After Sundown tweaks/house rules

[Username17]

Going to reply to some other stuff that I didn't get around to earlier. There are a lot of ideas to ponder here.

People should actually have to do horrific things to become immortal. Elder necromancers use Resurrection to obliterate someone else’s soul and take over a new body. Leviathans become cthonic horrors. Fallen obliterate their fundamental selves. Nobody's going to do that if you can just just give yourself crackberry blood or intern at the dream messenger's office for a year and whoops! I'm immortal!

Well... sort of. One of the key conceits of the horror genre is that immortality is kind of a raw deal. That however, makes for shitty game play. For one thing, the actual story takes place over a really finite amount of time. Even with some time skips and montages, the story is still rather unlikely to go for more than a few years of actual stuff happening. And within that context, a character's "age limit" just isn't going to come up. They could live forever or fall over in a few years like a juicer and it just wouldn't make any difference. So if the immortality costs a lot, you're basically asking the players to go underwater on a mortgage for a house they don't even get to see.

Secondly, most of the ways that immortality sucks in the fiction involves the character being extremely constrained in their actions. You get to live forever, but you're the bitch of an elder vampire forever. Or, you get to live forever, but lose your mind and don't even remember who you are. Or whatever. And those all make decent enough stories, but they don't make good stories where the character is a protagonist whose actions are chosen by one of the authors of a collaborative fiction. The genre requires a fair amount of control over the character's actions and choices, because that's almost the entirety of how the player experiences the game.

So basically we have to step back and attempt to preserve the "shitty choice" aspect while acknowledging that the immortality itself is pretty much flavor text. So you get a raw deal and master passions and people trying to kill you and stuff for having supernatural power at all. And whether you have immortality or not is a relatively minor footnote. So you get much the same "cursed with awesome" deal for being a Werewolf (not immortal) as you do for being a Vampire (immortal).

Now one thing that could be done is to have the sorcerous methods of immortality involve mighty rituals of vast power. So to actually live forever as a vampire you have to drink a whole lot of blood and arrest your aging process. Until you do that, you can grow older like Blade. This would head off some of the more disturbing "ancient vampire child sex fiend" archetypes.

Incidentally, Compel Spirits should really be named "Banish Spirits" since that's what it does. The name Compel Spirits implies to me that Necromancers actually get to command Ghosts which ain't the case(sadface). Heck, Necros never get to command ghosts except poltergeists only briefly with Nightcry.

I think it would be possible to rename the current Compel Spirits to Exorcism (Banishment being already taken) and to create a new alternate Advanced Necromancy where you straight up used Authority variants to force Spirits to do shit.

And then you could come up with some kind of evocative name for the Orphic cold discipline. "Symphony of Silence" has a certain ring to it.

I just wanted to say, this made me laugh.

Although, adding additional paths of sorcery is certainly an option, just as adding extra magics to paths that already exist is. Already mentioned is:

• Spider Powers. Clinging already exists, as does Bite of the Serpent, so we're really talking about webbing. This could be a Song of Swarms or Lure of Destruction alternate Advanced. Or it could be part of a whole extra Drow thing.
• Symphony of Silence already is a thing, but apparently people want more cold powers. So far you can chill things at Basic, make ice walls at Advanced, and freeze an area kilometers around at Elder. There could be more of course, as there is currently no area cold blast or personal ice armor.
• If Penanggalan are to be a thing, obviously there needs to be something allowing creatures to pull their body parts apart and do stuff with it. I can see some forms of Goblins getting some mileage out of that as well. Also it could lead to some of the more "wall of severed limbs" type stuff you get in the Cannibal Corpse vein of horror.

The "Trail of Tears" discipline should probably get a new name.

Because it's offensive? Or for some other reason?

We have a "Veil" discipline and a "Veil of Morpheus" discipline. Maybe another place to make a name change to one of those. I'm sure there's other magical words for "hide things".

There's also "Shroud", "Facade", "Muddle", "Sequester", and "Recondition".

-Username17

[Maxus]

So I can't really see doing a "design a character" order for the book. Because the order isn't going to be constant. I can see doing a short version of chargen with some important tables and shit at the back of the book for people to use as a reference. That seems like it could be useful.

