himself.

You can see how these choices will affect him, his personality, and how he deals with people?

If, on the other hand, you make him modern you can lay a further imprint on him. Perhaps he was with Research & Analysis in the Office of Strategic Services spying on the Axis in World War II in the Cover & Documentation Branch to ensure that spy equipment was perfectly authentic before switching over to X-2 Counterintelligence to use those same skills to deduce enemy spies and sabotage operations on Occupied soil. Now that's taking the core of the character (eccentric investigative genius) but giving it a very different vibe and thus making it more wholly your own. Besides, you now have an interesting back history that can pad out discussions amongst the court.

Or perhaps you make him all the more modern. He was Embraced quite recently, perhaps a few years ago, because his sire thought his skills were wasted on solving cases as a private investigator or even working in the Coroner's Office going over other people's paperwork.

Ironically enough, in the latter two examples you could have him nicknamed 'Sherlock' as it then becomes realistic to highlight his similarity to a fictional character. He isn't the Sherlock of the novels nor is that Sherlock based on him but he's probably the closest thing to a living Sherlock.

So how to personalise him more? Well, clan should be a big influence as should covenant. A Mekhet with Auspex could certainly provide the necessary knack with deduction but could take away from his own internal brilliance. A Daeva could explain his passionate eccentricities with him following his vices. Celerity could certainly make him a little closer to the fighter version from the most recent movies. Ventrue would justify his arrogance and the reason why he speaks quite formally (if you go with that). Gangrel and Nosferatu could give him an interesting quirk to deal with and take him down a very different direction. Now he has something to struggle against that will complicate his Requiem.

Did he pick his covenant? Was it his sire's choice? Did someone lure him in with false promises? Did he want what they had to offer? How has his covenant shaped him? What role has he fulfilled for them? The fictional Sherlock Holmes obviously didn't have to cope with kindred society or a covenant so it would certainly mould him to suit both you and the game better.

So, if you really want to play a movie tie-in be aware that both you and everyone else will get more fun out of it if you take the character's core components (especially the bits you like) and change it up a bit. Think about how they might be changed by different eras (and how that might work for you). Consider the influence of clan and covenant and a significantly changed history. Think about differences in mannerisms or skills that you might like to have.

In short, use that movie character as a launching point for you to breathe life into your own character rather than just stealing that character whole-sale.

Skill Under The Spotlight: Academics

For all of those players wondering how to get the most out of Academics and all those Storytellers wondering how to build in uses of the skill, here it is. For those who aren't in the know, or who are wondering how the Academics skill might translate into their own games, Academic covers subjects like History, Social Sciences, Law, Accounting, Psychology (neuropsychology and psychiatry both fall under science / medicine), Liberal arts, Literature, and Philosophy. All of these can be taken as specialties as can any of the uses mentioned below. The higher your level of academics, the more likely I am to allow you certain uses or abilities as a rote or to expand upon the information you can gain. Obviously in the skill uses listed below there are alternative skills that could be used. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive or constraining list but rather to help you brainstorm options available to you.

Find alternate sources / methods to use in researching a subject when the player is stumped (Wits + Academics)
Locate appropriate libraries for the subject matter (Intelligence + Academics)
Write an academic article (Intelligence + Academics)
Research old newspaper archives (Resolve + Academics)
Write a report (Manipulation + Academics)
Convince people that certain facts are wrong (Manipulation + Academics)
Debunk supernatural incidents with scientific theory (Manipulation + Academics)
Navigate money trails to locate a person through their credit card records (Wits + Academics)
Detect fraud by examining money trails (Wits + Academics)
Notice architectural faults which suggest hidden rooms or other designs (Wits + Academics)
Pinpoint flaws in an argument (Wits + Academics)
Recommend historical military or quasi-military tactics (Wits or Intelligence + Academics depending on time constraints).
Date an antique or determine if its fake (Intelligence + Academics)
Analyse a psychological issue (Wits + Academics)
Perform Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or other structured forms of talking therapy (Manipulation or Presence + Academics -- social skills could also be used here)
Perform an oral presentation on an academic subject (Presence + Academics)
Teach an academic subject (Presence + Academics)
Favorably impress someone in an academic field (Presence or Intelligence + Academics)
Comprehend an occult text - this doesn't cover separating occult fact from occult fiction (Intelligence + Occult)
Perform academic research (Resolve + Academics)
Finance - handling budgets (Intelligence or Resolve + Academics)
Test authenticity of documents or objects (Intelligence + Academics)
Document verification - knowing who to contact or what markings to look for (Wits + Academics)
Survive being lambasted by a heavyweight academic (Composure + Academics)
Listen and pay attention to a long-winded but informative speech (Resolve + Academics)
Recall a particular academic fact (Intelligence + Academics)
Find maps, blueprints, or floorplans (Intelligence + Academics)
Gain access to maps, blueprints, or floorplans from government departments (Manipulation + Academics - Bureacratic Navigator merit helps)
Locating online databases of magazine articles (Resolve + Academics)

The reason why I place Psychology under Academics rather than Medicine is because I don't believe that medical training - the understanding of biological processes and medical techniques - lends itself necessarily to good therapeutic practice outside of psychiatry and pharmaceutical drugs. You don't need to know about the nervous system to use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I can personally appreciate putting Psychology under Science as some of the techniques really have easily testable hypothesis (Behaviourism I'm looking at you) but I'm leery of putting it under Medicine because while doctors can be good counsellors and therapists it really isn't a guarantee nor does an understanding of biology help very much when it comes to helping someone cope or pull through from depression.

Of course, Your Mileage May Vary.

By the way you can find the core article with all of the other likely links over here.