... Ou la Mort

Game Master The Wyrm Ouroboros

I'm house and pet-sitting this week so things are busier than usual for me, but I'll have a post finished up by tonight. :)

As I'm stuck at work for extra hours but nothing to actually do I started re-digging through all of the additional systems to ensure I understood them. Reading through personas/masked personas reminded me of earlier discussions mentioning that we will NOT have masked personas at the outset but can create them a little ways in. As Lilli already has a dual role going but it isn't formally a masked persona, I thought I would write up a short explanation for people (especially the GM since it affects NPC relations) to understand what my thought process was. Most of this is not new info but it's nice to have it all in one post along with some detail:

Persona vs Masked Persona:
Currently, Lilli tries to keep her criminal activities a secret from her friends and neighbors and works from the shadows whenever possible. Although she goes by the name Lily at work and is referred to as Mama by her organization these are not really separate personas, it is just one of the measures she takes to separate her legitimate business from her criminal activities. She does go to lengths to change her dress, appearance, and mannerisms as much as possible when swapping roles but it is not in an attempt to create a whole new persona, it is simply to maintain secrecy and therefore safety. Also in an attempt to keep the connection from being known, only her managers and a few of her team leaders know about the passage between The Gilded Lily and The Sanctum; only these few officially know that 'Lily' and 'Mama' are the same person although others might suspect the connection.

To reiterate, Mama isn't a separate persona, it is simply a title given her by the members of an organization that she runs from the shadows, and that is mentioned in rumors and hearsay in her neighborhood. The Family is also not a publicly known appelation for her group, as they do not operate in any 'formal' way outside of her neighborhood. When her teams venture outside the area, they are loyal and take their actions as directed but are not overt in claiming any affiliation. 'The Family' and their 'Mama' are almost non-existant names outside of her immediate domain.

As time progresses and she realizes the need to take a more public role in her criminal activities she will try to develop a formal Masked Persona. The Matriarch will be her title/name, and her organization will continue to be called The Family but it will actually be a publicly known group as opposed to being a secret unknown outside of one small area.

Downtime Writing:
So long as your activities are mostly alone, or any interactions you have are likely to be brief (such as giving a team-member subordinate an order, or simply making some purchases at a store, whatever), you can post as you like, make rolls, that sort of thing. If your activities take you into extensive contact with someone -- talking over your plans with a subordinate, trying to get information at a tavern, sounding out a merchant's politics or, in short, any sort of social interactivity -- then stop so that we can do the social interactivity. Everything may hinge off a single roll, but let's do some RP so that y'all can get a feel for the city in which you live.

*** of Disguise Self:
Be very aware that a hat of disguise, glamered armor, sleeves of many garments, and the like are all illusions; you are still wearing whatever clothing you actually put on. So if you went to bed in a set of pajamas, you're still wearing pajamas; if you just changed the look of normal traveling clothes before you went to bed, then you went to bed in traveling clothes, and they were uncomfortable, because they were traveling clothes, however much they looked like pajamas. (And they're probably stinky, 'cause you slept in 'em!! ;) ) You also gain no benefit from the illusory clothing, if a normal set of clothing of that type would give any (such as a swarmsuit).

Now, I know that glamered armor says it 'changes shape and form to assume the appearance ...' -- but it's still based off disguise self, not the (more expensive) alter self which would actually alter its form -- and expose you to danger, because exposed skin actually would be exposed, instead of being covered up the way the armor normally does. While it changes appearance, it's clearly a higher-level and more-restricted casting of the spell, as it only works on the armor (not you as well) and can only be seen as being glamered by a true seeing spell or something more powerful. My ruling on that is that the illusion is complete, that (unlike with the hat of disguise or sleeves of many garments) touching the armor will not give the person who does it the Will save that 'interacting with' the glamer would allow. Its illusion is essentially perfect -- but it's still an illusion, so keep it in mind.

Personas, Masked and Otherwise
First, real quick, masked personas do not require masks; disguise, yes, but an actual mask is not needed.

Second, IMO the key component to the masked persona is not the consistency and obfuscation that Pathfinder speaks of (though those are certainly critical in creating it); the true key component is a different way of thinking, however subtly that is done. Otherwise, how could the persona take on so much of a life of its own that both locate creature and scrying -- 4th level spells for wizards -- would be fooled by it?? Your alignment doesn't change the way a vigilante's does, but vigilantes are essentially split personalities anyhow.

You may note that the text doesn't mention a change in thought-process at all, but after all, simply putting on a mask isn't going to create a masked persona; if you consider the 'mystery men' type of superheros (The Phantom, The Shadow, even Batman), they act differently both in and out of 'Hero ID' -- which is what your 'Masked Persona' basically is. You move a little different, act a little different, change your way of speaking some; all these things require a subtle, slight shift in the manner of thinking, so that all that moving, acting, and speaking becomes innate instead of something that always needs to be focused on.

Third, clearly the following needs to be reiterated:

Many if not all of the PCs will acquire a masked persona (again, at the end of the first adventure); the primary development of it will have been accomplished prior to the campaign, with its fruits being seen only now.

Therefore:

Mama and The Family
Mat_H, what you've written above is very nice in conceptualization. If you don't want Lilli to have a Masked Persona at the end of this adventure, let me know and we'll leave that for a much later date; it's fine with me either way you want to go with it. While Lilli/Lily strikes me as someone who would be most likely to take advantage of this idea, seperating what everyone knows as her 'public self' as a pleasant brothel owner from the secretive (perhaps mysterious, perhaps ruthless) woman whose gang dominates a few blocks of Isarn, I can understand if you want to play through all of the work entailed in developing a seperate persona, or don't want to do that at all. Just disguising yourself every time you go out will not, of course, develop an alternate persona, and that may be just what you'd prefer to do.

However, if your group is in control of your four or five city blocks, then they are known -- by the name they give themselves if they have one, or by a name their enemies give them if they don't. This is unavoidable, and not a choice that is available to you; you can only choose whether or not you are in control of an area. If your group is in control, then they are known; unless your team members all take (and follow) vows of silence or have had their tongues cut out, then at the very least the name of their leader will be known as well; conversations are overheard in a city where the fastest transportation is a horse, and most people get around on their own two feet.

