Pretty Soldier Sailor Luna: Online OWoD interest scout

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 5:33 am

So, several people, other than myself, have expressed interest in playing a game of Werewolf the way Frank describes it, Captain Planet meets Sailor Moon where everyone's a werewolf.

One of my Meatspace players has expressed a willingness to play such, but another has said he won't. So, I, perhaps insanely, given that I'm running a meatspace game, and playing in two online games myself, ask if people would be interested in playing a game of OWoD influenced by Captain Planet and Magical Girl Anime.

I do not have much explicitly in mind at this point, but if people show interest, I'll run.

What I'm currently thinking is that the characters all live around and attend, or possibly work at, a local high school, and are primarily changing breeds. If people wish to play other splats, this is open to discussion, and if people feel that the splat they really want to play is significantly inferior to other splats, I'm open to explanation of why, and discussing what to do.

If anyone wants to play a mage, they will be limited in what they can use in combat time to established rotes, the number of which they start with is equal to their arete. New rotes can be acquired with downtime, whether through design or study, generally speaking requiring more time determining how complicated they are. Also, science exploiting tricks do not actually outstrip the effects of non-science exploiting tricks, so using Matter 1 to turn a floor into solid nitrogen which will instantly sublimate and explode are limited in damage to appropriate damage for successes as shown on page 171.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 8:58 am

Hold on. I know nothing about oWoD, but how the hell is "Captain Planet meets Sailor Moon" supposed to work, given that we're all fucking werewolves?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:04 am

The metaplot of Werewolf is defeating the Wyrm, the spirit who represents the universal force of death and destruction, but is brainwashed and crazy, and saving Gaia. Werewolves are the children of Gaia, and powered by Luna, ie, the spirit of the moon. The majority of the werewolf enemies are either fomori, Sailor Moon style villains that are people who are possessed by Banes, the spirits of bad stuff and negative emotions, or employees of Pentex, Captain Planet style villains who pollute because they like to, advances their goals (they literally directly serve the Wyrm at the highest levels of the megacorp) and it's cheaper than not destroying the environment, but will actually pollute or otherwise devastate the environment even if it's more expensive to do so than be ecologically responsible. Pentex also creates most of the aforementioned Sailor Moon style villains by selling products tainted with banes.

Werewolf actually has very little to do with classical werewolves other than turning into a big furry monster. They don't spread lycanthropy, they aren't, usually, forced to change by the moon, and they are, supposedly, good guys, as they're trying to stave off the apocalypse. The werewolves, also known as Garou, are actually their own race which breeds true, for the most part, albeit usually with wolves or humans rather than each other, because purebred werewolves have "deformities," physical or mental flaws that are a sign their parents broke the rules. Also one about 1:4 children of a werewolf are werewolves themselves, the rest are known as kinfolk, and are basically the red headed step children.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 11:31 am

I see. I've never seen any magical girl anime, but captain planet is the shit so if I can figure out oWoD I'll give it a go. What do I need to read?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 12:02 pm

OWoD is pretty simple. Most rolls come down to "attribute"+"ability"(+misc equipment, magic, etc) d10s against a target number. An example would be stabbing some in the face: you roll strength (lets say 3)+ melee (we'll say 2), for 5d10s. Melee attacks are almost always difficulty 6, so you roll your dicepool and look for dice that came up 6 or better, called successes, and count them up. 1s take away successes, starting with the highest, in addition to being fails, and tens let you roll additional dice if you have a specialty which applies to the roll (attributes or abilities with four or more dots give you specialties, like a specialty in daggers for melee). As long as you get at least one net success, you succeed on your attack and roll damage, which is weapon rating+(#successes-1). For a sword it's like 3.

If you roll more ones than successes, you botch, and bad things happen.

As you can see, ones make the dice system suck, so I'm going to try to come up with a house rule that makes them less rape-y.

