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St. Lawrence, Maine

Sunday, April 19th, 2015

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The shattered corpse of a dormant city slowly stirs as life seeps back into it. It is a place where seeds of redemption now take root while a timeless struggle for supremacy begins anew. Beneath the rotted shell of the city, under the desperation and despair, lurks untapped power. Multiple factions of Kindred (and others) vie for control, and that power impatiently waits for those ambitious enough to grasp it. Welcome to St. Lawrence by Night

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End of Act I / Time Skip
Topic Started: Mar 6 2018, 08:03 AM (2 Views)
Oracle

So, St. Lawrence by Night is the name of our game. But what's the name of the chronicle we're playing? I never really thought about it. The current chronicle's name is "Sleeping Dragons."

Yes, I just made that up.

As time goes on, you'll understand why more and more. Hopefully.

As the Elysium of April 11th draws to an end, this will bring Act I of Sleeping Dragons to a close. I don't have clearly defined beginnings and ends to the acts, no, but just more of a general sense of flow and narrative.

In Act I, what I’m calling “The Investigation,” the non-Sabbat vampires (the PCs) have managed to make some real headway in terms of the meta plot, as well as their own personal plots in many cases. The biggest advancement of the central plot is that the Sabbat has finally been located at Edgerow Penitentiary in the Outskirts. No one has seen them directly, but sufficient evidence has been gathered to reach that conclusion. This wasn’t everything obviously, but it was the main thing that needed to happen for the overall plot of the game to advance into Act II. Act II is dubbed, “The Siege.” Is that referring to the allied vampires laying siege to the prison? Or is it referring to the Sabbat finally laying siege to St. Lawrence? Wouldn’t you like to know?

And so we end Act I with something of a bookend. As the non-Sabbat vampires plan for the next phase of their campaign to rid the city of the Sabbat menace (or not), we will disrupt the normal flow of the narrative at that point. What will this look like? I’m glad you asked, Timothy. BEHOLD!




On IRL Monday, February 26th, the time skip will begin. Normal narrative posting will be suspended for 1 week (through March 4th). During this time, players will spend the week accelerated through an off-camera span of 7 days in game. We will skip from April 12th (Sunday) to April 19th (Sunday). So in other words, when you come back on March 5th, the date in game will be April 19th.

So what happens during the 1 week that the time skip takes place? It depends on a few things.


If you intend to keep playing the same character you were playing previously:

I will ask you to provide a bullet-point list of activities your vampire would be up to during this week. You need not include routine things like feeding yourself, your ghouls, etc. That’s all assumed. What I want to know about is what you character is PLANNING to do during that week. Keep in mind that you only have so many hours a night and so many nights, but you can plan to do as much or as little as you want. How much you get done is another story.
I don’t really want to break things down into hours, cuz life never works out the way you plan and this isn’t a real life simulator, but we can deal in generalities. But I do want there to be a little bit of mechanics involved to keep things reasonable. Not to worry, I’ll handle most of the heavy lifting, even though it won’t be complicated. At the same time, I don’t want you making these decisions based on math. Your character doesn’t know you’re going to have an uninterrupted week to do stuff, so you shouldn’t play it as such. But the alliance will basically let everyone know that they are entering the planning phase, and that everyone should lay low concerning the Sabbat for awhile until they get things off the ground. So I want you to come up with these lists of things you intend to do by putting yourself in your character’s shoes and acting as they act. Again, you do not need to put routine things like feeding or paying bills on there. That’s all just assumed to be taken care of in your nightly life.

Once I review your list, I’ll come back to you and let you know how much of your week that will take. Mechanically speaking, everyone will get a total of 15 points. We’ll call them downtime points for those of you who need that to live. These 15 downtime points represent the sum total of time you can devote to the activities on your list during this week of downtime. Some activities will require very few points. Some will require a ton. Most will fall somewhere inbetween. This will also vary depending on who your character is, what their circumstances are, and HOW you go about the given activities. So when coming up with your list, you need to describe how you’re going about achieving each particular goal, as obviously some tactics will work better than others.

