Loup Blanc's World of Darkness (Inactive)

Game Master Loup Blanc

Welcome to the discussion thread! It's a place for OOC questions, comments, chatter, and the like. It's for now a place for people to work on characters and such. It's also a safe place where your characters won't be attacked... probably.

Hello. Checking in for the moment.

hey just clocking in

Welcome one and all! You can ignore the posts above, they were from back when this was a closed thing, but I wanted to open it up further, and here we are. I know that this was a really rigorous process, but I'm glad that we're here and ready to get started.... sort of.

First off, I know that some people don't have the books for this, and there are some variations in just what people have that could approximate it. If you would like to get the hookup for a full look at what you need, shoot an email to lebbri@gmail.com and I'll hit you back on that. Otherwise, we can work through the basics via this thread if needed, building the characters based on the concepts thus far. I hope that it won't take too long to accomplish!

Secondly, I've got some more questions for you guys: one or two apiece right now that is just to help me get a better idea of your character, along with some general stuff. Don't worry, none of this is going to go into breaking points or things like that (at least I don't think), it's just stuff that I could use to get a better feel for who you're going to play in this game as we get things going.

The biggest one for everyone is figuring out ages and, in some cases, year in school; we need to establish an exact timeline for Ricky's disappearance and how old everyone was when that happened. I don't have a set year in mind for this, he might have disappeared as a freshman or a senior, anywhere in between; let me know what you guys have in mind for your characters right now, and we'll figure out the rest from there. It might take some balancing out, but it'll happen!

Now, without further ado, my individual questions. These aren't super secrets or anything, so feel free to answer without spoilers and look at the questions for other people; this isn't information you'd necessarily know in-game (although by all means have characters know each other if you like!), but there's no harm in seeing it now.

Once more, welcome to the game, everybody. I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks Loup, excited to be here! I will shoot you an email when I have a moment and address those questions as well but I am tight on time today.

Thanks for inviting us all Loup. I've been thinking more about Michelle's story and mechanics as well. More on that later.

I imagine Michelle as mostly a sketch artist, she can paint as she's been a student for about 3 years now at Romney State, but prefers charcoal and pencil drawings. She draws mostly portrets and scenes she comes across, as well as making face portrets on commission.

I'm also thinking she might have gotten a dog to feel safer as she crosses the streets late at night. Especially now she has had the dreams about the chupacabra again. Maybe a small shepherd dog/collie.

Michelle might also know Hunter from art classes

Hey everyone. Wasn't expecting an eight player game, but I'm going to be looking forward to playing with everyone.

First thing's first. James's book was a sort of mix between crime thriller, urban fantasy, and horror. Imagine the Dresden Files if the main character knew jack sh*t about the weirdness he was about to have to deal with, but it still ended in explosions and you've got about the right feel to it. The star of the show is Jack Colt, a New York City detective who gets a notorious cold case dumped on him about a series of ritualized serial murders that have been going on for years with no real evidence. He starts to learn just how disturbingly deep the murders run and how much bizarre, occult activity happens in New York as he investigates the murders, eventually learning that this isn't the first time that this same series of murders has been committed. At the end of the book, he stops the next murder from taking place and catches the killer, but evidence shows that the guy is too young to have done the earliest murders. James plans for the cult that's responsible for these repeated serial killings to be a recurring background villain in future installments in the series.

Hey loup quick btw sorry if my post looks weird my laptop is caput so I have to post on my phone.

Okay, a couple of more general comments.

First, based on what I have, Ricky would have likely disappeared during his junior or senior year. James would be three years older than him, so he would have been 21 when he met Ricky and he would have been 23-24 when Ricky vanished. That would make him 25-26 now.

I am excited to see where this game goes!

John is only 18 and not from around here (as they say), so he would probably be the newest person investigating Ricky's diappearance. Depending on the other group members, he might be the most methodical one.

So going back and looking at the concepts for characters I'm notice no shortage for potentially mental based characters, as Derek can easily be made as a physical character I'm going to go ahead and do that. It'll change the end result a bit but should be interesting.

James is meant to be a social monster with some useful mental skills to back things up. His physical skills are somewhat... lacking.

Same with Michelle there James. Just for future RP purposes, does your book have illustrations on the front? If so, are you more interested in using local artists to do that?

Hey Russel, how long have you been practicing in the Romney area? And would you take one of your potential students as a client?

John is mental primary, and I'm leaning towards physical secondary.

Haven't created a alias for Diana yet, but she's Mental primary, Physical secondary, and Social tertiary.

@James Diana is working on a procedural generation system for unique characters in her latest game. Is it possible that she would pull you in to consult on how to better build compelling characters? I.e. dissect every part of your book on an autopsy table and feed the remains to a computer :P

I'm digging the question responses from everybody so far, and I like the thoughts on getting interactions going between characters. Even if you don't have it be that way before game start, it'll certainly lend to getting along once things get going and you all come together.

