aWoD: Continued

[Murtak]

Any ideas for scopes? I was thinking that maybe they would be useful for regaining your Aim bonus after you took a shot. Or possibly negating poor visibility modifiers for distance, or maybe both.

How about requiring scopes for aiming? Or requiring them for aiming more than once?

[Username17]

The other Giant Animals (Swarms and Chimera) are waiting on me figuring out how to word the Swarm thing where they actually represent magical energies that come back every moon rise rather than the health of individual rats or bees.

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Giant Animals

“No chains will ever hold that...”

The wilderness of horror movies is a forbidding place full of horrible things. And in the World of Darkness, a fair number of those things are merely dangerous and horrible rather than malicious and horrible. Giant Animals are likely to fall into that category, because they are animals and generally of animal intelligence. However, it is important to note that in the World of Darkness, as in too many horror books and movies to mention, animals are entirely capable of being decidedly, premeditatedly, evil. Animals in the World of Darkness really tend to be amazing jerks. So when animals are given great strength or amazing powers, they usually go on rampages pretty near to first thing.

The wilderness of Maya gives birth to nightmarish and titanic beasts beyond number. And the magic of that untamed land bleeds into the material world in unpredictable ways. Where this happens, monstrosities are created and normal beasts are transformed into monstrosities. The wilderness of the World of Darkness can be a truly horrible place full of horrible things. And the horrible things it is full of are collectively known as the Giant Animals.

Behemoths
“Let's not overlook the fact that he didn't eat me.”

Magically enhanced monstrous beasts prowl the wilds of the astral plane, and sometimes their rampages take them through holes in reality to invade the mortal world. In areas unseen by man, animals will sometimes spontaneously grow to magically augmented size and then rampage from there. Behemoths look pretty much like mortal animals save that they are substantially larger than their natural kin and substantially more aggressive and dangerous to humans.

A Behemoth's Giant Size is always on, and it is important to note that sometimes they are of a type of creature which is itself normally 3.5 meters or more such as giant anacondas and the like. Giant Size in this case represents a proportional increase for such creatures, meaning a rough doubling in all dimensions and an increase in mass by approximately 10 times. A Behemoth was never human, but it is a real creature, and before considering its Giant Size and Potency, it uses the normal stats of an animal of its type.

A Behemoth has an Astral power source and a Continuous power schedule.

• Behemoth Starting Disciplines
  
  - Basic Disciplines -
• Touch of Darkness (Basic Lure of Destruction)
• Vigor (Basic Potence)
  
  -Advanced Disciplines -
• Giant Size (Advanced Potence)

Story Inspiration: Mighty Joe Young, Lake Placid, Boa vs. Python, Le Pacte de Loups, Them

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Silencer: Weaponry enthusiasts will get mad at you for calling them “silencers” because they don't actually reduce the noise of firing a weapon to nothing or even the point of inaudibility. Nevertheless, the “sound suppressor” is called a “silencer” in ordinary conversation, so it is reasonable that characters in the game will refer to it (incorrectly) like that as well. Silencers reduce the sound of using the weapon substantially, to the point that its use will probably not be noticed on the other side of a wall, but this comes at a price. The weapon loses a lot of power, which reduces the Damage by 1 and reduces the accurate range by one category (for example: if you silence a light pistol it has a base damage of 1 and loses accuracy if fired at ranges beyond Adjacent). A silencer also falls apart with use. After more than five shots, a silencer is basically garbage.

[Quantumboost]

So we're still keeping the Continuous Power Schedule, but just relegating it to "NPC only"?

[Username17]

So we're still keeping the Continuous Power Schedule, but just relegating it to "NPC only"?

Yep. And even then mostly on just the things that don't have super genius intelligence.

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

I've seen footage of shitty home-made flamethrowers that have disgusting range.

According to Wikipedia, a modern military flamethrower goes 80 meters. That seems close enough to 100 that I just called it a W and moved on.

Also, on the "Sniper Rifle" front. Call it an anti-material rifle, since they're not supposed to be used on human targets.

Reasonable. Although interesting note: my old flat mate took one to the back while he was working in Iraq as a medic. Indeed, if it hadn't hit him in the "backpack full of medkits" he'd be chunky salsa.

