[OOC] W20: Under a Blood Red Moon

[truemane]

Welcome, everyone! Let's get started!

(original recruitment thread here)

Our players for this little romp across the Gothic-Punk landscape will be:

• Danica "Sings-the-Thunder" Radec (BananaPhone): A Shadow Lord Galliard, wrestling and hockey player, punk-metal guitarist and singer, with the size, presence and charisma to grow the passion of a revolution right up Pentex's ass.
• Meghan "Shreds-Leeches" Farbrace (Kish): Child of Gaia Ahroun, attempted to reason with vampires when she first encountered them. It did not go well and she was told that talking to the vampires was pointless.
• Samuel Kowalski (Kowaru): Glass Walker, IT guy, gay, bioinformatician. Feels it's easy to let his wrath do things for him – but as a person of scholarship, believes he should be seeking less bloodthirsty solutions (maybe even with vampires?).

It's a smaller pack than I expected, but it's actually a good number for a one-shot World of Darkness game.

First thing: please post your application/concept in your first post here. At some point or another, that post will be the 'permanent record' for your character so it's helpful for me to have them all up front.

Second, tucked into the Spoiler below is some “front matter.” Everyone should read it before the game officially starts but it’s fine to skip it for now and jump right into character creation.

Spoiler: 1. GUIDING PRINCIPLES

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FIRST PRINCIPLE: Momentum

My primary goal will be to maintain momentum. In my experience, PbP games are like sharks: if they stop moving forward, they die. And (also in my experience) the single biggest destroyer of momentum in a PbP game is back-and-forth conversation that is open-ended, unstructured and/or low stakes. Around a table, discussing where we want to go next or hashing out a quick battle plan or asking questions about what a scene, are all things that generate momentum. But in PbP when every question, suggestion and point of discussion can have a delay of hours or days, these things can kill a game dead. So 'maintaining momentum' for me is mostly finding ways to eliminate anything that isn't actively moving the story forward.

What does this look like, in-game?

For my part, this means:

• I will start every scene as far in as possible and do my best to give scene (every post) something active and immediate for you to react to. I won’t set a scene like "You enter the basement. It’s dark and there’s a furnace in the back” and then passively spend a week fielding questions and resolving Perception rolls until you find the glowing light in the corner. Instead, I’ll frame the scene with you in the basement, in the corner, with the glowing green light already doing something.
• I will end scenes when the stakes are resolved (sometimes even if things are still happening). This includes combat. Once the tension point of a combat scene is passed and/or the narrative purpose has been resolved, I may just say "You finish off the last few bad guys and move one" rather than force everyone to keep doing math in the absence of stakes or drama. I will try not to cut things off if you're still engaging with them and having fun but, as a rule, I would prefer to cut too soon rather than too late.
• As soon as I end one scene, I will immediately set the next one. Failing that, I will end every scene with a clear and obvious idea of what you can do next. Discussing the next scene between yourselves is totally fine, but if ever a scene ends and you don’t know what to do next, that means I’ve messed up.
• I will avoid calling for dice rolls unless all possible results of a roll (success, failure, Botch) are more interesting than letting the scene play out. This is both a momentum thing (every dice roll is also a delay, so the benefit of a roll needs to outweigh that) and a narrative thing (it avoids that thing where you fail at things you're supposed to be really good at).
• I will try to avoid any situation where the game is waiting on the actions of any one player.

For your part, do your best to keep the following in mind:

• If I move too fast and skip over something you wanted to do (end a scene too early, start a scene too far, frame a new scene that's not what you wanted to do next, etc): don't panic. There are lots of ways to manage this, from a sidebar to a retcon. But I would rather push forward and risk backtracking than be overcautious and risk stalling out.
• Try not to end a post such that one particular character/player needs to respond in order to move forward. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but if you can avoid it, do so.
• Avoid tactical planning like an incurable disease. Nothing will sink a PbP game faster than trying to concoct a coordinated battle plan. Werewolf is a game of tightly-coordinated group combat, so you will feel the urge, but I will never put you in a situation that punishes you for not planning enough. So I would rather you default to taking a Leeroy Jenkins-style run at things and we can figure it out as we go along.
• Bring it. I'll be doing my part to make sure the game world is right in your face all the time and that you always have something interesting to do. In exchange, I want you to be all up in my game's face just as hard. Don't passively observe the story, go interact with it. Don't try to avoid hard choices, lean into them. Knock stuff down. Push things over. Games I run can't be derailed by player choices (they are, in fact, constructed from your choices). You can’t break it. So don't be afraid to really get in there and mix things up.