For reading, I would start with Werewolf the Apocalypse (revised edition), with a focus on the intro, and chapters 1-3, 5 & 6. Then once you have some understanding of the metaplot there, you can thumb through other OWoD revised books, as well as looking at the entries on TvTropes or wiki.white-wolf.com to see what perks your interest.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 2:15 pm

Okay, thanks a lot.

npc310 · Post by **npc310** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 6:15 pm

Prak Anima wrote:If you roll more ones than successes, you botch, and bad things happen.

The botch rules are open for interpretation. Reading the rules and applying an absolute strict adherence to grammar and the King's English would suggest that botches occur if you roll absolutely zero successes, and one or more 1s. So, you've got to apply the botch test before you start cancelling successes with 1s. The rules in the early editions and revised edition could definitely be more clear on this topic; the V20 rules are much better.

V20 wrote:Occasionally, truly bad fortune strikes. If none of your dice comes up a success, and one or more dice are dice showing 1, the roll is a botch. If you score at least one success, even if that success is canceled out and additional 1s remain, it’s just a simple failure.

If you want an experience that is a bit more chaotic and prone to wild things happening, then use the more liberal interpretation of "more ones than successes". If you are looking for smoother gameplay, then apply the botch test first. Neither is necessarily wrong, depending on how the ST interprets the (poorly written) rules. I interpret the text to mean that the botch rule is applied first, before the 1s rule. I've played both ways, though. Checking for botches after subtracting successes due to 1s is more dramatic, and some people like that. It also usually results in things taking longer to arbitrate, and I like games to flow a little faster, particularly combat, which I prefer to move along at a quicker pace. It's all a matter of taste; some people like it when a single combat round often takes an hour or more to resolve. I'm not one of them.

At any rate, applying the botch test before subtracting successes due to 1s certainly crosses the qualification threshold of "less rape-y".

A question I always had about the rules is the 10s rule for specialties. Do we re-roll 10s before or after we start removing successes due to rolling 1s? The sequence of applying all these rules can result in a widely varied game experience.

1. Botch test.
2. Re-roll 10s (if you have a specialty).
3. Subtract 1s.

1. Subtract 1s.
2. Botch test.
3. Re-roll 10s (for specialties).

Again, the V20 rules have cleaned this up. 10s count as 2 successes (no re-rolling necessary), if you have a relevant specialty in the applicable Attribute or Ability. 1s subtract successes, not dice. You've got to count up the successes before you can subtract them. So that bit is all cleared up, too.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 6:57 pm

npc310 wrote:
Prak Anima wrote:If you roll more ones than successes, you botch, and bad things happen.
The botch rules are open for interpretation. Reading the rules and applying an absolute strict adherence to grammar and the King's English would suggest that botches occur if you roll absolutely zero successes, and one or more 1s. So, you've got to apply the botch test before you start cancelling successes with 1s. The rules in the early editions and revised edition could definitely be more clear on this topic; the V20 rules are much better.

Ah, right, having rolled any successes means you can't botch, only fail. It's been a while.

Other than that, the fact that ones are not successful dice, and take away successes, while tens only potentially give extra successes if you have a specialty and actually roll a success makes the dice system pretty terrible. I have a couple ideas, however:

10s are like 1s, but positive, in that they are successes and subtract ones.
10s count as two successes, and rolling any 10s means you can't fail, even if you have sufficient 1s to counter your successes (essentially a 1 cannot take away 10s at all).
10s always let you roll another die, and specialties do something else, possibly just flat adding dice to your pool.

Since I have no clue which would be best, I'll let players vote on it.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:18 pm

Prak_Anima wrote: If anyone wants to play a mage.

I have concerns about this one; oWoD mages are pretty crazy and if it's gonna be werewolf based I'd just rather be werewolves.

Also, I would appreciate it if you are more specific about what you mean with the Captain Planet and Magical Girl Anime influences. Which of these options do you think sounds closest to what you want out of this game?

1. As Werewolf, complete with tribal politicking and stuff but the characters are younger and the villains are cartoonier than you see in a "standard" Apoc game.