This is a city that is very close to outright anarchy; gangs rule not just blocks, but square miles of the city, and are always pushing for more control, more influence. Any group that claims their own territory and repels intruding gangs becomes known by those surrounding gangs; the Family and Mama may not be well known at all, but they will be known by the gang to the north, and the other one to the east, and the big gang (which would be the Vice, on this side of the river) to the south and west. If it's a large gang then the entire gang won't know -- only local lieutenants and their crews, and maybe those they report to -- but keeping secret the existence of the group and its leader is an impossible task. If an identity is not known -- "Mama", "The Family" -- then it is inevitably invented: "Harridan", "Scumrags".

If you do not want to control territory, only have your organization operating quietly and loosely, appearing to be independents while actually following your direction, then yes, the organization can remain secret for a while, possibly even for an extended period of time. With sufficient cleverness, one can manipulate organizations into becoming your own, taking them over from the top down instead of from the bottom up, and perhaps installing your own lieutenants as their directors -- or simply as a go-between -- and in this manner your organization can remain invisible to the studious eye as well as the casual; this is the 'spider in the web' methodology. But if there is an organization with people on the street keeping the peace and holding the territory, the organization will be known.

Firstly, yes I do want a masked persona at the end of the first adventure. You are very correct when you said " Lilli/Lily strikes me as someone who would be most likely to take advantage of this idea".

The whole concept I wrote up was really just an attempt to figure out how I could take the name Matriarch logically. I feel that anyone of any intelligence would say "there used to be some lady named Mama in control here, with a gang called The Family. Now there's this Matriarch lady with a gang called The Family. They are probably the same!"

It was also kind of just a thought exercise. As I look forward, the 'spider in the web' concept was what I was looking at, more specifically based on the general concept of a Moriarty figure. Someone about who there might be rumors but who was unknown to the general masses, known of but not able to be identified by a decent amount of criminals, and only actually known by people high up in her own ranks.

As it is written now a decent portion of her gang knows of her dual identity, so I was trying to figure out a way to get from where we are to that desired future state, and the easiest way to do that was to have her unknown outside of her territory. If that doesn't really work please consider the previous post retracted. I'll find a way to get to where I want to be :)

I wrote that last post, then on the way to work had an epiphany. Nothing at all needs to change. What was worrying me was that having Mama and Lily be two facets of one persona is great at the moment, but as Mama's influence / territory grows it creates issues, especially as I'm sure there are locals (and teams in the organization) who know that she wears both hats. The public side would be at risk.

This was not only problematic story wise but mechanically. In Masked Personas it reads A character can generally trust one individual per class level (beyond her adventuring party) with her secret identity—including enemies who learn her identity, trusted cohorts, or loved ones—before her masked persona is compromised.

I was focusing on transitioning 'Mama' into the masked persona but that's not the only way to do it. My epiphany was this: Lilli's masked persona CAN be a Moriarty type, and CAN maintain the necessary separation if I make it a third role altogether. Mama/Lily could remain exactly the same, and the Persona (btw I love the word Harridan, I like that you picked that as an example nickname) would be the mastermind figure. Anyone who already has a relationship with Lily and/or Mama would see no difference, and anyone who was seriously looking into the dynamics would just see Lily/Mama as a local 'boss' who was working underneath the Masked Persona.

Effectively the Mama figure would be a minion of her own Masked Persona to anyone who even made a connection between the two, and therefore anyone who already made the 'Lily is Mama' connection wouldn't be at risk of compromising the Masked Persona. I think this works much better.

Hey y'all, my apologies, this week has turned out to be incredibly chaotic and exhausting for me, I've hardly had a free moment to sit in front of the computer. Hoping to get caught up and post this weekend!

Posts incoming.

Post forthcoming! Again, my apologies, I expected to have more time this week but I've been house/barn sitting for my mother, which means that my wife and I have been caring for four horses, six cats, and thirty-odd chickens, all alongside our regular work schedules. Rewarding, but exhausting. We just got done yesterday, so everything is back to normal for me. :)

@Dolorès That does sound exhausting but fun. No worries on the delay, I think we're going half speed until we find a replacement 'Influential Merchant' anyways so that we don't get too far ahead of the new player.

@GM: I have a question about infiltration. The downtime rules say "While infiltrating another organization, your team can attempt checks to earn capital on your behalf, using any non-team bonuses provided by the infiltrated organization’s facilities and resources... Alternatively, your team can spend 1 day of downtime to attempt a check to earn capital and treat the result as a Diplomacy check to gather information regarding the organization, reporting the discoveries to you." I know that at the end of a week I can re-roll the infiltrate check to keep them going another week and continue this indefinitely.

I was thinking that it might be nice to keep a team inside Joubert's crew semi-permanently (if I succeed on initially getting them there) but once we're done with this initial info gathering escapade I don't know what 'non-team' bonuses his crew would have for capital checks.

I also am noodling with the idea of doing this with multiple groups (like getting a bureaucrat team inside the Vice's casino, for example) so fair warning that I'll be asking about 'non-team' bonuses for other organizations in the future.

The attempt to start my spider's web of information / influence begins!!

Post is up, another to follow with the next day's actions.

@GM I was just looking at what the settlement stat block actually means. According to the book, a settlement's Lore score affects diplomacy checks to gather information. That means I should actually have an additional +2 on the check I rolled in my thread due to the Lore +2 in the settlement block. I didn't notice that until afterwards.

Re: Settlement Block
That is correct. ;)

Infiltration, Use Of Non-Team Bonuses
This is essentially describing the use of anything that isn't a bonus to their advantage. For example, they might use a War Room to plan something, gaining the room's bonus, or perhaps gain the Auditorium's bonus on Perform checks (and therefore on the capital they're earning for you).

