The Gaming Den

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2018 6:41 pm**

Anyone else playing this? We just had our second session and we're finding it really interesting. It's a Vampire rip-off (kinda) that focuses on feeding and scheming instead of poses or powers.

For more info here is the ol' KS page from 2015: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/892039034/undying

Posted: **Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:27 am**

Apocalypse World hacks aren't very popular here.

Posted: **Tue Aug 14, 2018 6:03 pm**

Longes wrote:Apocalypse World hacks aren't very popular here.

Yeah, but this one is really interesting.

Posted: **Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:03 pm**

I'm curious: This game claims to be a diceless system. How does this work with PbtA's philosophy of having their player fail most of their actions most of the time?
Are their moves not tied to the ridiculous 2d6 system? Does anyone have any experience with Undying?

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2018 6:38 am**

Honestly, I think "diceless" is a marked improvement to the *world engine; streamling the entire process by removing the deterministic and therfore unnessary roll to fail and skipping straight to failing after declaring your actions.

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2018 1:05 pm**

If you don't like PbtA you probably won't like this too. Instead of rolling 2d6 and picking your poison, here you pick your poison directly from a list. Here, the 5 archetypes and basic rules:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=12CH-u ... y580DibHdy

Quick summary:

The game is a homage to early editions of Vampire: tM, focusing on the day to day necessities of predators like feeding, keeping your humanity, and scheming to rise in the pack hierarchy, while ignoring or limiting things like superpowers and metaplots.

It has two phases: "Night" play, where predators wake up to deal with their necessities and also some event the GM preps in advance (which is tied to the place or time the night takes place - ie: the Inquisition, World War 2, etc). And "Downtime" play, where years/decades/centuries pass by and predators go into sleep and/or ploting & scheming against other predators. It's expected that eash session (or two) happens in Night play, with the beginning of the subsequent session having a Downtime play to represent time passing.

The core of the rules is composed of 4 "cogs" players must manage:

1. Debts, a formal in-game currency;
2. Status in the local predator society (Princeps, Patrician, Plebeian, and Pariah);
3. Humanity, which makes it easier to interact with prey (including feeding and negotiating);
4. Hunting Grounds, which will vary according to city specifics and comes with 3 atributes (Prey Abundance, Prey Awareness, and Proximity to the predators hub).

There's also a fifth element, "Grudges", that one must try to minimize (the catch is everything you do will probably generate a grudge from another predator), and a sixth, Blood Pool, which enables your predator to do things or use specific abilities.

Then it's all tied-up and represented in a Relations map, that should occupy the center of the table, and looks like this:

Arrows represent Debts. Higher Status is usually at higher part of the map, and each Predator has it's grudges or aditional info near their pictures. The idea here is that players can have a quick snapshot of who has leverage over who...

...which brings us to the Moves, which take into consideration all those "cogs" and bits to define how good each PC is at hunting, feeding, fighting, etc. And the 5 playbooks (plus 1 released in a supplement, "The Seer" ) representing more or less fictional archetypes, each with distinct abilities and/or ways to interact with other rules, predators or prey. Sample moves:

In the case of a fight, players must describe what they're doing and wager an amount of Blood hidden from the other players, and the biggest bet wins. The different archetypes interact with this in different manners. Ie: the Devil, a more physically imposing predator, has the ability "Cold Blooded" that dictates he wins in the case of a draw, and consider +1 blood pt for each 5 pts he wagers (so if he wagers 5 pts, it's considered 6). The Seer, a more mystical/clairvoyant(?) predator, has the ability Eve of Battle, allowing he/she to see the hand of the opponents. The Wolf always has his pack at his side (probably) prone to enter the fight and add their blood to his, etc.

This seems to me the most important Move, as it allows maneuvering or taking advantage of other predators without a direct fight. And because Fighting has so harsh consequences (loser is destroyed or demoted to Pariah), people will favor scheming over direct conflicts most of the time.

The ending results is that every move you make as a predator has a big chance to step on another predator toes (generating a grudge), startle the prey (increasing your hunting grounds Awareness rating), generate a Debt (giving another predator future leverage over you), etc. It's a big web of spiders where every time one spins something it reflects/hinders/helps another spider (or the little flies around) in some way. It gets pretty political in this way, because you're always looking to that R-map and trying to convey potential predators to your side, while blocking off the opponent's potential allies (which is basically done by looking at the arrows - predators with lots of arrows pointing to them have more leverage, while predators with little or no arrows are weak and ripe for abusing).

