[Interest Check] Original vampire-based supernatural MU*

[BigDaddyAmin]

@Coin

Well, they are both fruits, like some of the people who MU*.

[Songtress]

Back on Topic:

I'd really like an alternative world, something, that feels different. I mean if Vampires have been around, and they are living and breathing, I am of the opinion the world just couldn't have 'remained the same' except for they exist. They all the worlds rulers lived and died. Births and death, would change the world.

And if Vampires are involved. Things will change.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Songtress said in [Interest Check] Original vampire-based supernatural MU*:

I'd really like an alternative world, something, that feels different. I mean if Vampires have been around, and they are living and breathing,

Giggles!

[BigDaddyAmin]

@Coin

Some dank maymay you have there. You boob.

[Coin]

@BigDaddyAmin said in [Interest Check] Original vampire-based supernatural MU*:

@Coin

Some dank maymay you have there. You boob.

Hrm? Sorry. I got bored and wandered off.

[Bobotron]

@Songtress
I hadn't designed the world I'm building around the supernatural being public knowledge. There are two big reasons...

1. The world I've designed doesn't have any real impetus for the supernaturals of any sort to 'come out of the coffin.' The media where the supernatural is public, there's usually some reason. In True Blood, it was the titular drink. I don't know what it is for Dresden. It requires a LOT more work than I am prepared to do to come up with an entire WORLD where vampires, at minimum, have been revealed to the public. It's more work than I had planned to do for the game (I know that may sound lazy, but changing aspects of human history, even in the last 20 years, with the revelation of the supernatural is... a difficult prospect).
2. It's not the sort of game I want to run. I'd be open to something changing organically during play perhaps, but it's not the game that I am designing. Because, foremost, I'm designing a game that I would want to play, and would want to play with, and run stuff for, others. Which is the crux of any game I run, really.

Ultimately, it's not the game and goal that I had in mind. I'd also concur, the world won't be exactly the same; some things may be a little different, but if vampires exist alongside humanity, it's not going to change how World War II went. Or how the Civil Rights movement went. But subtle changes here and there are probable, it's a matter of seeing what I would want to do, what backstory/history NPCs I design that might have some effect on things.

I haven't written a huge backstory yet, ala the OWoD's huge backstory. It'll get there. But it probably won't be anywhere near the level, depth or 'supernaturals did this real world thing by themselves' that the OWoD had.

[Songtress]

@Bobotron
True and I am glad you can state that.
Its fine. I guess I kept asking myself : What makes this NOT True blood and not Not WoD.. and the like.
But that's perfectly ok, and infact is probably better than what I Wanted.

[Bobotron]

@Songtress
Thank you. I think a lot of people get off of that track, and get themselves set up to build something that appeals to everyone. I want something that I will enjoy maintaining and telling stories in. Whether that story is a night of the Consul screaming at the plebeians for having a shoot-out in the subway with a wererat colony, or said shoot-out in the subway with a wererat colony, or finding the hidden temple that a member of House Fabia dug out in Central Park and dungeon-crawling past their insectoid servii to find out why they're digging up shit in Central Park.

And I get where you're coming from; you have enthusiasm for the idea and I really appreciate it. I want to market this as an 'alternate to the standard WoD' and I'm looking at ways to do that. Outside input on things I may not have considered, or may be considering and just need a little impetus to actually make work, is good. And alternate methods and outlooks on teh world at good, even if to just mine for ideas.

It's why I like crowdsourcing stuff. I may not use anything, I may use some, and I may steal your ideas and run with them and expand and give you appropriate credit.

I'm still very much in the more heavy design stages, so there's more to come.

[OrcRiot]

Dresden is simply disbelief. Bad shit happens but there's an explanation for it. Vampires generally keep to themselves and are against the public knowing but other supers are out there. Like Harry, he advertises being a wizard and very few people believe him even when they see amazing stuff. It relies on the sheer power of people to not believe in fantastical things.

[lordbelh]

@Bobotron So how does the Government hold its own? You say section 7 and the City Council in New York keeps tabs/works with the supernatural/vampires. But how are they not just pawns maintained by the Sups to do whatever the Sups want?

[Bobotron]

@lordbelh
And now that I'm NOT shoulders-deep in Tremere, to answer your question...