SECOND PRINCIPLE: Ask Forgiveness Rather than Permission

One of the best ways to speed things along is for me (the ST) to give you (the players) authority and control over the game world. So if you need to know something about a scene, or a PC, or the world, or the environment, default to telling me rather than asking me. Is it raining? Do you have a friend living nearby? Does this NPC have a daughter? Do you know a shortcut? You tell me. Come up with something that's some combination of fun, interesting, and reasonable, and go with it.

This is especially true for anything related to your backstory. Do you know that guy? Have you heard that term before? Have you fought this sort of Bane before? You tell me. Your Abilities and Backgrounds and Gifts will help inform you, but anything else is up to you.

Clearly there's a line here ("Am I an expert in the inner workings of all Kindred activity in Chicago?") but so long as we all stay within the established scope and tone of the game, we should be okay. And if someone goes too far or assumes too much? No big deal! We can backtrack, retcon, work out a compromise, or any number of options. But again, it's better we keep pushing forward and risk a backtrack rather than pause too often and risk dying.


THIRD PRINCIPLE: Always Ask Permission (“The Exception”)

The one major exception to the above is any kind of Player vs Player (PvP) conflict. Whether emotional, social or physical, any conflict between PC's should be discussed ahead of time and proceed only if all parties have given enthusiastic consent. If there's any doubt if something counts as 'conflict' default to 'yes' and ask first.

This is the one place where stalling out is better for the game than pushing forward.

This doesn't mean that I don't want inter-PC conflict! The system assumes some as a default and sometimes really interesting and complex stories emerge from this sort of thing. But it's important to ask first. This is true both for general conflicts ("My character mistrusts people from your hometown so sometimes she's going to question your judgement"), or single scene conflicts ("What if, in this scene, I decide you can't be trusted because your family is rich?") or even whole story-lines ("Maybe my character secretly suspects you're a spy for the local crime boss and grows increasingly paranoid about you as we go along?").

If the other player(s) isn't on board, we don't proceed.

IN CONCLUSION
In the past I've found that players who aren't used to the kind of 'narrative manipulations' detailed above can be really resistant to the idea (Ending combat when there's still enemies on the grid? Madness!). If this is you, that's totally fine. I get it. Messing with the base assumptions of how role-playing works can be weird. All I ask is that you give it a chance, ask questions if you're not sure, and do your best to enter into it with good faith and an open mind.

Spoiler: 2. NUTS AND BOLTS

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1. I have a complicated and chaotic RL, and so my posting rate is all over the place. I try to manage two or three posts per week. Sometimes I get a little more, often a little less. I'll always try to keep you updated if I think I'll be away for a few days, but I can't always. But I promise I'll always be back.

2. In terms of posting conventions:

• Everyone should post with reasonably correct grammar and spelling. I don't expect perfection. I, myself, tend to post quickly between other things and tend of have a lot of typos. But everyone should cover the basics: proper capitalization, quotations marks for speech, italics for thoughts, spellcheck, no walls of text, that sort of thing.
• I tend to waver back and forth between present and past tense (sometimes in the same post). I don't really care which one you use (or even if you're consistent), just be comprehensible.
• I don't colour the dialogue in my posts. You may format your dialogue if you like but please pick something with good contrast so it doesn't strain anyone's eyes (and please be sure use proper punctuation and grammar even if your dialogue is coloured).

3. Everyone is expected to remain courteous at all times and attempt to resolve potential conflict through empathy and de-escalation. If someone does or says something that causes an issue, address it in the spirit of a reasonable, honest mistake rather than malice or negligence. This goes for me too! I've been doing this a long time and I'm very good at it but I can take a wrong step same as anyone. And, in fact, since cutting corners and moving fast is my primary game parameter, it's almost inevitable that I'll run over someone's toes eventually. Any given thing can be edited, rolled-back, retconned, deleted or worked around but so long as we avoid animosity between us, the game will be fine.

4. I said this already, and it's probably still unnecessary, but just in case: I have a zero-tolerance policy for any racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia, ageism, ableism or any other sort of weaponized, systemized prejudice, either implicit or explicit, from the players or the PC's. If a single instance appears to be the result of ignorance rather than malice, I will make one (1) good faith attempt to address it (with a second instance being met with a request to leave the game). If you think someone else has exhibited any of the above, please contact me rather than handling it yourself. One or two comments can be managed. A full-scale argument usually means the game is done.

