OOC Discussions

For OOC talk: questions, answers, and hype.

Also, I've taken to encouraging pbp players to be vocal about the in character posts and goings on. That is...
- if you read a post but you want to see someone else have the spotlight
- ...or you want to ask for a little more time because you for sure want to post next...
- ...or you think that a given Scene has maybe run its course and I haven't called it over myself...

Say as much here! I find that it's been doing wonders for my pbp games that I've been hosting on Discord.

Okay, so judging by these prompts we'll be starting separately, right?

How about this for a scene - we all got to Phoenix as group last night. Now we all went our separate ways (to facilitate the prompts), but agreed to meet for the Deadraces later this night. So each prompts will be how the night began, so to speak. Sounds good or anyone has other ideas?

We start separately as part of a session's kick-off. A montage of events, vignettes that shows how timed as passed. We'll do this at the start of every "session" as the game assumes there's some intervening amount of time that happens.

So very curt, handful of back-and-forth postings in this space, then we jump to the Paint the Town Red segment of gameplay. The "adventure" as it were.

But yeah I dig this! We point ourselves toward the future scene of hitting the Deadracing scene.

I think the last town Perkele partied in was Las Vegas, somewhere he tries to not go to too often because it's so draining. However, all was going well as he met up with a group of mortals who were also into metal, and they went to a few local shows happening that weekend but also were functionally on a bender, taking in tons of substances and staying up through pretty much the whole weekend.

Where it went wrong was when one of the mortals, an early 20s guy named Johnny, recognized him as undead and was frightened by him, immediately running from him and calling him a monster.

So, I think part of what got Perkele to his current situation is the crash in the wake of all of that: the fallout from a bender physically, for sure, but also the emotional weight of that fear of him that mortals have been showing him for over 150 years now.

So he's probably going into the beginning of this down on his monstrous nature, but at the same time, If a monster's what they see, a monster's what they'll get.

Don't know if this was lost in translation a bit, but it was Thessa's butler-man that was addressing Perkele. Should've clarified that a bit. And gotta find some pic for him. Think stuffy british butler dressed down to not stand up too much.

Ah, got it! Did a minor edit to reflect this.

So just to clarify - Thessa will mount her butler and go sneak a peek at the organizer, try to speak with them if she can. Greet or wave at least.

How do we see ourselves racing? Are we supporting each other? Knocking out opposition and all that? Or is it every vamp for themselves and the best vamp wins?

I’m easy with anything. But if we are a team, then I guess there’d have to be other teams, too!

I've been waffling over the last couple of days, but I think this Thunderbird Road race will be done in two laps (read: turns).

Indulging Passion is a thing, and Indulging together would be a Party Hard move. All optional, but something to chew over if y'all think you'd start off strong together (potentially Partying Hard). Just my two cents.

I could see us going as a team but then using our actions to try to knock others out. Like Perkele is feeling bad, but still has the camaraderie with the group. So I think I will probably try to run someone off the road, maybe if they're specifically about to pass one of us. I'm also up for a Party Hard! Regardless I would probably be indulging with Perkele's music going full blast and racing at the same time.

I think with Thessa's Pulse being so low she will be simply focused on winning. She needs the race and the win to feel alive again, but she is also a racing enthusiast so she'll be mainly relaying on her top skills to show everyone how it's done. While she is not particularly attached to any one car (including the one she is using in the race) she probably won't be running anyone off the road or using any maneuvers that can damage the car.

Her passion also wouldn't apply here, I don't think, since she is not trying to do anything crazy or daring.

So "Racing for the Love of It" would be her move.

As for helping others, she might block another car to help one of her teammates pass, but mostly she is just engrossed in the race, loses herself to intense driving.

Okay, so the roll will be 3d6 (because of the Against the Odds), remove the highest dice and then add Stat bonus.

I think there was a command for removing the lowest dice, seen it used to chargens in PF and DnD here.

