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FEBRUARY 15, 1997 |
We have a slight change in the Narrating/Storytelling staff. Kurt Hoiseth, due to real-life obligations, is stepping down as a Narrator. Thanks, Kurt, for the time and effort that you put into the game! The staff therefore now stands at:
Please call with any concerns or questions. Try your clan Narrator before going to a Storyteller, please. If anyone would like to Narrate, please give us a call.
As most of you have probably found out by now, you will NOT be receiving experience or be allowed to use Influence until we get your character background and influence description. Please do not assume that we have this information about your characters unless you’ve given it to one of the current Storytellers or Narrators (some papers have gone missing). If you are at all unsure, ask Terry. To remind everyone, this is what we need: 1) A background for the character which must contain: a description (including any distinguishing features) and a list of anything publicly known about them. The background should also include who they were sired by, a description of their embrace, and where they have been and what they have been doing during both their mortal and Kindred lives. 2) A list of all their influences, what they are, how they were obtained and how they are maintained. 3) A haven description including street addresses and any defenses. Another reminder to those smart people who have given us all this information and can spend their experience: write down on a sheet of paper how you are spending experience, the character’s name and clan, and your name. Hand it to a Storyteller or Narrator. Until we get the sheet, you will not be able to use anything new.
There’s been a lot of concern about metagaming. This is going to be a continual problem as long as people share information out of character that is meant to be a secret in character. All we can do is repeat ourselves over and over and over: IF SOMETHING IS SUPPOSED TO BE SECRET IN CHARACTER, KEEP IT SECRET OUT OF CHARACTER. You don’t have to tell anyone anything, in or out of character, if they’re just asking. Speaking from experience, it’s more fun to not actually know what’s going on. Trust us on this. If you don’t know OOC what is happening, then it makes it all the more rewardingwhen you do finally figure it out, to know that you did it on your own. On a related topic, please do not automatically assume that someone is cheating when something happens that you don’t understand. That’s pretty insulting to both the other players and to us, the Storytellers. You are perfectly within your rights to ask if we are aware of a certain situation, but if we tell you that we are and it’s fine, then please don’t argue. That makes us cranky. With as many players as we have, and with the Shared Universe interaction, we can guarantee that there’s stuff going on that you don’t know about. If you don’t trust us to handle this, then tell us and we’ll let someone else run the game that you do trust.
If you have anything of this nature, you MUST have an approved character sheet to represent that person. In the case of ghouls, mortals, Dominated cops, etc, you also MUST have someone to represent them if you want them to be at any event. It doesn’t have to be a full-time player; so if you’re showing up with a posse of twelve thugs for a single scene, feel free to recruit anyone you know who’s not busy. The character sheet is MANDATORY. In the case of supernatural companions (Wraiths, Werewolves, Fae, etc.), they will be played by Narrators or STs, and the character sheet is still mandatory. If the character sheet isn’t there, the being isn’t there. Period. No arguments. Even if “my bodyguard always follows me everywhere I go...”, if the character sheet isn’t there then tough. He went to get dinner. If you have ghouls that do nothing but handle your Influence, then you do not need people to play them (unless you want them to show up somewhere), but you do need character sheets for them. You don’t need character sheets for mortals that only represent your influence. We hope that everyone sees the necessity for this. The rules and statistics are here to prevent arguments. If there are no statistics, there will be arguments. We don’t want that. You don’t want that. Please cooperate with us.
We are going to be playtesting a different way of handling challenges. In the past, the standard rule has been that if someone physically attacks you, you can only respond with a physical bid (i.e. you can either take it, dodge, or try and attack back). The main problem that we were seeing is that this gives a definite advantage to whoever initiates the challenge, since they can force the terms of the challenge. We’ve also seen it turn into a speed-talking contest, as players start yelling to get their challenge in first. WE ARE CHANGING THIS. You can respond however you want, each challenge will be resolved separately, but the results will happen simultaneously. An example might make this clearer (I hope). Say that Sofy and Kyle have finally had enough of each other, and Kyle Quickly tries to punch Sofy.
1) Sofy can respond physically (Tough enough to take it, Quick enough to dodge, Ferocious enough to punch Kyle back). In this case, Kyle and Sofy do a single rock-paper-scissors contest, the winner has the result they wanted, the loser loses the bid trait. That is the round.