5. By default, the game world will contain little-to-no expectation or bias based on gender presentation, gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, race, ethnicity, or any other markers of personal identity. In-universe, people will generally accept your stated identity at face value and make no assumptions about you as a result. I know these things exist, but I am generally uninterested in telling stories about them. So NPC's in my games don't spend a lot of time telling women to make them a sandwich, assuming all men are sex-crazed idiots, or the like. If your character concept requires an in-universe prejudice, let me know and we can talk about it.

Okay! With all that taken care of, let's make us some fuzzy-wuzzies!

CHARGEN

I'm going to do character creation in a three (hopefully) quick steps. Because this is a one-shot, I don't want to spend so much time on backstory that we lose focus on the actual game, but I do think it's valuable (especially with experienced characters) to spend a bit of time figuring out who these folks are and how they got that way.

First Step:

• Tell me a bit about who your character was at the time of their First Change. What was their life like up till then? What was the fall-out from discovering they were a mythical shapeshifting monster with a divine mandate to spend all their free time picking fights until they died? What plans for their future were completely derailed? What did they tell their family and friends about the sudden changes in their behaviour and circumstances (dropping out of school, moving to the middle of a forest, spending weekends doing eco-terrorism crimes, that one time they got lost in the Umbra for three weeks, etc).

(as with the Application, I don't need a whole novel for this, just a quick look at what your character's story was before the First Change, and then what their story was after. And I know you can just say their whole family is Kinfolk so it was all no big deal, but that's a cop-out. What I really want to see here is lots of sweet, juicy conflict between the two halves of their existence)

With that, please submit a character sheet for your character just before their First Change.

• Attributes: 6/4/3 (no more than one Attribute at 4, and none over 4)
• Abilities: 11/7/4 (nothing over 3, even with Freebies, unless you've got a really, really good reason)
• Backgrounds: 5
• Willpower: 2
• Freebies: 6
• Up to 4 points of Flaws.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Kaworu]

Henlo :3

Nice to see all of you here :3 Below is the first "part" of my CS:

Spoiler: "APPLICATION

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Elevator Pitch

Samuel Kowalski is just your regular IT guy that was born in Poland and moved with his family to America when he was school-aged boy. What’s not so regular about him is being a Glass Walker werewolf (and gay and bioinformatician, besides). He realizes that turning into a hybrid form is very easy – as is letting his wrath do things for him – but as a person of scholarship, he believes he should be seeking for others, less bloodthirsty solutions. Maybe even with vampires, but this part is questionable. Also, he is constantly running away from a dark shadow from his past, this being a homophobic teacher of Polish language and literature at a Polish Saturday school.

2a

Samuel simply lives in Chicago and is a member of local Garous, so he learned about the things by just being there.

3b

Katarzyna Roztocka, a teacher of Polish at a Saturday Polish school Samuel attended when being in Chicago (his parents wanted for him to get a good education and be aware of his roots). She was simply the best – the smartest, kindest, the most beautiful and funny, she knew herself and her goals in life… she was also a homophobe despite being a self-proclaimed “feminist”. The most tragic thing is, would she know that Samuel, her favorite pupil, is gay, she would probably stop being homophobic. However, she was not aware, and as such, said what she said, thus breaking his heart.

Now Samuel lives in constant fear of running on the street into his once greatest hero, turned into a bully. How would he reacts? Run away? Accuse her openly of spreading bigotry? Pretend she does not exists? Would be burst into tears or maybe get angry as heck? He does not know. One thing he does know is, however, this – he wanna avoid such a scenario the best he could.

4

Samuel is really technosavvy, he knows many programming languages and always have some electronic equipment with him. However, despite being really into technology, he is also deeply spiritual – to the point when he wanna avoid violence at all cost, being sure that peaceful solutions are generally preferred to werewolf’s fangs. Of course, you do not always have the luxury of peaceful solutions, especially when dealing with Wyrm, but peace is way to go, not war.

He also, despite having scientific education, strongly believes in Tarot and always have a pocked deck with him. Spirituality, remember?

5

He/Him, both as a player and as a character.

Spoiler: CHARGEN

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Spoiler: FIRST CHANGE

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1. The first Change of Samuel was when he was 15 years old, in his final year of middle school. Before that moment came in, he was most worried about his finals (he wanted to go to a nice high school) and preorder of the newest fantasy novels. Since that day, he used to spend a lot of his free time in the Central Park. He still passed with nice grades, but he seemed much more… isolated fro mother people, so to speak. Disengaged.