-Username17

You could also have character preloads based on how characters live.

So you could have the 'vagabond', who roams to keep ahead and stays out in the woods with minimal comfort and has stuff like a nice poncho, a good survival knife, and a sweet backpack full of awesome things like a waterproof awning and beef jerky for when he doesn't want to wolf out and go eat a squirrel.

At the other end of the scale, you could have a supernatural who tries the 'incognito' route, has his own apartment (with couches and floors for buddies to sleep on) in a rough neighborhood (so people aren't particularly surprised that he lets buddies sleep there sometimes. Times are hard), and works as the manager of a gas station or whatever.

Other preloads I could see:

Syndicate functionary (which has stuff like 'home base and a hidey-hole for syndicate-important info')
Cultist (like syndicate functionary, except has shadier connections/bonuses)
"Wild" Supernatural who hasn't ever had much to do with normal society. Possibly is geared way more for combat with a lot of crazy gear like swords and shotguns.


The idea would be you could just pick out if you want your vagabond to be a lycanthrope or frankenstein and already have a fairly fitting set of skills/points assigned. Or you could have your Reborn who has an apartment and lets his Frankenstein buddy crash on the couch and they play video games with each other because they both have Celerity and normal people aren't much of a challenge.

[erik]

And then you could come up with some kind of evocative name for the Orphic cold discipline. "Symphony of Silence" has a certain ring to it.

I just wanted to say, this made me laugh.

Shit, I was going to reply to that with a reuse of my image I made for a musical wizard thread. It's not too late!



Maybe it's too late, fuck if I care.

[Sashi]

So the thing I'm unclear on is why immortality needs to be tied to magics that people can get through character advancement at all? It's one thing to let Resurrection grant "immortality" through soul swapping, but I don't know why Gift of Health or really any sorcery needs "and BTW you're immortal" tacked onto it. I mean, the vampire entry has the following:

And all vampires can at least potentially live forever. In After Sundown, it is this facility with not dying that most effectively defines a vampire. So long as they keep draining life from others, their own unlife need never end.

Do they really need anything more than that? Immortality? Check. Horrific thing? Check.

This works for all the other immortals, too:

These new generations, called Leviathan, become less human in countenance and thought as they grow in age and power.

Change to: These new generations, called Leviathan, have potentially infinite lifespans but become less human in countenance and thought as they grow in age and power.

Those luminaries whose souls are scoured out to beyond the possibility of recognition by the harsh infernos of Limbo are left ageless shells, they are The Fallen.
...
the very fact that a Fallen's magic powers do not come back without exposure to more of the evil magic that caused their condition in the first place has led some to speculate that if they were to simply avoid Infernal power long enough that they would regain their human lives. If anyone has succeeded in that, there are no reliable records of it.

Animates and Demons are literally inhuman. Zombies are, well, zombies. Wraiths are as "mortal" as their fetters. And spawn are just straight-up worse off than the Luminary version.

[Lokathor]

The "Trail of Tears" discipline should probably get a new name.

Because it's offensive? Or for some other reason?

The "it's offensive to name a fantasy game thing after a real life massacre" one.

So the thing I'm unclear on is why immortality needs to be tied to magics that people can get through character advancement at all?

Well, a lot of people just have this thing, you know? Where they wanna live forever. So we give them the ability to get the power to live forever in a fantasy game. The same way that people wanna get cool cars with rims and so we let them get cars that have rims in a fantasy game. Because Frank is right, "lives forever" is about as useful to a normal After Sundown game as spinning rims on your car. People still want it.

[Orion]

On nomenclature: I think it's pretty clear that Vigor should be a Power and be activated with Power Points. It's less clear what Clout should be called, or Symphony of Silence, or how to elegantly get across the difference. I personally feel that Clout, Magnetism, and the like should be called talents. And Chasing the Storm, Walk of Flame, and Raiment of Rime should be called schools.

