The Forge Archives

Here's what I've been working on.

===
To make a vampire, answer in a single sentence each of these:
What is it when you drink blood?
What is your power over your prey?
What is the sun?

Like: "When I drink blood, it's a mockery of the Eucharist.  My power is the power of the devil over unbelievers.  The sun is the grace and presence of God."  Or: "When I drink blood, it's about sexual perversion and violation.  My power is the power of the seducer over the seduced.  The sun is true, honest love."

When you drink blood, it keeps you alive, but it only Sates you if the circumstances match the meaning -- if you are in fact mocking the Eucharist, or it is in fact a sexual violation.

When you use your powers, you decide what they are and what they do, but you must describe them in terms of their meaning.  I whisper in his mind like the devil, come here, come here.  I touch her door and the lock opens under my hand, like a lover would, with a little sigh.

Everything that can harm you gets that power from the meaning of the sun.  The cross, holy water and sacred ground, for God.  The stake through the heart for Love.  (Garlic for sustenance without predation; having to count all the grains of rice for the rational, ennumerated, 'cold light of day.')  You're immune to the ones that aren't meaningful to you.

Then rate yourself from 1 to 6 in:
The Approach (think of Renfield);
The Hunt (literal or figurative, could be temptation or seduction or whatever);
The Escape.

From your ratings, calculate your give-or-take age (I'm thinking add them up, subtract 3, and multiply by 50, so that a 6-6-6 vampire will have been around since the crusades).

The basic mechanic is, roll d6s equal to your rating, and choose one.  Compare with the little chart and do what it says.  You narrate, and if you use your powers, you describe them in terms of their meaning, as above.  The key here is that a higher rating -- an older vampire -- means more choice, more control over the situation, not more or better powers.

The Hunt chart, for instance, might look like this:
1 - Your victim somehow invokes the sun.
2 - Your victim slips through your fingers.
3 - Your victim seems to slip through your fingers.
4 - You drive your victim toward a particular thing or place.
5 - Your victim comes under your power.
6 - Now.  You kill your victim right now.

(I think you can probably see how to apply it to figurative hunts, like what it might mean for your victim to seem to slip through your fingers in a seduction, for instance.)

Because you don't get the goods for simply killing your victim, only for killing your victim in a meaningful way, there will be times when you'd choose a 1 or a 2 over a 5 or a 6.  

Additionally, if you're Hungry (as opposed to Sated), you don't roll your dice and choose one, you roll your dice, narrow it down to two (showing different numbers), and the GM chooses which one you use.

You start play Hungry.

Then there's some stuff I haven't mostly worked out about when vampires hunt in packs and when they hunt each other, plus a good bit about the NPC prey (including The Approach).  I'm hoping to make real people quite sympathetic, since I think the meat is in the relationships between the vampires and real people.  Their victims of course, and their Renfields, but also plus the other people less directly affected.
===

Anybody want to help me with Premise?

I think it's way cool, in light of the recent Elfs/Imp thread, that the two games to come out of this (so far) are so different.

-Vincent

QuoteAnybody want to help me with Premise?

I'm thinking that it might have to do with the conflict with the sun. Why do vampires have this conflict? Perhaps it's a love/hate relationship. But then we're back to angst. I'm starting to think that there are really only so many Narrativist Premises that are well supported by the PC vampire premise. Perhaps we should focus on the angst, and see if we can make the angst fun again? As it were?

Mike

Is power worth it, when your power is defined by what you can't have?

You're right, the sun is the key.  I think I'll make for special NPCs, in whom the sun is manifest.  Like Mina and True Love in the Coppola flick.

-Vincent

QuotePerhaps we should focus on the angst, and see if we can make the angst fun again? As it were?

How to make angst fun... it's a tough call without turning it into parady...

Perhaps an Elfs spinnoff called Vamps?

Gloom
Pretention
Spite


But lets not go there.


What is vampires NEED angst to survive?  What if internal conflict is the actual fuel that drives them?  Everything else- the blood, the horror, the sun, the predation- are just mechanisms inherent in the vampire nature to make sure enough Angst exists to keep the creature going.  

