The Gaming Den

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:03 am**

Well, it occurs to me that if we say "PC level supernatural power jams telecom" then elder supernaturals can only control the media through mortal proxies. While this would work, it's not exactly satisfying if the local tv anchor can never be a deep cover vampire.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:03 am**

The game has a Dowsing system and a way to track how strong the magical mojo field that's given off by power use is. That can be expanded a bit into a generalized RF jamming thing if we really need.

I'm not sure we really need it though. There can just be fringe people that think that monsters are real, and everyone else says "no it's a dumb hoax don't be stupid". That's not a problem.

Remember, canonically, in Mexico City there are actual vampires and mole people that actually claim on public TV that they're vampires and mole people. And no one outside of Mexico City believes them, despite them sometimes using supernatural powers in broad daylight. Most extras just don't believe in things outside the status quo. That's why they're extras.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:07 am**

Yeah, and honestly, there are cults which can fill the MIB MO.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:11 am**

Prak_Anima wrote:Well, it occurs to me that if we say "PC level supernatural power jams telecom" then elder supernaturals can only control the media through mortal proxies. While this would work, it's not exactly satisfying if the local tv anchor can never be a deep cover vampire.

Why can't they? Just don't use their powers on the set.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:24 am**

Well, if we're saying active powers. I was thinking just having the powers.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:35 am**

How does this interact with Androids?

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:36 am**

Like does the use of advanced powers interfere with androids? They're tech-flavoured magic, not actually tech.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 11:31 am**

I think that the bee cooking issue can be handled with a few simple examples. While it's easy to imagine situations in which bee cooking could be important, it's not something that can't be handled by the core mechanic.

One thing that weighs heavily on me is getting rid of Intuition and Logic and going to Perception and Intelligence as attributes. I know that "Intelligence" is a weird concept that leads to a bunch of dumb associations, but in the 9 actual years since Shadowrun 4th edition put forth the idea of Intuition and Logic to represent different kinds of intelligence, I can't say that the idea has actually taken hold. People are just as blank when the Logic stat comes up as they were when I was living in a warehouse after Katrina. I don't think the experiment has been successful, and we should probably just suck it up and call the attribute "Intelligence." People grokk that stat.

-Username17

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 1:07 pm**

FrankTrollman wrote: One thing that weighs heavily on me is getting rid of Intuition and Logic and going to Perception and Intelligence as attributes. I know that "Intelligence" is a weird concept that leads to a bunch of dumb associations, but in the 9 actual years since Shadowrun 4th edition put forth the idea of Intuition and Logic to represent different kinds of intelligence, I can't say that the idea has actually taken hold. People are just as blank when the Logic stat comes up as they were when I was living in a warehouse after Katrina. I don't think the experiment has been successful, and we should probably just suck it up and call the attribute "Intelligence." People grokk that stat.

Logic was always a bit of a weird choice of a stat. I think Knowledge or Learning would make a lot more sense for people, since that's traditionally what the intelligence stat does. It obviously doesn't really do much to impact your actual intelligence in game, since that's based off player choices. More or less it functions as a key stat for all the technical skills (and in games like 3E, gives you more skill points).

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:11 pm**

It's great to have a "Logic" stat to point to when doing "sciencey stuff" or debates, because in those situations, people will actually talk about logic in the same way they might talk about "strength" in weightlifting. Saying "You roll Logic + Medicine to figure out it's not a flesh-eating bacteria, it's acute intermittent porphyria" looks good on paper, saying "You're picking his argument apart based on his Appeal to Authority? Logic + Argue" likewise.

But actually looking at your character sheet and seeing "Logic" there, not so much, whereas just calling it Intelligence is something people understand (or at least think they do), and any time you need to BRAINPOWER a situation, everyone knows "Oh use Int".

The bees bit was just me digging up an old post and being tongue-in-cheek about it because I had time to kill at work. Besides, I hear there's a character archetype who would object to it.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:12 pm**

Man, I'm glad I was able to start adding positive things.

Here's my big list of cliff notes from the last topic.

Thanks, Lokathor, I didn't get to post much there and thats super helpful from my end.