He also discovered how hard it is to control his rage, and as a result, got into a lot of fights. This was good, as he usually picked bullies tormenting other kids, but… at least some of the things he had done at the time wasn’t really necessary. He feels ashamed about that when he goes back there.

Spoiler: "CS PRE 1st CHANGE

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ATTRIBUTES

Physical (3)

Strength 2
Dexterity 2
Stamina 2

Social (4)

Charisma 3
Manipulation 2
Appearance 2

Mental (6)

Perception 2
Intelligence 4
Wits 3

ABILITIES

Talents (4)

Alertness 1
Empathy 1
Expression 2

Skills (7)

Survival 3
Animal-Ken 3
Etiquette 1

Knowledges (11)

Academics 2
Computer 2
Science 2
Technology 2
Medicine 1
Occult 1
Rituals 1

Backgrounds

Resources 3
Spirit Heritage 2

Willpower: 8

FREEBIES ALLOCATION:

6p – Willpower 2 to 8

[BananaPhone]

Character Generation:

Spoiler: Danica Radec

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Danica was born and raised in Pasadena, California, on the outskirts of the Los Angeles National Forests. Born to a kinfolk slavic mother and her french father husband, she was initiated into the Garou Nation from an early age and became a regular member of the joint Get of Fenris and Shadow Lord sept within the Los Angeles National Forests. A spirited and athletic tomgirl growing up, she regularly played sports and learned the guitar from an early age, with which she would use her powerful voice to sing the music that spoke to her and influenced others. Though not the most academically gifted, she's no dummy, and has gotten through by being the biggest and toughest on her girls school Ice Hockey and Wrestling teams.


Attributes

Physical
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 3
Stamina: 3

Social
Charisma: 3
Manipulation: 2
Appearance: 2

Mental
Perception: 2
Intelligence: 2
Wits: 2


Abilities

Talents
Alertness: 2
Athletics: 3
Brawl: 3
Empathy: 1
Expression: 1
Leadership: 1

Skills
Animal Ken: 1
Perform 3
Drive: 1
Stealth: 1
Melee: 1

Knowledges
Computer: 1
Investigation: 1
Occult: 1
Technology: 1

Backgrounds
Pure Breed: 4
Resources: 1
Kinfolk: 1

Willpower: 5

Merit: Enchanting Voice (2 pts)

Freebies Spent:
Kinfolk 1
Willpower 3
Merit: Enchanting Voice 2pts

Social
Charisma: 3
Manipulation: 2
Appearance: 2

[Kish]

Glad to be here! Okay. First my application follows.

Spoiler: Application

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1. The "Elevator Pitch." This is a high-energy, high-intensity description of what this character brings to the table. Imagine you're in an elevator with a Netflix exec and you only have a couple of floors to sell them on a mini-series about this character. You don't have time for the whole backstory, just the essentials. The core. The real juicy stuff. Tell me that.

Meghan Farbrace, "Shreds-Leeches," Child of Gaia Ahroun who experienced her First Change after growing up in New York City. She enthusiastically learned everything she could about the Children of Gaia and, when she first encountered vampires, attempted to reason with them. It did not go well and one Daryl Gilholm, a Shadow Lord who had told her that talking to the vampires was pointless, gave her her deed name, presenting it in a mockingly complimentary way that left Meghan with no polite way to disassociate herself from it.

2a. How did you get the Call to go to war in Chicago? Where were you? Who told you? What are your motivations for answering?
2b. OPTIONAL. What was it about the Call for help that made you wary? Or suspicious? That made you think there was more to this than it seemed?

None other than Daryl called her up from the Ring of the Raccoon, telling her that her skill at negotiating with vampires was needed. She hesitated to actually come to Chicago, but the situation does sound dire. She hides from herself how much she would like to actually prove Daryl wrong about his unstated-but-obvious expectation that she'll wind up carving a bloody swathe through Chicago's vampires.

ANSWER ONE OF THESE:
3b. Tell me about someone your character hopes/dreads/expects to run into in Chicago, for any reason. Friend, foe, ally, villain. Tell me why you hope/dread/expect to meet them and why.

She knows Daryl is there. She hopes to interact with him as little as possible, and also to show him up. She reconciles these contradictory desires by only acknowledging the first one.

4. Tell me one way that your character exactly matches a common stereotype of their Tribe, Breed, or Auspice. And tell me one way they directly defy a common stereotype of their Tribe, Breed, or Auspice.

A ferocious warrior, Meghan almost always tries to resolve every situation peacefully...tries. Her simmering rage is something she knows is part of her auspice and thus Gaia's plan for her, but it's hard to reconcile with Children of Gaia teachings.

