Vampire: Dark Ages - OOC Discussion

[Goatkiller666]

Oh yes. You're all very young vampires. Throw the soul of some 400yr old elder monster inside your 22yr old head... well... you might find that you're not the one driving. That could be weird derangements as bits of their memories change your feelings on some things, or they could just reach up and take control when you frenzy.

Then there's the Thirst of Caine.

And if you're mixing up clans, you get to blend clan weaknesses.

It's not entirely out of the question that effects from your victims might transfer as well. Someone is blood bound to the Cappadocian and you eat that guy's blood... now Capp's blood is in you, working on your emotions.

There are certain high-level powers that work on all of one's childer... you might be vulnerable to the sires of your victims.

And let's not even get started about Vicissitude or Dementation. Anyone with OOC knowledge of the modern WoD should be deathly afraid of even being from those two clans, much less feeding or diablarizing from them. Or feeding or diablarizing from anyone who's fed or diablarized from them.

But, you know... it's all very fun for me, watching you guys run around eating all your elders now. It's like standing in the living room on Christmas Eve, looking at all the unopened boxes and imagining all the great fun I'll have playing with all that tomorrow.

There may come a time when Alina is leading the group, because she's the only one not enslaved to 17 different schitzophrenic voices in her head.

But seriously, just wanted to let people know the news in my life: I just got a sort-of promotion. No pay raise or better job title, but I gained a bunch of responsibilities this week. It's taking a bit of my time to get my head around them all, so I haven't been as deep into the Watch as I'd like. It's good stuff, on the whole, and bodes well for the career advancement, etc. But it's more time spent doing stuff I wasn't doing before. I'll be back on the 5:30am daily team calls, too.

Ask me how much I just LOVE waking up at the ass-crack of "it's still freakin' dark out!" to start working. Go ahead, ask me.

So, it's time for the granting of XP. It was time a few days ago, in fact. And yet, I'm seeing the results of the 1/wk xp so far. Here you guys are, like a week after being embraced, and even the ones who haven't been diablarizing are still getting close to the power levels of your sires, who are nominally elders. In the course of the story I have planned, which could run for centuries, I imagine that getting seriously overpowered.

I'm not yet sure how to address this, but know that change is coming. Change that will result in a much slower XP progression, even if I can't yet describe the details. One thought is to grant my XP at the end of an IC day, though then how to address a week of downtime?

And how to address the real thought that at a slower pace, it could be 18 months of player time before one can save up the XP to get the next dot of Whateveration. All of a sudden, diablarie is even more valuable.

[Seska Karantanija]

You could go to more of a scene and story-based award system.

Each overall scene is worth a point or two and then make the story worth a few additional.

Maybe still give 1 xp a month for participation. That way we still get a little something for checking in, but the 'free' xp is cut by a fourth.

Under this we have a bit of growth for participating, but mainly our gain is determined by the pace of the story.

[Taduz Illyannovich]

Tapering off XP gain would be workable with an IC reason behind it.

We were just embraced. Frantic, vicious, and very ignorant of our unlives. Hence, we got XP at a seemingly faster rate. People learn faster then their lives are on the line, especially survival tactics. Now that we've "lived" for a bit, gotten a handle on our powers, which are very useful for survival, there is no longer that desperation induced learning. Things slow down, we are no longer so on edge (some of us at least), and thus we grow at a slower rate.

Slow it down, it's all good. If there comes a chain of high adrenaline sequences (You games know what I mean, even forum based, you'll get that rush), it could speed up.

Diablerie is a double edged sword, quick power, long term drawbacks.

But it tastes so good.

[Gedeminas]

Oh yes. You're all very young vampires. Throw the soul of some 400yr old elder monster inside your 22yr old head... well... you might find that you're not the one driving. That could be weird derangements as bits of their memories change your feelings on some things, or they could just reach up and take control when you frenzy.

...Right...

Question. How would 400+ years of ordinary, probably rather vague and partially missing by this time, memories effect a 22yr old with perfect recall, who is thus able to feel a clear difference between his memories and any other memories in his head? Especially if he has Willpower 10 and high enough Auspex to understand how to read emotions and thoughts, giving him a pretty firm idea of how to organize his mind?

I admit they could still have an effct, but nowhere near as bad as it could be...

[Taduz Illyannovich]

If you use the "soul fragments" rules, each person you eat, they get a willpower roll at d8. that much of the soul remains stuck to you. More people, more fragments.

After a while, said fragments can "pool" their power, to make you do something. Contested roll at d6. Your current willpower VS their pooled power. Winning means you remain in control. Losing means they take over. Losing by 5 means you just Path of Flames'd yourself, jumped off a building into traffic, or engaged in other suicidal activities. Most won't do that, they want you to suffer.

How much would the prince believe "the souls of the people I diablerized ,which is grounds for summary execution, made me do it" when you mention how you think he has a preference for children of the same gender as him, at court. Won't get you killed, probably, but welcome to being an outcast. Killing family members, people that mean alot to you, anytime they can try to take over.