[Sashi]

Well, a lot of people just have this thing, you know? Where they wanna live forever. So we give them the ability to get the power to live forever in a fantasy game. The same way that people wanna get cool cars with rims and so we let them get cars that have rims in a fantasy game. Because Frank is right, "lives forever" is about as useful to a normal After Sundown game as spinning rims on your car. People still want it.

Except that people can just go and get bit by a vampire. Or download their brains and become an Android. Or eat a leviathanburger. Or jump their soul into a new body every few decades. Or find an infernal picture frame that turns them immortal but obliterates their soul.

Isn't it kind of weird that the cannonically mortal Werewolves can become mortal by spending a few karma during character advancement?

[Lokathor]

Well, a lot of people just have this thing, you know? Where they wanna live forever. So we give them the ability to get the power to live forever in a fantasy game. The same way that people wanna get cool cars with rims and so we let them get cars that have rims in a fantasy game. Because Frank is right, "lives forever" is about as useful to a normal After Sundown game as spinning rims on your car. People still want it.

Except that people can just go and get bit by a vampire. Or download their brains and become an Android. Or eat a leviathanburger. Or jump their soul into a new body every few decades. Or find an infernal picture frame that turns them immortal but obliterates their soul.

Isn't it kind of weird that the cannonically mortal Werewolves can become mortal by spending a few karma during character advancement?

It doesn't bother me one bit that naturally moral creature types can become immortal by picking up a Universal Power.

[Orion]

Radical Proposal: Feel free to disregard.

We had a conversation earlier about filling out the bestiaries of the other worlds. We talked about making the Dreamland more plot-hook friendly by throwing in a humanoid antagonist -- perhaps Sidhe or Vanir. I think it's time we talked about the Gloom's bestiary, which is in some ways even worse off.

Let me start by acknowledging that Ghosts are awesome. They get to have cool tragic backstories, human personalities, idiosyncratic powers, and underworld civilizations. There's enough material with ghosts to hang an entire campaign on. However, just because ghosts are cool. And of course Zombies have some gravitas as well. The problem is that while both are cool monsters who are Orphic, neither of them gives you much reason to care about the Gloom as a place.

Most zombies are created on earth by other people who are already on earth. Even when a Shadow Gate makes them, the zombies themselves don't come from the other side, only the energy. There's no reason a crypt that spawns zombies needs to be a portal to another plane and not just a magic site or energy well. Ghosts are known for hanging around in the places they died and being obsessed with mortal affairs. Haunted houses are cool, but have nothing to do with the deep Gloom. I'm also skeptical that Ghosts can really fill the role of Demons and Fae as human-like antagonists. They spend too much time being bound in one place or obsessing over petty earth dramas, and not enough time being terrifying alien invaders.

So: since we're already on the topic of ice magic, I got to thinking: what if we put Niefels in the deep Gloom?

[Lokathor]

The thing about the Deep Gloom, thematically, is that it's dead. It's not just a little full of death, it's completely dead. So all the natural inhabitants are undead, even the bugs are weird undead bugs and the plants are weird undead plants that feed on blood. There's no sun to heat Mictlan unevenly, so you don't get pressure differentials from temperature differences in the air. The planet probably doesn't even spin. No wind at all. No tides, there's probably not even a moon. Almost no geological activity, except for that strange Welling stuff.

It's interesting to have a totally dead world, and it's nice to have that "anything you set down out of the way will probably just be sitting there even in 200 years", but it's also really unfortunate to have a third of your otherworld selection be a planet that "doesn't interact" as its signature ability.

So adding more to the Deep Mictlan environment and easing up on the "it's all dead all the time" thing is probably the way to go. If a complete new creature set can't be come up with easily, it might be possible to just add to what's already there. Like, if a zombie eats too many brains it'll chill out with the need to eat brains and digivolve into some sort of undead humanoid that would potentially be able to put together a society in large enough groups. Or wraiths could be given a society of "wraiths that got over it" that do things with their eternity.

[Chamomile]

While it's true ghosts are not alien invaders, you can have the deep Gloom just be full of massive Necropolii filled with ghosts, and constructed from their remembered existences. It creates a hodgepodge world of anachronistic locations, each one inhabited by spirits who have lost their grip on reality and have instead resorted to recreating the world they remember so that they can relive whatever event they obsess about over and over again. Entire cities made out of haunted houses and flashbacks about to go wrong.