Infiltration >> Permanent Moles
Here's the problem with this, and one of the main reasons why I'm looking at the militia rules: in order for them to remain in place, you have to perform that infiltration check, which takes up your day of downtime. To have that for more than a couple of other organizations would mean basically spending all your downtime 'reinserting' them. With the militia rules, you recruit them -- there's a test, granted, but still -- and boom, you have someone on the inside.

As a consequence, I'm ... considering how to enable doing exactly that, but I haven't gotten much more than just a vague idea to use the militia rules. Suggestions are welcome.

House/Barnsitting
That sounds like an extremely busy day. Glad you survived. ;)

Infiltration, Use Of Non-Team Bonuses
This is essentially describing the use of anything that isn't a bonus to their advantage. For example, they might use a War Room to plan something, gaining the room's bonus, or perhaps gain the Auditorium's bonus on Perform checks (and therefore on the capital they're earning for you).

The mechanics I understood. I'm more giving you a heads up that I'll probably have them earning after some initial days of information gathering so that you have time to decide what bonuses my skirmishers might get from Joubert's organization before that happens.

About libraries: we established that my Book Repository is a library: does it mean that it should have a Complexity rating and Knowledge Points as per the Intrigue system? Or will research checks just be made with single rolls?

@GM ... Everyone else too!
Slow days at work this week so I've been thinking about Personas / Masked Personas and the associated mechanics. My plan in reference to these systems for Lilli is pretty convoluted so I want to have an idea in place before we actually can start establishing these things in the relatively near future. Some of the following things have already been established through our conversations in Discord but I have followup questions and decided to put it all here in case it is of use to the other conspirators.

For the purposes of the following let's say I create a Masked Persona named "Ms. X"
You established that if we are to create a Masked Persona that the mechanics and benefits of our actual Persona ranks will apply to only the Persona of our choice. For example, agents and skill bonuses derived from a Charm rank of 4 would only be usable when acting as Lilli, or when acting as Ms. X, and not for both.

In my current situation, I have a single persona (Lilli Popescu) who takes action in two different roles (Lily and Mama). These are not formal separate personas, and although she has established a different wardrobe, weapon, hairstyle, etc for them to keep them as separate roles, this is purely a roleplay exercise and has no mechanical benefit other than those which might be derived from a Disguise or Bluff check.

Let's say that I wanted Ms. X to also have several roles. She wants to remain well known in reputation but not be commonly known in person, so she approaches people using one or more nom de plumes. She approaches artists as "Suzy", criminals as "Betty", and city officials as "Nicole", each with a different outfit and hairstyle and makeup and weapon much like the Mama vs Lily situation. In each of these three roles she introduces herself as "a representative of Ms. X" and does business "on Ms. X's behalf".

Would it be possible to do such a thing and have Persona system agents/operations/etc. be run by any of these "representative" roles, mechanically counting all of them as "Ms. X"? I suspect roleplay wise the reason it might work is that it is the strength of the Masked Persona's reputation that allows her "established lieutenants" to utilize her influence and power.
Obviously, this would only apply to very specific situations where she herself, acting in the Masked Persona role, was pretending to be her own representative. It would not apply to anyone else (including Mama or Lily) even if they attempted to bluff their way into a situation as a representative.

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The other thing I was wondering about was how other systems interact with personas. I assume that things like contacts, organizational/individual influence, etc. will be separate lists for each persona. What about leadership? I assume followers will be one persona or the other, but in terms of the cohort, will they work with one persona or can they be associated with both?

Oh ... dammit. Had a post answering some/much of this stuff last night, and apparently never posted it. Right, take two ...

Joubert's Organization
As Joubert's gang is a wandering thing with no actual buildings to operate out of, the people that have been inserted into his group won't have any buildings/rooms to gain bonuses from. In addition, because of the rule about 'homeless' organizations, though the team can still earn gp / Capital, they will operate at half efficiency the same way Joubert's 'wolfpack' does.

Book Repository vs. Library: Fight !!
Having reviewed the two systems, they suck -- or at least, they don't interface well. However, while performing that review, I noticed something: a Book Repository (hereafter 'BR') offers a +3 bonus to one check on the skill (see below) that the BR covers; a Library, on the other hand, has 3 knowledge points (kp) per CR. This 'odd' parallel has let me to decide on how to build a full-fledged Library from BRs.

Persona Questions
All right, let me see ....

Hm.

All right, this may require a bit more book-keeping, but I think it will be ... somewhat more useful, if you want to spread your advantages across multiple identities.

First, once we get the Persona and Masked Persona rules into play, the advantages of the Persona -- including its basic ratings of 1 in each Facet (Charm, Genius, Heroism, Sacrifice, Sagacity, and Subterfuge) -- will apply to one of your identities. For some people that will be the standard identity; for others it will be the Masked Persona. Other identities you may have (e.g. Lilli, with 'Lilli, Lily, and The Golden Madame') may have Persona ratings if you wish, but you will have to decide how your starting Facet ratings (1 in certain things for a high mental ability score, 1 in others due to certain styles of play) are placed, and therefore how your bonuses from those Facets are distributed. All other Facet ratings are at 0 starting out.

You may, as part of your Persona, design a 'tell-tale' that enables those with the object to 'speak for' the Persona, or to identify themselves to each other. This might be a tattoo (like the Dark Mark from J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World), a ring (such as those worn by the associates of the Shadow in the 1994 film); you might go with a magic item like the society ring (though that can be a bit expensive at 8k a pop). The advantage is that to anyone with whom the Persona has interacted and indicated the existence of the tell-tale, the bearer of the tell-tale can act (to a limited extent) on the Persona's behalf. The disadvantages to these should be obvious -- easy identification of someone trusted in your organization, or someone else uses the object to act in your name but against your intentions, or just sheer expense.

I think, however, that I am going to tie this into the Persona's Facets -- specifically, the 'Admirers' rule. Essentially, you can only use the tell-tale to interact with people who are appropriate to your persona's Facets, and thus who would admire (to a greater or lesser extent) the work which that Persona accomplishes; this will come into effect at a Facet rank 2 for people who are indifferent or better, and Facet rank 6 for people who are unfriendly or better. It does not enable you to use your reputation to improve their attitude towards you, only for them to recognize you as an agent of the Persona whose tell-tale you carry.