In a world where some people have the magic power to turn their skin into marble and other people are strong enough to hold one stead one handed while moving, I could easily see it becoming a fairly standard weapon amongst supernaturals. I mean, a lesser gun isn't going to do much to a rampaging Golem and you sure as hell don't want to engage a Warform Bagheera in melee.

-Username17

I don't think that I know how Ranges work. W, R and ... ok, I found it

Adjacent, Near, Short, Way Out, Extreme, Remote.

This part:

The Threshold to hit something that is Adjacent to you is zero. Seriously, it's right next to you. However, if the target is a resisting creature that is aware of the impending attack, the threshold is increased to half the target's Agility + Combat. Yes, against skilled opposition it is much easier to shoot an opponent from 3 meters away where they can't interfere with the shot than it is to shoot them from within arm's reach where they ca

Is also very good. In my brother's krav maga training they cover what to do when someone has a gun at 'touching' range of your body. As in, the gun barrel is touching you. At any other range, you should never, ever, try to disarm a person, since you can't expect to move fast enough to reach them if they're 3 feet/1 metre away. Larger creatures would obviously have more reach, so the 0-2 m is reasonable for 'adjacent'.


On sniper/anti-material rifles. Yeah... they do get used on people, and they're ... well, they're meant to shoot out an engine on a jeep or car.

You could just leave the entry the same for stats, and rename it to Anti-Material rifle; and make the note that you made in it's description. Players should understand that the weapon is meant to shoot holes into brick walls and hit someone on the other side, it's not an anti-tank rifle, but it will mess up anything lighter than an armoured vehicle like a tank or APC pretty badly.

With stuff like explosive rounds available for the larger caliber guns like a 0.50 or 20mm rifle, the PCs could be expected to have very powerful firepower, without having to bring in an actual rocket launcher, LAW, or something as large as an auto-cannon.

[A Hammer]

The strength listing on the ranged weaponry table indicates the strength required to use the weapon without penalty in two hands. If the character's actual Strength exceeds that, they may use it without difficulty in one hand, unless it is Large in which case their strength must exceed that by 2 in order to use it successfully in one hand.

This needs to apply to Huge weapons as well.

Also, what is up with cars and lampposts dealing nonlethal damage when crowbars and hammers don't?

[Quantumboost]

Size and impulse. If you hit someone with a car, the amount of force is pretty big, but it's also mostly uniform across their body. That causes some serious bruising to a human and lots of weaker bones broken. However, a crowbar or hammer is going to cause some serious localized trauma despite not having as much force behind it. Crowbars and hammers are designed to localize their force, while cars and lampposts really aren't.

Also, things like cars and lampposts tend to be hollow, which means the impulse they're applying gets spread out, since they're bending along with their target. That's why car fronts are built to collapse when they crash, it spreads the impulse out more so the maximum force is less.

[erik]

According to Wikipedia, a modern military flamethrower goes 80 meters. That seems close enough to 100 that I just called it a W and moved on.

For what it is worth, it sounds like that 80m range is describing vehicle mounted flamethrower rigs. I don't see the man-carried rigs having the kind of pressure and volume needed to launch those kind of distances.

Certainly even portable rigs can exceed 20m though, so W fits as the range I reckon.

I mostly just wanted a reason to highlight my favorite bit of that wikipedia entry on flamethrowers.

In 1998, a South African inventor brought the Blaster car mounted flamethrower to market as a security device to defend against carjackers.[19] It has since been discontinued, with the inventor moving on to pocket-sized self-defence flamethrowers.[20]

Sweet Jesus.

I couldn't find more info on the pocket-sized jobs other than an interview with this psychopath. Alas.

[Judging__Eagle]

Size and impulse. If you hit someone with a car, the amount of force is pretty big, but it's also mostly uniform across their body. That causes some serious bruising to a human and lots of weaker bones broken. However, a crowbar or hammer is going to cause some serious localized trauma despite not having as much force behind it. Crowbars and hammers are designed to localize their force, while cars and lampposts really aren't.

Also, things like cars and lampposts tend to be hollow, which means the impulse they're applying gets spread out, since they're bending along with their target. That's why car fronts are built to collapse when they crash, it spreads the impulse out more so the maximum force is less.

Good point.