It's awesome in its own way, and I don't think it's a bad thing that it's a different sort of plot hook from Limbo and the plant place that is either Maia or Gaia and I can never remember which.

[Maxus]

And the deep gloom can be filled with all kindsa crazy shit. There's some Japanese monster that's a collection of flying viscera and it attacks people. And all the necromantic abominations and other Things That Should Not Be

[Prak]

The description of Mictlan having insects as one of the things it calls out as living there leads to some confusion, when you try to tell people about the game. Especially since it leads to "bug monsters come from all three worlds" thoughts, with Infernal Mi Go, Astral Swarms (commonly conceptualized as being arthropod in nature), and the Orphic off-handedly mentioned parasitic insects. I just mean that, for something so carefully thought out so that there was no concept bloat, that was a miss.

[OgreBattle]

While it's true ghosts are not alien invaders, you can have the deep Gloom just be full of massive Necropolii filled with ghosts, and constructed from their remembered existences. It creates a hodgepodge world of anachronistic locations, each one inhabited by spirits who have lost their grip on reality and have instead resorted to recreating the world they remember so that they can relive whatever event they obsess about over and over again. Entire cities made out of haunted houses and flashbacks about to go wrong.

And then you can cram in Vampire Knight Requiem in there for some leather clad hard abs, spiked codpiece nazi vampire action. and colonial dinosaurs.

[Judging__Eagle]

And then you could come up with some kind of evocative name for the Orphic cold discipline. "Symphony of Silence" has a certain ring to it.

I have no idea if you're joking, or if you're being satirical. Like at all.

I've also been developing a growing sense that After Sundown isn't just the game everyone wants to play.

It's the narratives that everyone has already subconsciously agreed to play; even if they've never even heard of TGD or AS.

People may confuse Deep Ones with Krakens in imagery or details; but it's not like they' don't feel you can have Deep Ones and Krakens in the same story.

As an aside, and separately,

I might be the odd one one out on this; but I'd like to suggest switching Bagheera (or Ocelotol) and Nezumi (or Kobalt-Gnomes) in terms of their Power Source.

Hell Cats, and Death Rats are much more iconic than the other way around; and I've seen the Moon related to Rodents across continents and Cultures (I feel that the Gloom really should have an always full visible moon); while Fire + Felines seems to be an association that I honestly have a hard time not accidentally tripping over in my search for reference art for my AS folders.

This would also require switching Nezumi to have Touch of Darkness; and Bagheera getting Learn the Heart's Pain; but aside from that; it's less painless than having to explain that "Hell cats" can't seriously exist; and that Death + Rats also doesn't exist in AS.

This also makes Nezumi relatively competent burrowers (as well as matching with their flavour text of "Tear them up"); while Hellcats always seem to play perfect games of cat and mouse with others by knowing what's inside of their prey's minds.

I actually made this association by mistake, and kept doing so for over a year. Only occasionally in looking at the rulebook itself did I correct myself; and realize that it's an edit that I would make in my own games and remixes on AS.

Other people's mileage and opinion on this switch may vary; however I've got more mileage out of this approach, then what 1e AS does.

I can't disagree strongly enough. I've done production and layout work on shit before, and this has all the earmarks of the kind of change that reads like a great idea once you already have familiarity with the topic but ends up making the uninitiated hate your document with the fiery heat of a thousand suns. You can't please everybody, and in this case I think deference needs to be shown to the new reader. It's really the same logic that leads to indexes being in the back.

Here's the deal though; the people who don't know this document are the ones who "hate the document with the fiery heat of a thousand suns", because of it's current layout.

So you argument is just production and layout wonkishness ratcheted up so high that your head is up your ass?

You should be probably do what I did, and actually listened to what actual players who are not "in crowd" The Gaming Den members have said about the first editions layout; not what amount of theory you'd like to believe is universal.

