Traces

So. We're doing the first test of the website (The JohnByNightEngine as I call it), and a few issues came up around tracing.

Multiple traces: how should we resolve multiple observations of the same individual? Let's say Nefersedjem watches for both gauging and growth in the Streets, and Marcellus happens to do both. Nefersedjem gets two "notices" that he observed people, right? But now Nefersedjem traces one of them on the next turn. Should he learn the that both are the same person? I'm inclined to say no, and if Nefersedjem traced both of them he's learn both are Marcellus.

Now here's another item: Nefersedjem is watching for gauging again in the Streets when Tanit-Ishtar is gauging the streets, but Tanit-Ishtar is doing it with a level 0 action (i.e. just augments alone from, say, Investigation). Now, it seems clear that Nefersedjem should have a chance to gain information, and I've written before about giving level 0 and 1 actions a die or two of free concealment and the like. But let's say Nefersedjem is successful at noticing and then tracing this level 0 influence: what next?

It doesn't really make sense for Nefersedjem to have a trace on Tanit-Ishtar because Tanit-Ishtar doesn't have any influence to trace. So Nefersedjem just learns that it was a level 0 action and that's it? Or Nefersedjem learns it was a level 0 action done by Tanit-Ishtar? It might be really frustrating for people who attempt to trace level 0 actions and simply keep coming up empty handed with no information, but at least learning it was someone acting alone might help.

It makes sense that you can't actually get a permanent trace on an adversary with a level 0 influence because there's nothing to trace and they'd essentially also automatically be able to refresh (by the rules, refreshing a level 0 influence would take 0 points). Maybe instead of levels of Conceal, level 0 influences should have a die of something else, so that there's about a 50% chance that Nefersedjem just learns it is a level 0 action versus learning it was a level 0 action done by Tanit-Ishtar? This is a much more complex and unpredictable thing...

Another solution is to bring the human brain back into things. The system could flag every successful trace of a level 0 action and the ST might embellish the mechanical result by giving some vague information about the action or the actor without actually saying who it was. So Nefersedjet might learn that it was a woman asking around and gauging the streets, or perhaps that it was a Copt or a Roman or a Jew. Gender and Ethnicity might easily be added to the system for these cases, my understanding is it would be quite simple to have the engine report: "You traced a level 0 action, but determine it was a Greek male responsible." Of course, a blanket application of that might lead to the character being easily identifiable if, for example, there are only two female characters or only one Persian character and the ST flag might be a less "stupid" approach.

Decisions decisions...

Character Creation, Relations, and Factions

As we get to testing out the online system, I'm thinking about character creation more and more. A quick conversation with Z and another with B reminded me of a few things, so I figure I'll spell out some of my thoughts here.

The real question is how do we let people make the characters they want to and at the same time create a few cohesive groups? My old way would be to assign people. This is how convention games (table top and LARP) did it. Let's call this assignment. I also noticed this mechanic's usefulness in the Lurker at the Threshold expansion for Arkham Horror. I could assign people to create a character of the various clans and factions. Some might get assigned (or have the option for) a leadership role, but this would easily ensure we have a good array of factions. I could even still let people make some choices, such as ethnicity, road, or even clan. As long as there are 4 members of the Promethians, 4 Members of the Pharoi, and 4 members of the Cult of Typhon-Set.

On Names: Cainites and Clans

One oddity of the Vampire setting is the linking of vampirism to the Biblical curse of Caine. This works fine and well for the Jews and Christians. Setites claim an origin from the Egyptian god Set, so they've got a story. But what of Greek and Roman (or Persian?) characters? Should there be a distinct origin story for them?

Likewise, for the Clans. is it worthwhile to make any setting-specific changes? For example, I plan on talking about Followers of Typhon-Set. Should I also use Children of Serapis instead of Children of Osiris? I was also considering using the alternate name for the Cappadocians: Ashurans. Rather than wholesale changes, I could just adjust the names slightly to turn Malkavians into Malcavii or otherwise Greekify, Latinify, or Copticify the clan names a bit.

Then there's the titles: Prince isn't really the most reasonable one at this point in history. But if I use Princeps, should I also use Camararius for the Keeper of Elysium, or Administrator for Seneschal?

Its also not 100% clear which language should be showcased for any given setting element. I'd consider defaulting to Latin for leadership terms (Alexandria is governed by the Romans), but maybe Greek or Coptic should get more billing? The other thing is my Latin is better than my Coptic which is better than my Middle Egyptian which is better than my Greek, so Latin is the easier thing for me. But it does matter if I wanted Malcavii or Malkavioi (assuming that's anywhere close to correct-ish for Latin vs Greek).