A knife, as the Fallout game points out, is a force multiplier. Small force, smaller area to apply it, means more force behind each cut and stab.

The fact that most weapons are force multipliers with different type of lever actions means that if you know how to swing one type of weapon, you know how to swing most weapons of that same type.

You swing a sword from the hilt/handle b/c of the way that its lever action works. For a mace/club, you swing it as if it's an extra bone in your arm, and the mace head is your 'hand'.

Stabbing requires a different mentality than bludgeoning or slashing do.

[Quantumboost]

Got the code repository for the PDF up and running at http://awod.googlecode.com/. The alpha version 0.0.1 of the PDF (which contains most of the content up to this point) is here: http://awod.googlecode.com/files/aWoD%20PDF%200.0.1.pdf

[virgil]

Ouch, with the advantage for guns, it looks like ambushes are vital for supernaturals. And if the gunman survives the first melee attack, the action resolution system very likely allows for kiting in the fashion of "get swung at, move 3m and shoot back". No, there aren't any slow effects, but when two combatants exchange attacks where one only has to meet a Threshold of 1 while the other needs (Agility+Combat)/2, that's a very clear advantage.

[Koumei]

So, let's see...

Someone just manages to clip somebody with a sniper rifle or 50-cal. That hits a human (S 2-3 for most people), so they maybe get 1 hit on their soak. They take 10 boxes and drop, bleeding copiously with a very bad head wound or a chunk taken out of their side. They have a minute to live without some help. Seems reasonable. If that 50-cal gained a net hit from firing on full auto, that person took a few rounds, and on 7-1=6 damage, they probably don't even have a minute left. One shot from a cannon also kills them outright, as expected.

If you somehow shot a marine supersoldier on PCP (S5), then he likely takes 6-2= 4 which is 10 levels still, but is just out cold, with the possibility of lapsing into a coma. If he's amazingly lucky, he gets 5 hits and walks away with a scrape, because he turned at the right moment and the bullet just grazed his forehead instead of burying itself in his skull. If it was a cannon that hit him, or a spray of bullets, on average he has a minute to live, if he's super lucky he took it to the shoulder and suddenly is in a lot of pain (3 health levels gone) but is able to run away.

Now a starting supernatural walks in, with S4, Advanced Protean (+2 = S6) and they activated Vigour twice to take them up to S8.

So blam, they get hit, and on average they reduce it by about 3, meaning the sniper round will half-kill the vampire, blasting a limb off even. Or maybe the vampire is fighting with a through-and-through in their head. On a really good day, the bullet is deflected, leaving nothing. Wheel out the cannon or an auto-spray and you're looking at that supernatural passing out on average, but still theoretically able to soak it all. It's just really unlikely, and they've already spent two power points.

Not bad, then. That looks pretty good to me - that was using the very basic 0 net hits (or 1 for firing the 50-cal on full auto). So people are usually killed more or less outright, really tough people can sometimes survive them, and supernaturals will still be wanting to use augmentations in order to survive Ceres' Harkonen cannon.

[Grek]

I just noticed that orphic magic is detected using a bag of mayflies. Exactly how hard is it to get a bag mayflies?

[Username17]

I just noticed that orphic magic is detected using a bag of mayflies. Exactly how hard is it to get a bag mayflies?

Not very. But you can also do it with a potted plant. While an orphic dousing system runs out and dies (requiring replacement), it's not actually that hard to get one.

Koumei: My math looks about the same as yours, that's heartening.

virgileso: I would in general like to avoid having the D&D thing where archers take a step back and fire at no penalty, because that's weird and dumb. To facilitate that, I was thinking of putting into the movement rules that if you are Adjacent to someone then you stay "Adjacent" for combat purposes for the rest of the Initiative Pass no matter where you're going. So getting up close and personal is something that is flat to your advantage if you are more agile and combat savvy than your opponent.

On beating people to death with cars: One of the reasons I'm not super happy with the "Nonlethal" nomenclature is the same reason that taser manufacturers won't use it: large amounts of Nonlethal damage are actually pretty Lethal. Terminal Wounds are Terminal. 6N is only a modest annoyance to a vampire lord, but to an ordinary civilian that's nearly as lethal as an anti-material rifle.