This is a game book, first and foremost; and most players who are new to it aren't going to bother reading yet an other books intro texts or setting introductions.

Really, to assume that players will do so, is an in-crowd conceit. Most players want to make their character first; then figure out what's going on in the world. Even if they are going to play as monsters who are a part of that world.

They may read the backstory of the setting. However, that's only after they're sold on the setting and want to learn more about what is going on within it. However, that only happens after they've been able to make characters with ease.

Unless you're planning on running a game; most of the book's setting stuff should be at the end; probably just before the World At Night chapter.

Also, a chapter after The World At Night chapter, that discusses how to develop World At Night for the game groups back yard would be helpful.

The prospect of playing Monsters in their own home region is a real selling point for After Sundown; even if the group rarely stays in their home region; they have a sense that where they are from is connected to a wider world.

As it stands; this is roughly what I feel needs to be covered, in order:

Introduction

-Game intro stuff; what is an RPG; the 1+ Hits mechanic of AS;

-Guidelines on making a group of characters for a Co-Op storytelling game; guidelines on Origin Story, In Media Res, and Power Fantasy characters.

The character sheet

-Player; and Character, name entries don't need a real description
-Driving Passions
-Brief rundown of the 8 powers that each Supernatural Playable type has to offer
-Maddening Passions (Master Passions is the least clear term; and I've had to relabel it on my character sheets, and in my games)

-Attributes [Physical, Mental, Social]

-Special Attributes [Edge, Potency, Power Points] (Power Points is a fine term; and players have been remarkably mature about the fact that they have "PP" to spend on their ego extension powers)

-Ethical Taboos

-Ideological Moralities

-Disadvantages/Advantages

-Personal Knowledge & Backgrounds [This needs a much better write up; I've seriously yet to have a player from 3.X/Tomes power gamer to English lit TA not struggle at how to make character backgrounds. I believe that it is due to a Shadowrun and World of Darkness conceit to assume that any player can seriously make up 35~ pts worth of backgrounds; and not tend to just get 5 or so at max (6) ranks; perhaps I don't play with enough improvisational actors or theatre students to see this be less of a problem]

-Active Skills [yes Background before Active skills; because Backgrounds are always harder to pull off]

Societies [very brief rundowns of all of the following; more detailed write ups can come in a later chapter]
-Patron's Court
-Secret Membership
-League of Allies
-Antagonists

-Resources/Obligations

-Weapons/Danger

-Supplies/Equipment

-Getting what you Need/Montages/Skill Use/Social Combat


-Magic; Universal; Devotions; Sorceries (Infernal, Astral, Oprphic).

Developing Characters

-Quests/Missions

-Character Advancement

The Background Information

-Setting Information; details on organizations briefed in the earlier chapter

-The World at Night

-Example characters

-Fiction pieces [Can be at the front; no one is going to really read this btw; I have b/c "why not?"]



Yes, this is going to gut certain chapters; and turn the entire layout inside out; but it's something that I've had lots of people bring up. People who've played D&D, Shadowrun; World of Darkness


edits:

Radical Proposal: Feel free to disregard.

We had a conversation earlier about filling out the bestiaries of the other worlds. We talked about making the Dreamland more plot-hook friendly by throwing in a humanoid antagonist -- perhaps Sidhe or Vanir. I think it's time we talked about the Gloom's bestiary, which is in some ways even worse off.

Let me start by acknowledging that Ghosts are awesome. They get to have cool tragic backstories, human personalities, idiosyncratic powers, and underworld civilizations. There's enough material with ghosts to hang an entire campaign on. However, just because ghosts are cool. And of course Zombies have some gravitas as well. The problem is that while both are cool monsters who are Orphic, neither of them gives you much reason to care about the Gloom as a place.

Most zombies are created on earth by other people who are already on earth. Even when a Shadow Gate makes them, the zombies themselves don't come from the other side, only the energy. There's no reason a crypt that spawns zombies needs to be a portal to another plane and not just a magic site or energy well. Ghosts are known for hanging around in the places they died and being obsessed with mortal affairs. Haunted houses are cool, but have nothing to do with the deep Gloom. I'm also skeptical that Ghosts can really fill the role of Demons and Fae as human-like antagonists. They spend too much time being bound in one place or obsessing over petty earth dramas, and not enough time being terrifying alien invaders.

