Ferrum Impressions OOC 2

[Artemciy]

Please add the summary of the details we've figured so far into the description, plus a bit on the appearance.
In particular, I imagine he would've applied Vissictitude to himself given his level in the Discipline?

You might want to pick a picture like the rest of us did.

For Melee please pick a specialty, e.g. the fencing style he's been studying (and where, if you can think of something).
cf. http://www2.nau.edu/~wew/fencing/masters.html, for example.

I'd say you take a dot from Science because our characters are from the future and thus have a far superiour grasp on it than your character, for now.

About Humanity 6, is your character trying to be "good" despite his sadistic inclinations? From the vibe of him I'd imagine he's closer to 5? Or does he rationalize is as the cause for science and... perfection? What kind of victims would he pick for his experiments, would it be vagabonds and scoundrels or someone pretty or someone deformed or someone he has spite for or just about anyone?

[Vizzic]

added that all to my previous post and took the dot from science and put it into law. As for his victims they run the range from noble to whore and his human will keep going down but for now he rationalizes it as doing his duty for science, he just happens to enjoy it.

[Danteric]

Hmm, finding a chain vest or Leather armor would be nice, i'm not quite sure how armor's work though. A sword would be Strength+2 or 3 if I remember correctly, depending on the type of sword?

[Artemciy]

added that all to my previous post and took the dot from science and put it into law

Thanks!

Muenster Man, have you picked your action or would you prefer we wait until tomorror for you to work on your post?

P.S. Here (IC 267) you can see the baby steps of the new "grace time decisions" system: http://prntscr.com/6inxah.

When the bar is green you're good to pick a default action (by dropping a short notice in the OOC, for example).
The red time slider fills as the 12 hours of the grace time passes.
When the grace time ends the bar turns yellow, meaning you're late to pick the default action.
The bar is blue if you have already played IC and red if the scene was finished without you.

More stuff will be added later.

Hmm, finding a chain vest or Leather armor would be nice, i'm not quite sure how armor's work though. A sword would be Strength+2 or 3 if I remember correctly, depending on the type of sword?

Armor adds to your Stamina, but some of it (particularly the heavy medieval ones) limits your defensive dexterity (there's a oWoD book about it, IIRC). A sword is Strength+2, yes.

[Danteric]

Yeah I figure there would be a penalty if you were walking around with a full plate set

On a side note with you mentioning specialties earlier, when John eventually brings his Melee up into the higher levels, will he have the same specialty that Monty/Mithras had? Given his training is technically coming from their memories?

[Artemciy]

On a side note with you mentioning specialties earlier, when John eventually brings his Melee up into the higher levels, will he have the same specialty that Monty/Mithras had? Given his training is technically coming from their memories?

Yep! Good catch! Unless he trains extensively under someone else, John will fall back to the Coven's martial arts memories.

[Danteric]

Yep! Good catch! Unless he trains extensively under someone else, John will fall back to the Coven's martial arts memories.

Oh cool. What specialty will that be?

[Artemciy]

Unlike us, M had three milennia to perfect his art. Much of it is prehistoric and some picked in his travels. With Melee 9, we can safely say that he developed his own style, although it's similarly certain that he has traveled the world and learned from many masters. He had a kind of obsession with it, really. Of course, like both the ancient Romans and the late Italian fencers he preferred the thrust to the cut. But most of his skill went into the snakily cunning parries, brought to inhuman timing and precision. Now, Coven inherited some of this, though his was more an intuitive reflection, seldom applied or practiced or given a thought.

Long story short, what John has access too is too broad and too fuzzied to make a specialization out of it. Any style John would encounter chance is, M would be familiar with by heart. John's own practice and history will determine what he'll pick from that past. Mind you, I'm talking about style and techniques, not just about weapons. Taking the Vizzic's example, knifework might look very different for a samurai and a street thug. Specialization is a set of techniques you're going to rely on in a fight, defining your stronger and weaker points, not just a weapon apritude.

But speaking of weapon apritude M used the most versatile and noble weapon - sword.

John's memory is dormant in that regard. But when he see a technique and tries to repeat it, he will likely find it natural. Those picks will be his style. If he happens to train under someone with systematic approach he might pick this person's entire style.

Makes sense?

P.S. Here (IC 267) you can see the baby steps of the new "grace time decisions" system: http://prntscr.com/6inxah.

You can now click on the bar to enter the default action. Tell me if it works.

[Danteric]

Tried it, comes up with


{"error":"RpChoiceError(Unauthorized)"}

[Artemciy]

Yep, you need to enter your password, which equals your email by default
(can change it if you wish).

P.S. Ups. Yeah, there was an IP check I missed. Should work now. Sorry for the confusion.