-Username17

[virgil]

Looking up various words and their origins, I can understand the use for the term Less-Lethal. And yeah, Nonlethal has too light of a connotation. 3E's use of the word 'subdual' makes more sense now. Other terms I can see in use in its stead include: Shock (my favorite), Whelm, & Abate.

[Quantumboost]

Fortitude also adds to soak rolls, so the vamp would have more like 12 dice on the soak test; that's another hit on average, which makes them more likely to survive the sniper shot. But still well within "getting shot is not happy time".

[Username17]

On Dodging: it's very difficult to get a dodging model I am happy with, and it seems obvious that I'm going to have to fiddle with Celerity a bit when I have a finished product there.

Best one I have right now is that Dodging is a Complex Action that raises the threshold to hit you for the round by your hits on an Agility + Athletics or Agility + Combat test minus 1 (minus 2 if the weapon is autofire). And you can keep moving.

Defense degradation I think only applies in the case of people attacking you more than once or in groups with melee attacks. And it should probably be defined as an attack bonus for subsequent melee attacks if you're trying to resist more than one.

And I'm bouncing some ideas around on what Driving Passions should do. Right now, I'm thinking that they can be mini-goals that allow you to partially refresh your Edge before the end of the chronicle.

Anyway, here's a Master Passion Fear:

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Master Passion Fear
“All motivations are merely a subset of fear. A fear of irrelevance.”

A character with Master Passion Fear lives in absolute terror every day of their existence. Harried constantly by the need for a feeling of security that eludes them eternally, they find firsthand that Fear is a cruel and unforgiving mistress. Not a few mastered by fear dig themselves into a figurative (or even literal) hole and become virtually paralyzed with binding paranoia and a crushing fear of the unknown that limits their movements and holds them fast within some real or imaginary fortress, but this is by no means universal. Fear can be a motivator that is easily mistaken for positive, because while it can easily prevent someone from doing needful things, it can also force the fearful hand into action. When not acting is more feared even than venturing into the unknown, the terrorized act with hurried finality. It is important to note that virtually all player characters are going to subscribe to the panicked urgency school of crippling disquietude rather than the torporous catatonia school of life ruining trepidation.

Those laboring under Master Passion Fear are prone to Frenzy and Despondency, but always one more than the other. Each person's personal nightmares drive them to different irrational extremes. Triggers to enter a Fear Frenzy include both what Lemony Snicket would call the “rational fears” (such as being threatened or wounded) and the “irrational fears” (which are deeply personal jitters that are difficult, even embarrassing, to explain to others). Each fearful character should pick some of the latter, things which quicken the pulse and dominate their nightmares. Triggers to hopefully end despondency come when and where the character can find comfort, whether this is a warm bed, a dark hiding place, or the arms of a compatriot. Key skills are Combat, Tactics, and Sabotage. Master Passion Fear is the most common motivation of Leviathans, which in some way accounts for how many of them leave society of all types and simply hide in the wilderness.

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Ethical Taboos: A Line in he Sand
“I'd do that for a dollar... that I would do for a hundred dollars... that I would not do.”

Every person has a set of personal ethics that govern and proscribe how they behave. It is important to distinguish a person's ethics (what they personally will not do) from their ideology (what they personally want to get done). For example: many people want sewage to get treated, but very few people are willing to actually handle the sewage or be around the sewage processing themselves. These kinds of internal contradictions are practically universal and make for great character conflicts and growth possibilities.

But Ethical Taboos aren't purely debilitating, no matter what Nietzsche tells you. In a world with genuine mind control floating around, having arbitrary, even irrational lines that you won't cross can be extremely useful. After all, whatever things you don't want to do are things that you've spent much of your life figuring out how to live without doing, and creatures trying to puppet you around may have no idea what those are, effectively creating minefields of unexpected resistance.

Princess Ethics
“That's horrible and I don't want to look at it.”

Many people do not want to look at or participate in things that are ugly or repellent. While they probably have no moral objections to trash being collected, they have an ethical prohibition against doing it themselves. While perhaps not especially praiseworthy according to most ethical calculi, Princess Ethics are reasonably common. The moral of Beauty and the Beast, The Frog Prince, and Cinderella are pretty much all that Princess Ethics is to one degree or another bad; but that should not tell you that Princess Ethics are universally thought poorly of in any society. Indeed, many societies frown on people who abandon Princess Ethics, or even seem to. Just the fact that “Untouchables” exist in many cultures should tell you how prevalent this line of thinking really is.