The bad news: Without extraordinary circumstances, they never ever go away. Drain 10 vamps, say they get 15 fragments total, money says they will make your unlife a living hell. Until you die. You can try to retake control, which is another contested roll, same as above. After they leave you feeling sticky, broke, and confused, they let you back into the drivers seat. and giggle.

That is just one optional rules set, GK will probably have something much much more...interesting.

So, yes, it can be that bad.

[Seska Karantanija]

Question. How would 400+ years of ordinary, probably rather vague and partially missing by this time, memories effect a 22yr old with perfect recall, who is thus able to feel a clear difference between his memories and any other memories in his head? Especially if he has Willpower 10 and high enough Auspex to understand how to read emotions and thoughts, giving him a pretty firm idea of how to organize his mind?

Funny thing about the mind... For some reason, you remember doing all those things... perfectly. Now you've got 400+ years of desires and schemes you want to implement. The last 22 years have been a footnote.

[Menolly]

hoo-boy...
Y'all have fun now, y'hear?

[Goatkiller666]

So, not only am I a bad bad GM, I'm also kind of a dumb-ass. I accidentally deleted all the PMs in my inbox.

Clicked on all the ones I wanted to delete, then his Delete All, and quickly hit YES when it asked me to confirm.

There was a fair bit of stuff in there, including at least one rules transcription that I hadn't put into the forum (please tell me you have that saved, Ged).

So, if anyone had any conversations still going with me, please send me a reminder.

Huge apologies to anyone this inconveniences.

[Gedeminas]

Why yes, I do have that saved, and now you have it to.

[Goatkiller666]

Hey folks. Sorry for the absence (though I've been into Darkwood a bit). Work / school got all of a sudden busy at the same time, so I've only really had a little time here or there to post. I could do single PC updates over in 'Wood, but not much concerted attention here.

Anyway, the quarter ends next weekend, so my amount of free time should grow significantly after that. I expect to get back to DA around then.

Great apologies, and also many thanks for your patience. Things should resume soon.

[Goatkiller666]

Welp, schoolwork is all done done done. Phew.

Now I may begin getting myself plugged back into my life. You know, until the next quarter starts, which is like June 27th, I think. Mom flies out Tuesday morning, after which I'll return to things in earnest.

Some of you may not know, but my uncle died last week. Right during finals. I didn't bother telling my professors... it would just have been a bad cliche anyway. We weren't close, so I'm not all broken up about it, but it did mean that many members of my family showed up and demanded free lodging and entertainment and whatnot. I was not prepared to handle the extra time suck. But, it should all return to normal soon.

[Gedeminas]

Um, Storyteller? Is the reason you haven't come back because what I did has consequences you're having trouble figuring out? Because that really wasn't what I was going for...

I'm very sorry for any trouble I may have caused...

[Menolly]

:facepalm:

Beorn, when I asked if you learned nothing by being told to leave 'wood because of your constant attempts at power gaming, I didn't mean for you to ask publicly regarding you doing the same thing here...

[Goatkiller666]

So, the reason is that, while I know what the consequences should be, I'm debating if that's really something I feel comfortable doing. Consuming the soul of such an ancient and power being... your body becomes the new host for that soul. Your own soul... ceases to be relevant to the story.

This is a being who was planning to try to consume God and come out on top. Gedeminas should have just about no chance to survive this action. And, it was warned that there would be consequences to diablarie.

This at least frees me from the task of having to role-play Miecyzslav's reaction to Gedeminas having taken his kill, which was also a very unwise action.

[Menolly]

[Please note the above edits I made to my last big post, based on Gedeminas' post above. I tried to word it so that the later posts by other players weren't invalidated. If anyone feels that those updates would change their actions, please let me know. We'll get the chaos sorted out.]

In case the current delay is due to waiting to hear from us one way or the other, Alína's actions remain the same. She attempts to care for Olaf.

[Goatkiller666]

Nope, this has been me being busy again.

I leave the country in just over a week. And, while I was in NC, I accidentally laundered my passport. So I've been having to deal with getting that replaced and expedited, plus arranging my replacement at work.

[Goatkiller666]

Okay, in line with my 1/wk promise from earlier this week, I've actually spent some time today figuring out what I need to do to fix the threads, so that we may resume our momentum. (Plus, Casper and Faelan seem to be gone. Lament hasn't posted in like forever, but I sort of ended her thread, so that could be my fault. She's been active over in Demon, so... I won't write her out just yet.)

Tomorrow morning, I expect to get all that posting done, so the story can get back online. And after that, at least weekly updates.

(I'd suggest that if we're doing weekly updates, one-line comments may make things really slow. So, investing a bit more effort on both our parts will make things flow smoother.)

[Corrozus]

I'm still here, just didn't have anything left to do here so I've been patiently waiting for things to pick up again. I don't know if Faelan is still interested in continuing, I'll poke at him and ask.

[Goatkiller666]

Okee. I have an exit strategy set up for his character, which would allow him to come back later if he wanted to play again.

[Corrozus]

I talked to Faelan, he wants to continue but has lost his character sheet over the summer while moving. I told him to send you a pm Goat.