[Danteric]

Alright, seems to work now. Picked a choice and assumed it saved.

[Artemciy]

Cool, thanks!

So, Muenster Man's grace time have all drained, according to the fancy new timer. I'm going to control him utterly. (Or maybe someone else have ideas).

I'll do it some time later though, as I've kind of overworked.

[Muenster Man]

Was busy skyping with friends and making plans today, I wish I had at least declared an action today but I forgot. Since you haven't played him yet, I'm going to go ahead and write up his scene if you don't mind. And since my time to post did run out, if you had something else you wanted to write instead, that would be fine with me.

[Danteric]

The choice option seems to have glitched, I just see a broken page icon and the {"error":"RpChoiceError(NotFound)"} message.

[Artemciy]

Yeah, that's because I wouldn't create the database entries manually, having decided to implement the automatic creation instead. Will be up in half an hour. Thanks for the report.

Was busy skyping with friends and making plans today, I wish I had at least declared an action today but I forgot. Since you haven't played him yet, I'm going to go ahead and write up his scene if you don't mind. And since my time to post did run out, if you had something else you wanted to write instead, that would be fine with me.

Oh, good, I was a little worried. Sure, thanks for the post!

P.S. Example of the real world cracking skills: in limited time, people find vulnerabilities in major browsers, allowing them basically to run their program on your PC (dubbed "code execution"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V99skqmTyiY

To speculate, In VtM: Bloodlines "Computer" was mostly used for cracking IIRC and measured the cracking ability. By the book, however (p. 108), "Computer" measures a more rounded set of skills, so to crack on this level you'd have to be, like, Computer 7+ or something. That's what I'm thinking looking at the book's description of the skill. Might be Computer 5 if one has specialization in hacking. Thoughts?

P.S. A related thought. A hacker needs a set of tools to crack (a computer with a dedicated software that helps her analyze the program and trace it's execution; in the field one also needs tools to physically access and affect the device). These tools are often considered to be a part of the skill, for example the book says about Computer 5: "You have all the SDKs and comprehend data structures for a stunning variety of programming languages". Similarly, a user of Larceny is supposed to have the tools, both on himself and off-site. A cracker still can exploit some bugs without the tools (a cool example is given in the Mitnick's book, where his collegue who happen to be walking by when they've been trying a new OS have broke it's security with a simple keystroke, like, in two seconds work - it happens that the brand new OS utilized some old and buggy code) but generally a cracker is at a big disadvantage without the tools, so is the cracksman without his picklocks and smith utensils. But would your character have the tools simply because he has the skill? I'm not sure. You can have Melee and be helpless in a fight without a sword, just like Montgomery Coven was, so why Larceny or Computer should be any different?

The net effect: If Francis would want to utilise his Larceny to good effect he might spend some time (perhaps in a background mission) to get familiar with 17th century locks and obtain the necessary instruments.

And speaking of Melee: http://prntscr.com/6jfa5i - learn from the Coven's example.

P.S. Heh: http://prntscr.com/6jgyj8 (drawing the text on the choice widget naively).
A nice shadow, but white doesn't seem to work: http://prntscr.com/6jhk2p.

[Artemciy]

The morning came quickly, turning vampires into the hands of Nolan's hospitability.
XP +1 everyone! BP -1 (but maybe + from mr. Smith reserves?). WP +1.

Please tell me what happened to the lass in the sack.
P.S. Any chores for the ghoul?

P.S. John, Francis and Nolan got into a discussion about their plans. Nolan was rather rooted and his unsavory contacts provided him with both the work and the pleasure, but John and Francis, being "new" to the town, speculated what circles they'd like to frequent and get their support from. The following came up in their talk:
- The king. Charles II, newly restored to his stature, has moved into the city and attracted the dawdling court of meriment and french fashions.
- The naval. Rising in the English military was a long shot, but working for them on one's own vessell... it was a legitimate practice, and privateen switched with pirating on a moment's whim.
- Working more seriously with Nolan's contacts was the simplest option. He seemed to be privy to a lot of activity that wasn't directly his aisle but could've work for a group. There was a freedom and diversity to this approach, either in making an all-reaching Octopus spread his arms everywhere or piercing all strata as the mysterious death dealers. Mr. Smith also mentioned Humfray's involvement with a group of robbers who made a habit of helping the poor.
- Approaching the Prince of the city and working for favors, as was the custom. Nolan wasn't comfortable having neglected this and would join the newcomers if they were to.
These and other ideas were aired. Please select what your character seemed to prefer:





Something stirred in John that day. He seemed to have dreams, a rare thing for a vampire. Places, people he didn't know.

[Danteric]

Working the next few days so will try to post when I can. Will atleast post in the log thing so we can continue.