As far as a timeline goes, I think I was also figuring out that Ricky was a junior or senior in college when he disappeared. I'll try and go back to the recruitment posts in a bit and figure out how people were related to him timing-wise when he vanished and see if that helps at all.

In terms of mental-physical-social primaries, don't worry too much about it. I'll tailor the game to match what we've got, so if the party's mostly mental and social, I won't be throwing open combat after open combat at you; it'll be a more occasional thing that presents a different and more difficult challenge. The more mixed things are the better in some ways, but don't worry if we're a mostly mental group; I'm picturing this as a more investigation-heavy game, where fights break out when things go wrong or it's a real life-or-death type thing.

Hey Russel, how long have you been practicing in the Romney area? And would you take one of your potential students as a client?

Tonight I'll have a more thorough timeline but at least the past 3-5 years. Absolutely he would see a student as a client!

@Michelle: Yeah, he'd definitely be interested in commissioning a local artist to do cover art for his books.

@Doomkitten: Interesting. He probably wouldn't quite get it, but he'd be willing to help someone else who's interested in creating stories.

Here's my alias for the game.

Hey everyone! Looking forward to this game, I will hopefully be able to answer the questions later today.

Hah make that tonight instead, busy getting three Recruitments and a few current games updated last night.

Hey Russel, how long have you been practicing in the Romney area? And would you take one of your potential students as a client?

I confirm that Russel has been here for 4 years. That may change if Loup changes the timeline of Ricky's disappearance but I think it should be fine.

Hunter's focus is painting, though he didn't always have access to the necessary supplies so he's spent a lot of time drawing as well. And drawing is a necessary basis for painting anyways.

Hunter's focus is figure painting; his style is impressionistic, a la Henry Scott Tuke, but with a touch of dreamy, uneasy surrealism. He usually does paintings of other students at Romney state; this and this are sort of how I see his style.

Hunter is a forward on the soccer team.

What is it about this Master Sergeant's disappearance that has you still looking? Surely if it was a more normal case your superiors would have assigned you to something different. What do you do in your free time when not working on that case, though?

Aaron was assigned to Fort Triton about a month or two before the Master Sergeant disappeared, and had known the man on a someone personal basis, so he requested to be assigned to the team investigating the case. Aaron was certain something was amiss almost immediately; more than a dozen people claimed seeing the Master Sergeant around the base after he'd departed that night--he'd swiped his I.D. to leave the base at around 6:15 PM, but at least two people reported seeing him at the mess hall around 8:30 PM--and the sergeant's car hadn't left the base while the soldier on duty saw him driving when he left. None of his personal effects had been taken with him either, so he wasn't suspected of being a deserter. While a random killing was possible, he had checked out both a handgun and hunting rifle from the base's armory, and had told the clerk he intended to go hunting; it felt unlikely that the man would have been captured or killed. Moreover, a week later a man matching his description sold both a handgun and hunting rifle to a pawn shop two states away, with matching serial numbers for the sergeant's weapons. While the case if officially cold--meaning Aaron is assigned to other active cases--he has continued to look into it in his spare time with his CO's approval.

When Ricky disappeared, Aaron was on-scene with local law enforcement to help track him down; Ricky was the last person to report seeing the sergeant off-base--he said he'd seen the man refueling his truck at a gas station the evening he disappeared--and Aaron was certain the two cases were connected. Both of the cases had the same general feel of weirdness about them, that something wasn't quite right, and Aaron remains convinced their disappearances are connected and that the two of them are still alive. He's remained in contact with local LEOs over the past few years when they got possible tips, and has forged a tenuous relationship with Ricky's parents as well.

As for what he does when not looking into that cold case, Aaron mostly works on-base dealing with various issues he's assigned by his COs. He recently dealt with a small drug trade between a staff sergeant and several students at Romney State, and so has been around the campus more recently. In addition, he works part-time with the school's criminology lab as part of a partnership with Army CID. Students interested in military service can sign on with CID in exchange for free tuition and assignments across the country or in active combat zones.

I was picturing Aaron as being around 25 or 26.

Unfortunately I don't have any real ways (yet) to tie in with the rest of your characters. None of you are computer science majors, and most of you are sophomores at least.

Unfortunately I don't have any real ways (yet) to tie in with the rest of your characters. None of you are computer science majors, and most of you are sophomores at least.

You could do computer work as a side job (security networking whatever) for Russel's Psychiatry practice.

That's not a bad idea, assuming Russel was willing to hire an 18 year old kid with no references.

Well he teaches at the college so perhaps I had you in a Psych 101 class the year before and we could have hit it off! :-)

Diana is a Game Design major. Maybe you could help her with coding whenever she's stuck on a bit?

Also, is it possible to have both two vices and two virtues without blowing Merit Dots?

Also, is it possible to have both two vices and two virtues without blowing Merit Dots?

Unfortunately no. Vices and Virtues are both very powerful things, potentially, allowing you to regain Willpower within a given scene or story. It does cost merit dots to have more of either, since they give you more opportunities to replenish what's probably your most powerful resource.