Prak_Anima wrote:Well, if we're saying active powers. I was thinking just having the powers.

Yeah, when I proposed it I meant "active powers".

Like does the use of advanced powers interfere with androids? They're tech-flavoured magic, not actually tech.

Exactly, for a second I paused like "Oh shit, yeah." then you wrote this and I was like fuck yeah.

Plus, its interesting if someone can come up with a PkE meter like instrument, but dousing with magnets is pretty damned cool.

Moving on:
Veil of Morpheus and Veil. Change Veil of Morpheus to
"Caul of Morpheus"?
Which is thematically appropriate and vocally interesting.

I'm gonna try to do a couple write ups today for you guys to pick apart. Wish me luck.

Just going through the patch notes I see some cool things.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:22 pm**

On the general subject of AS rules revisions, I'd like to specifically ask that there be an elaboration on what happens with PP after death. It's already been posted in prior houserule threads that you should keep your PP after death for some period of time, to let Restoration work more generally. It's also been noted that there should be some way of messing with that, to stop Trolls (or Werewolves that pick up Restoration) from being basically unkillable.

I'd specifically like to note that there should be generalized rules about being able to regain PP after death. After all, Lunar types would be assumed to do so normally, Vampires are explicitly mentioned as being rez'd by spilled blood, and there are a few ritual types whose rituals totally make sense to have done to them after death. Nobody will object if someone wants to bring Frankenstein to life by hooking him up to a strong electrical current. On the other hand, you get a few weird fringe cases like Baali, Golems, and Khaibit, who have PP-gaining methods which don't necessarily imply the ability to do so after death, which can be problematic. This is a pet peeve of mine on account of the fact that in one particular game, I'd intended to play an immortal Baali, and was basically told "as a Baali, since your power ritual involves you personally hurting people, that's not something other people can do on your behalf, which means that you get no use out of Restoration unless someone sprinkles vampire blood over your corpse". That's anti-fun, and imposes silly restrictions on particular splats for no reason, so I'd specifically like to see the rules patched to fix that.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:35 pm**

Veil of Morpheus is going to "Sands of Morpheus" for clarity. Trail of Tears is going to "Depths of Despair" for sensibilities.

And yes, putting in a paragraph of what to do to regain power points when you're on different schedules is totally reasonable. On a similar note: Trolls are just going to Lunar schedule. Continuous is not worth the trouble.

-Username17

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 3:46 pm**

Endovior wrote:On the general subject of AS rules revisions, I'd like to specifically ask that there be an elaboration on what happens with PP after death. It's already been posted in prior houserule threads that you should keep your PP after death for some period of time, to let Restoration work more generally. It's also been noted that there should be some way of messing with that, to stop Trolls (or Werewolves that pick up Restoration) from being basically unkillable.

People bring this up a lot. That if you don't lose your PP instantly upon death and stuff then trolls and lycanthropes "become unkillable". No, they don't. If you separate the head from the heart then Restoration doesn't work. It's right there in the power's description already. If you chop off something's head then it won't be able to use Restoration. It requires no special magic ritual or anything, you just chop off the head and they'll stay dead as long as the head and body are separate. It's totally in-genre to chop off heads and stuff, so it's pretty much fine even if no additional rules are written in that department.

On the other hand, you get a few weird fringe cases like Baali, Golems, and Khaibit, who have PP-gaining methods which don't necessarily imply the ability to do so after death, which can be problematic.

Hmm...
Baali: you have to bring sacrifices in front of the body and just stab them and cut out their still-beating heart while they scream and stuff
Golem: you sit near the body and chant the golem's ritual words.
Khaibit: Medical Khaibit seem simple enough, you just get the medical equipment and "do stuff" with syringes and bone saws and things. The corpse and death ones are a little less obvious, but i guess you'd ponder death on behalf of the Khaibit just using a skeleton like normal.

That all makes sense to me. Whoever told you that you had to do your personal ritual even in the special circumstance of you being dead, so you could never regain PP while dead, should probably just be slapped.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:58 pm**

Sands of Morpheus: Sounds great.

