MAY 29, 1999

Yes! At long last the new SbN Manual is complete! While this beast has not been printed yet, it sits quietly on a hard drive, eagerly anticipating its publishing.  To celebrate this, we will be holding a party next month at Ms. Bell's residence.  All players are welcome!

DAVID'S INFLUENCE STUFF

Influence Slots
If you think a slot is blocked, keep asking about it. It may free up or be bumped, on a first-come, first-serve basis.  Moral: use it or lose it.

Research Points for Rituals
If you are collecting Research Points for an occult ritual - Thaumaturgy, Necromancy - it is up to *you* to ensure in advance of your research that you are eligible to perform the research, and then to track the number of total points you have accumulated.

Regarding eligibility: If you are not ready to begin training for a particular Ritual, owing to inexperience in your primary path, for example, I don't think you can just accumulate research points for indeterminate future use, as you could with experience points.  Your contacts need to be working on a *specific* research project.  Since otherwise their efforts will be wasted, you may as well direct your contacts to do something more amusing until you are ready.  This is my opinion, subject to verification by Randy.  Randy will be responsible for determining, on review of your character sheet, whether you are ready to embark on a research program.  In case you are not sure, ask him.

E-mail me as usual with your requests to spend Occult Influence on research.  I will squirrel these away with your monthly requests.  I will *not* keep a running tally of your RP's, however - it takes me long enough to do the Bank.

When you think you have accumulated a sufficient number of RP's, e-mail me and I will verify your estimated totals against the receipts I have on record, and give the nod to Randy (gosh, I should get a Civil Service job...)

Henceforth, queries beginning with the words "How many RP's do I have?" will be received with grumbling.  Queries beginning with the words "I believe that I have now accumulated a total of __ RP's spent in ____, ____, and ____.  May I now test for the Ritual ______?" will be received more warmly.

Hopefully, the hard and soft copies of your monthly Influence transactions I provide for your use will help you to track what I have on file for you.

Banking and Influence
I have had a number of requests this month entitled: "How much money do I have?"  This is all very well, as I am indeed the one who keeps track of these things, albeit not always down to the last penny.

Here are a few tips:

I will always have the latest copy of the "Bank" on hand at games, so you are welcome to ask me then how much cash you have.

If you want prop money, I can give you some and deduct the amount from the Bank.  Hopefully (REMINDER) Randy will soon scan for me some Canadian Tire Money which I will make into really cool props.

I have proofread players' monthly incomes and made some adjustments this month, because some of the old entries were incorrect. This was a hold-over from the old Influence Tables which yielded slightly higher incomes than the newer ones.  If any errors have been made, don't worry - they have been in your favour.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I can only start an account for you once I get your Contacts.  Generally, only Finance and Underworld Contacts yield a "free" monthly income, as outlined on the tables - which are posted in the House Rules.  However, higher levels of Street and even Occult can yield "free" slots.  "Free" slots are marked with an asterisk.  You can get cash from these slots and still use the influence for something else each month.

If a slot has an amount *not* marked with an asterisk, you have to burn that Influence to get the cash.  I recommend doing this if you do not have something more interesting to do with your Contact for the month.  You can raise a lot of cash quickly this way.  Note that YOU HAVE TO TELL ME if you wish to earn these incomes not marked with an asterisk.  They are not automatically assigned to you.

If you have not used your Contacts in a long time, I may choose to temporarily "freeze" your account until your contacts are active again.  Note that I do not normally bother to do this.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE: I take care of the Bank, but Randy takes care of the Character Sheets. This means that IF YOU HAVE FINANCE ABILITY, or another Ability or Merit which gets you cash each month, I DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT UNLESS YOU TELL ME.  This is your responsibility.  If you don't tell me that you have, for example, Finance x 5 Ability, you are wasting $2,500 each month.

Cash obtained from Finance to open a business does not normally have to be repaid.  It represents the value of the business, which is asusmed to be profit-making.  If you open a business that is likely to take a regular loss - say, an out-of-the-way thimble boutique whcih is really a front for your haven - it may be a bit of a money pit, however.  I will let you know if this is the case.

Cash obtained from "Free" slots does not have to be repaid.  This is "petty cash" that you have on hand.  I call it "The Bank" but it is really money you have just lying around, in your pocket or in a secure place in the case of larger amounts.  Offshore banks are a wonderful thing.

I hope this clarifies things somewhat.