The Gaming Den

I'm currently attempting to pull together some players for an online game of After Sundown, to be played over Skype or similar. We're starting at the Origin Story power level, and the overall plot is going to involve investigation and politics (specifics to be heavily dependant on the specific desires of the PCs). I've got at least one player already, looking for a couple more to get started.

Post if interested; we'll figure out specifics.

I'm interested depending on the specifics.

Interested depending on what time/day this would be since over Skype.

"Time of day", in particular, is one of the specifics that depend on the players; it's a multiple constraint satisfaction issue. Personally, I'm on GMT-5; I'm generally free afternoons/evenings, and totally free on weekends.

Any other specifics you have in mind, which would shift your opinion one way or the other?

I'm down for this and rather flexible. When you say origin story, do you mean the full monty starting-as-human-luminaries or do you mean that we have a supernatural template applied but are still neophytes? If we're starting as normal humans who eventually get powers my suggestion would be to let people pick what template they're going to run with through PMs--that way, people don't get stuck with a power set that bums them out but you might still get surprised by what other players pick.

That sounds like a really cool idea.

Mind you, my suggestion is hardly perfect--the big pitfall with everyone-turns-into-a-monster stories is that it's a lot of ducks to get into a row. Finding a convenient time to have Wally get bit by a werewolf because everyone else has already acquired a power set can be kind of a chore, so it helps if people are generally cool with some power disparity or have otherwise made peace with the possibility that they may never end up a vampire. Otherwise, you're probably better off opening your story with "A werewolf, Cthulhu and the Invisible Man walk into a bar..."

Anyway, as far as other details go, I'm open to other pitches, but for simplicity's sake I tend to prefer contemporary US settings over going costume drama. I'm also down with pretty much any time in the Cold War era--you've got a familiar tech level and it's post George Orwell and fascism, so lots of cool conspiracy horror is set in that time period but the internet and cell phones aren't things yet so you don't have to worry about Deep Ones going viral, either. In short, my research for your game is rather unlikely to beyond a quick wikipedia trawl, so please keep that in mind.

I do not specifically intend to start the group as a bunch of human luminaries who are all in some kind of club together or whatnot, no. I was thinking something along the line of everyone figuring out what type they want to be, and then running a brief solo session to actually flesh out individual origin stories. Once everyone has an actual in-character thing about how they became a werewolf or whatnot, then you meet up at some event put on by your local Syndicate, and plot starts happening shortly thereafter.

I've never used this system, but I've been reading up on it and looks like something I'd like to try, if you're okay with a newbie.

So... scheduling. Anyone have any days/times in particular when you are not available?

Posting interest now I've noticed the thread.

I'm on GMT, generally free all weekend, generally able to be free from 1800 to 0000 the next day one weekday a week if necessary, subject to another Skype game 1/week in that time slot which is dependent on when 6 other people are free.

"Generally free all weekend" is a plus, certainly... other times when I'm technically free notwithstanding, weekends are certainly the most convenient time for me to run, and the most likely free time in the average person's schedule.

Thinking over things, I definitely agree with Whipstitch's suggestion of "character concepts through PM's", so PM me with any character concept related info/questions. Also, this is definitely going to be modern After Sundown, so plan accordingly.

I'm on gmt-6. Ideal times for me would be somewhere from noon to four during the week (unlikely, I know) and just about any time after noon during the weekends. Really though, I could probably swing just about anything with enough warning.

I'm GMT -5 as well and can be available pretty much any time at the moment, though later in the day on weekends would probably be best for me.

GMT -5 and weekend nights are usually busy for me and with my erratic work schedule I'm usually best off Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday after 8 pm.
I'll probably drop out if that causes the most schedule conflict.

Swok wrote:GMT -5 and weekend nights are usually busy for me and with my erratic work schedule I'm usually best off Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday after 8 pm.
I'll probably drop out if that causes the most schedule conflict.

That's probably the case, yeah. Specific times aren't nailed down yet, but given all the information I have, it's more likely that we'll be playing on a weekend than during the week, and more likely that we'll be playing afternoons/evenings than nights. It's not impossible, but weekday nights aren't great for me, since I usually have shit to do in the mornings.

