City of Shadows

Thenomain

Would they work with their own sheet section in a simple list like merits, or are they more complicated than that? SO is reading the book and hogging it, so I can't go and look.

Touchstones are linked to the Clarity track at specific points that depend on the character's Composure rating.

Max Clarity is Wits + Composure + Icons.
First Touchstone is Composure + 1
Maximum number of Touchstones available, therefore, is Wits + Icons.
An additional Touchstone is a merit.
Gaining and losing of Icons is pure RP.
If a Touchstone is covered by Clarity damage (minor or severe), they cannot use it.
If a Touchstone is lost by reduction in Wits, Composure, or most likely Icons, they can keep it just not use it until they increase Max Clarity. (I assume they could also engage Sanctity of Merits. Can't imagine why not.)

So my challenge is figuring out a friendly system for linking the Touchstone to the Clarity level. Right now I'm going to make people make the Touchstone value equal to the position in the overall list: 1st, 2nd, etc., and the code will work out which Clarity value that is.

However, there are other games that use Touchstones: Vampire. Werewolf, vaguely. Geist. In Vampire and Geist, they're linked to your Power Stat which is far less flexible. (In Geist it's still how well you get along with your ghost friend, so it can go down easier than in many CoD games.) So the Touchstone (*) merit needs to be flexible.

It'll happen. I still have all of Chargen left to go, so it can wait a bit longer before I finalize on it.

--

For the insanely nerdy, here's my current notes on the system:
https://gist.github.com/thenomain/c4743193634c3bb05ddc37604e071f4a

Taika

I wonder if, because of the overlap, it might be better to just make a small, modular system that pulls from the +sheet stats, but is it's own code. Then you can track wolf/vamp/ling/whatever touchstones under +touchstone? That just sounds really complicated to try and code in, and a pain to track via +notes.

Thenomain

@Taika

Yes.

I estimate that it would also take me 2-3 times longer, too, so for now I'm going to make it straightforward "set anything" and let the chargen on each game line and their staffers worry more about it. A unifying system would be a long-term project.

(edit: Not to say that I won't do it sooner rather than later. I didn't even know Vampire and Werewolf had Touchstones, and I coded them. Maybe it's something I missed between 1st and 2nd Editions. I'm slightly befuddled that nobody using these installs said anything to me. Or less befuddled if they did and I don't remember.)

DarkDeleria

@Bad-at-Lurking said in City of Shadows:

Trust me, ain't nobody pouring margaritas on the Blue Line.

You make a fair point. It's also the only place one can take a legit nap during their commute w/o the worry of muggings or worse.

sighs I miss the Metra.

Taika

@Thenomain They probably just use +notes to track them. Or such has been my experience running and playing on games with your code.

hedgehog

@DarkDeleria said in City of Shadows:

@Bad-at-Lurking said in City of Shadows:

Trust me, ain't nobody pouring margaritas on the Blue Line.

You make a fair point. It's also the only place one can take a legit nap during their commute w/o the worry of muggings or worse.

sighs I miss the Metra.

Meh. I would take the Red Line from Morse/Loyola to 35th every day when I worked at Invisible Records and the ONLY problems I ever had came from pre-gaming Cubs fans coming in from the north shore. Yes, there was the 'I meeean you no haaaaarm' whiny guy, but he'd make his rounds and head to the next car. Cubs fans have no train etiquette and vomit everywhere while also disparaging the poors as the train trucks through the backside of Uptown on its way to Wrigley.

Royal

@hedgehog And people wonder why I still hold onto Cubs hate long after forgetting about baseball.

hedgehog

@Royal said in City of Shadows:

@hedgehog And people wonder why I still hold onto Cubs hate long after forgetting about baseball.

Not this person.

No Sox fan has ever caused me to utter the line 'I would rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty grapefruit spoon' contemptuously after being hit on by a drunk suburbanite in Cubs regalia whilst waiting for the bus on 35th Street, and the bus stop happened to be in front of a tavern.

