Why The City Never Sleeps (Modern Nights Vampire)

[Hotfoot]

I've been talking about this one for a while, and it's time to get the ball rolling. I still need to settle on some finer points, so I don't expect super-finalized characters right away, but I would like to see concepts coming first regardless, as White Wolf is a more narrative system anyway.

So, some starters, the game will be taking place in New York City, circa 2016, though I may use comic book time to my advantage on some level for the year, there will be definitive dates when we play in so far as the short form time scale is concerned. The Camarilla recently engaged in a rather impressive campaign to beat, burn, and otherwise kick the Sabbat out of the Big Apple. There are still occasional holdouts, but for the most part, the Camarilla won. However, the vampire who was to be Prince until someone else could be chosen stepped down early, leaving a significant power vacuum in the city, one being looked at by a number of Kindred in the area, not the least of which being the head of the city's Anarchs, Boss Callahan.

The players will start out in the territory of the Anarchs, Staten Island, under the protection of Boss Callahan. Your true allegiance, loyalty, and even clans are going to be entirely up to you and you may keep them secret from other players as you see fit. I'm not looking to make this into a pure PVP game, but I will not shy away from it if that is the way things go, so just keep in mind that if you come in with a psychopathic serial killer with a humanity of two or the path of evil shit for giggles, other players (and some NPCs) may not want to put up with that shit and will throw down. If you hand the humanity seven toreador a sacrificial axe to murder a twelve year old, you might get your head chopped off with celerity.

Books we will be using include Vampire 20th Anniversary Edition and subsequent books that are relevant. As of the time of this post being written, the core rules and several supplemental books are on sale over on DriveThruRPG, with the core book being only about $6 US by itself.

Now, as with all games, especially ones that have been around as long as Vampire, we will come to house rules and rules options. By and large, we will be using the V20 book at its core, but we'll be changing a few things. Celerity being the biggest example. I haven't decided which version I intend to use, as it should be good and powerful, but not necessarily a must have for all characters for combat. I will take suggestions for that and for Thaumaturgy, specifically with regards to Rites of the Blood and the Core Book's version. Right now, I'm leaning towards the core book's version, but I'm willing to hear arguments for some of the alternate rules from Rites of the Blood. One rules change that I am pretty confident in making a change to is to the core dice mechanics. 1's will remove successes in all rolls, 10's will give an extra success in all rolls, and specializations will lower target numbers by 1.

For character creation, assuming 0 XP for skeletal character creation to help with the flowing of ideas, but I will likely be giving you somewhere in the vicinity of a bit to a lot of extra XP to start, but I'm not going to tell you what so people don't get upset when I go with a number lower than what I originally estimated. Almost all clans and bloodlines are possible options for characters, but that doesn't mean that you should give me a laundry list of weird esoteric shit just because it exists. I reserve the right to veto any character, but I promise I will explain my reasoning and work with you to create a character I will not reject that you will enjoy playing.

That said, I have some things for everyone to write up for their characters before I will accept any collections of numbers on a page. This can and probably should be sent to me privately, I recommend that you do it via email as my inbox here is not something I check often.

1. Who was your character in life?
2. Why were they embraced?
3. Who embraced them? Are they still around? What is your relationship with them?
4. How did they cope with being made into a bloodsucking abomination?
5. Why are they in New York?
6. Why are they useful to someone like Boss Callahan (or whoever they are really loyal to)?

Additionally, while I know I can't stop anyone from reading New York by Night, I will recommend that nobody read it and the general or specific details of what is going on there. I'll be changing enough up that it won't all be useful, but regardless, don't.

Finally, let me throw in some reminders of things, just so that we're clear about it later on. The Masquerade is in full effect and there are other edicts that have been passed down by the Camarilla's former Prince that will remain enforced until such time as a new Prince is appointed. These include no new sirings, the Scourge and Sheriff act as the Prince in their duties, and any remaining Sabbat are to be destroyed on sight. If you come in with a Sabbat character making shit tons of shovelheads, all I can say is that you had best get good or prepare to get got. If you flash around transforming into bears in Times Square or throwing fireballs around Columbus Circle, expect your Bell to be rung.

That said, there are things going on other than just politics, and without the Sabbat, there are a lot of things that go bump in the night.

I'd like general characters to be posted here or to my email by Wednesday, August 17th, 2016. I will set a hard date for final characters once more has been nailed down.

[LadyTevar]

Interested. I'll get back to you when I have those questions answered.

[Hotfoot]

This game is set to run on Monday Nights, just for reference.

[LadyTevar]

I'm working Weds-Friday right now, so I'm good. :)

[rhoenix]

I'm definitely in, especially after how well this character concept of mine is working out.

I'll be secret squirrel about his starts to start with, though.

[Hotfoot]

Okay, so the Obsidian Portal page is up, invites have been sent, and while it is barren for the moment, it will not stay such for terribly long.

So, a few things. First off, character sheets will be done a bit differently this time. Rather than having them all posted publically as we have done before, the character sheets themselves will be private. To prevent others from seeing your character's stats or backstory, when creating the character sheet you will NOT be using the usual "Description" and "Bio" windows. Those will be used for your character's obvious information, like their public name and description of what they look like.

The backstory and stats will be posted, instead, in "Player Secrets" windows. Scroll below the normal windows and select "Create Player Secret" when making your character and put your information in there.

