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[VtR] [OOC] Born into Darkness
- Thread starter Graf
- Start date
industrygothica
Adventurer
Graf said:
None that I've noticed. I think we're ready to move on.
Bloodweaver1
First Post
Yea sorry... RL is in full effect.. will post/respond shortly. I'm greatly apologize.
-Blood
-Blood
Graf
Explorer
Rolling for information
No worries blood.
Incidentally my policy is that you can always try to "roll for information".
[sblock=Why?]I've played in too many games were people sit around for six hours because the DM thinks something is "totally obvious" and that "if you just thought about it you'll figure it out".
Actually, I usually quit those games.
But I've had friends who stuck with it and got to hear for hours and hours later about how they spent hours and hours trapped in the mansion in the snowstorm dealing with the monster-that-was-immune-to-all-damage except from one "obvious" source.
[/sblock]
So Archer can roll Enigmas to try to figure stuff out, Beth can make rolls to try to dredge up blocked memories, etc etc.
There are some other points
Generally speaking, if you have an idea already about what it is, it'll be easier to just say "I think it's this, does my character?"
If it's real world info you'll almost never have a problem with me; provided it's not going to change the game in some sort of significant way. (Insisting "anyone can make napalm from common cleaning supplies" or "everyone knows that you can buy explosive rounds in target").
If it's game world info (i.e. something from a published White Wolf book) then I think it depends. Its probably pretty obvious but...
1. If it's happened in your back story then you definitely know it. (Archer's been blood bound, he'll know a lot about it, even if he doesn't know all the fancy names)
2. If it's almost certainly never happened in your back story then you probably don't know it. (Archer's never met the VII or had a chance to really research or learn about them. So he doesn't know anything substantial about them.) If he wants to know then he'll have to roll (and suffer penalties if I think he's trying to know something that would be difficult). If you make the roll. You'll get it. Even if I need to make up some cockamamie flashback (like I did here for Archer) as to why. (See also Biggs and Lupines).
3. Everything else is permutations of the above.
No worries blood.
Incidentally my policy is that you can always try to "roll for information".
[sblock=Why?]I've played in too many games were people sit around for six hours because the DM thinks something is "totally obvious" and that "if you just thought about it you'll figure it out".
Actually, I usually quit those games.
But I've had friends who stuck with it and got to hear for hours and hours later about how they spent hours and hours trapped in the mansion in the snowstorm dealing with the monster-that-was-immune-to-all-damage except from one "obvious" source.
[/sblock]
So Archer can roll Enigmas to try to figure stuff out, Beth can make rolls to try to dredge up blocked memories, etc etc.
There are some other points
- Skills -- it helps a lot of have a few dots in the relevant skill otherwise you can get a dramatic failure.
- failure -- Generally speaking you'll get a null answer (you don't know, you'll need to think about it more, you're not sure, nothing comes to mind). But if you're rolling, and you haven't got any skill dots you can get a dramatic failure. If so I'll feed you some line of BS and you'll have to play it out like you believe it.
- I won't make people roll chance dice (and risk dramatic failure) unless you haven't got the skill.
- It's going to be inefficient. It'll almost always be faster to go out and do some actual investigation/research. But if you're totally stumped, and/or your character has a few hours to just sit around and try to think you make an attempt
- There are logical limits to what you can deduce. For ex: when Biggs thought that he'd never been embraced it would have been impossible to deduce that he'd been sired or by whom. Die rolling couldn't give a definitive answer. Ditto things like Beth trying to "figure out" where her sire is now. She doesn't have any sort of information that would lead her finding out.
Generally speaking, if you have an idea already about what it is, it'll be easier to just say "I think it's this, does my character?"
If it's real world info you'll almost never have a problem with me; provided it's not going to change the game in some sort of significant way. (Insisting "anyone can make napalm from common cleaning supplies" or "everyone knows that you can buy explosive rounds in target").
If it's game world info (i.e. something from a published White Wolf book) then I think it depends. Its probably pretty obvious but...
1. If it's happened in your back story then you definitely know it. (Archer's been blood bound, he'll know a lot about it, even if he doesn't know all the fancy names)
2. If it's almost certainly never happened in your back story then you probably don't know it. (Archer's never met the VII or had a chance to really research or learn about them. So he doesn't know anything substantial about them.) If he wants to know then he'll have to roll (and suffer penalties if I think he's trying to know something that would be difficult). If you make the roll. You'll get it. Even if I need to make up some cockamamie flashback (like I did here for Archer) as to why. (See also Biggs and Lupines).
3. Everything else is permutations of the above.
Graf
Explorer
Would it help the flow of the game if I said that the "burning sensation" on Archer's arms isn't supposed to be a story stopping event.
It's, at best, minor foreshadowing.
While people are free to react to it however they would want to, and it's a bit odd/weird whatever I -don't- think there is really much information that could be gleaned from it to inform action.
Like the "quiet night streets" when you left the apartment building it's more story color, intended to give the impression that your characters live in a vibrant, messy world. (I apologize, since it seems to be coming off more as inept than anything else).
It's, at best, minor foreshadowing.
While people are free to react to it however they would want to, and it's a bit odd/weird whatever I -don't- think there is really much information that could be gleaned from it to inform action.
Like the "quiet night streets" when you left the apartment building it's more story color, intended to give the impression that your characters live in a vibrant, messy world. (I apologize, since it seems to be coming off more as inept than anything else).
Graf
Explorer
So Archer built up a complex plan, and Beth didn't really follow it.
This is, as they say, the breaks.
Personally I think that over the long term this sort of interaction is what makes interparty roleplaying meaningful. Personalities are one thing, but shared experiences (and people disagreeing based on shared history) is another.
I've somewhat arbitrarily moved the game along fairly far. You might argue that I should stop the action and let Archer try to stop Beth.
But I didn't. To be honest I didn't because I think that the first interaction/disagreement has the most story juice. (Ok that's not english, but I'm tired so that's how I explain it).
It helps that Archer had a bit of a distracting sensory experience.
But this -is- one area where Vampire is a great game. The PCs are fairly resilient. If Beth had run into a crew of chainsaw wielding ghouls and wound up getting taken out she'd still be a viable character. Just heal up and sneak away.
In this case nothing of the sort happened of course. But I didn't advance the action as a validation or invalidation of any particular plan.
This is, as they say, the breaks.
Personally I think that over the long term this sort of interaction is what makes interparty roleplaying meaningful. Personalities are one thing, but shared experiences (and people disagreeing based on shared history) is another.
I've somewhat arbitrarily moved the game along fairly far. You might argue that I should stop the action and let Archer try to stop Beth.
But I didn't. To be honest I didn't because I think that the first interaction/disagreement has the most story juice. (Ok that's not english, but I'm tired so that's how I explain it).
It helps that Archer had a bit of a distracting sensory experience.
But this -is- one area where Vampire is a great game. The PCs are fairly resilient. If Beth had run into a crew of chainsaw wielding ghouls and wound up getting taken out she'd still be a viable character. Just heal up and sneak away.
In this case nothing of the sort happened of course. But I didn't advance the action as a validation or invalidation of any particular plan.
industrygothica
Adventurer
Eh, sorry if I screwed things up a bit. Just trying to stay in character, and there's a vice here with her name written all over it.
Graf
Explorer
Right.industrygothica said:
Didn't get on top of this like I should have.
Since this was potentially dangerous, I think you've regained a point of willpower.
except... you're already at full... so it doesn't matter...
This demonstrates why you'd want to spend willpower actually, because you'll get it back over time, and it's really good (especially when you have a marginal role you want to make).