And I'm finding this diceless implementation of PbtA more interesting than the original 2d6 roll, because it goes straight to the "ugly choices/pick your poison" motto that is the engine forte in a straight/faster manner.

Posted: **Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:25 pm**

So the game is an homage to all the boring parts of VtM if you weren't LARPing, while removing the fun parts? And there's already In the Shadows/Monster of the Week for off-brand oWoD PbtA.

The only thing useful here would be taking the Mother May I rules and porting that as your downtime system for an actual game, from where I'm standing. Also, you never want to band together in a fight, since the one player with the most cash spent decides your fate anyway.

Posted: **Fri Aug 17, 2018 9:54 pm**

Urban Shadows seems the better fit for a full WoD (derivative) experience. Undying is more focused on survival and politicking, to the detriment of everything else.

About the fight: the winner who wagered the most blood decides the fate of those in the losing side (death or pariah). If you were on the winning side, there's no need to worry about that. At least that's our understanding. We had a couple fights.

Posted: **Sat Aug 18, 2018 12:45 am**

Guts wrote:Urban Shadows seems the better fit for a full WoD (derivative) experience. Undying is more focused on survival and politicking, to the detriment of everything else.

About the fight: the winner who wagered the most blood decides the fate of those in the losing side (death or pariah). If you were on the winning side, there's no need to worry about that. At least that's our understanding. We had a couple fights.

That's not actually true and, in my understanding, is the counter-balancing mechanism against gang fights. The winner who waged the most blood decides the fate of everyone involved. Including his teammates. Saying that you won but your teammate got torn to shreds and now can't stop you from muscling in on their turf is fair play.

Posted: **Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:40 pm**

Longes wrote:That's not actually true and, in my understanding, is the counter-balancing mechanism against gang fights. The winner who waged the most blood decides the fate of everyone involved. Including his teammates. Saying that you won but your teammate got torn to shreds and now can't stop you from muscling in on their turf is fair play.

That's an interesting take that didn't occur to us. But doesn't it make it too disadvantegeous to band together/help out another predator?

Say, you're being cornered by two other predators in a night club, and decide to ask my help in the fight, seeing that I owe you a debt. WHY should I help you then? If I refuse, by the Bargain move, I go instantly to pariah. But if I agree and you end up spending the most blood, you may simply say I got killed in the fight and proceed to take my hunting grounds.

It seems everyone would prefer to turn to pariah, than risk getting killed and out of the game.

Posted: **Sat Aug 18, 2018 8:41 pm**

Guts wrote:
Longes wrote:That's not actually true and, in my understanding, is the counter-balancing mechanism against gang fights. The winner who waged the most blood decides the fate of everyone involved. Including his teammates. Saying that you won but your teammate got torn to shreds and now can't stop you from muscling in on their turf is fair play.
That's an interesting take that didn't occur to us. But doesn't it make it too disadvantegeous to band together/help out another predator?

Say, you're being cornered by two other predators in a night club, and decide to ask my help in the fight, seeing that I owe you a debt. WHY should I help you then? If I refuse, by the Bargain move, I go instantly to pariah. But if I agree and you end up spending the most blood, you may simply say I got killed in the fight and proceed to take my hunting grounds.

It seems everyone would prefer to turn to pariah, than risk getting killed and out of the game.

Unfortunately, fighting of all things was the part devs decided didn't need any examples. But I think my reading is correct:

Fight wrote:When you fight another predator, it’s an ugly, desperate struggle for life and death. All warring predators bet as much blood as they dare in secret. Then in unison, all predators reveal and spend the blood they bet. If multiple predators band together against another, they add their blood together as a single bet after revealing. The predator or band of predators who spends the most blood prevails.

Among the prevailing predators, the predator who spent the most blood decides the fate – life or death – of each predator involved in the conflict. If there’s a tie, the GM decides each predator’s fate. Each predator describes how they meet their fate.

Those who survive slink off into the night to lick their wounds.

To lose and be spared is utterly humiliating: you become a pariah. Custom dictates that you can have no place in predator society until you repay a major debt to the predator who spared you.