So: since we're already on the topic of ice magic, I got to thinking: what if we put Niefels in the deep Gloom?

I've been leaning towards labelling the Gloom, The Frozen Shadows; and making it more about Ice Ages; all of human coastal civilizations destroyed in The Great Deluge (giving rise to the Shattered Empire).

However, where the Frozen Shadows differs from Earth is that there are totally flooded underwater cities on coastlines filled with ghosts; and most mortals will never know about, or interact with them. Usually their most apparent actions are dismissed as coincidence, such as when their ghostly neighbors decide to suppress foreign invaders trying to invade the homes of their descendants (similar to the (non-)Shelling of Dwarka in the 1960's; but also the Kamikaze which sunk the Mongolian jury-rigged naval fleet).

For me, the Gloom is more of a place where the Masquerade operates as if the Masquerade didn't occur. So monster princes operate more often in the open on the other side of the nearest mortal Shadowgates, or Wells they control.

Additionally, shipping in Mad Max style convoys to freight with zombie horses/camels/etc. stuff that's too much of a hassle on Earth.


As for Zombies digivolving... I'm glad that I'm not the only one whose had such an idea.

However, Shamblers don't actually eat. They smash and kill. They don't even infect. Soulless (Runners or Spitters; or Spit-Runners) do however spit, run, feed, and infect. Revenants can seriously The Crow, or The Nameless One; and I don't think it will be a problem. They rarely (if ever) have to feed; and prefer to seek out their own agenda.

Once concept that I've been having is to use The Frozen Shadows as a textbook example of nomadic vs sedentary cultures.

With Revenants, and their Soulless helping hands, managing the Zombie herds. Who interact with the Wraith councils of different settlements; and exchange shamblers (who are falling apart?) for the labours of the Wraiths servile (and somewhat anchored?) Poltergeits. While Wisps are used as couriers/messengers between settlements or travelling zombie hers; as well as howling light sources.

The idea being that once a body has spent a year and a day as a corpse, and putrefaction has run its initial course; a quantum replica finally appears in the Gloom; aimlessly seeking its own Wisp as a Shambler; and never likely to ever find it.

Potentially, people who die violently become Soulless in the Frozen Shadows; so Nazi Zombies, and Allied Zombies seriously continue an insane parody of WWII; in addition to thousands of other wars (or the zombie herds are an eclectic mix of people from all banners in their fold).

[Whipstitch]

JE: Don't be a dingus. AS has layout issues, particularly given the lack of quick look-up tables and the way character information like what powers actually do is so separated from skill information, which is way awkward given that most powers require you to be well-versed in particular skills. However, that isn't fixed by making character creation chapter 1, which is what I was actually talking about.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I might be the odd one one out on this; but I'd like to suggest switching Bagheera (or Ocelotol) and Nezumi (or Kobalt-Gnomes) in terms of their Power Source.

Hell Cats, and Death Rats are much more iconic than the other way around; and I've seen the Moon related to Rodents across continents and Cultures (I feel that the Gloom really should have an always full visible moon); while Fire + Felines seems to be an association that I honestly have a hard time not accidentally tripping over in my search for reference art for my AS folders.

This would also require switching Nezumi to have Touch of Darkness; and Bagheera getting Learn the Heart's Pain; but aside from that; it's less painless than having to explain that "Hell cats" can't seriously exist; and that Death + Rats also doesn't exist in AS.

This also makes Nezumi relatively competent burrowers (as well as matching with their flavour text of "Tear them up"); while Hellcats always seem to play perfect games of cat and mouse with others by knowing what's inside of their prey's minds.

I actually made this association by mistake, and kept doing so for over a year. Only occasionally in looking at the rulebook itself did I correct myself; and realize that it's an edit that I would make in my own games and remixes on AS.

Other people's mileage and opinion on this switch may vary; however I've got more mileage out of this approach, then what 1e AS does.