Coin

@Thenomain said in City of Shadows:

@Taika

Yes.

I estimate that it would also take me 2-3 times longer, too, so for now I'm going to make it straightforward "set anything" and let the chargen on each game line and their staffers worry more about it. A unifying system would be a long-term project.

(edit: Not to say that I won't do it sooner rather than later. I didn't even know Vampire and Werewolf had Touchstones, and I coded them. Maybe it's something I missed between 1st and 2nd Editions. I'm slightly befuddled that nobody using these installs said anything to me. Or less befuddled if they did and I don't remember.)

Oh, we talked about it. At length. It was decided at the time that +notes was a more expedient solution.

Cobalt

Why not just break them up? "Touchstone of Clarity (*)" and "Touchstone of Blood (*)" and Touchstone of Wolfiness (*)" and etc??

Thenomain

@Cobaltasaurus said in City of Shadows:

Why not just break them up? "Touchstone of Clarity (*)" and "Touchstone of Blood (*)" and Touchstone of Wolfiness (*)" and etc??

Because shut it up, you and your logic.

Mostly it's to force people to set things in the proper order.

Cobalt

@Thenomain ilu but you know my role is to remind you of simple solutions. If not elegant solutions. Sometimes simplicity wins over elegance.

Derp

@Cobaltasaurus said in City of Shadows:

@Thenomain ilu but you know my role is to remind you of simple solutions. If not elegant solutions. Sometimes simplicity wins over elegance.

There are also differences in Werewolf and CHangeling and Vampire Touchstones. Werewolf touchstones are not, and IIRC cannot be, bought. You just either have them or you don't, and are limited to one of each type.

tragedyjones

Have you guys taken a look at the Contagion chronicles stuff coming out?

Sanguine

@tragedyjones I've skimmed the stuff, but waiting to look at it in depth until it comes out. You're gonna play, right? RIGHT?!

tragedyjones

@Sanguine said in City of Shadows:

@tragedyjones I've skimmed the stuff, but waiting to look at it in depth until it comes out. You're gonna play, right? RIGHT?!

Do you want me to lie to you?

Taika

I have no looked at the Contagion stuff. Got clobbered real good by rl this last week. Someone did hand me a copy of the Chicago book to dig through. I've been slowly working on reading it. And we've gathered a small crew of enthusiastic folks with big ideas.

The discord is in my signature, if anyone wants to pop on and have a chat or idea bounce.

Thenomain

@Derp said in City of Shadows:

@Cobaltasaurus said in City of Shadows:

@Thenomain ilu but you know my role is to remind you of simple solutions. If not elegant solutions. Sometimes simplicity wins over elegance.

There are also differences in Werewolf and CHangeling and Vampire Touchstones. Werewolf touchstones are not, and IIRC cannot be, bought. You just either have them or you don't, and are limited to one of each type.

That’s easy. The hard part is making sure that the Vampire and Changeling (edit: and Geist) Touchstones are kept in the order they were bought in.

Doozer

Former wiki chick here. Ty for the compliments. Y’all are so nice.

I was hopin this project would still go underway.

Taika

Glad to have you back!

The big thing I'm poking at now is looking at Lodges, Bloodlines, Legacies,and Entitlements.

There's no particular theme, per se, but the game itself will be -very- cross sphere. I expect to see packs, coteries, cabals, and the like with lots of cross-sphere tie-ins. The overall feel I'm aiming for is 'tense cooperation'. Up front, everyone plays ball, but in the shadows, the politics will be savage with high stakes for boat rockers that get caught.

An entire chunk of the grid (Central) will be neutral ground for all spheres. With plans for 3 praxes, and a Hellmouth.

We've started on plans for 'permanent temprooms' with themes/descs for the Shadow and Hedge. These will not really mirror the base grid, but give people a better idea of what things will look like.

Theno's working on a few code tweaks, additions and upgrades/fixes for us.

Starting to build up some steam!