Update: I currently have three character concepts, and one character sheet. As a reminder, I didn't actually ask for character sheets; I just want your preliminary character ideas, so that I can provide feedback.

I've been asked about houserules. I've got a few minor ones, involving death and power points.


You keep your PP when you die, retaining it for one month before it is lost.
If your enemies have control of your corpse, they can take away your PP with a simple ritual, which involves the things that hurt you and neutralize your kind of magic.
If your friends have control of your corpse, they will be able to restore your PP via a simple ritual, which is not substantially more difficult than whatever it is you normally need to do to restore PP.
You can spend a PP to get +2 to resist incoming magic against you.

The first point is an obvious patch to make Restoration work at all, which is something the rules are inconsistent on.
The second point is a corollary to that, to make it possible to meaningfully kill a Troll without either improbable tedium or (and which applies equally to such things as Restoration-armed Werewolves, who don't need to do anything special to respawn).
The third is a minor fix to let all splats get equal use of Restoration. Werewolves, as noted, will come back more or less automatically before long, and Vampires you can just spill blood on, but there's no particular reason why you need to shit on the concepts of other supernatural types who want to do the immortality thing, so you may as well have extensible rituals. As such, if you have a dead Golem with Restoration, you can bring it back by chanting its mystical words over its corpse, instead of needing to go fetch some vampire blood.
The last point gives characters who don't otherwise need PP something to do with their PP.



I've also been asked about custom witches. I'm not entirely sold on this, since it would seem to give Witches an 'unfair advantage' in terms of character customizability, which would lead to everyone being Witches. On the other hand, given that out of the four character concepts I've been sent, three of them are Witches, that's kind of a lost cause. Fortunately, you each want to be different kinds of Witches. If that wasn't the case, I'd probably implement this regardless, just to keep you off each others' toes. Since it isn't, though, I'm willing to ask for feedback on the matter.

Probably wouldn't use it myself, but I have no particular objection to it. I can think of one Basic that might be cool to swap out for another, but that doesn't even really fit into the framework you linked, and might be playing in someone elses sandbox, so I'm pretty much impartial on it.

Endovior wrote: You can spend a PP to get +2 to resist incoming magic against you.

So, what's the limitations on that, if any? AS is in many ways a game of rocket tag, so I'm a bit skeptical if the amount of points you can spend on boosting resistance is uncapped, since that tends to favor people who just plain shoot people in the face or use covert spells.

Whipstitch wrote:

Endovior wrote: You can spend a PP to get +2 to resist incoming magic against you.

So, what's the limitations on that, if any? AS is in many ways a game of rocket tag, so I'm a bit skeptical if the amount of points you can spend on boosting resistance is uncapped, since that tends to favor people who just plain shoot people in the face or use covert spells.

A fair point. It's possibly valid to say that the only limitation is how many PP you have available to spend, leaving you with a resource management problem... but you're right, that kind of does dilute the scariness of a lot of the dangerous powers. Alternatively, you could emphasize the 'a', and say that you can only spend a single PP per incoming power; I think I'll go with this one.

I'll also note, as a specific followup to the 'covert powers' bit, that spending PP for resistance boosts requires no special effort, and can be done unconsciously by anything that has PP, assuming they aren't actually dead. You, the player, are going to be the one rolling your resistances anyway, so you decide when the bonus applies.

Yeah, it's a tricky balance to hit right, particularly since there's what, only 3 or 4 splats that have literally no PP costs in their base sets? My instinct was suggesting that the limit be tied to Potency, but that'd be kinda redundant given that the pool of characters who have 2+ potency but nothing else to spend PP on would be pretty small virtually by definition.

Has there been any consensus on what client we'll be using? Just asking because I'll most likely need to download it and set it up beforehand. Aside from that my character is good to go whenever.

I've been assuming Skype, which I'm somewhat familiar with, but I'm not committed to it. If anyone else has any strong feelings one way or another, I'm willing to entertain them.

I've enjoyed PbP on TGD. Skype would be neat but I live in Beijing so there may be time zone conflicts

What kind of game are you going for?