Note that the Persona themselves must have the tell-tale as a noticeable element of their style; a tattoo they proudly (and frequently) display, a ring they flaunt on the hand they always gesture with, that sort of thing.

Contacts, Organization/Rooms, etc. and Identities
Essentially yes -- though if your 'real' identity is a supposed minion of your 'heroic' identity, this becomes significantly less of a problem.

Functionally, you only need to indicate on an organization which identity heads it; when it comes to Leadership, I somewhat presume that the identity with the highest total Persona score is going to be the one that attracts the followers. The cohort, on the other hand, is likely to be one of your highly-trusted individuals who knows your various identities -- not necessarily all of them (because paranoia), but many / most.

Note on Other/Multiple Identities / Masked Personas

A character who adventures both in and out of her costumed identity, and uses similar abilities in both guises, takes a –5 circumstance penalty on attempts to conceal her true identity with the Disguise check. Adopting a masked disguise is faster and easier than adopting a normal disguise, requiring only 5 minutes.

Changing from one identity to another takes 1 minute and must be done out of sight from other creatures to preserve the vigilante’s secret.

Changing identities is more than just changing outfits and clothing (although that is certainly a part of it); the process often also involves applying make-up, altering his hair, and adjusting other personal effects. Furthermore, the change is as much a state of mind as of body, so items such as a hat of disguise and similar spells and effects that change the user’s appearance do not reduce the time required to change identities.

The thing I want to key in on here is the time taken to change identities when it comes to Masked Personas: 5 minutes. The Vigilante identity is essentially a Masked Persona, and the rules for it -- particularly the sentence in the second paragraph that starts at 'Furthermore', which I've bolded above -- are appropriate to the Masked Persona as well; since the change in identities is more than just clothing, but also differences in behavior and thinking to the point that scrying magics (such as locate creature and scrying) differentiate between the two, alteration magics do not reduce the time required to change identities.

This is a hard-and-fast rule, and one reason why a Vigilante ID is better than just a standard Masked Persona.

(I gotta concatenate all this information.)

Adjustment to Managers
For those of you happily screwing around with Managers, and after a short conversation with Lilli about appropriateness and impact on gameplay, I hereby decree that Managers are of a level equal to their pay-per-day. 2gp Managers are henceforth 2nd-level individuals, 3gp/day are 3rd level, etc. While this won't change too much, it puts in place decent possibilities -- and with around 890 4th and 450 5th-level NPCs in Isarn (using Leadership rules as I do for population and level-numbers), it won't be too much of a stretch to have 4th and 5th level managers.

@Everyone: I'm sorry. Poor GM TWO has been crazy busy fleshing out necessary things like the Gazette, Isarn's stat blocks, other organizations, etc. so that the game won't have unnecessary delays, as well as monitoring the recruitment for Garson's replacement.

My incessant questions on Discord are probably adding even more distractions, so I apologize about any delays in the current gameplay I might be causing.

Fair Warning
Isarn is changing.

The map currently posted is a modified Paris, which uses as elements the various city limits found here -- most of which involved the city defenses. The outer limits of Isarn is the 1840-1845 Thiers Wall, (which on the link I provided you will recognize by its crenelations, etc.). However, Paris even in those times was vast in size and population; during the time of Napoleon I, it ranged from 500-630 thousand souls inside the Wall of the Ferme générale, or 'Farmers General Wall' (the area one in from the Thiers wall, made for taxation purposes, not defensive). With construction of the Thiers Wall, and demarcation of the city boundaries out to it, the population was determined to be somewhere around a million inhabitants within a city that was about 7 miles across, for about 38.5 square miles and 26,000 people per square mile (Considering multi-level buildings, this is not as bad as it might sound.)

Isarn, according to Pathfinder, has 42,800 people living in it.

So I have been both a) redistricting the city, and b) adjusting its scope. Isarn's approximate diameter will be 5 miles, making its area 71% of Paris's; this still make travelling through the catacombs a calculated risk. The population of the city will be quintupled to 214,000; this will give a population density of 10,900 per square mile, and give a feel of a serious (and possibly overcrowded) metropolitan area.

This is the (ugly) future map of Isarn and its revised districts. La Lumiere Rouge is shifted and smaller, allowing Nord Riviere to be contiguous; the Theater District is significantly shrunk, while both the Foreign District (yes, I'm renaming them Districts, not Quarters, those have other ... reasons) to the left / west and the Industrial District to the right / east have straddled the river. Le Commune now holds the major high ground in the south-west of the city .... well, you can see for yourself. :P :) While locations will not be radically changing unless borders require it, I'm still having the devil's own time putting the locations actually IN there. So ... patience is useful. ;)

Note that with the expanded population, I am considering creating a settlement stat block for each district, but that is not yet in the works.

Le Commune
A special note on Le Commune, the Erastil enclave: This will be somewhat expanded. It will also be sitting on some of the highest ground in the city, which is good for defensive purposes. That said, the sense I originally got of Le Commune was definitely not 'middle class', and I will be keeping that sense of the area. Egalitarianism is, in many ways, close kin to actual, well, communism -- that is to say, communism in its original sense, 'everyone does what they can and the best they can at what they do, contributing to the community, and in return receives what is necessary for them to continue to do their job and live as well as anyone else in the community'. It is likely that Le Commune will lean heavily towards these communistic ideals -- but at the same time be very firm (even harsh) with people who are looking for a free ride.

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All that said, my apologies for the slowdown, and yes, I am trying to do graphics (I hate GIMP, but nothing else I have is sophisticated enough to use layers) and revise locations and everything (which GIMP sucks with ... though I did just think of something that I COULD use, but not right this second because sleep, then work in 5 hours). Roughly another week worth of recruitment to do; we seem to have some good possibles. I'd like at least to get everyone caught up timewise with Lilli, though, so while the Criminal Mastermind cools her heels and talks to the hoi polloi, I'll post for Lucien tomorrow. Jerome, Dolores, still with us??