Whenever you are forced by circumstances to suffer from The Sun or you become so Ravenous you commit a violation, or when your Prey gets the better of you (emotionaly or physicaly, it's all the same), you acquire Angst.  The vampire needs Angst to survive (even if he doesn't know it), and only be suffering internal conflict is it generated.  On a metagame level, you will need to choose a 'bad' result from your action tables once in a while, just to stock up on the Angst you need.

So, consciously or unconsciously vampires subject themselves to tragedy, gloom, and moral decay because they NEED IT.  

In this scheme, vampires are ultamatly self-consumptive; like the oroborus, serpents perpetualy eating their own tail.

Players get to have fun playing in character and subjecting their own characters to misery, tragedy, and horror (instead of having the GM do it for them).

Quote from: lumpley
Is power worth it, when your power is defined by what you can't have?

You're right, the sun is the key.  I think I'll make for special NPCs, in whom the sun is manifest.  Like Mina and True Love in the Coppola flick.

Hmmm. I'd restate that as: Is power worth it given what you lose by having it? Unless you require the character's sun to be the opposite somehow of what you take as your drinking blood, as in your examples. As it stands, they could be entirely unrelated. So, either that needs to change, or you can just look at it as a loss/gain thing (very Sorcerer).

So, you'd need mechanics to make the player feel the loss of the sun, somehow. Perhaps sun points that accrue when the sun is somehow denied (like exposure to Mina in the example above). When sun points get to a certain point the vampire goes berserk. Or something like that.

FWIW, the sated state seems to not be that much incentive in the suggested system, to get players to try and sate themselves all the time. I think you need something a bit more compelling there as well. IMO.

Anyhow, is this to be a game for only one player-vampire? Perhaps a game where players take turns running a single vampire? And play other characters in the meanwhile? Or something like that? If not, how does the system handle inter-vampire conflicts? And how do vampires react to each other?

Mike

Quote from: Bailywolf
Players get to have fun playing in character and subjecting their own characters to misery, tragedy, and horror (instead of having the GM do it for them).

Very nice save. I like that. Angsty, but not reveling in it as much as enjoying it externally. What's the penalty for being low on Angst? How do you assign Angst, GM reward? How about if the players had angst points to give to other players based on their character's performances? So Bob really hoses his vampire by setting him up in a classic true love/corruption bind; George and Sally each decide to reward him with an Angst point.

How do you "lose" Angst? I suggest by taking high success numbers. So if I want that six result, ny success mskes me less Angsty, and I suffer for it. That makes for a balance. Needs a little work...

Mike

Low on angst....

You poetry gets better.



er.

and.

hmmm.

Perhaps you start to pertify.  As your Answers dictate, the vitality which animates you declines.  You loose oportunities to act in the story.  

Angst needs to be kept above 6.

If it falls below 6, your roll 1 die every time you declare an action for the character.  Roll more than your Angst, and nothing happens.  You don't fail, you just can't find the energy to do anythng at all.  

"I rend the mortal limb from limb for invading my sleeping place"

:: rolls a die, gets 6; 2 more than current Angst::

"The human hunches forward, stake in hand... his human scent disgusting, cigerates and cheep whisky.  You've smelled it so often, seen the same harded so many time... you just can't get angry enough to kill him."

Now if this mortal qualifies a Prey... a succcessful physcial attack might be just what the vampire actualy needs (because it would grant Angst).

Yer on a roll Bailey. Whadda ya think, Vincent? Any of this sound good to you?

How's "Sunburn" for a title for the game?

Mike

Sunburn is good.

I do intend for your three sentences - Blood, Power, the Sun - to be consistent with one another, as in my examples.

I'm too big a fan of angst old-school to want it as a stat, except for parody purposes.  And in general I want to avoid having any stats that go up and down like Humanity always does.  I'd like to make something else do that work.  I think that Hungry vs. Sated is up to it, even as written, and here's why.

There are no mechanics or provisions for you starving to death.  So killing someone in a meaningless way is exactly the same as not bothering.  Either way, you're still Hungry.  I think you'd have the PC vampires making meaningful kills even if there weren't the little mechanical difference.