Still loving what people are posting here. I'll start checking for mechanics tomorrow to see how people are doing, and hopefully we'll get gameplay rolling later this week.

I'll try to get stats up tomorrow. .

I just bought Dishonored 2, so don't expect my stats tonight, but I'll try to do them tomorrow afternoon.

Here is a really rough draft of my character, built using the new world of darkness books. If anyone sees any glaring holes, let me know.

@John

Hunter has a direct connection with Ricky, and since you've been investigating Ricky so closely perhaps you know him via your investigations?

Ya, you would definitely have a place on my wall.

Sorry I haven't posted in a bit, I've been under the weather. Mechanics are mostly up, still playing around with merits a bit, and should have my timeline finished and up by tomorrow. For now though, more aspirin and back to bed.

@Russel If you teach Psych, Diana would probably take your class. Psychology is actually a large part of game design, and taking it is often part of getting your major for it (as well as Philosophy, World Religion, and some sort of writing class. Scripting doesn't really factor into the actual design equation much, although most designers pick it up somewhere).

John--only things I notice are as follows. Your Defense should be two higher (Chronicles overhauled combat a bit, and Defense now equals the lower of your Dexterity and Wits plus your Athletics skill dots). Morality's been renamed Integrity, although that's not a big deal. It bears mentioning that Virtues and Vices can now be almost any abstract ideal, rather than being limited to Heavenly Virtues/Deadly Sins; those two seem fitting enough for John, but if you'd rather go with something else, that can work too. Finally, you've got one unspent Merit dot, since I give everyone a dot of Resources for free so you can own things. Otherwise it looks good, although I don't see any specialties.

I'll try to have my stats up tomorrow night. I'll be borrowing a book to start up.

@Russel If you teach Psych, Diana would probably take your class. Psychology is actually a large part of game design, and taking it is often part of getting your major for it (as well as Philosophy, World Religion, and some sort of writing class. Scripting doesn't really factor into the actual design equation much, although most designers pick it up somewhere).

Sounds good to me. You could be classmates with John so that could be yet another connection between us all.

Um... What's this "Morality" thing for characters, and how is it determined? Sorry, this is my first time using this system.

I'm fine with his virtue/vice. As far as his merits go, are there any related to computers that I'm not aware of? I just want to make sure that I'm (while not the absolute best) still extremely proficient.) If there are none, then I'll pick some specialties and probably take another dot in fleet of foot (since in his story that I am seeing in my head he was assigned a couple of agents to pose has his parents until he turned of age, and one of them was a former marine who made him run... a lot) when I get home tonight and I should be good to go at that point.

@Doomkitten: your morality starts off at seven and has a range of between 0-10, it basically measures how close you mentally line up with the norms of the human race, if I remember correctly. The questions you answered at recruitment set a baseline for the Gm of how much crap your character has had to deal with and of where your breaking points are, example: shooting someone (for your character) would probably cause you to roll for morality, however if the Sargent has seen active combat he might not have to roll morality for shooting someone. When you roll morality you usually roll just the number of dice equal to you morality score, if you succeed conjrats you didn't freak out for shooting someone, hopefully in self defense, if you fail you lose a point of morality. The lower your morality the less you fit in to society though I don't remember exactly what happens mechanically.
I get that right Gm? Cause if I didn't I got to go reread the books again haha.

And I reread that post and realized that I explained the wrong thing, oops, I blame the headache. so i went back and checked here's what the book says on integrity:

Human characters encountering the supernatural suffer great strains to their composure, as well as to their very psyches. The measure of a person’s self-image, her psyche, and her soul’s health is called Integrity.

this is from chronicles, integrity is the new morality mechanics wise it acts the same, Sorry bout the mix up.

Okay. My stats should be up in my profile now. I still need one more skill specialty, but I'm not sure what to take yet. I'm using Expression and Socialize as the Asset Skills for my Professional Training Merit, but if that doesn't seem to fit, it can be changed.

for anyone who's new to the system here's a copy of calculations for your characters advantages. If you have an actual character sheet for the system these can also be found at the very bottom of the sheet. And at the bottom is the web address to an interactive character sheet that I find helpful, the only flaws I've found in it is that it doesn't have a full list of merits and that its awkward to type in,

Attributes 5/4/3
Skills 11/7/4 (+3 Specialties)
Merits 7
Health = Stamina + Size
Willpower = Resolve + Composure
Size = 5 for adult humans
Defense = Lowest of Dexterity or Wits + Athletics
Initiative Mod = Dexterity + Composure
Speed = Strength + Dexterity +5
Starting Integrity = 7

Interactive Character Sheet

Okay, my profile is all set up now. Only changes I made are: switched Virtue from Fortitude to Meticulous, Added 2nd dot of Fleet-of-Foot, and added Specialties.

My profile should be all set as well, with the exception of figuring out all his equipment and such.