Carpe Vegas Overview Prized initially for the native hot springs, it gets its name from the meadows that made this a natural oasis. It did not take long to grow once the railroads came through. But it wasn't until some entrepreneurs fine tuned the art of gambling here that Las Vegas became famous. The joke is that Hoover Dam was built just to provide the electricity for all of the lights that shine 24 hours a day in Vegas. Paris is known as the original City of Lights, but Vegas has stolen the nickname in recent years. Now that there's a Paris casino hotel, what's the difference, anyway? It is also known as The City That Never Sleeps, snatching that moniker from New York City, another transplant to Vegas. To that end, just about every fantasy or favorite tourist location on earth has been replicated along Las Vegas Boulevard, known affectionately as The Strip. Every desire is catered to. Gambling, drinking, shows, shopping, and of course, the topless dancing. If it's legal, it's there. Even the brothels are legal, outside of town, but they're there. Could any place make a finer setting for the nightly rapture of the undead? Why, there's even a revue at the Stratosphere that features voluptuous vampire vixens just wanting to sink their teeth into you. As Anne Rice put it, "Vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires... how avant-garde!" But this is the case everywhere along the strip. Like any other region with a group of vampires vying for control, Las Vegas has a Prince. His name is Rex Dominus, a Ninth Generation Ventrue, and part of the Camarilla. He fancies himself a fair man, always willing to hear out any pleadings and excuses of those whose fate requires his audience. However, his judgment is swift and appropriate when it is deemed necessary. To say he is wealthy is an understatement. He is a shadow partner in all of the Strip resorts, although none of the public owners realize his stake in all of them. He "allows" the various organized crime syndicates in town to exist, and remarkably does not get a single percentage of their action. He doesn't need it, nor does he desire their blood money. All he asks is their loyalty to him, and that they keep their battles amongst themselves to a small scale. He loves the glitz and glamour of the city and strives to make sure it covers the seedy underbelly that most people know is there but rarely ever see. His haven is The Penthouse at Caesar's Palace -- how could it be anywhere else. But not the Penthouse that is rented to the High-Rollers. He lets them have their illusions, all the while being the reigning Master and King of Sin City. Though he has his trusted allies, retainers, contacts, etc., he has only one true friend, Corey Bantes, the Malkavian Primogen, who can be found reliving his Jester days at the Excalibur. The rest of the Primogen are of the typical seven of the Camarilla: Brujah, Gangrel, Nosferatu, Toreador, and Tremere. (If you would like to play a member of the Prince's Primogen, let me know.) Since many of the players in this game are new to Vampire: The Masquerade, and even to Role-Playing itself, I will endeavor to explain as much as possible. If you can find a copy of V:TM and The Players Guide in a book store, I highly recommend picking it up. First, it will be a valuable asset and reference if you find you acquire a taste. Second, with the new World Of Darkness and Vampire: The Requiem sourcebooks, the original line is dead and hard to find. I chose to use the original line because I am familiar with it, I love it, and am actually using the Second Edition, not the 3rd Revised Edition. This is a testament to how long I've been playing, and not necessarily a preference. If you find I'm referencing things that are different from your book, let me know, and I'll be able to tweak the story to make all rules fit. As most of you have not played, the rules I have here are to help you out. The story is very free-form and flexible. I have no specific "plot" in mind. We are all story tellers in this game. My role is to set the stage, mood and atmosphere. I may direct a few players, but apart from controlling the extras, I leave you all to be the stars. House Rules First, no vampires are allowed to start higher on the food chain than Eighth Generation. At first, every player starts at 13th Generation, that being how far removed you are from Caine, the progenitor of vampires. This makes you a brand new fresh vampire, Sired by a 12th Generation vampire. Most people like to create characters that are more powerful than these "weak-bloods". Doing this requires boosting a Background trait called Generation. There is a maximum growth for any trait (on the sheet, and in this game) of Five. Therefore, if you boosted your Generation by 5, the "oldest" you could be is Eighth Generation. Fair? ~ Please note, Generation does not necessarily mean the age of your character. You could claim that your 7th Generation sire Embraced you yesterday, or three centuries ago. Second, I would prefer to roll all of the dice for the game. I will make all rolls public knowledge, unless the situations require discretion. If a player needs to roll dice, to avoid/encounter a situation, and it does not need to be made public, I will send the user a PM. This is how I prefer to avoid a situation that could come up where two players might argue over the result of a dice roll, and it's legitimacy. Even if I could rig a forum mod to cast a dice result into a post, a post can be edited later. If I post a message with a die roll - I'm the only one who could edit that post. As the StoryTeller, I ultimately act as parlimentarian and referee. If you can't trust the legitimacy of my rolls, maybe you shouldn't play. Third, since most of you are beginners, I expect there will be very little flourish and finish to a new character. I am happy to help you flesh out any trait you'd like your character to have. Understanding what traits are possible is key to having fun with your character. As ST, I have the power to grant Divine Dots, as I call them. If anybody has finished their character and really has a justification for some special trait, I may grant an extra DD or two to make it possible. But if/when I do so, every character in the game gets the same number of extra Dots for that category. This means there are no Disadvantages among players. ~ Once your player is set, though, I will ask a fairly scrict adherence to your character's abilities. Not all vampires are created equal, and there's no presumption allowed for "well, all vampires can do that". If you don't know what your vamp can do, because you don't really know what a trait means, Ask. The Newbies will do this a few times, and a few wrist slaps may occur. If it becomes a problem, beware the wrath of the ST. Muahaha... Divine Intervention, gotta love it. Finally, feel free to ask questions. But if you do, keep them out of the game thread itself. Post a new message or drop me a line. Please keep the Game Threads pure. No off topic or Out Of Character (OOC) comments. It is possible to have multiple Game Threads here, because not all action happens in one place. If you want to start a new game thread, start your subject with [GT]. Thank you,
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The Lurkers' DomainI'd rather be lurking... |
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Of Dice and Men
In a role-playing game, the element of chance becomes a factor -- otherwise it is just interactive fiction. In many games, dice are used to determine the success of an outcome. Sometimes this is to determine whether you can take or do something, but most often it is used to determine the victor of a battle.