2) Sofy can respond mentally or socially; let’s say mentally. She Calmly tries to Dominate Kyle to sleep. Now, Sofy also has to bid a toughness related trait in response to Kyle’s punch, since her action was not to dodge or physically attack. However, Kyle has to bid a mental trait (say Clever) in response to the Dominate attempt. Sofy and Kyle arbitrarily do the physical challenge first (Tough vs. Quick). The winner will have the result they wanted, the loser loses the bid trait BUT THE RESULTS HAVEN’T ACTUALLY HAPPENED YET!. Now they do the Mental challenge (Calm vs. Clever), and again the winner has the effects they wanted and the loser loses the bid traits.
Now, we sort out what happened according to the results of the challenges:
a) If Sofy won the physical challenge and won the mental, then she caught
Kyle’s eye before his fist hit her face, and her Dominate happened first.
Kyle falls asleep, Sofy is unharmed. That is the round.
b) If Sofy won the physical challenge and lost the mental, then Kyle hit
her a glancing blow before she could make eye contact, which was enough
to distract her. Kyle is not asleep but Sofy is unharmed. That is the round.
c) If Sofy lost the physical challenge and won the mental, then she caught
Kyle’s eyes just as his fist connected. Kyle is asleep, but Sofy is hurt.
That is the round.
d) If Sofy lost the physical challenge and lost the mental, then Kyle punched
her solidly before she made eye contact. Kyle is not asleep, and Sofy is
hurt. That is the round.
The point here is to let the results of the challenges decide which event happened first. Note that if Sofy didn’t have any Tough traits in the above example, she would have automatically taken damage from the punch, but she still could try and Dominate.
Uh, oh. Another rules clarification. There has been a house rule floating about that you can change your declared action if someone preempts you. THIS IS NOT THE CASE! We have discussed this among ourselves, and with the Regina Storytellers, and we have decided to stay with the Laws of the Night rules about preemptive actions. Example:
Rita (who doesn’t have Celerity) has a rifle trained on Jeff (who does), and announces that she is calmly pulling the trigger. Jeff spends one blood to activate Alacrity and moves three steps to the right. Rita CANNOT change her action; she has to fire into the space where Jeff was. Note that if Rita had been using a shotgun, then Jeff might not have been able to move out of the area of effect, but since she is using a rifle, Jeff is safe. Also note that Jeff’s action was movement. He CANNOT move and fire in the same action. If you are moving enough to get out of the way of an attack, then that is considered to be your entire action.
The main reason for this decision is that managing combat is bad enough when everyone has to stick to their declared action. If people are allowed to change their minds, group combats will be even uglier. This seems like it gives a lot of power to the Celerity users, but remember that each and every time you use Alacrity, it costs one blood trait. If you also want to get extra actions with higher levels of Celerity, that is another Blood Trait. Also keep in mind that you can only affect physical actions with Celerity actions, and this includes preempts. In other words, you cannot preempt to Dominate someone, and you cannot preempt someone who is Dominating you. In some situations, a Storyteller or Narrator may allow you to spend a willpower to change your declared action. Let’s say that Jeff, in the example above, had used Alacrity to pull Crimson in front of him just before Spider was about to shoot. A Narrator may allow Spider to spend a willpower to not shoot Crimson, her childe. This is always a judgement call on the part of the ST or Narrator. Another clarification about preempt actions, using another example:
Jess and Cormiir are squaring off. Jess has no Celerity, Cormiir does. Jess ferociously punches Cormiir. Cormiir uses Alacrity to preempt and brutally punches Jess.
In the case above, the result of the contest is decided by a single rock-paper-scissors challenge, where Jess has bid Ferocious and Cormiir has bid Brutal. They do the test; whoever wins punches the other. Sound familiar? This is exactly what would have happened if Cormiir had not used Celerity. There is no point in using preempt in the above situation. Yes, this is slightly unrealistic, but we’re trying to make combats go faster. To be more realistic, we’d have to go to a Person A attacks and Person B defends then Person B attacks and Person A defends sequence, which means twice as many challenges and twice as many traits bid. If the challenge involves both sides bidding traits from the same category, we want to resolve it in a single challenge. An example where pre-empt is useful:
Jess is now fighting Kyle (no Celerity) and Cormiir. She sees Kyle as the greater threat, so she ferociously attacks him. Kyle quickly tries to punch her. Cormiir pops Wolf Claws, uses Alacrity, and brutally slashes Jess. Jess cannot change her stated actions, so she must still attack Kyle even though Cormiir now seems more dangerous.