I'm with you, I just got a case of Shadowrun-style paralysis for the amount of subsystems being slung around, and I'm utterly terrible at thinking solitary downtime.

Paint.net has layers, IIRC.

Don't worry too much about all the subsystems. They're actually (mostly) very user-friendly once in place, and I think TWO is planning on adding them slowly over time not all at once.

On a side note, if you're not that familiar with solo downtime stuff, are you on Discord? TWO and I have been able to really iron some stuff out there as there's the ability to have an immediate back and forth. He just added an actual room for this game on one of his servers and maybe chatting with him there might help 'unstick' you.

I'm not on Discord although perhaps it would help...

Also Lilli, linked to what you were saying in gameplay. Lucien is probably going to take a few Paladin levels at some point, so he's not squeaky clean yet, but he might be going that way! :D

Definitely still here, currently drafting a post that will be up today or tomorrow! I admit that the subsystems and solo downtime have been a bit intimidating, so I've just been doing a lot of checking and rechecking of the rules and it's slowed me down as I write.

Also not on Discord (I have an account but have never used it) but would not be opposed to it either.

Hm. Haven't tried paint.net, though I am summat leery of using online-only resources -- in part due to many user agreements making whatever you do at their site the intellectual property of the site, not your own. But I may play around with it there, just to see if I can give access to exploring various layers on your own. ;)

Jerome, being a SR GM as well, I entirely understand where you're coming from in that regard; also in regards to the 'self-directed plan' -- and with you, Dolores, about having the systems slow you down as you pick your way through the rules. I recommend simply stating intentions, and the rest of us can help break what you want to do down into what you can do with the various systems currently in play. As a note, so far as I can tell right now most of the systems will be essentially isolated from each other; only the Rooms/Organizations will really cross boundaries, sharing space with the Persona system and influencing verbal duels. Later on when we get into affiliations, influence, and rumormongering, we'll be a lot more practiced at those baseline items.

Lucien, I highly recommend against paladin. Though it's a neat image, I go with how paladins / saints are viewed by Elizabeth Moon (Deed of Paksennarion) and Lois McMaster Bujold (Curse of Chalion / Paladin of Souls) -- that it is to paladins to be called, and to answer, and that staying in one spot is generally not their fate. A good example in Pathfinder is Iomedae, whose Deeds took her all over the face of Golarion. Yes, sometimes she ruled, but always for a time, and typically for a short time at that; were you to be called, you too would be there, perhaps stand as dictator/dominus/whatever for a time, but then leave -- which includes leaving your army and the men who trusted in you, to go fight an active evil somewhere else. And even you will have hard choices to make, cruel choices to decide which is (or seems) the lesser of two evils.

The hope, with Lucien, is for him to establish precedents that so inspire, no other officer or enlisted man would even consider not doing the same, trying to live up to his example. And if some group
did seize power, the (rest of) the Army would remove them and put the previous group back into place. (Honestly, Thomas Theisman of the Honor Harrington series (David Weber) and Raj Whitehall of the General Series (S.M. Stirling and David Drake) are what I hope your role modelsw will be. ;) )

Regarding Discord, you are of course all welcome: join up here.

Heard. I'm thinking that in her efforts to make a good impression on the Grey Gardener (with nothing seeming out of the ordinary, of course), Dolorès should be leaning on the ways she already interacts with people, albeit with more outward enthusiasm than usual; namely the outreach she does for the temple (proselytizing, etc., anything that involves going out and interacting with potential followers), which mostly seems like it will fall under the 'Promoting a Business' downtime activity.

Paint.NET (I just looked up the proper capitalization) is not online-only: the .NET is the framework it was built with, not a domain. Yes, it's confusing, welcome to my magic and inhospitable world.

I've recently finished something that was stressing me out extensively, so I feel now I'm in a better headspace to get a handle of everything, and I should have a post up soon. Thanks for your patience.

When religion was mentioned in the recruitment thread, I had an interesting idea. Lilli is a devout Calistrian. Maybe I need to find a good deity that fits her soon-to-be-established Masked Persona...

Having a different religion would help separate the personas even more, and Calistria doesn't seem the type to be mad at a follower for pretending to be a devotee of another deity at all so I think I'd be safe from divine retribution lol. Yet another thing to research.

Norgorber seems a good fit. Might have to add a bit of that in.
Looking at it, it might even be a better fit than Calistria, especially once I take Deific Obedience. I wonder ... perhaps the Calistrian side could just be a remnant of youth and a public affectation when dealing with the Court of Bees and customers, and Norgorber might be the true belief. Torn about this one.

I assume if we were to take Deific Obedience and our two personas "worshipped" different gods that we would have to pick one for the feat. It doesn't explicitly say that you must worship a single deity it just says that you must worship a deity.

Followup questions based on my last post. Spoilering it so not everyone has to read it unless they want to, and because it includes potential secrets that characters shouldn't be aware of even if players read it :)

Norgorber
I recommend very very very very very strongly against selecting Norgorber, even as a cover. Gods in fantasy campaigns are not all-knowing, but when someone invokes them even in jest, they gain sort of a window into that event, and may choose to be impressed or angered, depending on what is said. For all intents and purposes, Norgorber is the 'bad guy' in this campaign, he and his clergy -- because (unbeknownst to y'all for now) the Gray Gardeners are primarily followers of Norgorber. Even Citizen Goss is only one person, however many people he has wooed (or compelled) into his service; the Gray Gardeners are, and have been for 50 years, the real threat. And being a well-known and powerful worshipper of Norgorber ... may result in visitations. Of various sorts.

Paint.NET
Ah, uses .NET. Now I get it. :P :) I'll take a look. Glad you're out from under.

Dolores
Speaking of religion ... correct me if I'm wrong, but Dolores is a priestess (non-clerical-spellcasting) of Iomedae, correct? And the oracle of Pharasma part is the 'unwilling gift of of Pharasma'.