Okay, so I think the roll command would be - 3d6L2+2 - L2 stand for "keep the 2 lowest dice" (H2 would be keeping 2 highest); the +2 can be changed for your Stat bonus. Let's test!

Edit: well that was some roll. I think it worked, but just to check I'll do one more.

Edit2: yep, works.

Alright, just to make sure I roll what I need correctly: I am planning to indulge my passion of Pedal to the Metal where I will start by playing a song at max volume, so I will gain d3 Pulse and 1 Chaos. Then, I choose one of the options from p. 20 to apply. I am planning to run some fucker off the road. Since I am doing that, I believe I am reading correctly that I don't roll against the odds for this check, is that correct?

So ultimately I'd be rolling a d3 for Pulse, adding 1 Chaos, probably choosing either "Make trouble with a Faction" or "Piss off a Rival Contact," and then making a Savagery roll. I think I've got it right but figured I'd double check!

I believe to eliminate the "Against the Odds" effect completely you'd need two "Upper Hands" effects to cancel them.
I'm not sure if this bit from description of "Racing for the Love of It" would technically add 3rd "Against the Odds"

You'd roll 1 stack of Against the Odds for being toward the back of the race at the start and getting blocked by the mid-level racers that started ahead of you. Barring any pitches or discussions about getting an Upper Hand.
Correct! When I wrote this up, my line of thinking was that on a straight away, dexterity arguably isn't needed as much. To speak to other things that Duplicity covers:
- Lying mid-race could be a good pay-off depending on what that looks like...but could just as likely be a costly manuever
- Plotting or sneaking, IMO, are also gambits like taking shortcuts trying or to juke someone that's ahead and proactively blocking you, that sort of thing

Do Something Else is there for you if you want to pitch a different idea or even a specific maneuver; so you can feasibly pitch, say, falling narrowly behind Perkele as they run some fucker off-road and roll +Duplicity in that sense and avoid the generic Against the Odds penalty that Racing for the Love of It brings. You're riding in Perkele's wake, then slingshotting past him as you catch his drift.

@KCC I don't think that was the right roll. Rules say that you roll max of 3 dice. So no matters how many stacks of "Against the Odds" or "Upper Hand" you have, the formula is always = 3d6(drop highest or lowest, depending on the effect) + Stat bonus. So if you have 2 Allure, it'd be 3d6L2+2

What Reversia pointed out is correct. Idk how editing rolls for already posted stuff works, but my go-to is to always just drop the right most result when looking at an array of dice rolling and too many have been rolled (for better or worse!). In this case, we're just dropping the 6 on that Against the Odds line.

I've thought about an approach, not sure if it would qualify as another move (or if it mechanically matters) - since they start at the bottom, it might best to hang back a bit and let the most violent drivers duke it out, thin the numbers a bit before sprinting forward (maybe using a nitro in the process to make up for the difference and speed and distance between myself and the leaders).

I think if we unpacked this, then I wouldn't say it changes things mechanically but I think the narrative payoff would be less risk to the ride (if any) on failure. These racers jockeying for position are banging up against each other (or would) for any passerby. They don't have the rides that would do anything other than maintain the status quo, so they play aggressively to stop people from getting an edge.

That said, I think it could be say that by having Old Money, you probably invested that into a finely tuned ride yeah? Take an Upper Hand for that; I think out of two rolls for the race, this is when having a well invested ride pays off.

Ah, darn it. That was close. The cursed 1!

Come to think of it, there was a reroll mechanic, right? For extra added Chaos, I believe. Can I do that?

Yep! It's actually the right time to do it because I was just about to narrate our outcomes. So anyone here that wants to do it for more Chaos, should! I'll give folks a few hours (as I have to run errands anyhow).

It's referred to as Get the Blood Running.

Well, I'll reroll one dice then - the one that came up as 1. Edit: there we go! A 6!

I'm not sure how much the "Spooky Behaviour" bit would be applicable since I'm in a car by myself.. Any ideas?

It could be the very last bit about sheer determination and grit.