2. The standard WW clan structure is basically irrelevant past character creation-- that is, characters spend more time studying for the SATs and banishing bad ghosts than worrying about whether the it's the Silver Fangs or Shadow Lords who dominate the local caerns.

3. As 1 or 2 AND people can start talking about moon tiara magic and fretting about prom dresses without anyone finding that particularly weird or irrelevant.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:39 pm

The mage concern is why I said mages would be restricted to their rotes in combat, and (should have more explicitly said) effects would be strictly limited, mechanically to the tables on pages 170-171. So, in the classic "Solid Nitrogen Floor" example, yes, you can, strictly speaking do it, but the actual damage from the resulting instant sublimation explosion will be based on the number of successes you got in casting the effect in excess of what was needed to just do it (which I'm going to say requires five successes). With bare minimum success, you'll seriously only do 1 damage to everyone in the room, yes, with the big explosion of sublimating nitrogen. Also paradox is going to be a fairly major concern like it's supposed to be.

As for the latter concern, option 3. Pretty standard werewolf etc. game, with politicking, but younger characters and more cartoonish villains, but the characters are pups who changed early/were embraced/whatever, remarkably early, and weren't pulled out of school and are expected by elders/sires/etc. to do well in their studies. So characters can talk about what the mean Silver Fang said to them at the last moot, their moon tiara, how much it sucks to be a teenager who can't go out in the sun without looking like a woman in a fundamentalist muslim country, prom dresses and all that and it's actually expected.

npc310 · Post by **npc310** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 10:10 pm

I don't think it makes it terrible, it just means that success isn't guaranteed. I actually like that. It is definitely preferable to tinkering with the rules.

- Standard difficulty is 6. So half the time you're going to succeed.
- Ten percent of the time, you have a 50% chance of succeeding even more, which works out to 5%.
- Ten percent of the time, you have a chance of losing those successes.

I wrote a simulator several years ago to calculate these odds. The chances of botching were very very low. I think it was right around 1% with a six-dice pool. The more dice you add, the lower the chances of botching are. The higher the difficulty, the greater the chance. This makes sense to me. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was pretty damn low. Much more balanced than the d20 system IMO, which was always 5% chance of epic failure. Whether you're the best on the planet at something or a complete noob, it's always 5%.

There is an odds page on the White Wolf wiki site. I'd check it out before monkeying around and complicating my life with house rules.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 10:24 pm

No, the fact that 1s get you coming and going makes the dice system of Storyteller terrible. It means that the better you are at something, the more likely you are to fail at it, because you have a greater chance to roll ones, which are double failures.

You only have a 10% chance of succeeding even more if you have an applicable specialty, so your sharpshooter who is suddenly making rolls to keep a car under control likely doesn't have it, and 10s only give you a chance to succeed even more. If you roll a 10 on a specialty roll, you get another die, not another success, so that die is subject to the same probability of your others, save that ones may not take away.

If you disagree with my house rule to make OWoDs dice system less terrible, you are free to not play.

npc310 · Post by **npc310** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 12:35 am

Absolutely, it is your game. Run it however you wish. In no way do I mean to tell you how to run your game. I do want to clarify your misconception about the rules, and prevent anyone else from getting any bad ideas about the rules of the game.

For instance, more dice does not increase your chance of failure or botch. It decreases both.

With a six dice pool, difficulty 6, the probability of failure (either no net successes or a botch) is somewhere around 12.5%, give or take a few tenths of a percent. With a ten dice pool, the failure falls to less than 5.5%.

I understand what you are saying. 1s always suck, while 10s are only great part of the time, and even then it is only a possibility of being great. With a standard difficulty of six, there are four numbers besides the 1 that mean nothing, and 4 numbers besides the 10 that are still positive.

Let me put it another way. Even if you fail, you can still do something else. Botching is the truly negative result, because there is a penalty, like a blown tire, a jammed handgun, you were not able to crack the code and intrusion detection systems are blaring. With a simple failure, dire consequences are not always a given. Take the next left turn. Throw the gun at him and stab the baddie with your knife. Try a different code to hack Pentex's mainframe. Whatever. So there is positive, neutral, and negative.