The sequence of challenges in this example would be: Cormiir bids Brutal to slash Jess. Jess must try to be Tough enough to take it, since she has declared that she is attacking Kyle. They resolve that challenge, then Jess bids Ferocious and Kyle bids Quick for their challenge.
If you do a called shot with a firearm, club, etc. to a vampire’s head, and you succeed, the vampire will take only the damage normally inflicted by the weapon and be stunned for three combat rounds (this is about 15 seconds). You are not automatically put to Incapacitated. You cannot spend willpower to avoid this effect, any more than you could use willpower to avoid being blinded by a called shot. Your brains have literally gotten scrambled.
Just a reminder. This Beast Trait means that you frenzy if your character gets frustrated. In game terms, this can be represented by losing a Mental challenge. Keep in mind, though, that your character has to know that the challenge occurred. Sometimes challenges are player actions, not character actions. Example:
The Prince of Brandon is reading Gaunt’s mind, using Telepathy, to see what he knows about Nosferatu Methuselahs. The players do the challenge and Gaunt loses. He has Beast Trait Frustrated but he has no Occult or Telepathy. Gaunt (unlike his player) therefore has no idea that the Prince has read his mind, and therefore will not frenzy unless the Prince is silly enough to tell him in character what he did.
Similarly, a subtle Dominate command will not trigger this beast trait, if the character doesn’t realize that he has been Dominated. It’s entirely possible that a Frustrated character will Frenzy sometime after the actual challenge occurred, when he finally finds out about it. Use your judgement, also keeping in mind that you can still get frustrated without actually losing a challenge. Roleplay it!
Using Quietus on weapons makes one of the points of damage they do into aggravated damage. A shotgun shell, for example, usually does two point of damage. If Quietus is used on it, it doea one aggravated point and one normal point. Also, the effects of this blood coating wear off after the aggravated damage is done, or at sunrise, whichever comes first.
VANDALISM SUSPECT STILL AT LARGE
by Amelia Strenko
The perpetrator of severe vandalism in downtown Saskatoon is still at large,
say Saskatoon Police. Sometime during the first week of February, an unknown
suspect covered the side of the SaskTel building in paint. Police are still
investigating the mishap, saying they’re “not sure how he did it, but [they]
may have some leads”. Small pieces of metal and plastic were also found
scattered about the scene, but the most damage was that done to the actual
building. Saskatoon Police Chief Doug Raynes issued the following statement:
“The individual associated with this instance of vandalism has only one
thing in mind, which seems to be property damage. He has no respect for
other people’s property or the betterment of the city”. The damage was
caused by paint being thrown on the side of the SaskTel building on Third
Avenue. Coverage was extensive and because of low temperatures, difficult
to remove. Crews are still at work trying to repair the damage. Saskatoon
City Police ask that anyone with information concerning this case of vandalism
should report to the Police station or to Crimestoppers.
COP KILLER ON RAMPAGE AGAIN
by Mark Teston
After nearly a month of ‘good behavior’, a man suspected of the serial
murder of several police officers in town has surfaced once again. Identified
as ‘Benito Vuarez’, possibly an alias, he has been seen firing at police
officers exclusively. Police have not been able to apprehend him to date,
but have put out an All Points Bulletin (APB) and are asking all citizens
of Saskatoon to notify the police immediately if you know him or his whereabouts.
He is considered armed and extremely dangerous. Police warn citizens against
approaching this man, as he is possibly confused and in an agitated state
of mind. He is described as male Caucasian, 5’10” with shoulder length
brown hair. Anyone seeing someone matching this description is asked to
call Crimestoppers or your local detachment of Police.
LOCAL ADULT STORE VANDALISED
Centerfold Adult Store on 3rd Avenue had damage done to one of its viewing
booths late Sunday night. The damage appeared to be caused by hammer blows
and some corrosive substance “Somebody just went to town” said John Lazlo,
manager of the store. “People may not agree with the services we provide,
but they have no right to do this. I’ve got to make a living too, you know.”
. Police have some leads, but no group has taken responsibility for the
damage.