5. What are your preferred pronouns?

She/her (Meghan), or any (Kish).

NOTE: if we've ever been in a game together, you can skip the next two questions (feel free to ask if you're not sure).

6. Imagine we've been playing together for a while and I PM you and say that one of your Gifts, Merits or other trait is causing me a problem (too powerful, clashes thematically, etc). You disagree with my assessment. You don't see the problem I describe and can't really see where I'm coming from. How would you approach this? How would your approach differ if it was something non-mechanical your character is doing that I have an issue with? What if it was something you (the player) were doing Out of Character?

7. Again, imagine we've been playing together for a while. One of the other players has a cool plan that depends on a certain rule working a certain way. The player checks with me and I okay it. You know I'm wrong. Not in a 'different interpretation' sort of way, but factually, objectively wrong. That's just not how the rule works and you know it. What do you do? How would your approach differ if it was me (the ST) whose cool plan depended on a rule that I had wrong? What if it was your cool plan?

Answering these two together:

The bulk of my early roleplaying background involved White Wolf games back in 2ed times, when every one of them had a heading dedicated to the concept that the rules are only suggestions for the Storyteller. So it'd be simple. In the first case, I'd say "okay" and change it. In the second case, I'd go "ah, so that's how it works in this game."

Now, if you said something like "I can't remember how that Gift works," then I'd quote the text from the rulebook. But I wouldn't be surprised, much less bothered, if you then responded, "I don't like that so it's going to do X instead."

Please let me know if you need or want more on any of these!

Now character generation.

Spoiler: Character

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Meghan was a fairly typical teenager when she underwent her First Change. Her parents, who had no tie to the Garou that they had any record of, were concerned about her developing anger management problems. When, from their perspective, she abruptly changed her social group, started missing more classes, and seemed to calm down drastically, they were cautiously optimistic. This, unfortunately, didn't last. As she got more involved with the Children of Gaia and was able to explain less of her actions to her parents, they became increasingly alarmed, until finally they attempted an intervention, planning to move out of the state and away from those strange, creepy people she was spending all her time with. Instead, Meghan escaped (legally, as she was just over 18 at the time) and moved in with a Children of Gaia sept. Now she is in contact with her parents, but she rarely talks to them. She still can't explain most of her life, and though they're years past trying to coerce her, she knows they think she joined a cult, and logically interpret her continued lack of a comprehensible explanation to mean that she is still a member of that cult.

Spoiler: Human Stats

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Attributes

Physical
Strength: 2
Dexterity: 4
Stamina: 3

Mental
Perception: 3
Intelligence: 2
Wits: 2

Social
Charisma: 2
Manipulation: 2
Appearance: 2

Abilities

Talents
Alertness: 2
Athletics: 2
Brawl: 1
Empathy: 2
Expression: 2
Leadership: 2

Skills
Animal Ken: 1
Crafts: 2
Drive: 1

Knowledges
Academics: 1
Computer: 1
Enigmas: 1
Investigation: 1
Medicine: 1
Occult: 1
Technology: 1

Backgrounds
Ancestors: 1
Fate: 2
Mentor: 1
Pure Breed: 3
Resources: 1

Willpower: 5

[truemane]

Great. Thanks, everyone.

Couple of notes:

Spoiler: Kowaru

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I don't want to spend a lot of time picking at the sheets at this stage, but I have a couple of concerns:

• Three dots in an Ability indicates a professional level. So 3 dots in Survival and Animal Ken represents an enormous amount of time and energy spent living outside and training animals. And there's nothing about that in your backstory.
• Before learning he was Garou, he wouldn't have had a chance to learn the Rituals Knowledge. Unless something very strange happened.
• At 15 years old, it's doubtful that he would have Resources 3, which indicates a well-established Middle Class lifestyle.
• A Willpower of 8 would make Samuel one of the most strong-willed and resilient people on the planet. This isn't really reflected in his backstory.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on the above.

Spoiler: Kish

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Who was/is Meghan's Mentor? Did they take an interest in her before her Change? Or right around the same time?

After addressing any notes, the next step is to Garou up the characters ("Apply the Garou template" as we might have said in CoD).

Tell me a little bit about your character's intro to Garou life. How did they come to know about their Tribe and Auspice? How sharp was the difference between their old life and their new life? What was their time as a Cub like? How was their Rite of Passage? After passing, what was their first few steps into Garou society as a full member like?