Rats are symbols of disease and decay; big cats are solitary killers. It's as simple as that.

But since I like overkill...
[*]Both gain their energy from the moon regardless of their power sources. Moon rats are just as loony if they are Infernal.
[*]"Hell cat" is just a name. It applies equally well to felines from either underworld.
[*]Ghostly cats are cool. Ghostly rats are vaguely ridiculous.
[*]Rat: A despicable person, especially one who betrays or informs upon associates. Traitor, betrayer, deceiver, informer, defector, deserter, double-crosser, quisling, stool pigeon, two-timer "He was known as `The Rat', even before the bribes had come to light."; rogue, scoundrel, heel, shit, bastard, rotter, bad lot, shyster "What did you do with the gun you took from that little rat?". This is why nezumi get Learn the Heart's Pain.

[Lokathor]

JE... paragraphs man. They're so much better than not using them. They let you collect thoughts in a similar vein together visually, which helps the brain visually know when things are intended to be linked ideas and when they might be moving into new areas. Hell, I agree with some of your ideas on organization and I still hate how you're presenting them.

More Thoughts:
[*]Symbols for each Syndicate, player and non-player, as well as for at least to or three "failed" syndicates. Each symbol should be appropriate to the founding of the syndicate. So, Makhzen has the Symbol of Anu, WCL has some sort of Kanji-like symbol (depending on exactly who was founding them and when), Covenant would have some sort of judeo-christian thing (clearly not an actual cross or even an inverted cross, but something), and the communes would have something that's considered liberal within thousand year old society. Plus Marduk, Shadow King, etc.
[*]We seem to need a section within the Hellplanes chapter about how you'd go about replacing an existing hellplane within your own game or adding a hellplane to the game. You wouldn't actually add or remove power sources in the process, that's probably a little heavy handed, but you can easily give suggestions like JE's, "Mictlan is an ice-world planet with a constantly full moon and inhabited by cold-resistant undead, instead of just being a barren lifeless and lightless rock-world". Maybe Limbo is more "classically" hellish and everything is underground all the time with magma pits and fires that just burn and all that jazz. Maybe instead of replacing Mictlan, the frost hell is just a fourth hell. Things like that.

[erik]

• Symbols for cults would be nice as well. Something to put on their stationary or a pin to wear at their secret gatherings. This isn't as important as Syndicates though, just seems expected that if Syndicates are doing it then there will be some imitation by aspiring cults (along with expired syndicates).
• Catharz nailed many of the reasons why Hell Cats<< Nezumi and Death Rats << Bagheera. I too think cats and death are a much better fit than rats and death. Do rats have temples filled with 300,000 mummified corpses to be send to the land of the dead? Likewise rats and limbo a much better fit than cats and limbo. Sorry JE, I think yer out in the fields on this one.
• While I'm okay with Power Points remaining as named (so long as they are used by "Powers"), if we are renaming them then my preferred name replacement options for Power Points are Essence (1st) or Soul (runner up).
• I like the notion of a short summary doc.

In practice the layout honestly didn't matter to me too much between hyperlinks, bookmarks and being able to search the PDF for keywords. If it were a paper product then I would have had greater issues. I reckon there is a fair bit of streamlining/optimization that could be gained by reorganizing the layout.

I really should have made note of the few times I was frustrated at not being able to remember where something was though or having to flip back and forth 100 pages between two things I was looking at. A few things seem out of place and I will endeavor to remember them. Aw yeah. I was annoyed at the 120 page disconnect between Character Generation and Character Options. I felt those two should have been melded some and there were non-char building stuff between them.

-Char Gen, Skills, Char Options, Monsters, Magic should be together. -Running the Game and Character Option subsets could stand to be rearranged.
-Danger, Getting What You Need and Monstrous Society should be outside of the that grouping. Cults are cool and all, and have some info relevant to char gen but largely that is setting chunk.

