mysticfedora
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The truth lies somewhere in between.
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Post by mysticfedora on Oct 13, 2016 7:25:51 GMT -8
With regards to NPCs, how do you make them? Going through the normal character creation process is a little time consuming. Do any storytellers have suggestions for ways to make NPCs quickly? For me, it's just a question of creating a name, a motivation, and some sort of personality quirk. Obviously if the NPC is integral to the plot, I'll use a stat block. That said, I need to be less lazy about NPCs. Even in my writing I'm way too plot-focused and not character-focused enough.
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 13, 2016 7:28:49 GMT -8
Note: I am WAY behind, so I don't know how applicable any of this might be:
Taking out a building could be something as simple as a rival company buying the property. An enemy Ventrue could buy the management company that does the day-to-day at the building, and start to make things uncomfortable for the PCs (remember what the Duchess did to Dresden's office?). An opposing Nosferatu (or possibly Tremere, or a Werewolf with the right spirit allies, or a Mage with the right spheres) could call up swarms of roaches and get the building closed off for some amount of time, of convince families of skunks to move into the dropped ceiling spaces.
A Tremere with the Ward against Kindred spell could Ward the entrances to the building... though Skully's sewer entrance would probably be usable.
Does Riley -own- her building, or rent/lease space inside? Same with Kimi's Ventrue.
A crazy mortal who get Divine inspiration to go after the bloodsuckers on the island might go all Timothy McVeigh and set off a bomb. Even a small one might damage the structure and get the place condemned.
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller; Dresden; Mage
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 13, 2016 7:35:10 GMT -8
With regards to NPCs, how do you make them? Going through the normal character creation process is a little time consuming. Do any storytellers have suggestions for ways to make NPCs quickly? For me, it's just a question of creating a name, a motivation, and some sort of personality quirk. Obviously if the NPC is integral to the plot, I'll use a stat block. That said, I need to be less lazy about NPCs. Even in my writing I'm way too plot-focused and not character-focused enough. Later in my Dresden game, I just kept a couple generic-ized stat blocks on hand. Any NPC who I needed stats for, but not necessarily UNIQUE stats, got assigned one of these "Joe Schmoe" stat blocks. Worked for monsters, too - most of my mook monsters were toned-down zombies, reskinned.
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller; Dresden; Mage
Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 13, 2016 7:44:09 GMT -8
hhmm, how do you tag someone in these posts? The "at" symbol followed by their account name; in this case, Stu's account name is "admin". So to tag Stu, you would use @admin and it would look like Stu Venable.
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Post by RudeAlert on Oct 13, 2016 10:26:20 GMT -8
Stu Venable I don't remember if I posted this here a while ago or maybe some other forum, but a while back I had this idea to simplify NPC stats in WoD games. My thought was, at least for fairly minor NPCs, to simply give them three stats: Physical, Social, and Mental. These would apply to any roll they make that would rely on that type of Attribute. As for the values, I figured I'd decide how good they were in general, in terms of Attribute value. So, since Attribute 1 is Poor, 2 is Average, 3 is Good, 4 is Exceptional, and 5 is Outstanding, I would gauge the NPCs overall quality on those terms. Having decided on a conceptual value, I would then take that Attribute value and double it to establish a dicepool size. The doubling is to compensate for the lack of Abilities. Ex: I decide that an NPC is Good in Physical tasks, so I would assign it a 6 to its Physical value. You could always go with odd number as well of course, the basic concept it just to establish benchmarks. Also, Soak rolls would use half the NPC's Physical value, since Soaking is normally a straight Attribute roll.
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller; Dresden; Mage
Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 13, 2016 10:55:09 GMT -8
Isn't that kinda how the LARP character stats work?
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Post by RudeAlert on Oct 13, 2016 11:33:05 GMT -8
I've never played or even read the LARP rules so I wouldn't know. But if so then, hey great minds think alike and such.
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
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Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 13, 2016 11:40:36 GMT -8
Judging from a quick survey, the LARP setup is that you just get a score in Physical, in Mental, and in Social; you pick a specialty for each that corresponds to the tabletop's attributes (Like my Physical specialty might be Strength). You pick one skill to have at 4 dots, two at three, three at two, and four at one.
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Nobody
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 34
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Post by Nobody on Oct 13, 2016 11:43:02 GMT -8
I do like Rude's method for off the cuff NPCs. Most of the time they are just a dice pool. a blood pool (for Vamps and Ghouls) their superpowers and health boxes.
For the major NPCs, a full write up can be helpful as it gives the characters something for you to build ideas from.
Also, do not hesitate to farm that out. Some of us like making characters.
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Nobody
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 34
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Post by Nobody on Oct 13, 2016 11:51:46 GMT -8
Judging from a quick survey, the LARP setup is that you just get a score in Physical, in Mental, and in Social; you pick a specialty for each that corresponds to the tabletop's attributes (Like my Physical specialty might be Strength). You pick one skill to have at 4 dots, two at three, three at two, and four at one. That is a start, but the old rules were more complex than that. You had a number of traits in the P/M/S pools, like you mentioned. Each trait was an individual descriptor, which you would use when calling a challenge. For example, my Physical traits could be Strong X2, Tough, Quick, and Enduring. My physical pool would then be 5.
When you had a challenge you would bid a trait that was appropriate (I am strong enough to punch you in the face). Then you would throw Rock, Paper, Scissors. If you win that throw you win the challenge, if you tie, you compare traits. Loser also lost the trait for the rest of the session (which could refresh with Willpower).
The way skills worked is that each level gave you a retest, so for example if you had Brawl x2, you could retest the physical challenge of punching the guy in the face.
Equipment gave extra traits.
That is just the bare bones of it though. Disciplines changes the rules (for example getting Potence at the right level gives you the bomb hand sign to add to RPS which defeats paper and rock, but is beaten by scissors (cutting the fuse).
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
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Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 13, 2016 11:53:21 GMT -8
I was extrapolating off the new rules. My memory of the old rules is far too shaky. Either way, I'm just looking at those rules to form the basis of quick and easy npc generation on the fly.
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andreasdavour
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Post by andreasdavour on Oct 19, 2016 11:38:36 GMT -8
I hadn't thought about jealousy between the ghouls, but it makes perfect sense. Maybe the coroner can start stalking Reilly and see her other ghouls. The priest could start trying to save Adrienne's soul. One of my long-term things was to take down one of their buildings, but I haven't had a good culprit yet. A jealous ghoul trying to take out the competition... That's a *very* good point about jealous ghouls! Now that plan about taking down one of the buildings sounds quite feasible.
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sbloyd
Supporter
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 21, 2016 6:34:29 GMT -8
So, I'm still getting caught up on things, but it occurs to me that poor Skully is the only one really being hampered by his Clan Weakness so far. Adriann has been pretty cavalier about her feeding from the blood drive collection, so I'm assuming she either has the bags marked for which ones fulfill her dietary needs, or it's something that's been overlooked. As well, I don't think we've had anything touch Riley (Reilly?) and her Toreador weakness with the exception of a little bit of it when she aura-read Detective Angelpants.
Just something I was thinking about while listening this morning.
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Post by RudeAlert on Oct 21, 2016 19:25:23 GMT -8
Those are some very good points sbloyd, I hadn't noticed that but it's true that their weaknesses don't show up very often in play. Once again, the pretty people get a better deal. Ugh!
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller; Dresden; Mage
Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Nov 2, 2016 19:38:19 GMT -8
Stu Venable - I made a quick-reference for your OneNote.
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