And with that, update your sheet as follows:

• Add 1/1/0 to your Attributes.
• Add 2/2/1 to your Abilities (max of 3 dots, as usual before Freebies).
• 3 additional points for Backgrounds
• 3 more additional points of Flaws (if desired)
• Rage, Gnosis and Gifts according to Breed, Tribe and Auspice
• 15 additional Freebies

As always, let me know if you have any questions!

[Kish]

Spoiler: Re: Kish

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Meghan's Mentor is a Child of Gaia Philodox named Sarah Fields from the sept she moved in with after her First Change. She did not consider herself to know her well--or at all, really--before that happened, but she was instrumental in helping Meghan move and adapt to her new life.

Spoiler: Character update

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Meghan was taught about her Tribe and Auspice following her First Change. Her new life was an essentially complete break from her old life. She found the Children of Gaia supportive and comforting, which is lucky as her anger management problems did not get less scary to her from being told it was Gaian rage and that she was born to be a warrior. Her introduction to spirits was also scarier than most people who were there realize.

Her Rite of Passage went surprisingly well for her, and since then, she's become comfortable with every aspect of Garou life except her own rage. She's even reestablished contact with her family.

Spoiler: Werewolf Stats

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Attributes

Physical
Strength: 2
Dexterity: 4
Stamina: 4

Mental
Perception: 3
Intelligence: 2
Wits: 3

Social
Charisma: 2
Manipulation: 2
Appearance: 2

Abilities

Talents
Alertness: 2
Athletics: 2
Brawl: 3
Empathy: 2
Expression: 2
Leadership: 2

Skills
Animal Ken: 1
Crafts: 2
Drive: 1
Melee: 1

Knowledges
Academics: 1
Computer: 1
Enigmas: 2
Investigation: 1
Medicine: 1
Occult: 2
Technology: 1

Backgrounds
Ancestors: 2
Fate: 3
Mentor: 2
Pure Breed: 3
Resources: 1

Rage: 8
Gnosis: 5
Willpower: 9

Gifts
Breed: City Running
Auspice: Razor Claws
Tribe: Mother's Touch

[Kaworu]

Dear Truemane.

Most of what you mention boils basically down to this - there were some points and I needed to place them somewhere. If you can allow me, I could "save" some "loose points" to spend later, so that would solve at least some of the problems.

As to Survival and Animal Ken - I have some points to spend in that category of Skills and no other skills caught my eye. Unless we can "store" points or maybe turn them into into Freebies and spend somewhere else, things would get slightly problematic in here.

I mean, I do not know what to say. Usually you aren't creating characters in WoD in a "historical view" and even then sometimes you just have to pick some points in some categories, so the character can be kinda "weird".

Of course, I am open to some changes and I wanna be cooperational. Still, I would like not to pick some random skills I do not wanna at all. But we can talk about things, I believe? ;-)

PS. My solution - if I can "save" some points and spend at later point (lets say, the third dots in Survival and Animal Ken, the 1 dot in Rituals plus maybe Resources?) I would like to. I dunno what to do about the high Willpower. Maybe I can lover the dots to, let's say, 6? And "save" the Freebies at a later stage? Would that solution be acceptable?

EDIT:

Okay, my proposal:

1. I write in backstory Boy Scouts or something and I thus keep the 3 dots in Survivail and Animal Ken.
2. I change Resources 3 into Kinfolk 2 (his family) and +1 (sum: 3) into Spirit Heritage.
3. I lower WIllpower to 6 and...? Keep the 2 Freebies till the next stage? Spend it somewhere else? (maybe more Kinfolk???)
4. I change Rituals into Science 1 (maybe Chemistry, to accompany his Biology?) [BTW, I should have named the science(s) in my CS, I totally forgot about it T_T Im sorry :-( )

[Kish]

Unsolicted advice, so feel free to tell me to butt out of course, but maybe switch Abilities priority between Skills and Talents? Talents are generally easier to explain having a point here or there, in my experience. (Might also be a place to spend freebies.)

[BananaPhone]

Sheet there, just need to update the fluff later today.

Spoiler: Danica Radec

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Danica was born and raised in Pasadena, California, on the outskirts of the Los Angeles National Forests. Born to a kinfolk slavic mother and her french father husband, she was initiated into the Garou Nation from an early age and became a regular member of the joint Get of Fenris and Shadow Lord sept within the Los Angeles National Forests. A spirited and athletic tomgirl growing up, she regularly played sports and learned the guitar from an early age, with which she would use her powerful voice to sing the music that spoke to her and influenced others. Though not the most academically gifted, she's no dummy, and has gotten through by being the biggest and toughest on her girls school Ice Hockey and Wrestling teams.