To make sure that you are doing it correctly, create a window that says, "This is a test of the player secret window" and save the character sheet. Then let me know and I will check to make sure it is properly set up. There should be one character window for backstory and one for your character sheet.

I will be checking the character sheets on creation and periodically throughout the game to ensure that your sheets are up to date, but ultimately if you screw something up, that's going to be on you. If you don't have written down things that you have, be they skills, talents, merits or flaws, or equipment that you have purchased, then don't expect to rely on them in a game.

As a tip: If you have powers or abilities you are not familiar with, create a cheat sheet. It can be in Obsidian Portal, Roll20, Google Docs, or a notepad you keep next to your desk. Go through each and every ability you have and write it down. Trying to remember what Presence 1 uses versus Presence 2? Write it down. Keep it easily available. Save yourself the hassle of trying to look it up from the 500+ page main book or any of the supplements. For example, Presence 1 could be notated as follows:

Presence 1: Cha + Performance (Dif 7) - Affects 1/2/6/20/all people in vicinity based on successes. Subjects become receptive to point of view, do not disregard safety. Affects low willpower first, can use willpower to ignore for a scene, if willpower spent equals successes, may ignore.

That is how I would write the cheat sheet. It covers all the main points of the power, what attribute and skill apply to it, the difficulty of the test, how successes are applied to the check, what the skill actually does if successful and how it is applied, and what counters the skill (if anything). Three sentences, very brief, to the point, and informative. If I had a character I could, if I wanted to, fill in the actual numbers for my charisma and performance, but that makes editing the character more difficult as it means you have to edit each discipline every time you increase an attribute or skill, which can get messy with things like blood buffing. But if you have the cheat sheet open while your character sheet is open, you're set because you can just glance and fill in the blanks.

This is a trick I use myself constantly to keep everything straight when I'm playing a character in a given game, and hopefully it will be helpful to others as well.

[Hotfoot]

Also, as a reminder, Tomorrow is the soft deadline for the character concept. The six questions are a part of that, you don't need a name or finalized character sheet, but if I don't have the answers to those questions, it's going to be harder for me to incorporate stories for your character into the chronicle.

[Hotfoot]

House Rule: Multiple Actions

The first time a character has the opportunity to act in a combat round (including being attacked), they can choose to take multiple actions or just one. One action lets you use your normal die pools at regular difficulties, while taking multiple actions means that all of your actions this round are at +1 difficulty, with a -2 die pool penalty to the first action with an additional -1 die for each action after the first. Without celerity, only one action may be an attack action.

House Rule: Celerity

Celerity gives a passive bonus to initiative and movement relative to dots in Celerity. A player may spend 1 blood to get ranks in Celerity in most dexterity checks (GM discretion based on if speed would be useful) and perform multiple actions without the +1 difficulty penalty up to ranks in Celerity. Additional actions taken past that accrue the normal +1 difficulty penalty. The die penalty remains, but is compensated for by ranks in Celerity. You get additional attack actions at the odd numbered dots, so up to two attacks at 1 dot, up to three at 3 dots, up to four attacks at 5 dots, and so on.

[Hotfoot]

Final versions of backstories and character sheets are due this Saturday, August 27th. The first game will be expected to start on Monday, August 29th.

There will be no mercy upon your souls, for you are the damned.

[General Havoc]

There will be no mercy upon your souls, for you are the damned.

And this distinguishes us from the rest of New York how?

[Hotfoot]

There will be no mercy upon your souls, for you are the damned.

And this distinguishes us from the rest of New York how?

You have stricter dietary requirements than the hipsters, which puts you below them in the hierarchy. I mean who doesn't like a good dirty water dog now and then?

[Hotfoot]

Reminder, final character sheets and backstories are due in 25 hours from now.

[General Havoc]

My flight lands in Oakland tomorrow at around 5. I expect to be home in the realm of 7 o'clock

[Hotfoot]

No game tonight.

[Lys]

If it wasn't for the long hair, this picture could totally be Lacey with Eyes of the Beast up.

[General Havoc]

And the person she was trying to intimidate:

[Hotfoot]

And yet she succeeded. Weird.

That said, we're down at least two players out of five, so I think we're going to postpone things. If anyone wants to talk system stuff or story stuff or whatever I'm still going to be around.

[LadyTevar]

If it wasn't for the long hair, this picture could totally be Lacey with Eyes of the Beast up.

I never specified how long her hair is. For all you know, part of her get up every night is cutting it shorter. ;)

And I totally reminded the Gargoyle why not to fuck with Gangrel. Until the blasted Toreador use the flash camera and got spots in my eyes.

[Marcao]

Hey guys, I may not be able to participate in tonight's festivities as my parents have lit the beacons and Gondor calls for aid. If I am fortunate, I will be very late. If I am not, I will not be able to participate at all.

[LadyTevar]

Trick or Treat is 6-8 Monday, then I have to wait for the roads to clear enough to take the nephew to work. ETA 9ish.

[General Havoc]

Hey guys, I am just buried at my office today and will likely be getting out later than usual. I'll keep y'all updated but I will be there when I can, ultimately.

[Hotfoot]

No game tonight.

[LadyTevar]

I have this Monday and next Monday off.

[General Havoc]

Hi everyone. There's a decent likelihood that I'm gonna get caught up at work tonight a bit more than usual. I may be later than expected. Sorry.

[Hotfoot]

Reminder, there is a game Monday, December 26th, 2016, at 8PM Eastern Time. If you cannot make it, let me know.