Princes of the City: Anyone Want to Bite?

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 4:36 am

Shady314 wrote: Id rather not be involved in the drug trade or any overtly criminal endeavor. It's an easy way to bring us down.

Well, Max is a Setite blood priest and Suzanne is a diabolist who loves her some blow, so how long we stay squeaky clean is a discussion in its own right.

Honestly, as far as pooled backgrounds go I'm fairly interested in Resources and pretty meh on throwing points into herd. A bonus to Hunts and an easier time crashing on some mook's couch is convenient but not particularly vital to my concept. Plus, Koumei's character is already 6 dots worth of loaded so either way there's enough money floating around to be disruptive whether we get a pool going or not.

Oh, and I'm going to edit my sheet to include the rituals I want.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 10:01 am

Reading the Dark Ages rulebook anyone that contributes at least a single point to a pooled background gains the benefits of the entire pool so if you contribute 3 freebies in the interest of Resources the rest is just gravy.
Don't discount Occult Library! I mean where do you keep all those star charts? Finding a book with the info we need is a very effective, if lazy, way out of many supernatural problems. It also doubles as a Thaumaturgy Lab. Or at least I don't see why it shouldn't.

Koumei is why I asked about pooling. When you've got a super rich character the finances of everyone poorer are rather overshadowed. In my experiences they just end up bankrolling everyone as we're a team.

Ha! Yeah Im sure were no saints but wealthy connected client of a drug dealer is probably going to walk away scott free if anything happens. Massive drug smuggler is a lot more risk for no reward.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 10:10 am

Shady314 wrote: Dark Ages also wrote that we need an anchor background. Do we still? I was suggesting Herd to represent a vast blood collection empire as that's basically what Domain is in Dark Ages.

Nah.

If the path describes it, yes. If the ritual describes it, yes. Otherwise, no.
Sorry again. Still just a little unclear. If the path describes certain actions or rituals I obviously have to do those and that's visible. But if it doesn't describe that then can people tell I did it using normal senses? Again using Movement of the Mind as an example there's no description it's anything other than telekinesis via my mind. If I am just standing around and I decided to throw someone up into the air do people automatically know I was the one that did it?

Nope. No need for X-Men style gestures.

New questions
Discipline Dots cost 7 freebie points. Are secondary Paths also considered discipline Dots?

No, Paths don't count.

You said Roads were useable but in Dark Ages Roads don't seem to be quite like Paths. You just pick one where in VtM Revised you always use Path of Humanity and there are special rules for starting or switching to others. If we choose a Road do we use the VtM Path rules?

They're not quite the same, due to differences in the game, but pretty close. If you want to follow a Road, you use the Dark Ages rules, virtues, hierarchy of sins, etc.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 3:46 pm

Okay. Here are my ideas for pooled backgrounds

Resoruces 5: A Kosher slaughterhouse and a small emergency clinic.

Trauma is a huge killer in Alaska due to distances to emergency hospitals, so the emergency clinic would be a humanitarian thing, ostensibly. It would also need a steady supply of human blood, because frozen blood does go bad. It's a bad investment for a human because it would lose money. It's a good investment for a vampire because it's a great excuse to hold blood drives.

The slaughterhouse, of course, gives access to a huge amount of animal blood, as basic practices require the animal to be completely drained of blood. Basically we could keep our larders stocked with as much animal blood as we need to stay topped off. It might not be pleasant, but it would be good.

Herd, I'm not so sure about. It implies vampire groupies. In a small town, a big herd is going to be incredibly obvious. And Juneau isn't exactly big.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 5:35 pm

Herd was just a mechanical means of representing the slaughterhouse idea. It depends on if AH let's us get away with saying "oh hey we stockpile a crapload of animal blood with our massive Resources" or we actually have to spend some freebies on it. By the rules gaining blood is a hunting roll and Herd is one of the few ways to add to that. Herd can be reflavored to any sort of mix. It all boils down to being the background that says you have access to a crapton of blood.

Blood drives are good but so obvious and you do need blood on hand for people. Another idea is collecting all the blood that gets suctioned during surgeries and tossed as waste. Collecting regularly from coma patients. Then there's all the diseased blood collected and disposed of which is worth getting our hands once we learn the ritual to purify blood. Cadavers are also drained of blood but I think the ritual to revivify dead blood is a necromancy one.

If Herd 10 does represent 8k people (and only people) that's almost 1/3 of the city who are totally kewl with us drinking their blood. That would be hilarious.