That said maybe a slow down of time, hyper reflexes, knocking right up against another cat and reaching out to rip a side mirror off.

Okay, to clarify - the second leg does not have the 2 Against the Odds that were present in the first leg, correct?

These two:

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Also, I need to roll d3 Chaos since I succeeded in during the first leg, right?

From "Racing for the Love of It":

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And finally, why is driving in the heavy traffic gives Upper Hand and not Against the Odds?
Ah, also about this -
What does this look like? Does the car glides on air, few inches above ground (in which case how does that help it get around heavy traffic?) or is downright flying, like above other cars or squeezing through on its side, that sort of thing?

Yep! Second leg does not have the x2 AtO's y'all encountered.
Right.
The framing here with the heavy traffic is about damage sustained to your ride, which I would think Duplicity (dex) and Allure (keeping your cool in my mind or similar coloring) would excel at. This is also coupled with, in my mind, the approaches the top racers are taking to the race; while I do not roll for them and they are not officially given Savagery, Duplicity and Allure stats, I have in my mind decided what they are racing with. To me, it is enough that one of the top racers is racing with Savagery, but since I can't place them AtO as I'm not rolling for them, I'll give Upper Hands to you.
It effectively appears to be down right flying, the effect partially obfuscated by the hearse's previously mentioned underglow and by it only being a few inches off the ground.

Oh, boy. A lot of Chaos piling up for Thessa! Sitting at 7 now, and I think now there's another +1d3 for the second leg..

I was thinking maybe the turn was near a gas station and the truck goes right into there was a massive explosion or something. Seems appropriate for such amounts of Chaos gathered during the race. And then it's a face-off between the front-runners as they are dragging themselves to the finish line.

Edit: upon thinking on it and rereading the race rules, I think that Thessa probably chose to take a back position to "play" with the semi (which I think might qualify for indulging a Passion, the "Hold My Beer" one, as she took on a dangerous stunt/challenge without much reward, just for adrenaline kick). So she sacrificed winning for a chance at doing something crazy.

So the top 4 are #1 Perkele #2 Thessa #3 Black Driver & Ally? Is that the order?

Yeah, let's go with that. And we'll have Wrencher finish a few beats behind. Y'all arrive at the finish line, no mysterious semi-truck, no calls of the police sirens. What do you do? There's no crowd to greet you. Only a little drone flitting above, the same from the start of the race.

We arrive at some church, right? Is it like a roadside building, on the outskirts of the city or..? What's the vibe like?

I guess we should start with the winner and go down in order from there?

---

Also what other drivers we encounter at this point?
* There is the Black Driver (that's the hearse magician, right? yep, "Last but not least is a rider clad all in black, helmed with their heavily tinted visor brought all the way down. No one knows who this rider is, but they've been decimating the competition these last few races in their clearly supped up black hearse with the green under glow. Some call them the Black Rider, others the Reaper."),
* Wrencher ("Wrencher, a Dead his forties who leans coolly against his red '70s Mustang Boss 429" - had to reread who that was),
* Echo ("younger Dead by the name of Echo who works both the crowd and last minute checks on her engine for her gunmetal Silverado"),
* pink haired driver who Perkele run off the road,
* the semi-truck madman,
* orange Hyundai with two people in it that contemplated shooting Elly

Are these all or have I missed someone?

I have a question about Passion indulgence. Do you gain 1d3 Pulse and 1 Chaos and then have to also pick a prompt (some of which seem to carry extra 1 Chaos) or are prompts just suggestions on how to make a "goddamn mess"?

I fear PBP gaming might not have stuck for our GM! I’ll catch you all in the next game! Really interesting game and concept here. With all the love VtM gets on this site, I think the rulebook is worth a second look!

Thanks for the game folks! Add me back if our GM returns! Bye!

Hopefully that's a temporary absence. @haditbeenwater You heard anything about Flux? Just busy IRL or? All good I hope? And what about the second player he invited, ClericalError87? I forgot if he said if you guys were an IRL group or discord band or what..