As to your question, I'd say don't fight on one side with the people that want you dead. From what I've read I get the impression that vampires generally aren't supposed to fight to the death. And someone prone to sudden but inevitable betrayals would likely have trouble finding future allies and be on the receiving end of more functional vamp gangs. Ganging up is absurdly powerful in this game, so you'd probably want to ration out your backstabbing so as not to cripple yourself.

Posted: **Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:39 am**

Makes sense, Longes. Thanks.

Posted: **Mon Aug 27, 2018 10:15 pm**

Guts wrote:
Longes wrote:That's not actually true and, in my understanding, is the counter-balancing mechanism against gang fights. The winner who waged the most blood decides the fate of everyone involved. Including his teammates. Saying that you won but your teammate got torn to shreds and now can't stop you from muscling in on their turf is fair play.
That's an interesting take that didn't occur to us. But doesn't it make it too disadvantegeous to band together/help out another predator?

Say, you're being cornered by two other predators in a night club, and decide to ask my help in the fight, seeing that I owe you a debt. WHY should I help you then? If I refuse, by the Bargain move, I go instantly to pariah. But if I agree and you end up spending the most blood, you may simply say I got killed in the fight and proceed to take my hunting grounds.

It seems everyone would prefer to turn to pariah, than risk getting killed and out of the game.

That sounds precisely like the kind of thing a Vampire would do in a more particularly cutthroat game of VTM.

It's not *good*, but knowing what I know of VTM it is intuitive.

Posted: **Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:37 pm**

Yes, that's how we came to interpret the rules (after Longes help). But we defined that, no matter how the winning player describes the outcome, if he betrays or harms someone on his own team, his character must hold responsibility for it. So it's not possible to, say, describe a teammate taking up the blunt of the damage by chance, and now lying near dead. No, if you betray a teammate, it's made clear for them that you made it.

We felt it meshes better with the spirit of the game this way, since there's no move where a predator can jeorpadyze another without taking responsibility for the action or avoiding new grudges by involved parties (debtors, friends, etc).

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 2:41 pm**

Evidently I am in the unique position of having already owned this game from a Horror-themed Bundle of Holding (Think Humble Bundle, but for Tabletop RPG's, nevermind they sometimes do tabletop as well).

What Frustrates me is unclear mechanics for abilities Such as:

Nightmare's Blood Slave, You have to pay Weekly Upkeep of 1BP (Blood Points) to maintain a Thrall, except if they then have 0 BP, they're no longer loyal, seems dumb by RAW to pay for a slave mind effect at minimum that doesn't last the duration its supposed to (a Reasonable DM would have it last till end of the week).

Dark Power also ticks me off, it wants you to pay 20 (Your personal max at what I'm assuming is near "Become NPC-territory" and/or rampaging), or 50, which is likely mass sacrifice of 10 or less Thralls plus your own supply. Worst yet, there's no mechanics far as I can tell in the playbook, or skimming the main book. So there'd better be some goddamn mechanics if they're forcing you to pay in-game resources, just DM Fiat would be some of highest order of BS here (but I guess that's Bear World for ya).

Combat Minigame also sounds like WoD's whole notion of being encouraged of bringing in a bus of school children armed with BB guns to punk out Werewolves Elder Vampires. Or if being more literal, it'd be hired gangbangers, thugs, fawning cultists, corp assassins, Pile of Rednecks, Pack of dogs, or whatever adding blood to the combat pool to auto-win the fight. Though Seer's power sounds like they'd auto-win fights, as they know what you're betting beforehand? so they can just simply do X+1 (or X+2 vs Devils, where X is number of BP your foe spent).

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 6:49 pm**

Agree about the vagueness of those abilities. We tweaked Blood Slave so the Nightmare only pays blood for the 2 last options (make the slave perpetrate vile deeds, and mind control him). Seemed more fair, and with less bookkeeping, this way.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 12:41 am**

Aryxbez wrote:Combat Minigame also sounds like WoD's whole notion of being encouraged of bringing in a bus of school children armed with BB guns to punk out Werewolves Elder Vampires. Or if being more literal, it'd be hired gangbangers, thugs, fawning cultists, corp assassins, Pile of Rednecks, Pack of dogs, or whatever adding blood to the combat pool to auto-win the fight

The problem is convincing someone to help you. Probably he/she will ask a major debt for it. And if you look the Bargain move again, you'll see owing a major debt to someone is really bad. Even the Wolf, which has a pack to help him at all times, must take care to be on a favorable position debt-wise with the pack, otherwise they may turn the table on him.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 1:24 am**

Guts wrote:The problem is convincing someone to help you. Probably he/she will ask a major debt for it. And if you look the Bargain move again, you'll see owing a major debt to someone is really bad.