That's why, until you've managed to set the whole hunt up, rolling a 6 on the Hunt chart is a worse failure than rolling a 1 or a 2.  You've wasted your time.  A 1 or a 2 is just a setback, a 6 is the end.

It might be cool to let a Sated vampire endure the sun, though.  For a little while.  Pray.  Feel Love.  Eat vegetables.  Not sure how to make that a mechanic, though, other than just saying it like that.

And oh, vampires can hunt in packs or hunt each other or whatever they want, but again the only thing that actually makes a difference is killing in a meaningful way.

As Mr. Gumby would say, my brain hurts.  I've got my head stuck in the cupboard.

-Vincent

Just a point of aesthetics, and really just an opinion, make the title two words:

Sun Burn

That way it emphasizes the significance of each, and less likely to invoke images of Coppertone-clad vampires.

Just a thought.

Quote from: lumpley
Sunburn is good.

I like Kreskin's idea, or maybe Sun/Burn.

Quote
I do intend for your three sentences - Blood, Power, the Sun - to be consistent with one another, as in my examples.

OK, lust vs. love it is! Or, rather, "Is power worth it, when your power is defined by what you can't have?" Hmmm. How do the mechanics drive this? Assuming that your incentive works to get players to sate their characters (and, I guess that since there's not much else to do with the mechanics, it might work), what makes them feel the Burn?

Quote
It might be cool to let a Sated vampire endure the sun, though.  For a little while.  Pray.  Feel Love.  Eat vegetables.  Not sure how to make that a mechanic, though, other than just saying it like that.

But eventhat doesn't seem to throw the forces into juxtaposition. I can see the player with the sex/love vampire just killing off his potential loves just so that he can both sate himself, and not have to bask in the sun. The sun should have mechanical protection from vampires in addition to being the souce of it's banes. Perhaps when you damage the sun you lose a stat point? Something like that. So when confronted with a potential love the character is damned if he does and damned if he don't (sounds like vampires to me).

Quote
And oh, vampires can hunt in packs or hunt each other or whatever they want, but again the only thing that actually makes a difference is killing in a meaningful way.

Yes, but let's say your vampire wants to off mine in such a way as to sate himself. How do we resolve that? The old simultaneous success method?

Also, given your current chargen, why not just make the oldest vampire possible? I'd suggest a point limit, or negative aspects to high stats. Also, the stats seem to really heavily revlove around hunts. Is the game meant to only focus on hunts, or should vampires be interested in other things? Also, how does a vampire become Hungry? s it just a matter of time? Perhaps you should start every session hungry, a sort of instant kicker.

Mike

To quote Keanu Reeves,

Whoa.

Some very interesting stuff going on over here.  Reminds me of The World, the Flesh, and the Devil.

My main concern is this:
What are valid meanings?  What is a valid application of a meaning?

For instance, Drinking blood is like beer, dude.  Power is a party -- whoo-ee!  The sun is like a dry keg and a hangover...

Oh, yeah, like, I think about my party mix CD and all the hot chicks in the bar gravitate to me.  I'm, like, y'know, hungry, so I bite one and fill up on foamy goodness.  Yeah, I know I'm standing in direct sunlight, but c'mon!, I'm in a brewery dude...

Ahem.  Sorry about that.

Lon

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil is my fave.

Mike,
Moths and flames.  How to make that work...

I think it'll have to be in the Prey.  Let me think some about NPC rules.

The reason you don't make the oldest possible vampire is because you probably don't really want to.  I know I don't.  I mean, maybe I would sometime, but not every time.  Knowing that I could and nobody would stop me takes some of the thrill out of it.

I think there's room in the game for vampires of whatever age.  I might suggest that all the PCs be in the same ballpark, but I don't care what the ballpark is.

And yes, it's all about hunting, and getting away afterward, and vampires hunting each other gets into some scary-ass shit, pardon my Saxon.  But that's what vampires do for me.

-Vincent

Forgot something basic.  Dracula doesn't want to eat Mina, he wants her to join him.  Making new vampires is a big deal.

Must refigure.