There is 1 negative number (1). There are four neutral numbers (2..5). There are four positive numbers (6..9). There is 1 potentially very very positive number (10). Even if a 1 does cancel a 10, there are still 4 positive numbers, and 4 numbers that are neither positive nor negative. 2 thru 5 are not automatically negative, but 6 thru 9 are automatically positive. Assuming standard difficulty of 6.

All that said, run your game however you want. Make 1 and 2 into possible botches. Make any number on the dice a super success if rolled by a hot chick who is showing lots of cleavage. Run your game however you want.

npc310 · Post by **npc310** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 12:49 am

If you look at things in terms of WIN/NOT WIN, then I guess NOT WIN has an edge. There are five WIN numbers and five NOT WIN numbers. One of the NOT WIN numbers is always really bad with the potential to be epic fail, and one of the WIN numbers is only sometimes really good. If that is how we define terrible, then fine, it's terrible.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 12:54 am

I truly wish I, personally, were better with statistics, but as it is, all I can do it point you here.

But, sure, lets go with what you're saying. Say you have Str 3, Melee 4 with a specialty in knifefighting, and are trying to stab someone in the face. You roll your 7 dice pool and get 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10. You realize that what you have here is 3 successful dice and six unsuccessful dice, right?

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 1:53 am

I'm not particularly worried; I don't investigate white wolf games because I expect things to be balanced.

Anyway, if we're going for a dab of comedy potential then I wouldn't mind playing a young Silver Fang lupus transfer student who was sent to school by his Mentor because proper leaders have to understand monkeys. In Werewolf society, he's got a teacher's pet & nepotism combo working in his favor. In high school, he's just that awkward new guy who was "home schooled in Alaska."

npc310 · Post by **npc310** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:21 am

Okay, I am going to make three points here.

1. It is hard to stab someone in the face. That is a called shot, and I think that makes your difficulty an 8. It is definitely not 6. Whatever the case, try stabbing someone in the face sometime. I bet you end up cutting yourself.

2. That is a very unusual roll. If you take the median, then a seven dice roll is 5, 6, 4, 7, 3, 8, 2. Three successes, four NOT successes. Congratulations! You shot the bad guy. You executed the hairpin turn. You hacked the mainframe. Great job.

3. I forget my third point. Must've been really important.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:57 am

Stab someone in the face in the sense of "attack with a knife." Come on, keep up on Den parlance here.

npc310 · Post by **npc310** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 3:27 am

If anybody cares, I am going to try to dig up my OWoD dice calculator program. I'll tell you the odds.

Absolutely. Run your game with whatever rules you want. I personally don't like houserules, but I would defend to the death your right to run your game with houserules. Okay, maybe that's overstating it, but anyone who tried to say you can't run your game your way, I'd kick them in the kidney. Twice.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:35 am

Do you want the game to be just students, or is there room for other school people in the mix? I had the idea of being an ecology teacher who's been ordered to work with the students, much to his dismay.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:40 am

Yeah, I'm open to some people being students and such.

So, so far, we have Silver Fang transfer student from Alaska, and some kind of ecology teacher.

I'm actually surprised Koumei hasn't shown up yet.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:42 am

I have the book downloading now, so I should be able to flesh out Mr. Teacher (not his actual name) pretty soon. Best of all, a friend of mine is an ecology major, so I'll be able to throw around some jargon, although apparently there isn't that much.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:44 am

I think a Lupus who actually decided to go by Mr. Teacher would be absolutely hilarious, for what it's worth.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 11:09 am

Well, I want at least one more person before running, but if you guys want to run characters by me, go ahead.