The City Council has some specific agents that work to keep tabs on the supernatural; it's all very clandestine, and they are supported by Section 7, who has ways to offset and to an extent, prevent supernatural mojo from working 100% on humans. And ways to remove what is there. Ultimately, the City Council's representatives, the Section 7 representatives, and representatives from the vampires (and other supernaturals, such as the Fae and Therians in particular) keep tabs on each other, trade information (particularly if there is something that they don't want to spill over to the human population) and work to keep supernatural craziness out of the limeline. So the City Council works to keep things covered up as they can, often calling on the supernatural reps to pull their weight on it as well, as well as push back to the various supernatural groups to punish their own when they HAVE to police them. Section 7 is a little bit less prone to handing over offenders, since they have the resources and manpower to deal with transgressors themselves.

[Bobotron]

So, a little bit more of an update...

• The bigger writeup for the playable Houses are done, it was much easier when I trimmed it down to the six we're going with.
• The map of NYC is mostly done; I'm trying to determine if I missed anything important. Right now about 24-27 rooms for the city. Working on picking out some areas of NYC that will be useful for play to have as separate rooms for play as well as some staff-created 'location' rooms.
• Working on powers. I'm now becoming torn between just doing up general powers and then having TF MU*-style 'create your own battle powers' rather than flat-defined lists of powers. The main hangup I'm hitting is arrangements for powers that aren't just same overlaps in utility and combat capability. More to come on this...

Still far away from opening, but we're getting there.

[Bobotron]

Found inspiration for power tracks. Working them out now. Intensity (super strength) and Mobility (alternate movement) are done.

Also decided to go with the d6 and target number method. The issue ended up being with the percentage based setup it became way too skewed and the percentages really didn't line up with the stat ratings I'm looking at.

[Songtress]

Target numbers are great and should be variable for players (new vampire, lower numbers.) Older vampire higher numbers. (or something like that.)

[Bobotron]

@Songtress
The difficulty is set up to be pretty static, with a dice pool being equal to the total attribute + skill rating + any bonuses. So a character trying to shoot someone with a shotgun does Physical + Firearms, so someone with a Physical 4 (above average) and a Firearms 3 (well-trained) does 7d6, every 4+ as a basic success vs a target's Physical + Dodge. For contested actions, the defender's successes subtract from the attacker's successes; if there's a net 0 or negative, the action fails. Otherwise, successes are added onto the effect (such as success threshold or, for the combat portion, damage). For uncontested actions, there is typically some type of success threshold depending on what's needed.

Still running tests but overall it's pretty simple, and allows a good amount of 'you get X bonus!' to the stat or pool without the bonus being pointless (like what I was running into with the percentage-based setup).

[Songtress]

Hey as long as you've got it figured out!

[NotSanni]

While I'm not a big fan of Greco-Roman heavy settings, this sounds fairly interesting. I'm especially excited to see more about the different powersets and how those are handled, and the Lorekeeper Clan is SUPER cool sounding.

[Rook]

Would be interested in helping in any number of ways, be it coding, building, writing or organizing plots and running them (daytime US, weekdays).

[Bobotron]

I will be doing some more update posing tonight. I will post a couple of the completed power sets and some of the incomplete ones so people can see the design aesthetic I have for power sets that have RP only applications and powers that have battle applications and ones that do both.

@Rook
I will ping you when I'm home tonight.

[Bobotron]

Long week. Very long week. Long (but good) weekend to. Relaxing now while laundry does its thing.

So...
First thing's first. I promised you guys a couple of power previews, so here we go. Two specific power tracks are done, and posted below. There are some things still in the works (like costs for fuel/blood), as well as potential power balances. Though one thing that's set is that the names are there for defaults, though characters can rename them for the combat system directly (like, you could have the Bloodworking power Sanguine Strike, and rename it Crimson Needle if you, say, chuck solidified blood daggers and such; or rename the Crimson Brutality power into Flames of Pluto or somesuch).

As a note, there will be some references to a couple of things I haven't mentioned, so...