Speaking of religion ... correct me if I'm wrong, but Dolores is a priestess (non-clerical-spellcasting) of Iomedae, correct? And the oracle of Pharasma part is the 'unwilling gift of of Pharasma'.

Correct, and she was an Iomedaen priestess before the Oracle curse and powers were ever bestowed. Technically, she doesn't even know for sure that it is Pharasma's gift, but that's what she believes given the circumstances of her life and the powers she received (per the Reaper mystery).

@GM: After our short chat about black markets last night, I revisited the book this morning. In reference to the Connected Criminal feat, it's not as self explanatory as it seemed while tired at 1 am.

Since it's rare that any of us would be using a downtime day to use our PC's skills earning money in a market, the first portion of the feat seems not all that useful.

The second portion might still be good but I'm unsure exactly what it applies to. Last night I read it as bonuses to the covert downtime actions listed in the Black Market book (such as infiltrate, alibi, heist, etc.) where now I see it's a bonus to "covertly perform downtime activities" and references Ultimate Campaign. Well...I went to Ultimate Campaign and did not see any reference to the mechanics of covertly performing activities so I guess what it applies to is a GM decision.

The final benefit of the feat is also a bit vague: a bonus to "checks to earn capital in black markets." Does this mean that the bonus applies to the earning value of any teams/rooms associated with the market if I were to create and run one myself? I'm not sure how to read it other than that.

This will have a pretty big influence on some recruiting / building I do within the next couple game weeks even though I wouldn't be able to take the feat til next level, so any opinion or guidance on this would be useful. You recommended it last night so perhaps you already thought about these things, or you might have just scanned it like I did without actually looking into it carefully.

If I were thinking about developing a small area where not only did I have a couple shops, but there was space designated for OTHER people to have shops if they wanted, I was wondering if I could modify one of the existing rooms.

Courtyard: 4 goods and 5 labor to build, 20-40 squares, 24 days to build. It earns "capital +5 (of a type the building already generates)".

Could I potentially keep the stats the same for building/time/size but re-purpose it and change the benefit to +5 GP, goods, or influence? It seems that if I were "renting" space to a shop or vendor, it makes sense to earn a cut of their profit (GP), a cut of their product (goods), or just have them in my debt (influence).

The reason I ask this is that other "shop" type rooms which would be thematic in a market area tend to not have influence as a potential earning. If I was just to use the base courtyard from the book there's no way to earn influence with it, whereas it would make sense to be able to when used in this manner..

Thoughts?

EDIT: I guess I could just add an artisan's workshop since that can earn influence but I'd still like your opinion on the original question.

Hey Everyone,

I'm off to Italy for the next week so I won't be posting much, if at all. Please bot me as required. :)

Yay, Italy!! Have fun.

Is it possible to have 2 managers working on a location at the same time? Like if there's a roaming team with a manager, and then a new location with a manager, can they double up on it for building rooms temporarily in order to get it started up?

Almost every room in my potential black market is between 10 and 30 days, so with one manager they can only be built one at a time. It's a full year's worth of building (364 days to be exact). I know we can spend more labor to get it done faster, but I was also wondering if doubling up for the first month or two would be allowed just to get a start on it.

OK. Still wondering about the Connected Criminal feat (look to my post from Thursday morning above.)

I've found a possible way to solve my issues that I address in the other two posts however. Thinking about a black market or marketplace, there was no real room where you could "rent" out space for other merchants. I took the Courtyard room, and figured that converting it into a Marketplace would probably cost double the Goods and Labor plus a little Influence, and take a little more time. It could then be used for a cut of GP or goods from merchants, or to gain Influence instead. The Courtyard stat block as well as the proposed Marketplace stat block follow:

Courtyard
Earnings capital +5 (of a type the building already generates)
Create 4 Goods, 5 Labor (180 gp); Time 24 days; Size 20–40 squares
This large, open area might be constructed to feature decorative landscaping or be a more utilitarian space for drills, meetings, or storage.

Marketplace
Earnings GP, Goods, or Influence +10
Create 8 Goods, 2 Influence, 10 Labor (420 gp); Time 30 days; Size 20–40 squares
This large, open area contains stalls and storage where third parties can sell goods or services.

This also mitigates my build time issue a bit, as it pushes it into the 30+ days build time. I compared it to the Lodging room as well to choose the earnings stat, since that one has similar creation cost and a 30 day build.

Thoughts?

Thunking thoughts.

The Extent of Your Renown
As usual, if you have Renown, your level of Renown indicates how far out your fame extends -- which is to say, how far out that fame actually, you know, lets you influence people.

Renown
Normally this is with a measely 200 citizens. Considering the fame of their iconic Vigilante the Red Raven -- famed not only across Isarn's standard 42,800 people, which is beyond the reach of any ability they have -- for the purposes of '... Ou La Mort' the base level of Renown gives you the benefit of the social talent throughout one district and its section of Catacombs; the entirety of the Catacombs is considered a district on its own. This can be acquired at 1st level, as per standard.

Great Renown
Normally up to 5000 citizens, this level of Renown will instead extend your celebrity (and dread) throughout the entirety of Isarn, and somewhat into the surrounding countryside (within a day's standard ride, i.e. about 25-30 miles). 7th level (standard).

Incredible Renown
The highest normal level of Renown (at 25,000 individuals), for this game your fame and infamy will extend throughout Galt and into the fringes of the countries beyond. 11th level (standard).

Amazing Renown (Ex)
A new level of Renown (for those who really want to go there), the individual with this amount of Renown will be known and feared/feted throughout the Inner Sea (Avistan and Garund). Their names may even be known by cosmopolitan people in Casmaron and Tian Xia, as trade carries news of their fame far and wide.

Just as a reminder, those with the Safe House talent (or a parallel) can only have a single contiguous Batcave location unless they have one or more of the above talents; if so, they can split their protected area into any number of fragments, so long as those fragments are within their area of Renown.

-------------------------------------------

Lily Questions
Connected Criminal
Hm.