Fortunately, Danica's First Change took place within the Los Angeles National Forests. Though damaging to some trees and some fauna, and giving a couple of Garou a few minor scars, Danica is lucky to not have killed anyone, which is an experience she knows is in a minority among the Garou Nation, but one she is thankful for. At this stage, Danica had already finished High School and was producing music with her band and earning a surprisingly decent income that she handed over to kinfolk to look out for her on her behalf. Her introduction to the Garou Nation changed everything. Where before she knew about it, she had never been truly inside it like she was now, having bred true and become one of them.

As her local sept was Get of Fenris and Shadow Lord dominated, Danica learned the hard knocks pretty quickly. The grey wolves would kick your ass, the black wolves would smile and pretend to be your friend while kicking your ass. No longer able to maintain normal relations with most of her prior fans, Danica had to leave her band and induct herself deeper into the Shadow Lord tribe as a whole, her role as Galliard giving her another musical outlet where she could do what she loved and for a righteous cause.

Danica's Rite of Passage wasn't exactly what she was expecting. She and a group of other Shadow Lord and Get of Fenris cubs were sent to follow up an investigation of strange, nightly activity on the fringes of the Los Angeles National Forest. What seemed to be illegal poachers turned into a small-scale human trafficking ring, with the forest serving as a 'waystation' almost between Mexico and somewhere else within the US interior, smuggling illegal immigrants - the women for prostitution and the men for transformation into Fomori. Raiding a small, unassuming warehouse in East LA, the pup pack was horrified by what they saw inside, and to discover that even the local vampires were involved. However, these weren't normal vampires, these ones were much more...aggressive, more group-orientated and connected to the darker elements of human society, including gangs and narcotics. It was only later that Danica would learn that the vampires had their own factions, with LA being dominated by the "Anarchs", and the ones she encountered being of the "Sabbat". However, it was clear that the operation was far bigger in a scope that was manageable by a single pup pack going through their Rite of Passage, and so the group reported their findings to their Sept who then sent the information along the Garou Nation grapevine for further investigation.

Having passed her Rite of Passage, Danica's first steps were cordial. She's a Galliard: if you want someone to boast about your great deeds, and every Werewolf does, she's your best friend. Charismatic and a great musician, athletic and capable in a scrap, easy to get along with and someone you want to sing your praises to a moot, Danica has had no shortages of 'friends'. And she's needed it. Having to leave her parents behind, her prior band behind, any hopes of a famous music career behind, she now can only play gigs with kinfolk, and the Shadow Lord and Get of Fenris stock aren't exactly bubbling with punk-metal enthusiasts. So, she's planning out a solo career.


Attributes

Physical
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 4
Stamina: 3

Social
Charisma: 4
Manipulation: 3
Appearance: 2

Mental
Perception: 2
Intelligence: 2
Wits: 2


Abilities

Talents
Alertness: 2
Athletics: 3
Brawl: 3
Empathy: 1
Expression: 1
Primal Urge: 2
Leadership: 1

Skills
Animal Ken: 1
Perform 3
Drive: 1
Stealth: 2
Melee: 1
Survival: 1

Knowledges
Computer: 1
Investigation: 1
Occult: 1
Rituals: 1
Technology: 1

Backgrounds
Pure Breed: 4
Resources: 3
Kinfolk: 1
Fetish: 1

Rage: 6
Gnosis: 4
Willpower: 7


Merit: Enchanting Voice (2 pts)

Freebies Spent:
Kinfolk 1
Willpower 3
Merit: Enchanting Voice 2pts

Rage +2 (2)
Gnosis +3 (6)
Will +2 (1)
Charisma +1 (5)

[truemane]

Most of what you mention boils basically down to this - there were some points and I needed to place them somewhere. If you can allow me, I could "save" some "loose points" to spend later, so that would solve at least some of the problems.

The main reason I like to do things this way is to give the characters a bit of a 'lived in' feel. When you make experienced characters all at once, using all their XP and Freebies in one go, the tendency is to focus on those things that are useful to your character at the end of their arc, and not think as much about how they got there.

The secondary reason I do it this way is to see if, should your concept get in the way of spending your points, how you broaden or alter or tweak the concept to make things work. In the past, I've found that I work best with players who bring a sense of flexibility and collaboration to the table. It's important to me that we all operate a bit like an improv troupe, who can take what comes their way and say "Yes, and" rather than "No."

So, while I don't want to spend a lot of time picking at minutiae, it is important to me that we start as we mean to go forward.