EDIT: @Nebuchadnezzar
Love your high school cult idea. I was just skimming the Ashen Cults book and while it is Dark Ages oriented you might want to check out it's system for cults. It seemed perfect for what you have there.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 8:13 pm

I left 5 freebie points open for background pooling.

I'd like to request a houserule where we can retroactively change the order in buying points (i.e. freebie vs xp (freebie still needs to be spent first) ) when spending XP, so long as we don't actually reduce points in anything.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 9:10 pm

I don't foresee any of you earning XP to improve attributes or abilities during this little run.

t depends on if AH let's us get away with saying "oh hey we stockpile a crapload of animal blood with our massive Resources" or we actually have to spend some freebies on it.

If you want a reliable source of blood, you should throw points in Herd. That said, I've left the definition of the backgrounds largely up to you guys - if you want Resources X and Herd Y and say that it's a blood bank/slaughterhouse where you earn so-much money per month and can tap for so much blood per week, I'm cool with it.

Re: stockpiling - After you guys finalize the details of character creation, you'll have an opportunity to make some before-the-first scene actions to take care of some incremental details, like laying in a stockpile of cow blood, or setting up some warding rituals and secret weapons around your havens and whatnot. I'll also be prompting you guys with a few questions.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:23 pm

I could pool 5 points towards Herd if you guys want.

On a different note,

Every month spent Instructing a pupil allows the instructor to make a Manipulation+ Instruction roll (difficulty of 10 - the student's Intelligence, or 9 - Intelligence if the student has the Quick Learner Merit). Each success on this roll gives the student one experience point to put toward the Skill, Knowledge or Discipline in question. Studies require a substantial amount of downtime, and students may be required to make Intelligence, Wits or Willpower rolls to embrace particularly difficult (quantum physics) or traumatizing (fire-walking) subjects.

If we've known each other for a few months, would it be possible for Seth to grant the rest of the coterie a few experience points towards stuff he has more points in? Won't be much of a difference I think, but they might be able to dip something. I could rejigger my build a bit if there's anything that'd be a universally useful dip.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:37 pm

...well, okay. That seems fair.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:41 pm

If I put 4 freebie points into Instruction, I can get automatic successes on teaching (as long as you guys have at least 2 Int), so you guys could get some points via XP (1 per month we've known each other), and use your freebie points for other things if you've dipped anything Seth has. Also, whenever those skills come in handy, send Seth a text message so he can get a willpower point (Pedagogue demeanor).

Would this be kosher?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:54 pm

...well, it's all within the rules, so that seems fair. That said, I don't want you guys to think you can claim you've known each other 120 years and shared every bit of knowledge with each other. But if there's some particular skill like Occult or Computer or local lore that you feel is critical, I'm not against it.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:31 pm

So, in that case, Rad, I think you should just put up a list of the skills, knowledges and disciplines Seth has, and we need to figure out how long we've actually known each other--which is dependent on how long each character has been a vampire, and perhaps how long they've been in Alaska, or if they're tech-inclined, like Kel, how long they've known Seth.

Kel's been a vamp for roughly 250 years, and he was all over social media when that started growing, so he's been tech inclined for roughly ten years.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:29 am

radthemad4 wrote:I could rejigger my build a bit if there's anything that'd be a universally useful dip.

Generally it's always useful to dip a skill or knowledge if possible because of the penalty for not having dots in it but with 6 people the knowledge is covered more than a dot or two will probably help. Of course if lacking a good Talent completely that's worth it too.

Talents
Alertness, Dodge, Empathy, Subterfuge

Skills
Stealth, Survival

Computer and Drive just because nothing says vampire like a guy that can't drive or email.

We've definitely known each other for 6 months so we should be able to plan on 6xp. Enough for 3 second dots or a second and third dot. Or a 4th dot but that's unlikely. Going from 1 to 3 is a good dip.

Also wards are great rituals (warding circles less so but still helpful) that make melee weapons even better and trap all kinds of stuff. You get 5. Ward against Ghouls and Kindred are good bets. Who knows if we will need ones for Lupines, Fae, Ghosts, Spirits or Demons though.

@AH speaking of knowing each other can we exchange rituals? There are rules for learning them which makes learning level 1-3 from each other conceivable in a 6 month span. We wouldn't be able to learn every ritual from each other aside from level 1s but should be able to grab a level 2 and 3 from another player.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:31 am

@AH speaking of knowing each other can we exchange rituals? There are rules for learning them which makes learning level 1-3 from each other conceivable in a 6 month span. We wouldn't be able to learn every ritual from each other aside from level 1s but should be able to grab a level 2 and 3 from another player.