Nonviolence Ethics
“I can't do that, people could get hurt!”

Nonviolence is when you don't hurt or kill things by your actions in a direct way that you can see. This is very often quite a different concern from taking actions that reduce the overall amount of hurt in the world, or even reducing the amount of violence in their area or even reducing the amount of violence done on their personal behalf. For example, while a person with Nonviolence Ethics will not swing a hammer into the skull of a pig, they are often perfectly happy to eat a eurodog. A severe conflict for the follower of Nonviolence Ethics is being attacked, since of course most people want to survive.

Politeness Ethics
“Of course I don't hate you...”

Mankind, even supernatural kind continues to persist in no small part because of its ability to get along with itself. And one of the strongest forces making this possible is the capacity for politeness. Each person is expected to defer actions that might offend others. And a lot of people do this pragmatically, not wanting to potentially start shit with random strangers. And a lot of other people find this automatic restriction on their activities is truly part of their being. Insulting others or taking a dump on the table is something they won't do.

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-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

North America is rife with Princess Ethics. More than people might initially realize.

People are such fucking bitches when it comes to stuff like cleaning something because it's smelly, or gross. They avoid the homeless because they look different, or dress shabbily. Injury makes them panic, or get nervous, so they leave.

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Frugality Ethics
Fuck that. I've got food at home, and I'll be home in an hour. The hotdog vendor's not getting my four bucks.

Some people can't manage their money well. Others don't want to have to 'manage' their money. These last group of people are sometimes called misers, although frugality is probably more in line. A true miser is someone with several millions of dollars in stocks and bonds; and eats porridge cold, in the dark, for dinner to save on the gas bill.

Any time that a person with frugalitly ethics has to spend tangible resources, such as money, ammo, a piece of paper, a Lear Jet, they will often try and find a way so that they aren't using as many resources as possible to achieve their goal.

Just because you never eat out for dinner in your hometown doesn't mean that you can't buy businesses, or property, or buy stocks or shares, or government bonds. Those things generate resources. Likewise, it doesn't mean that you can't pay people now, in some manner, in order to gain their alliance in the future. In fact, both are instances where a miser will see a way to have more resources, for less cost.

Note: Just because you are frugal, doesn't mean you will not go to an other country and spend money eating out at really good restaurants. Hell, you might be frugal in your everyday life just so you can go to Florence for a week or two and hit the opera, go to the handmade leather artisan's shops and buy custom made shoes and bags (from purse to suitcase), or a fully fitted suit. In theory, you could spend every night out, partying at the best restaurants in a city, and because that city is in South America* you actually spent less overall than if you had done the same at home.

*: Average living expenses in most of South America are something in the order of 12-20k CDN. Living -in- Canada for a year is something like five times that. You can order enough grilled steaks, salads, sandwiches, desserts and more for a dozen people. All brought to your door by a delivery motorcycle, and it is costing you about 30$ CDN.

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My parents are seriously considering leaving the country, going back to their home country, and living awesome, and cheap, for their retirement. With 100k going one year here, and five in south america, it's actually not a bad idea.

Yes, their ethics have rubbed off on me, the quote is something that I've actually said in the past. If I'm out, and street meat is all that I'm going to have for the next 3+ hours, I'll get something. If not, seriously, my willpower is a lot stronger than my hunger, and my hunger can be pretty bad at times.

At the same time though, I know that this ethical system has some glaring flaws to it.

[Username17]

Not actually sure how I am going to divide up the Driving Passions. I probably want about six to eight.

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Driving Passions: Getting Places and Doing Things
“I'm gonna do it. Just you wait and see.”

While most things in the World of Darkness are soul destroying and oppressive affairs, it is not to be ignored that there are indeed things that motivate people to accomplish things. And while even that silver lining must be tempered with its own dark cloud – that indeed many people in the world are motivated to accomplish things that are despicable – it remains a source of beauty, industry, and human achievement. Or supernatural inhuman achievement as the case may be. These motivations represent the Muse in all of us, and in aWoD are described as a character's Driving Passion.