Ok. Lokathor, Frank, anybody who has a good grasp of it I need help with a statline but here's my preliminary write-up for a unplayable type for the bestiary. A transhuman with a feeding power schedule.

B.E.K's

Unplayable Type: Trans-human

Black Eyed Kids
"Hey mister, we're lost and its so cold. Please let us in to use your bathroom? Please?LET. US. IN."

Black Eyed Kids also called "The Lost" are soulless creatures of limbo, reflected as such in that they have eyes which are solid black with no differentiation between sclera, pupil, or iris.Black Eyed Kids are likely the result of children exposed to the forces of limbo that Do NOT become Fallen. Essentially, they are an alternate type of fallen spawn. Some have theorized that they are also a transitional step between humans and mirror goblins. An argument which doesn't stand up well to scrutiny because the secret histories have recorded mirror goblins from the beginning, while BEK's have only been documented since the turn of the
millennium or so. It is assumed that they are tools of ifrit, though many of them appear to simply be free roaming. The frequency of encounters seems to be growing each year which, and their blatantly magical nature is now percieved as a threat to the Vow.
Regardless of origin, the function as brutally efficient trap predators. Often encountered in pairs they are physically still, yet "The Lost" make up for the lack of strength with potent mental attacks. When killed, they rapidly burn turning to ash in such a way that they appear to be made of paper. They have a maximum age appearance of 15 years and a natural lifespan of 20 years as such there are no elder BEK's

Black Eyed Kids have a potency of 1 and and the same feeding schedule as an Ifrit.

Black-Eyed Kids Starting Powers

Core Discipline: -Authority-
Mesmerism (Basic Authority )
Suggestion (Basic Authority)

- Basic Powers -
Deny the Gauntlet (Basic Progress of Glass)
Learn the Heart's Pain (Basic Name of the Blasphemies)
Hide From Notice (Basic Veil)

-Advanced Powers -
Banishment (Advanced Name of the Blasphemies)
Conditioning (Advanced Authority)

Story Inspiration: Children of the Damned, Whisperer, Wakewood

So in after sundown these things are predatory killers. They spam you with mental attacks, banish you to limbo, torture you for power points or eat you. Unless you're a young person in which case they "milk you for points" then condition you to be another B.E.K.

Usable? Its yours. Hope it doesn't suck

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:35 pm**

Lokathor wrote:People bring this up a lot. That if you don't lose your PP instantly upon death and stuff then trolls and lycanthropes "become unkillable". No, they don't. If you separate the head from the heart then Restoration doesn't work. It's right there in the power's description already. If you chop off something's head then it won't be able to use Restoration. It requires no special magic ritual or anything, you just chop off the head and they'll stay dead as long as the head and body are separate. It's totally in-genre to chop off heads and stuff, so it's pretty much fine even if no additional rules are written in that department.

A valid point, and I'll agree that I missed that bit somehow. That said, I'll also note that there seems to be a loophole because:

Frank Trollman wrote:By far the most famous Strigoi was (is?) Dracula. He is actually rather hated by most Strigoi because his obsessive grandstanding over the years is basically a giant thumb in the eye of the Vow of Silence. He's been killed repeatedly, but various fanatics keep figuring out ways to bring him back from the dead. Which being a Strigoi mostly involves finding some significant portion of his corpse and pouring a bunch of fresh human blood on it.

If Dracula was really a serious problem, you'd think that they'd just be able to keep his head and heart locked in separate vaults on opposite sides of the planet and call it a day. But apparently that's not the case. Maybe there's an Elder Power or something that gets around that restriction, but it'd generally be helpful to have a sidebar or something about what procedures people in the know would use to ensure that a powerful supernatural creature stays dead, and the kinds of extra effort needed to bring back someone who's been harmed in those ways. For instance, if cremating the body or whatever, is a way to meaningfully stop resurrection, that's important to know. If, conversely, Restoration literally makes the relevant bits of your body indestructible, such that there will always be a way for people to nonmagically put you back together and bring you back to life, that's also important to know. If keeping the head and heart separate is normally enough to keep the guy dead, that's relevant... but if the head-heart separation thing is trivially overcome by the character's allies using Gift of Health + Revive the Flesh to regenerate any parts of the body they weren't able to recover, that's something you need to plan for.