Cosmology
All crossover WoD games need to decide what cosmology reigns supreme. In this game, the spirit cosmology of Werewolf is the overarching thing, with touches of Mage cosmology. The god of Vampire/Demon is a powerful weaver spirit, which Weres refer to as the Patriarch, who, through the magic of Consensual Reality, did direct creation in someway, though no one's really sure, but the demons totally remember it. The prehistory of werewolves with human herds is assumed to have happened after the demons lost the War in heaven and were locked in Hell.

Allowable Splats and Notes

Werewolf--Characters should be homid, with maybe a few metis' allowed, Lupus' are pretty much right out, and thus, so are Red Talons. Fetish is limited to one dot, maybe two if you run it by me first. Also includes other Changing Breeds, though some will be harder to explain, Rokea, for example, and exchange students from the Emerald Court are allowed. Fetish is limited to 1 dot. Totem is not available at character creation.
Vampire--Normal, Ebony Kingdom and Kindred of the East are all allowed, as are Dhampir, the living children of 13th gen vampires. However, if the type of vampire you're playing isn't in the main book, I'l need a note as to what book it's from, and possibly a link to a delicious "taco" of it. Also, anyone who wants to play a vampire needs to explain what they do about sunlight. Hoodie and gloves, arriving before the sun comes up, doctor's note, whatever. Status is right out.
Changelings--I will allow changelings, but I'm not familiar with them, so bare with me. All changeling characters will be Wilders. Chimera are limited to 3 or less, and if you can figure out what use inanimate chimera are, please fucking tell me, Dreamers will be fellow students, like a girl/boyfriend, Holdings is out, Retinue will be allowed at no more than 1 dot with specific discussion between me and the player. Treasures are limited to 1 dot, just like Fetishes.
Demon-- Completely allowable, though npcs may start thinking you're dead, because they heard your host body was killed, and haven't seen the host since the prior year. Not necessary, however. People who want to make custom apocalyptic forms may do so.
Mage-- Talisman, like other "Have a magic thing" backgrounds, is limited to 1 dot. Node is owned by whoever's in charge of you, but you have access, and possibly higher levels of Library will be similar.

Notes Regarding Backgrounds

Allies- Generally your allies are going to be other students, but "quite influential" can allow for teachers and other adults, Very Influential equates to Admins, and Extremely Influential is the school board or something.
Contacts- All students/other kids
Fame- Possible, though lets discuss.
Influence- You don't have it. Points spent on Influence actually represent working through an intermediary.
Resources- I will require an explanation, and pretty much not allowing more than Resources 3. Even a trust fund kid is going to have a limit. If your resources come from an after school job, that's barely 1 dot. Teachers should have Resources 2, but it represents your discretionary funds, so if you don't want to spend the dots, but be a teacher, you can explain the lack of available funds with costly obligations- Alimony, Hospital Bills, whatever.

All characters have 4 extra freebie points, because they have the Child and Short flaws (even if it's not on their splat's list of merits/flaws, like werewolves, or their splat rates each one point higher, like demon). People who want to play older teens can buy off the short by just paying the freebie point. People who want to play teachers just lose the four freebies. I'd like people to not all be playing seniors and such. Basic assumption will be that your character is 14, just entering high school. Characters who have, overall, human bodies (vampires, mages, demons, etc.) rather than blatantly supernatural forms (werewolves) are restricted to no more than three dots in Strength or Stamina at character creation (magic shit can increase these during play), or more than three dots of any Knowledge (without good reason), because of a lack of experience (yes, even vampires. Lets not have any Edward Cullens here. Oh hell, he probably didn't have more than two dots of any knowledge anyway...), and ranks of Drive cost one extra freebie, unless you buy off these flaws.

Rank- Weres will be pups, even though they will have actual tribal affiliations. Gaining renown is possible, as is gaining rank, but to start, you have none.

The game will start off two weeks prior to the beginning of the characters' new school year.

Finally, I reserve the right to change things when I realize I missed something.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Jul 16, 2012 1:43 pm

Oh, so I could hypothetically play this even if I only have the Masquerade books, then? Because I might be able to join if so. Although my IRC is still a no-go, so I guess I'll shill for roll20.net again.