Accomplishing things governed by the character's Driving Passion means more to the character than other things. And in the grand tradition of genre fiction, meaningful accomplishments are karmically rewarded. In aWoD, achievement in accordance with a character's Driving Passion allows them to refresh an Edge even if it is not the end of the Story. Striving to accomplish a character's Driving Passion can bring out their very best. When a character is apparently near to accomplishing something major with regards to their Driving Passion and they are faced with difficulty they may – once per story – temporarily increase one of their Physical, Mental, or Social attributes (of their choice) for the duration of the scene. Sometimes it can be wise to draw upon this inner awesomeness even when it is available, because it can only be used once per Story.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

I think you mean unwise based on context there.

It seems that Master Passions push people into being reactionary. Driving Passions should be the sort of thing that push people into well-considered action. That sort of split would avoid the 7 deadly sins/7 virtues trope.

Foresight as an example Driving Passion then? You could use that to accomplish despicable things just as easily as wonderful things.

[MartinHarper]

they will often try and find a way so that they aren't using as many resources as possible to achieve their goal.

Alternatively, "they will often try and find a way so that they are using as few resources as possible to achieve their goal."

[Username17]

Preliminary Explosives Rules. Any other Explosives people want?

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Explosions
Can we make an explosion explode?

Sometimes things blow up, and in the movies things blow up even more. Even when we step outside the action genre, it is a recognized fact that objects in general in any media – including cooperative horror storytelling – are substantially more explosive than they are in real life. Explosions physically expand in roughly spherical paths (barring the use of shaped charges), and thus in a general sort of way an explosion can be expected to become weaker as per the square of the distance from the point of origin. Except of course it's actually much more complicated than that, because there's gravity and air resistance, and shrapnel pieces that fly a lot more like bullets, and so on. More massive shrapnel flies farther as it loses less power to air resistance, and compression waves pass through denser media better than air. And so on. Game mechanically this is abstracted out into an explosion's Damage (which is how much damage targets in the first area have to soak), and the same explosion's Radius (which is how far that area extends). An explosion does damage to targets that are outside its Radius, but substantially less. A target that is farther away from the explosion than the Radius takes 2 less damage if they are within the Radius of the Radius. And this continues until the Damage reaches zero. In effect, the explosion is modeled in the game as an onion where each band has a thickness of the Radius and does 2 less damage than the band before it. In a nod to the truly epic destruction caused by explosives that are actually adjacent to the target, an explosion will inflict 2 extra damage if the explosive is actually touching the target when it goes off.

An Explosion isn't normally affected by net hits on an attack roll, and inflict precisely the same damage if they are thrown perfectly as if they are detonated when simply dropped and forgotten. An exception to that is if an explosion is specifically placed to cause maximum damage. A character's Logic + Sabotage check can increase the damage bonus for a point blank explosion. Explosions are affected strongly by cover, and their damage ratings are reduced by the coverage and its toughness. Explosions do not necessarily inflict fire damage, even though they do act by burning. Unless otherwise noted, the primary damage is flying shrapnel and concussive force. Explosives can be wrapped in silver, wood chips, or steel in order to make that shrapnel into something that is especially effective against certain supernatural creatures.

Explosives Table
Weapon	Damage	Radius	size
Hand Grenade	6	6m	S
Concussion Grenade	6N	2m	S
Plastic Explosive Charge	8	50 cm	S
Car Gas Tank	6F	2m	L
Land Mine	3	1m	M

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

The biggest thing I can think of would be Molotovs, although those are more firestarters than actual concussive explosives.

That brings up another question. How are you going to handle improvised weapons for those who aren't hopped up on Potence?

[Gelare]

Did we ever work out what the type of damage that isn't lethal and isn't aggravated should be called? Because we all know that less-lethal is unacceptable. Might I suggest: Normal damage?

[Username17]

Did we ever work out what the type of damage that isn't lethal and isn't aggravated should be called? Because we all know that less-lethal is unacceptable. Might I suggest: Normal damage?

That's a great idea. I'll go work that in.

That brings up another question. How are you going to handle improvised weapons for those who aren't hopped up on Potence?

The melee weapon chart currently includes "bottle," "chair," "crowbar," and "sign post" - all of those can be used by non-magic people.

-Username17