My preference is to have something akin to what Lokathor was suggesting (I think).
1. Intro (After Sundown, Terrible Places)
2. Running the Game (Basic Dice, Basic Attributes, Special Attributes)
3. Char Gen (Walk-through summary of char gen, PC-Monsters, Magic, Passions/Ethics, Skills, (Dis)Advantages, Resources, Advancement)
4. Setting (Monstrous Society, World at Night, Persona Non Grata, NPC-Monsters, Points of View)
5. Reference Rules (Advancing Goals, Jobs/Missions, Danger, Getting What you Want).

For Char Gen, you're going to be picking your Monster and Magic first unless it is an Origin Story in which case skip the first two.

My main misgiving on that order is that the Cults influence your power/resource options... this could be resolved with a sidebar before Magic giving a heads up to go to Page XXX if interested in a Cult for your character since that can give additional options.

[Username17]

So how's this for a chapter breakdown:

1. Table of Contents
2. Introduction (includes "Wat is RPG?" and "Wat is Horror?")
3. Terrible Places (short rundown on the four worlds)
4. Monstrous Society (short rundown on supernatural society)
5. Running the Game (short rundown on game mechanics and terms)
6. Attributes and Skills
7. Monsters (All Playable Supernaturals)
8. Magic
9. Character Options
10. Chronicles (includes Character Advancement)
11. Scenes (Advanced action resolution, socialization, montages, etc.)
12. Conflict (Combat time, hazards, stunts)
13. The Cauchemar
14. The Covenant
15. The Makhzen
16. The World Crime League
17. Cults
18. The World At Night
19. Mictlan (more information about the Gloom, The Shattered Empire, Ghosts, Zombies, the lifeless Mockeries)
20. Maya (more information about the Dreamlands, The Marduk Society, Giant Animals, Evil Plants, the haughty Fae)
21. Limbo (more information about the Dark Reflection, The King With Three Shadows, Goblins, Demons, the deadly Dragons)
22. Persona non Grata (sample characters)
23. Reference Tables (Character Generation & Advancement, combat stuff, action resolution charts)
24. Index

The Syndicates and other worlds would get their own chapters with more fiction and stuff. Probably put a ~500 page flash fiction at the head of each chapter, though obviously I wouldn't put it in italics, let alone p22 Da Vinci Forward Regular.

-Username17

[Maxus]

And here we were, gonna all pitch in a couple bucks....

Who's gonna write the fiction? And what tone are you looking for?

[Orion]

500 page flash fiction

And yet we accuse White Wolf of padding wordcount

[Lokathor]

So how's this for a chapter breakdown:

Since they're also getting their own chapter each, "Terrible Places" and "Monstrous Society" can just be sections within the Introduction chapter. Each plane can get 1 paragraph, each syndicate can get 1 paragraph.

Probably put a ~500 page flash fiction at the head of each chapter

I've never been a huge fan of the flash fiction, but if you're gonna do 500 pages per chapter you could get in some really sweet novels.

[Username17]

Heh. That's 500 word flash fictions that are each within a page, not 500 pages of flash fiction. Flash fiction is defined as 1000 words or less, it can't go on for 500 pages by definition.

Anyway, those bits are largely for formatting. It's nice to be able to use a different template for the chapter heading titles as for the main body of the text. And then it's just plain easier to not try to wrap text from the chapter heading pages to the remaining chapter pages (not impossible, just a pain in the ass).

So having some flash fiction filler on those chapter heading pages so you can start the main chapter text at the beginning of the first regular page and have the text flow from there makes things easier. Where I think a lot of people have gone off the rails since the early nineties if not before, is by letting the typesetter "go crazy" and put these pieces of fiction into an unreadable font - or even an "exhausting" font like putting the whole section in italics or some shit. Shadowrun and even Nightlife are guilty of the italics thing. But nothing holds a candle to White Wolf on this front, letting these "formatting stopgaps" drag on for dozens of pages all while being written in an illegible font.

There are lots of legible fonts. And while I think it should be in a different font than that main body text, there's no reason it has to be in p22 da vinci forward regular or SonyannaScriptSSi.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

Heh. That's 500 word flash fictions that are each within a page, not 500 pages of flash fiction. Flash fiction is defined as 1000 words or less, it can't go on for 500 pages by definition.

Yes it can, you just need a huge font