Sure.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 4:22 am

Shady314 wrote: Computer and Drive just because nothing says vampire like a guy that can't drive or email..

I just took for granted that everyone has smartphones in 2015 and assumed that the Computer skill was for like playing Global Thermonuclear War with Joshua, or hang out with Zero Cool.

I mean, it's 2015, even Dracula should have an android. I imagine that some Elders could get some really obsessive compulsive with Twitter.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 5:38 am

hyzmarca wrote:I just took for granted that everyone has smartphones in 2015 and assumed that the Computer skill was for like playing Global Thermonuclear War with Joshua, or hang out with Zero Cool.

I mean, it's 2015, even Dracula should have an android. I imagine that some Elders could get some really obsessive compulsive with Twitter.

It depends on the difficulty AH assigns pushing the power button or logging into facebook. With a low enough difficulty (and a 1 is not unreasonable for something like that) then a decent Int can carry you through. Otherwise you're my friend's Grandpa who doesn't own a computer and can barely make a phone call on the smart phone his family bought him. But do you trust a vamp without a single dot to maintain their electronics securely? I don't.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 6:26 am

The Jack of All Trades merit would give me a virtual point in every skill and knowledge (i.e. I'd still need to buy two points if I want two or more points in it). If I take it, you guys should be able to dip something (6 months/XP is enough for that I think)

In a bit of a hurry atm, but I'll read up a bit more on this stuff later on and post something more comprehensive.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 1:02 pm

"A Prince in Nigeria is offering me ten million dollars...hmm...what princes do I know in Nigeria? Surely not Khufu, he's been in torpor for ages..."

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 10:29 pm

Seth's current skills and knowledges are listed below (though I may or may not change them later on). 6 XP isn't enough for a discipline though (if some of you have room in your pre Juneau backstories for a tech savvy conspiracy theorist, it could be more I suppose as I haven't fleshed out Seth's backstory much yet). Looking at your builds, I think you guys could replace some of your skills and/or knowledges that overlap with Seth's with the 6 XP and spend your freebie points to other things. If I take Jack of All Trades, you'd get some more options, but I'm not sure about whether or not I'll do that yet. You guys taking the XP would benefit me greatly too as Seth gets a Willpower points whenever he sees or learns of someone benefiting from the wisdom he shares with them and technomancy is very willpower heavy.

Skills - 5
Crafts 2
Security 3 (might swap the scores on these two)

Knowledges - 13
Computer 3
Investigation 3
Occult 3
Enigmas 3
Cryptography 1

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 10:56 pm

I shifted some points so Kel has 2 points of Instruction too, since his background talks about him teaching people anyway. So that's another 6 xp for people to spend on-

Skills
Animal Ken 4
Bodycrafts 3
Stealth 1
Survival 1

Knowledges
Computer 1
Medicine 3
Occult 1
(Computer and Occult will be raised with xp from Seth's Instruction)

Disciplines
Animalism 2
Protean 2
Vicissitude 2
Thaumaturgy 2 (Biothaum 2, studying The Green Path)

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:12 pm

You've got a Manipulation of 2, so two points of instruction would give you 4 dice. The difficulty of teaching someone is 10-their intelligence (9 - int if they have the quick learner merit), so we would actually have to roll for it as none of us has an int of 6.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:21 pm

I meant to move a point into Manipulation too, so we're equal on that now.

Rolling for it would actually probably come out better. The diff for teaching Seth is 5, Kel is 6, the diff for Suzie and Constantin is 7, Maximo is 8, and Verge is Unknown. And of course if we all found a point to put to Quick Learner, those are 1 point lower.

Also we should make a decision on pooling Backgrounds. I say we all put a point into a pooled Resources, a point or two into Military Force and one or two into Herd.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:39 pm

Occult Library might be useful too.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Mar 02, 2015 2:20 am

I already basically put a background point into the pool (the one that was just in the Holdings). I don't want to move points out of things to really do anything else - even emptying Herd and putting those points in for a shared bigger Herd has the problem that I can only drink from coke addicts, so I need my own batch.

And I kind of like just being super rich on my own (with the rest able to ask for money if need be). I mean, I'm not playing some kind of communist here.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Mar 02, 2015 2:26 am

Name:Vladamir Lenin
Clan: Ventrue
Generation: 8

Yeah, I think I'm going to take Herd 10 and put it in the pool.