I agree that the direct application of the Crime modifier to those skills for the purposes of making money would seem to be less than useful, but from time to time you may still want to use the Earn Capital downtime activity yourself, just to generate the last bit of Capital for one project or another. In regards to using the bonus for teams /rooms, I think I'd probably restrict that to teams/rooms you personally run; a manager who had the feat would provide it for the teams/rooms they oversaw, but since it requires KS (Local) 5 ranks, that's going to need to be a 5th level (5gp/day) manager ...

In regards to the covert performance of downtime activities, I would likely allow it for activities that, again, you directly supervise, such as the recent insertion of a team into another group; however, the activity would apparently still have to take place within the bounds of the black market; you'd just be able to be covert, or more covert. I am ... not entirely certain which actions would be innately 'covert', though some (such as blackmail) should clearly be so.

The key usefulness of the feat, I think that I was thinking, was the extremely shortened time for the Diplomacy check -- 5d4 minutes instead of 1d4 hours or, if you use it, a spell. (It is likely, actually, that I would forbid the use of 'Ears of the City'; part of the Diplomacy check is actually getting in, and Ears of the City won't help you with that.)

And yes, I'd only scanned it.

Courtyard / Marketplace
The restatting puts it identical in production values to the Artisan's Workshop; it is more expensive, requires more time to build, and is larger than such, but serves a different purpose. Expanding the physical size (by way of the Courtyard) only partially expands its capital earnings, but it's significantly cheaper. I approve, and will add it into my stuff hither and yon.

Multiple Managers Involved in Building
Yes and No.

No, a manager of a roving team/organization is focused on the team; the manager for a site is focused on the site and the people who are working there. A 'roving manager' and his team are, to be entirely honest, less than likely to have the skills necessary for this, on top of whatever usual thing they did. A case like this would very definitely be a 'jack of all trades and master of none gets in the way and can't get it done' situation, and though I don't know exactly the scope of what you have planned, keep in mind that if you 'build' section by section, your first-built stuff can be earning while your 'Phase II' construction is underway.

Yes, a manager of a specific construction crew would be able to assist in this, with the future site manager giving guidance and oversight of the brute stuff; think of it as a theater manager stating that the footlights need to be such-and-such distance apart, and that the house chandelier must work in this manner, and that the on-stage trapdoors must be able to be tripped like so; the manager of the construction crew then takes that information (as well as from the original builder, i.e. you) and directs his people (likely craftspeople generating -- gasp! -- Goods and Labor at 4 a team) in construction while the site manager directs her people in doing the fine details, like the chairs, and the wall-paper or painting, and all the rest of the bits and bobs that has to be done after the craftsmen stop banging their hammers on wood. A large enough site might actually normally have two managers -- front of the house and back of the house -- handling different aspects of the fine detail work, with a third (construction) manager active in putting the bones of the place together. However, this definitely would mean heavy recruitment before a nail was ever put to wood -- and, essentially, the creation of a specialized manager-and-team who just goes places and builds stuff (generating Goods/Labor).

My plans for the Opera / Dance Hall / Ceremonial Room will take a base of 422 days, with a base Labor of 215, Goods of 219, and barely any Influence or Magic; maximizing speed by quadrupling the number of workers pushes Labor to 860. I plan on maxing out the production of Goods and Labor after getting a comfortable amount of the others, and building in such a manner as to begin using portions of the construction (such as the 'back of the house' sections, like the Artisan's Workshop, the Clockwork Shop, Sewing Room, and Workstations) as soon as I can.

The overall ratio of Capital for rooms is 19G, 2.5I, 15.25L, and 1M; teams average a far more balanced 1.69G, 1.36I, 2.19L, and 1M. Increasing Labor to speed up building rates changes it to 19G, 2.5I, 61L, and 1M; putting priority to Labor (in order to build more stuff more quickly) seems to be a reasonably good idea to me. So building up a great amount of Influence and Magic, while useful at certain points (including expending them in tests), does seem to be somewhat contraindicated ... but I think it's still a good idea to have a certain 'cushion' of those two. ;)

As a note -- I DO like the idea of the construction manager and teams ... but I'll also note that a 'roving team of troubleshooters' is a virtually impossible thing to put together with the systems we're using, and such a group (that isn't a bunch of PCs) will rarely be competent enough to help with 'everything'.

I see where you are going with the multiple managers, and I agree with the majority of it. Two things I might want to clarify are the 'roving team of troubleshooters' and my actual intent with the original question.

The roving team I speak of aren't full fledged troubleshooters. They are a building-less team that has no set location (for now). I just call them troubleshooters. They're really just a GP earning team that will be my go-to for when I have to pull teams from normal earning to perform other tasks like infiltrate or blackmail, or for when there's "issues" and I need to perform the Street Violence activity. This just gives me a pool of teams to utilize for these kinds of things without pulling a team assigned to a building off of capital gains. (They'd actually be the teams led by my intended future cohort while (s)he was still just a manager pre-Leadership). I also just like it from a pure RP perspective, so that if there's a new location being built up I can RP the team as being in that area for the first couple weeks keeping an eye on the neighborhood as protection, even though there's no actual mechanical game effect it's nice to imagine having that ability.

In terms of the multiple managers, I was curious about all of your thoughts, and I agree with your ruling. To be honest, I wasn't actually looking for the double manager so we can do 6 activities at once mechanic, I was interested in your ideas on that one in case it came up later from one of us. The idea of a 'construction manager' leading craftspeople, lackeys, and laborers purely in order to do this is an intriguing one though.

The actual scope I had intended was: I identify a location I wanted to have a building, and the roamers head over to that area for a week or two and just start off construction before the site's manager is hired, then move on. This is what I would actually like to do if it's possible.

Concrete example: I identify a location where I want to establish a building. 'Philomena' and her team stop messing around with wandering around for a short while to initiate construction of a 'bunks' room, and while waiting for that to complete they hire a soldier team and a laborer team. When the initial room is completed then Lilli hires a new manager to take over constructing and running the site and 'Philomena' and her team return to building-less roaming. (side note: I would still consider them "unattached" to a building during their short time there so this isn't a ploy to have them gain full capital instead of half capital for a bit)

Also, as you continue to write it out as batcave safe house or batcave location you have successfully brainwashed me.