[Artemciy]

NP, Danteric, thanks for writing down your opinion.

I'll wait for everybody to cast their voice. If you don't care, please write so in the choice widget, I want to see it working.

[Muenster Man]

Francis would agree that at least meeting with the prince is necessary. Also, he would suggest that they would need a good story about where they came from. Telling them we're time travelers may not go over so well.

[Artemciy]

In case it isn't clear, the Nolan character isn't longer playable.

[Danteric]

Working on a quick post there now, one night shift left and then im off for a few days thankfully.

[Artemciy]

Oh, cool!

along with a single sword he picked up from the weapon stand

Aha, so he picked one! It's a Wilkinson.

So I believe that leaves him with the silver dagger and that sword for weaponry, and a chain vest for armor?

No, the dagger was lost to him because Tanaka could only send a living Pattern that far into the future. I'm assuming that Francis was in his Protean form as I think I've recommended OOC, so he didn't lost his goggles.
It's chainmail and sword now. (T can easily poison it).

I'll post the hunting soon.

...

P.S. John gets an extra point of experience (XP +1), for Danteric using the new "early warning" system: http://prntscr.com/6l3ejt, http://prntscr.com/6l3cgk which allowed the game to proceed.

[Danteric]

So a few things to start off the morning.

First, i'd like to spend 4 EXP and attempt to raise Auspex to 3, as he has a fair bit of practice using Auspex.

Secondly, personally I like the your idea of group decisions, because of course we are a group, and that has much more benefits then working alone, perhaps brainstorm ideas in the OOC thread before posting them in IC to prevent forcibly taking control of someone elses character. Because you never know when Francis could give an order to John to Dominate someone, and John decided to sit there and lick his foot instead. While highly unlikely, you never know with those pesky Malk's around

Though honestly I think it could work, as we've generally just been going on our own thing and kind of hoping it worked out, as a group we could accomplish alot working as a group. Infact we could even train the thought ICly to the point we could almost be like a military strike team, except Vampires and all, giving hand signs to signify targets and the like, or getting John to Auspex 6 and creating a telepathic link between the three of the Coterie for maximum efficiency.

[Artemciy]

XP roll: 3d10 vs 6 [9,5,9] = 2. Yup, John have found out that when he opens his senses some objects would "talk" to him, giving flashes of feeling or memory. He heard other members of his bloodline exerting such an ability, finding clues and impressions where others would have discovered nothing.

Secondly, personally I like the your idea of group decisions, because of course we are a group, and that has much more benefits then working alone, perhaps brainstorm ideas in the OOC thread before posting them in IC to prevent forcibly taking control of someone elses character. Because you never know when Francis could give an order to John to Dominate someone, and John decided to sit there and lick his foot instead. While highly unlikely, you never know with those pesky Malk's around

I'm glad you like it!
Note that there's no need to control other characters at all: you propose to do something, perhaps rolling Leadership to emphasize your intent to coordinate the group and to see how well your proposal was delivered overall, and then leave it to the next player to follow your plan or do something else.
My understanding is that we've been reluctant to do that, clinging to a traditional single-leader model, but I wonder if it would be more interesting to try this shared leadership dynamics instead, with all it's barbs and roses. Other character's taking more initiative in making plans for the group might fit well with John's informal handling of his leading role. Besides, Francis would be a natural expert when it comes to a fight.

P.S. I wonder if you and/or Muenster Man would like to run another character in this time and place?

[Danteric]

As in another player vampire? Maybe, I wouldn't mind giving a Trujah or a few other clans a try, if that's what you mean atleast.

[Artemciy]

How about a mage or a shifter?

[Danteric]

I would love to try either, but I'm not very familiar on how they work, as i've never read the books. However a Mage definitely interests me after seeing what can be done with them, and reading a few tidbits online.

[Artemciy]

Mages are kind of simpler, actually, I'm not that well familiar with all the Garou Gifts and mechanics.
Note that I'm thinking of you running some "existing" characters. I'll work on the seed.
We might run the parallel story in the "past talks" thread.

[Danteric]

Sounds cool, I wouldn't mind starting off as a freshly ascended mage, it'll help me learn the basics of the mage system rather then starting off as some decently powered mage who doesn't know how to actually cast spells.

[Artemciy]

Done: talks.
Your first task is to use magic in order to find your direction and speed your boat to London.
I propose we'll learn what Spheres, paradigm and abilities your character has from that.
(We might make it an OOC challenge to figure out nine ways of reaching London, one for every Sphere).

If Muester Man will join this parallel story he might be coming along in the boat or somewhere else. Muester Man, please tell us if your character is with Danteric's in the boat or if you'd make one elsewhere?