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| Resources and How They Work; Also, a practical use for Finance | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 12 2018, 04:44 AM (4 Views) | |
| TheStranger | Jan 12 2018, 04:44 AM Post #1 |
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On the topic of Resources: Previous editions of Vampire really liked to nail down Resources to give them dollar values and such. V20 has backed off of that approach, and I would assert that is a good thing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is cost of living variations. $10,000 goes a lot farther in some places than others. Here is an excerpt from the V20 book on the Resources background. Resources Resources are valuable goods whose disposition your character controls. These assets may be actual cash, but as this Background increases, they’re more likely to be investments, property, or earning capital of some sort — land, industrial assets, stocks and bonds, commercial inventories, criminal infrastructure, contraband, even taxes or tithes. Remember that vampires don’t need to arrange for any food except blood and their actual needs (as opposed to wants) for shelter are very easily accommodated. Resources for vampires go mostly to pay for luxuries and the associated expenses of developing and maintaining Status, Influence, and other Backgrounds. A character with no dots in Resources may have enough clothing and supplies to get by, or she may be destitute and squatting in a refrigerator box under an overpass. You receive a basic allowance each month based on your rating, so be certain to detail exactly where this money comes from, be it a job, trust fund or dividends. (Storytellers, decide for your locality and any relevant time period what an appropriate amount of cash this monthly allowance is.) After all, a Kindred’s fortune may well run out over the course of the chronicle, depending on how well he maintains it. You can also sell your less liquid resources if you need the cash, but this can take weeks or even months, depending on what exactly you’re trying to sell. Art buyers don’t just pop out of the woodwork, after all. Players may purchase Resources for their characters with pooled Background points. • Sufficient. You can maintain a typical residence in the style of the working class with stability, even if spending sprees come seldom. •• Moderate. You can display yourself as a member in good standing of the middle class, with the occasional gift and indulgence seemly for a person of even higher station. You can maintain a servant or hire specific help as necessary. A fraction of your resources are available in cash, readily portable property (like jewelry or furniture), and other valuables (such as a car or modest home) that let you maintain a standard of living at the one-dot level wherever you happen to be, for up to six months. ••• Comfortable. You are a prominent and established member of your community, with land and an owned dwelling, and you have a reputation that lets you draw on credit at very generous terms. You likely have more tied up in equity and property than you do in ready cash. You can maintain a one-dot quality of existence wherever you are without difficulty, for as long as you choose. •••• Wealthy. You rarely touch cash, as most of your assets exist in tangible forms that are themselves more valuable and stable than paper money. You hold more wealth than many of your local peers (if they can be called such a thing). When earning your Resources doesn’t enjoy your usual degree of attention, you can maintain a three-dot existence for up to a year, and a two dot existence indefinitely. ••••• Extremely Wealthy. You are the model to which others strive to achieve, at least in the popular mind. Television shows, magazine spreads, and gossip websites speculate about your clothing, the appointments of your numerous homes, and the luxury of your modes of transportation. You have vast and widely distributed assets, perhaps tied to the fates of nations, each with huge staffs and connections to every level of society through a region. You travel with a minimum of three-dot comforts, more with a little effort. Corporations and governments sometimes come to you to buy into stocks or bond programs. Note that each level is measured relative to the others rather than assigning a dollar value. To eliminate confusion, we are removing references to Net Worth from the tracking threads, though we will leave cash on hand if players still want to make use of that area occasionally, as that could be an important factor during gameplay. When you want to purchase something or otherwise use your Resources, the Storyteller will get a sense for how much money you are trying to use and then make a determination if it's something that would fit within your budget. A roll might be required to see if you are capable of coming up with the necessary resources to expend such cash, difficulties may vary, but more importantly, number of successes might be critical. Can you afford that new Porsche right now? Maybe it needs 3 successes to buy it with cash right this second. Only have Resources 1? Sorry, you can't possibly come up with enough cash (you can't roll enough successes). You'll have to do something actively in game to afford it (perhaps finding a way to increase Resources, even). The Storyteller uses their discretion as to how often and how deeply you can use your Resources to make purchases and expend cash. If you flaunt your Resources too much, just like in real life, you might damage your Resources rating, temporarily (or permanently) reducing it to a lower level. Generally speaking, a Storyteller should warn a player before such an expenditure causes some damage, though that may not apply to every situation. It is reasonable to assert that a character with higher points in Finance would be more aware of the state of their Resources and have some chance to avoid such a fate before it happens. Additionally, if a player needs to use their Resources and has sufficient time to make some preparations, at the Storyteller's discretion, the player may roll Intelligence + Finance (assuming they have Finance) at a difficulty determined by the ST (depending on the situation) and add the number of successes as bonus dice to the Resources roll. The number of bonus dice may not exceed the character's Finance or Resource rating, whichever is lower. This roll is to signify temporarily using your financial prowess to flex your Resources beyond their normal limitations temporarily. As above, this may not always be an option, as the ST may deem that such options are not available at a particular time or in a specific situation, or you may have flexed your finances too far too often to support an additional use of it at that time. So in general, when in doubt, ask your Storyteller, but this should hopefully give some structure to how Resources work in our game. |
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6:18 PM Jul 10