• On duration, when it says Standard that means it's a status condition; the duration is 3 turns in combat.
• On conditions/effects, there will be a post following the two power lists I'm posting that goes over those.
• Attack types are Brawl, Melee, Firearms, Special, Weapon-M and Weapon-R. Weapon-M and Weapon-R mean that the attack will snag the damage rating of the equipped weapon, rather than the damage rating of the raw attack (which will be set to 0 for ease of calculation). Weapon-M will default to the Unarmed attack if no Melee/Brawl weapon is equipped.

Mobility
Vampires are creatures of extraordinary talents. One of those is the ability to defy the laws of physics with their movements. A power that is common to all vampires, Mobility allows a vampire to use the vitalis that they subsist on and alter themselves, granting superhuman feats of movement.

Basic

• Lightfoot - Drawing upon the vitalis, the vampire imbues their body with life energy, lessening their weight and enabling them to be lighter than their bodies really are.
  • Cost: 1 Blood
  • Action: Simple
  • Roll: N/A
  • Duration: 1 Scene
  • The vampire becomes able to move without effort across things that would not normally support her weight, such as snow, sand, or water. Additionally, this power halves damage taken from a fall.
• Unnatural Grace - The vampire is able to imbue their body with what could be termed a control over their own equilibrium and personal gravity, allowing for unnatural feats such as walking up walls.
  • Cost: 1 Blood
  • Action: Standard
  • Roll: N/A
  • Duration: 1 Scene
  • The vampire becomes able to stick to solid surfaces, maintaining their balance and treating all surfaces as if they were floors to walk on. The can stride up a wall, walk effortlessly across a tightrope, or hang upside-down from the ceiling. Additionally, this power halves damage taken from a fall, and the character will always land on their feet.

Intermediate

• Mighty Bound - The vampire is able to render themselves lighter, using the vitalis to lift themselves and their innate strength to leap across distances that would seem impossible, leaping up, or down, many stories or bounding from rooftop to rooftop.
  • Cost: 2 Blood
  • Action: Standard
  • Roll: N/A
  • Duration: 1 Scene
  • When activated, Mighty Bound doubles the character's Physical Attribute when jumping. Additionally, when Mighty Bound is active, characters do not take falling damage if they have actively jumped down from a height.
• Spatial Awareness - The vampire has an instinctive capability to know what's going on around her, in order for them to use their enhanced mobility to protect theselves. With this power, they can map out all of the places they can move and protect themselves by ducking behind cars, bars, and overturned tables, moving with supernatural prescience about such things, even if these things are not in line of sight.
  • Cost: 2 Blood
  • Action: Simple
  • Roll: N/A
  • Duration: Standard
  • Spatial Awareness grants a vampire the Shift condition; this is representative of the vampire knowing where to move to best make use of cover and their surroundings to trip-up their opponents. (Sheet: Spatial Awareness - 0 Special Self Shift)

Advanced

• Ascension - The ultimate in mobility, the vampire flows the vitalis through her body, infusing herself with the stolen life and becomes completely lighter-than-air. She can take to the skies under her own power, flying with any speed she can muster.
  • Cost: 3 Blood
  • Action: Standard
  • Roll: N/A
  • Duration: 1 Scene
  • The vampire gains the ability to defy gravity, enabling them to fly at their normal movement speed or any speed enhanced with Swiftness. When Ascension is active in combat, the vampire cannot be targeted by Brawl- or Melee-based attacks unless their opponent has also activated Ascension, though Ranged and Special attacks will still work on the vampire. (Sheet: Ascension - 0 Special Self Flight)

Master

• Incorporeal Passage - The vampire's control over her body becomes so great that she can become intangible, being untouchable and able to phase through almost any matter. In this form, the vampire is immaterial, and only magically-enhanced attacks or the banes of the vampires can bar or damage them.
  • Cost: 2 Blood
  • Action: Standard
  • Roll: N/A
  • Duration: Special
  • The vampire shifts her body into a state of intangibility, giving her the capability to slip through solid objects; she looks like a phantasmal form of herself. This intangible form is immune to all attacks except for Special attacks, and the banes of all vampires. Normally, the intangibility lasts for 1 Scene; however, being struck in combat by a Special attack or one of the vampire banes (sunlight, fire, or silver) will do normal damage and immediately end the Incorporeal Passage power. (Sheet: Incorporeal Passage - 0 Special Self Incorporeal)