I WILL have a location named Grotte des Chauve-souris eventually.
('Cave of Bats' for those not feeling like translating)

What, 'die Fledermaushöhle' isn't good enough for you?

The Roving Team
While I understand what you're meaning for the 'Roving Team' idea, my main point is that though they are 'team of X' -- whether that's Laborers, Bureaucrats, Robbers, or whatever -- the members of the team have specific skill-sets, generally ones that are identical to each other, or nearly so. (Hell, Laborers don't even have that -- '... typically 1st-level commoners with no ranks in Craft or Profession.') As Craft and Profession are both groups of specific skills, unless you miraculously find a Laborer team of elves, dwarves, and/or gnomes who are all 100+ years old and have the 'Breadth of Experience' feat (which would cost you at least triple for no increase in reward, and I'd still be very very leery about the whole thing anyhow) a Team is such that it is comparatively restricted on what it can go and do.

I think, however, that you're slightly uncertain on how 'getting a place started' would work in game play. I am absolutely sticking with the 'pay all costs up front' attitude of the rules, including increases in Labor for faster work This helps with book-keeping, but doing this should also give a hint to the fact that a 'roving team who gets a building started' is not something that actually happens. Spending your Capital cost includes the labor required; putting a Team there (of Laborers or otherwise) simply assigns the team to 'something to do' for generating Labor. (Or, in the event, earning back the Labor you spent.)

Capital Spending Limits per Day
All right, here's the thing. I looked at this, did some summary work (yay spreadsheets) and realized that going by these rules, you can only build a Throne Room (G25 I5 L25 5M) in a Metropolis (25,001+ people), because the spending limit (which does not include Magic) of a Metropolis is 65, and that of a Large City is 50, and the cost of a Throne Room is 25 + 5 + 25 = 55. You can't build a for-the-purpose Throne Room in a Metropolis; instead, you'd have to follow its 'upgrade plan', i.e. 'Common Room' (G7 L8, 15 pts) to Ceremonial Room (G16 I2 L15, +17 pts) and thence to Throne Room (G25 I5 L25, +22 pts), and doing it thus you could put it in a Large Town (spending limit 25).

... which is ridiculous.

So my ruling on this is that for building and recruitment you can spend as much as you have, going by the building and recruitment limitations/restrictions already established. For the purposes of using Capital for other purposes (Magic in place of items for magic item creation, Capital used to get a bonus on a roll, etc.) your spending limit per day is as per the chart; there's only so much throwing your weight around that people will tolerate before it just simply no longer works.

If you want to build a place from scratch and don't want to have to babysit it, spend the money and hire yourself a 3gp/day Manager right off the bat. (Or recruit a 4gp Manager and construction crew who'll go around getting all the stuff built.)

And remember, while they're NOT building things for you (i.e. earning that Capital back) they can be earning more gp or Capital building things for other people.

I'm excited! We should have a replacement merchant very soon, and the game threads should start moving regularly again! Everybody ready to have some fun?

New tool: Distances in the city, straight-line point-to-point, based off their pixel location. ;) All math 'n' stuff!! (Also in the header.)

Recruitment decision will likely be made tomorrow evening.

Plan is to get 3 posts/day out, functionally alternating on whomever has been waiting the longest, with Sundays off; that should get everyone 3 posts/week.

Congratulations and welcome to Manush, our new merchant.
Also congrats to the three new vigilantes, but I won't say welcome as I don't know if Lilli is supposed to know you exist :P

If Manush needs any help getting her stuff in to the spreadsheets I'm happy to assist. Also if you identify where your shop is located we can get it added to the map. Just let us know if you need anything initially.

For the Vigilantes, I'm happy to help with stuff for you guys too, but I'm not sure if you'll be on the same map/spreadsheet or if you guys are gonna be done differently by TWO.

Hello everyone! I'm happy to be part of the Vigilante Files, and am looking forward to seeing how we all get involved :)

(That being said, please don't hesitate to write Estelle out if this many players gets overwhelming. As happy as I am to have been selected, I don't want the story to suffer for it.)

The vigilantes will be on the same map and have their buildings &c. in the same file, but will have (at least for now) a seperate tracker spreadsheet for quick glances.

Well in that case I'll take the initiative to get them set up with their tabs and enter their tentative data so they can start playing with it. I'll leave the separate tracker tab to you, sir.

If anyone has a short writeup of their buildings and knows which district they are in, I can add those pages to the gazette as well, but GM will have to actually add them to the map as he controls the image.

I was thinking Versatile Vials would be somewhere between S6 and F4 on the map. Basically in the Sud Rivière reasonably close to both the river and the Foreign District. I'm not sure what you need for the building write-up; I've got the stats in my profile but if you need something else let me know and I'll provide it.

If you look at the entries for the different locations in the Gazette, I'll make that page for you. Basically a short description that will be linked to the map.

I'm making everyone's tabs in the Buildings and Organizations spreadsheet based on what you have in your profiles. I'm guessing at what you want to have each room/team earning. Feel free to play with the entries to get it to be what you'd prefer.

(For Eponine I didn't know what level of managers you had, so I just made them both 3gp/day.)

For the new four of you, you can use Paris as a 180-degree-rotated Isarn for placement; this inverted Isarn can work as a guide. (See also the Districts of Isarn map for which district is which, just, y'know.) You can give me a Parisian street address or Google Maps/Earth mark or address and I'll get that translated over to the Isarn map.

For the new four of you, you can use Paris as a 180-degree-rotated Isarn for placement; this inverted Isarn can work as a guide. (See also the Districts of Isarn map for which district is which, just, y'know.) You can give me a Parisian street address or Google Maps/Earth mark or address and I'll get that translated over to the Isarn map.

Or you can just be cool like we were and say "in that little [insert shape here]-shaped block just NW of [insert existing marker here]" XD