Being a Sensualist gives you at least "few in number" of people who likely worship you, which is theoretically 3-5 people with however much blood (even 1pt for combat is +5 to your total).

I imagine you could just Mind Control them or ya know...Pay them. Which can't be too hard if you're a Puppet Master who is likely some corporate higher up who has the personal dosh to simply hire out some goons, Sensualist has at least "few in number" or likely 3-5 people which even at minimum is like +5 to Fight. The Nightmare sounds like they could do some long term plot to get a small force for this purpose, Thrall someone important & mildly convince them to get a posse together (or if rich, pay people to do it) though that be less optimal and more likely to accrue a debt.

I can't imagine paying people would accrue any debt, because you're already "paying forward" for their services.

Finally, if Dark Power had any function, I imagine it could if nothing else summon a Zombie apocalypse, or a Hulk Demon, or a scry & Die effect (Teleport in bunch of goons into the Rival Vamp's bedroom), Hurl into Hell, or whatever its supposed to do.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 2:00 am**

Aryxbez, the Sensualist followers are all prey, so can't use blood in a fight like predators do. Same for the Puppet-Master with his (mortal) assets. Also, payment for predators is made in debt so you would be back at the beginning. I could see some cases where another predator would charge real money for the help, but it would be really rare/exceptional (didn't happen in our games yet).

The Nightmare can use thralls in a fight, yes, but in an inefficient way, since you would need to spend 1 pt for each to follow the order (do vile deeds) as per the Blood Slave move, thus wasting precious blood that could be used in the fight.

The Wolf is the better prepped to gangbang because of his pack. But again, even him must manage the debts of the pack or otherwise risk getting kicked.

And finally, remember Longes post above. The winner of the fight gets to decide what happens to all participants, including his teammates. So gangbanging is not always a safe bet.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 12:06 pm**

Guts wrote:Aryxbez, the Sensualist followers are all prey, so can't use blood in a fight like predators do. Same for the Puppet-Master with his (mortal) assets. Also, payment for predators is made in debt so you would be back at the beginning. I could see some cases where another predator would charge real money for the help, but it would be really rare/exceptional (didn't happen in our games yet).

The Nightmare can use thralls in a fight, yes, but in an inefficient way, since you would need to spend 1 pt for each to follow the order (do vile deeds) as per the Blood Slave move, thus wasting precious blood that could be used in the fight.

And finally, remember Longes post above. The winner of the fight gets to decide what happens to all participants, including his teammates. So gangbanging is not always a safe bet.

Good point on the Mortals aka Prey, sounds like best-case there is to force a "Overwhelm A PC" Scenario, for the DM to activate, so then at least they're burning 8 Blood to get out of, before you jump them with a Predator Posse instead. Considering it mentions:If they accept your bargain, they may demand a new debt from you, demand that you forgive a debt they currently owe you,or demand other goods or services in return.

Which is then negotiated favoring the higher status (prob you if going to be bothering with this in first place), so paying some Predators sounds like a very real thing that could happen to avoid long-term debts.

If Prey can't contribute to Blood Totals in combat, then I'm not sure The Nightmare's Thralls could? If they can, then it would be a Long Term Plot (before Downtime Time Skip happens) to Farm Blood via Feed, and/or getting Thralls to get blood packs to you, to then feed back to their max of 5. Then ideally roll in with a bunch of free Blood Points.

Last bit unsure why its mention, as it is indeed a "all or nothing" type effort, so who cares if these people die, your PC is likely dead then as well.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 7:54 pm**

Yes, the Overwhelm move through mortal assets is a much better option. Specially if you're the Puppet Master with your enterprise.

About the Nightmare Blood Slaves not contributing Blood in combat, you may be right. Our local VtM advisor insisted the VtM analogous have supernatural capacities and thus hey should be allowed help in combat here. We ended up going with it, but you have a point. A thrall could be treated as a mortal in Overwhelm move, then the GM could make it a bit more costly. Makes more sense, I think.