GANG VIOLENCE IN SASKATOON RESULTS IN THREE DEAD
by Mark Teston
Gangland style killings in downtown Saskatoon on Sunday night raise questions
of increased violence in the city. Three people were killed and several
injured at a local coffee shop when an unknown gunman opened fire on the
unsuspecting patrons. Local police are following leads as to the gunman’s
identity, but due to the nature of the crime, he can not be named. Staff
Sergent Duane Munro was one of the first officers on the scene : “We got
to the scene shortly after the murders occured. The suspect was gone, but
he did leave several eye witnesses. Our investigation is continuing with
these people”.
Police Chief Doug Raynes feels certain an arrest is soon to come. “We’ve
got some pretty reliable eye witnesses, and a few composite drawings. I’m
sure the perpetrator of this crime will come to justice”. Witnesses at
the scene reported feeling frightened and confused : “It all happened so
fast’, one woman sobbed, “it was like Armageddon”. Other witnesses who
got a good look at the gunman refused to comment. One man told reporters
he had “never seen anything like it, it was like what you see on TV from
the States”. Police are describing the events of Sunday night as “gang-related
murders”. Families of the dead victims are angry and want revenge : “When
they catch that [man] I will personally show him what justice is”, said
one angry father whose son and wife were gunned down in cold blood. “He
won’t know what hit him”.
Dead also is local artist Phil Bomont,. In Bomont’s honour ,his work will
be shown at the Mendel Art Gallery until the end of the month. Police believe
violence and violent crimes are on the rise in Saskatoon, with a murder
rate almost three times that of ten years ago. “I don’t know where society
thinks it’s going”, says Sgt Raynes, “but I believe that if we continue
in this manner we’ll all be dead in 50 years”. Violent crime has been on
an increase since 1985. Last year alone, over 1000 reports were made to
the police involving gang activity and assault with a deadly weapon. Domestic
crimes are up more than thirty percent. The murder rate is steadily increasing
year by year, from 51 murders in 1985 to close to 100 for last year. These
statistics were acquired from the Saskatoon Police Department. Sgt Raynes
believes “We’re going to kill ourselves off at this rate, one by one”.
To my Ravnos Valentine : that night was a blast. Let’s do it again.
Ly
Kabe G. You are everything. Never leave me. I need you. Luke
My Beloved Crimson : Aeons cloaked in darkest night, Death that burns from
eternal light, Mortal no longer to live in terror, Blood love as one, two
forever. S
Audry : You are even more breathtaking with each passing hour K.L.
To Audry Lazlo Four thousand years and sunlight could not stop my heart
beating for you B.V.
Gina G : You are the hottest chick on the face of the planet...wanna be
my Valentine? I’ll call you.
Gina Giovanni : I can’t tell you who I am but I know you know anyway. Just
want you to know that I think you’re cute and I like you a lot. Sorry about
the head wound.
I’ve never loved anyone in the whole world as much as I love myself, so
happy Valentines day, Doleman! -anonymous.
None of you know anything about love. Richard Julien
Lost : One purpose. Contact Edward L. Smith
Lost : small black appointment book, contains important stuff. Please return.
Vermillion Smith.
Lost : two invisible friends. Mostly harmless. Answer to names. Return
at once ! Reward offered. Tiberius G.
Lost : one city, smallish with odd goings-on. Contact Karl VonBek. Reward
offered.
Found : incriminating stuff. You find me.
Found : some matches. Please claim soon or we will use them. Karim and
Audry
Found : some string, a ball of lint, several dead moths and a dishpan.
But they’re mine. Queron
One master, new and improved. No spooky types please. Contact Lucas
G.
Heart or Body for Valentine’s Day. Call 1-900-Tremere
Strong Rebellious types for possible coup. Due to nature of advertisement,
don’t call us. We’ll find you. We ARE looking....everywhere.
Suitable mate for pretty Transvestite...call Timmy S
Chisel for ‘body building’. Call Caracticus, leave a message.
I want people to quit mentioning that Lazarus is the name of the guy Jesus
brought back from the dead. I don’t think it’s funny anymore, and I don’t
have leprosy. Laz
Matches, one book. Needed for one-time use and party. Contact Regent Hera
at 1-900-Tremere.
Fighting ring for ghou....friend. Must be at least 15’ by 8’. Jack Price
Matching lipstick, purse and necklace. Also need largish bra and false
eyelashes. Contact Doc.
New eyes, nose, lips, skin tone, and hair. Could use new ass too as mine
has a crack in it. Call Benito at 555-1212.