On the one hand, it might be more detail than we need, and potentially confusing. On the other hand, I like some of these bits of detail that make each game more unique. There's probably a minimalist middle-ground where I make one or two changes focusing on the most relevant setting elements, keeping as much similarity as possible, and leave it at that. So Princeps for Prince, Followers of Typhon-Set, etc. are probably easily done. The most important non-Greek/Latin sounding clan name gets a new ending, but most can stay as they are.

Interface Update

Just an update: The JohnByNight Engine (that's what I'm calling it) is still being tested. I expect what we can implement on the website will determine some rules decisions and vice versa. We'll probably be testing this in the next couple weeks, so expect an Alexandria update by the end of the month.

Goals and Leadership

I liked the idea of goals from Toulouse (obviously, since I suggested them) but I need to change them for Alexandria because I want them to be a little more important. My plan to do this is to take short-term goals out of the hands of most players and giving them to faction leaders.

This means that an entire faction (i.e. The Church of the Black Magdelana, The Cult of Typhon-Set, The Prometheans, etc.) will have access to the same goal, set by the faction leader. Its a nice carrot for the leader to keep faction members on task, though it will require a few people to actually play the faction leaders. Faction leaders get minions to help accomplish their goals, and minions will work towards the faction's goals because of this XP bonus. Though I was thinking of reducing the bonus to 2 XP rather than three.

Now, getting people to choose leaders isn't always easy since apparently many people would prefer to stay out of the spotlight like this. Funny, because people like to be the Admiral or President in Battlestar Galactica just fine. All I can do is appeal to the players that if no one opts to take this burden, no one will have fun. I have a few additional players to try to invite, and am planning on giving a bonus dot of Generation and/or Age to leaders, which should amount to a substantial bonus for making a powerful character.

Refresh and Trace Actions

Now that John is working on the rules engine, a few things are going to come up which I haven't quite thought about before. The first of those deals with Refresh. When should a Trace be lost, and should the website keep track of who you have noticed?

Let's say that Hypatia traces Apollonius in the Trade influence, but Apollonius suspects his actions are being followed: he uses the Refresh action. Should Hypatia know that he has thrown off the trace immediately or not? It makes more sense that she would not know until she attempted to Follow or Attack him again, I think. But, what if Hypatia was following Apollonius on the turn when the Refresh was successfully accomplished? Maybe that ought to reveal this information. Otherwise, you might have traced someone and not paid any attention to their influence until you're informed they refreshed their influence. The same question applies to attacking someone's influence. If you attack during the turn when your opponent refreshes, it seems like the attack should succeed, but should you be notified of the refresh, or must you attack or follow again only to learn your prey has evaded you? Should the notification of refresh be tied to your pools, so that bigger influence pools might act slower than smaller ones, including for any refresh notifications?

The Rules Document

One of the things that I think will help with the rules is a bit of a reorganization of the rules document, not just a bit of an edit to the text itself. For example, in my current draft, the rules for feeding are spread out in three places: your general feeding, the extra feeding personal action, and a Blood and Feeding section. Some of this is inevitable, because obviously an extra feeding personal action or the ability to augment your feeding like you can an influence needs to be discussed in the relevant places, but it also makes it harder to flip around and see how it all fits together.

I'm of two minds on this still though. On the one hand, I like having things in the PDF format since I don't have constant internet access and I like to be able to look at things if I'm in a taxi or at the pool or on a plane. But something more interactive like a wiki might be nicely able to show things is chunks that are the right size and not an intimidating 20+ page rules document.

Gauge Action

Tony had a nice comment that has helped me work out the Gauge action a bit. This is one of those actions that wasn't in the Dark Epics book, but felt useful from some of the larp adaptations. My one problem with it is it's basically a one point action, there's little need to spend more points in it. But here's my idea for a revised version of three very similar Gauge options.

GAUGE THE CITY, AN OPPONENT, OR THE LEADER
The Gauge action tells you how much influence is available in the city. You learn the number of total levels a region can support and how many free levels are still available, and perhaps other facts relating to the state of the influence. Note that circumstances may change, and a given influence in a region may grow or shrink.

Alternately, you can use the Gauge action to target a particular individual whom you have successfully traced. If you do, you learn how much influence that person commands (though not their ability to augment).

If you gauge an influence for the leader, you learn enough information to trace the largest influence network in a given category .

Gauge is opposed by both the Conceal and Defense actions.