Saving points for later defeats that purpose.

Some thoughts:

1. Survival and Animal Ken
Are those two traits important for Samuel for some reason? Is there a gift or something that requires them? Or were they places to put dots? If they're important, then keep them, but put them into Samuel's background to the extent that their importance is really reflected (a childhood spent in the wilderness, years on a farm, a lifelong passion for training dogs). If they're just where you put dots, then lets move them around. As Kish said, you could just make Skills tertiary and Talents secondary. I could easily see Samuel having another dot of Alertness or Empathy or Brawl (High School kids are jerks). Possibly even Streetwise if he's spent any time hanging out with people older than him, or with criminal computer people, or out on the streets hiding from his parents, or whatever.

Conversely, a dot or two of Etiquette could make sense (his computer skills could easily bring him into contact with different communities, different kinds of people, etc), as could a dot or two of Drive (spending time in a car is easy enough to justify for just about anyone). I could even accept a dot of Larceny if he's hung out with any real hackers online, or even just done a lot of reading or research.

His dot of Rituals could be switched to Science. But Technology would also make perfect sense. Or I would even accept him having 3 dots in Computers. That's one of the few Knowledges where a teenager can plausibly have professional-level ability. A dot of Investigation or Law is also easy enough to justify for someone smart and logical, who spends a lot of time searching for things online.

2. Willpower
Willpower is important enough and cheap enough that players always want to jack it up really high. I usually make Willpower cost 2 Freebies to raise for this exact reason. I just forgot this time. And, again, I don't want to micro-manage everyone's allocations, but consider that most people have a Willpower of 2 or 3. A Willpower of 4 or 5 would be someone of tremendous resolve and resilience. 8 is, like, top 5% of all people in the whole world. If Samuel had a Willower of 8, it would be obvious everywhere in his life. If you say he has it, I believe you, but I just want to see how it shows up, what it looks like for him going through life with essentially no doubts, no fear, and completely unfazed by anything.

I just want to make sure that the dots, whatever that are, are a part of the character's story, and not just numbers on a page.

(incidentally, this sort of thing is the main reason I started making characters using this method - I got tired of every single Vampire character sheet I saw having 10 Willpower, 3 Melee and/or 5 Resources)

Also, it might be worth considering Merits. They're a great way to spend points for more narrative-based traits.

My goal here is to encourage creativity and collaboration, not shut them down.

Please let me know your thoughts.

[BananaPhone]

Edited in Danica's stuff.

[Kaworu]

Okay, so:

1. About Survival/Animal Ken, as I said, I just had some dots and there was no better allocation of them. I will try to maybe switch things around a bit, I will see.

2. Would Willpower 4 be considered "normal"? But, on other hand, it would mean I would have some more Freeies (or something? I'm on the go rn and cannot really open book in this exact second) and I would not really know where to put them dots? Some Backgrounds sound generally cool, but really high points of them are, by the very nature, "exceptional" and I do not know if I wanna play an exaptional werewolf in this fashion?

Oh, choices xD

Okay, below version 1.2 of my character sheet:

Spoiler: CHARGEN

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Spoiler: FIRST CHANGE

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1. The first Change of Samuel was when he was 15 years old, in his final year of middle school. Before that moment came in, he was most worried about his finals (he wanted to go to a nice high school) and preorder of the newest fantasy novels. Since that day, he used to spend a lot of his free time in the Central Park. He still passed with nice grades, but he seemed much more… isolated fro mother people, so to speak. Disengaged.

He also discovered how hard it is to control his rage, and as a result, got into a lot of fights. This was good, as he usually picked bullies tormenting other kids, but… at least some of the things he had done at the time wasn’t really necessary. He feels ashamed about that when he goes back there.

Spoiler: "CS PRE 1st CHANGE

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ATTRIBUTES

Physical (3)

Strength 2
Dexterity 2
Stamina 2

Social (4)

Charisma 3
Manipulation 2
Appearance 2

Mental (6)

Perception 3
Intelligence 4
Wits 3

ABILITIES

Talents (4)

Alertness 1
Empathy 1
Expression 2

Skills (7)

Survival 2
Animal-Ken 2
Etiquette 1
Drive 1
Melee 1

Knowledges (11)

Academics (Literature) 2
Computer 2
Science (Biology) 2
Science (Chemistry) 1
Technology 2
Medicine 1
Occult 1

Backgrounds

Kinfolk 3
Spirit Heritage 2

Willpower: 3

FREEBIES ALLOCATION:

1p – Willpower 2 to 3
5p - Perception 2 to 3