Lokathor wrote:Whoever told you that you had to do your personal ritual even in the special circumstance of you being dead, so you could never regain PP while dead, should probably just be slapped.

For reference, that person was Kaelik, so feel free to go slap him. But yeah, that's the reason why I feel strongly about this particular bit of rules text.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:55 pm**

Lokathor wrote:
Endovior wrote:On the general subject of AS rules revisions, I'd like to specifically ask that there be an elaboration on what happens with PP after death. It's already been posted in prior houserule threads that you should keep your PP after death for some period of time, to let Restoration work more generally. It's also been noted that there should be some way of messing with that, to stop Trolls (or Werewolves that pick up Restoration) from being basically unkillable.
People bring this up a lot. That if you don't lose your PP instantly upon death and stuff then trolls and lycanthropes "become unkillable". No, they don't. If you separate the head from the heart then Restoration doesn't work. It's right there in the power's description already. If you chop off something's head then it won't be able to use Restoration. It requires no special magic ritual or anything, you just chop off the head and they'll stay dead as long as the head and body are separate. It's totally in-genre to chop off heads and stuff, so it's pretty much fine even if no additional rules are written in that department.

On the other hand, you get a few weird fringe cases like Baali, Golems, and Khaibit, who have PP-gaining methods which don't necessarily imply the ability to do so after death, which can be problematic.
Hmm...
Baali: you have to bring sacrifices in front of the body and just stab them and cut out their still-beating heart while they scream and stuff
Golem: you sit near the body and chant the golem's ritual words.
Khaibit: Medical Khaibit seem simple enough, you just get the medical equipment and "do stuff" with syringes and bone saws and things. The corpse and death ones are a little less obvious, but i guess you'd ponder death on behalf of the Khaibit just using a skeleton like normal.

That all makes sense to me. Whoever told you that you had to do your personal ritual even in the special circumstance of you being dead, so you could never regain PP while dead, should probably just be slapped.

The idea of Khaibit keeping a spawn zombie or skeleton around in a dark room with standing orders to "do the weird stuff to me if I'm lying motionless in the room" and that counting as their power ritual is amusing enough to me for me to say that should totally be the way Khaibit return from death.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 7:16 pm**

For reference, that person was Kaelik, so feel free to go slap him. But yeah, that's the reason why I feel strongly about this particular bit of rules text.

Jesus man, dat link.... sigh.... that's just assholery, but I do now see your point as to why such things could use more detail. Nothings going to stop a MC from being a dick, but the whole "Cremate Dracula" things should have an answer.

The idea of Khaibit keeping a spawn zombie or skeleton around in a dark room with standing orders to "do the weird stuff to me if I'm lying motionless in the room" and that counting as their power ritual is amusing enough to me for me to say that should totally be the way Khaibit return from death.

*squick*! I know that I'm being fucked up but when I read "Do the weird stuff to me" I spewed lemonade all over the place. That shit is fucking hilarious. Reminds me of the reanimator movie so its probably exactly the track to be on.

Would it be out of line for people with restoration to do the phylactery thing where they cut a piece out of themselves then send it away in case of emergency. I mean would make sense that they'd cremate Dracula eventually, or maybe that's not something that supernaturals don't DO to other supernaturals, outlawed long ago except for with the permission of (whoever from your organization). This whole thing shouldn't be a big deal and I'd have dismissed it out of hand, but I see it comes up.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 8:24 pm**

In order to keep people from reviving Dracula, you need to foil Restoration, Resurrection and Soul Investment. To do so, you need to:

Kill Dracula.
Behead the body.
Kill Dracula's 1st Soul Investment host.
Behead the body.
Kill Dracula's 2nd Soul Investment host.
Behead the body.
Kill Dracula's 3rd Soul Investment host.
Behead the body.
Kill Dracula's 4th Soul Investment host.
Behead the body.
Kill Dracula's 5th Soul Investment host.
Behead the body.
Kill Dracula's 6th Soul Investment host.
Behead the body.
Kill Dracula's 7th and final Soul Investment host.
Behead the body.
Guard all eight bodies for the next three days, waiting for the Ghost of Dracula to show itself.
Perform a Ritual of Mighty Power to seal the Ghost of Dracula into a Soul Bottle.
Hide the Skull of Dracula in a secret compound.
Hide the Heart of Dracula in a second secret compound somewhere else.
Hide the Ghost of Dracula in a third secret compound somewhere else.
Keep people from reuniting the Skull of Dracula with the Heart of Dracula.
Keep people from taking the Ghost of Dracula to a Powerful Necromancer.
Watch out to make sure that Dracula doesn't have a secret eight Soul Investment host somewhere.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:26 pm**

One of the points of being the horror monsters instead of the people being chased by the horror monsters means having your communications cut off because of spookiness doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. If the "the phone is dead/the call is coming from inside the house" thing is that important, it should be a critter power.

Also, possible corpse-on-corpse necrophilia seems sufficiently edgy for a WW-based product.

EDIT: Both of those seem like pretty good ideas, radiant. The shallows are already out of sync with reality, so having things wig out there would make sense.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:41 pm**

Hmm... the shallows are slightly different from the mortal world. Maybe they aren't on the same cell phone network?

EDIT: Oh man, does Limbo's Internet have every forum post that ever got flames?

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:46 pm**

Midnight_v wrote:B.E.K's

Seems reasonable.. I guess? Personally I'd never use a monster where the players basically have to fight off or kill little kids. But if you're cool with that then sure.

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Hmm... the shallows are slightly different from the mortal world. Maybe they aren't on the same cell phone network?

The shallows would be their own network, if they have a network at all. Most hellplane activity would use more basic and durable tech: walkie-talkies, CB Radio, etc. In that sense, the earlier comments about cold war era stuff is right on the money.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:56 pm**

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Hmm... the shallows are slightly different from the mortal world. Maybe they aren't on the same cell phone network?

EDIT: Oh man, does Limbo's Internet have every forum post that ever got flames?

In order to get sent to Limbo, something needs to be destroyed by flames. So Limbo only has shitty forums that got trolled out of existence, I guess.

Posted: **Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:43 am**

Grek wrote:In order to get sent to Limbo, something needs to be destroyed by flames. So Limbo only has shitty forums that got trolled out of existence, I guess.

And copies of servers that overheated and cooked themselves, and...

Posted: **Wed Feb 26, 2014 8:43 pm**

Lokathor wrote:
Midnight_v wrote:B.E.K's
Seems reasonable.. I guess? Personally I'd never use a monster where the players basically have to fight off or kill little kids. But if you're cool with that then sure.

Fuck me. I ... I hadn't even considered the implications.
I just was googling through supernatural modern crap and they popped up, I'd actually seen them before online but it wasn't relevant.
Then I thought huh "that's pretty spooky" and since we didn't have a feeding transhuman I figured that SOME of the time you don't become fallen you become something else. I was considering doing the slendermen but frankly it just looks fucking ridiculous to me.
I thought about "cyborgs" and maybe making them need to harvest parts or some such, but then I realized that would just be me making an asshole Frankenstein, for no good reason.

We do need more monsters of the "bad guy playable type". Its funny the reason why I made sure those things kept super short lifespans is because its a game of monsters, and anything with even the remotest modicum of coolness someone is likely to try to play.
I had a couple people say "Why can't I play as a Revenant", or "Can I play as an Asura".
Though no one asks: Can I play as a Chimera, or Kaiju etc.

So yeah, sorry about the BEK's. Too much enthusiasm to contribute got me.
Also:

Grek wrote:In order to keep people from reviving Dracula, you need to foil Restoration, Resurrection and Soul Investment. To do so, you need to: Stuff...

That was awesome, and you are awesome . Looks like they're going to need more Belmonts.

Can't you get him in sunlight, and kill him while people are throwing salt and sand at him? Sunlight to counter his powers and counter-magics just in case? Not to imply that such a thing would be demonstrably easier.

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