The Game Master makes the ultimate decisions over what circumstances will require dice to be rolled. When the dice rolling is "heavy", you might find yourself rolling to make sure that a) you can use your weapon, b) if you strike first, c) whether your weapon fires, d) if your opponent takes the hit, and how much damage they get, or if they dodged, and then, THEY get a turn to do the same.
Vampire: The Masquerade is no different, but the rules can be as relaxed or as strict as the StoryTeller deems necessary.
As this is a beginners' game, I want to show the dice rolls that are used, but I will probably (depending on the situation of course) not roll much dice. Even if this game wasn't online, too much dice rolling can detract from the story, which V:TM players have come to favor over dry game mechanics.
V:TM did introduce a fine system for determining the success of an action, which is different from many other RPGs.
d10 is a designation to means that you willing be rolling a ten-sided die. Ten is a great indicator of success, as it can easily be seen as a tenth of a percentile. Most situations will call for multiple dice, five on average, known as 5d10, but this is dependant on the skills and attributes of your character.
The other factor is the difficulty of a situation. By default, any situation that requires a dice roll will have a difficulty of 6. The Difficulty Factor is the determining factor of success. To count a die rolled to be successful, it needs to meet or beat the Difficulty Factor. If something is easy to do, the DF might be a 3. If it is particularly hard to do, the DF might be a 7 or 8. A 10 is near impossible, and a 2 isn't worth rolling the dice.
Rolling a 1 is a special case, called a botch. If you roll a 1 on a die, you failed to succeed so horribly that it will nullify a success you rolled on another die.
Fast Getaway
My favorite example is driving a car. You've just pulled off a heist and need to make a fast getaway. Your partner in crime is dead and he was your getaway driver. You need to look at your character's sheet to figure out how likely your getaway is. (Because if your character doesn't know how to drive, he's better off running at this point, or maybe hijacking a cab.)
You look at your sheet and you have 3 points of Intelligence and 2 points in Drive (under Abilities/Skills). This means you can roll 5 dice total. The ST describes the car as being a stick shift, so he rates the DF at 7. So you or he rolls 5d10>7 (that's how I shorthand the needed roll.)
The dice come up as follows: [4][10][6][1][8] There were two successes (10 and 8), two failures (4 and 6), and one botch. The botch cancelled out one of your successes, so ultimately you only got one success. This means that at the very least you were about to start the car, get it into gear, and drive off.
But imagine if you had one less success; this would imply you couldn't even start the car (for whatever reason, out of gas, dead battery, you forgot your buddy's keys, etc.) Imagine another botch on top of that, completely botching the roll, and maybe you can't get into the car at all!
But by the same token, if you get even more successes, the success of the drive should be even greater, like you really peel rubber back to your lair, expertly weaving through traffic.
Mortal Combat
The same type of situation can be encountered in combat, but I will use a greatly simplified system in the interest in time between turns.
- Both players are presumed to attack at the same time.
- I will then check the weapons used by both. If any character has more than one, I will ask that player which they choose to draw. If one player has no weapons, I will ask that player if they want to flee or stay to fight, dodge, whatever.
- I will then roll dice equal to each player's traits, and choose a difficulty based on the wielding of those weapons. (In the case of a player without a weapon, dice will be rolled to see if they successfully flee or avoid the other's attack.)
- The number of successes will be the points of damage caused to the opponent. If there's no success, they dodged your attack. If you Botch, then you missed.
- Finally, I post the results of the dice and briefly describe what transpired in that turn.
By this method dice are only rolled once per turn. A lot of rolling might be done, but there is no back and forth just to establish the results of just one turn.
At the end of a turn, both parties must tell me what they wish to do in the next turn. "Fight" or "Flight" is all that really needs to be said, unless you need to suggest a different weapon, or what you want to do defensively, etc.
Yes, claws and teeth are weapons just as dangerous as swords and guns. Don't think you have to avoid a battle because you don't have something else.
D