For example, if you want to gain the local priest as a ghoul retainer, you could try to seduce him, you could trick him into drinking your blood as part of the sacrament, you could mind control him, you could be honest with him, etc. Each of these methods will take varying degrees of time depending on who you are and what you can do, but they will also potentially have an effect on the outcome. For instance, if you trick the priest into a blood bond, you’re likely to have a different end result than if you threatened him, even though both ways gets you a retainer in the end.

Once I give you back your list with all of the required downtime points for each item, I will also let you know which activities require rolls. Some activities won’t need rolls, potentially, but some things won’t be automatically successful, or the degree of success might matter. In those cases, keep in mind that failure might be an option, so if you choose to take one of those activities during your downtime, if you don’t roll well, you might waste those downtime points. WP cannot be spent on these type of rolls, nor can blood.

So once you’ve seen the list with the assigned rolls and downtime points required, the next step is for you to choose how you want to spend those points. You choose from the list and make a second, shorter list, indicating which activities you want to engage in, keeping in mind you have 15 points to spend. Any unused points are not retained or refunded – they would be like time that you didn’t need/want to use.

Depending on what you choose to do, you will likely end up gaining some benefits. Those benefits might be something like background points in Retainers, Contacts, Allies, Domain, etc. Likewise, say you spend time doing reconnaissance on some enemy you intend to fight (Sabbat or otherwise), you might gain some mechanical or situational advantage in the future when you face that enemy. Perhaps it will be more substantial if you spend more time on it. At the very least, you’ll probably get more dice rolls to get it right (assuming it requires a roll) if you spend more time on it, most likely.

Also, yes, if you have retainers, allies, etc., they can be active during this time, too, but I’m not assigning them their own pool of points. They are not main characters, so it’s assumed they have other things to be on about (like serving your lesser, off-screen whims). If you want to assign them a small list of things to do, that’s fine, but none of them should be terribly involved or extremely beneficial to you. Feel free to push this as much as you want, but don’t be surprised when you get told “no” if your ideas get out of hand.

You will also start the new night after the break at your max blood, WP, and health. Additionally, you will gain 7 XP.


So here’s an example of how this will work.


Francois the Ravnos generates the following list of things he intends to do during this downtime:

1. Use his Animalism to attract a pigeon and then ghoul it.
2. Use his Animalism to attract a stray dog and then ghoul it.
3. Shadow the local mob boss and learn his habits.
4. Build a new PC with the latest technology.
5. Fortify his haven by installing more locks, steel shutters, and Home Alone style booby traps.
6. Indulge his gambling addiction at the local casino.
7. Set up an underground gambling ring in the abandoned buildings in his neighborhood.
8. Visit the Prince to petition to grant Domain for the area he’s setting up the gambling ring.
9. Schmoozing with the local criminal element to gain contacts in the city’s underworld.
10. Going to the all night gun range with his pistol to practice shooting.


So Francois’s player send this list to the StoryTeller. The ST reviews and responds as follows:
1. Use his Animalism to attract a pigeon and then ghoul it. – No roll required. 2 points
2. Use his Animalism to attract a stray dog and then ghoul it. – No roll required. 2 points.
3. Shadow the local mob boss and learn his habits over several nights. – Roll Wits + Stealth. DC 7. 2 points per roll, and you can spend as many points you wish up to max.
4. Build a new PC with the latest technology. – Assuming high enough Resources, roll Intelligence + Computers. 1 point.
5. Fortify his haven by installing more locks, steel shutters, and Home Alone style booby traps. – Assuming high enough Resources, roll Dexterity or Intelligence + Crafts. DC 6. 2 points per roll, and you can spend as many points you wish up to max.
6. Indulge his gambling addiction at the local casino. - No roll required. 1 point or more.
7. Set up an underground gambling ring in the abandoned buildings in his neighborhood. - Roll Manipulation + Streetwise. DC 6. 6 points.
8. Visit the Prince to petition to grant Domain for the area he’s setting up the gambling ring by explaining why that logically makes sense for everyone. - Roll Manipulation + Politics. DC 8. 2 points.
9. Schmoozing with the local criminal element to gain contacts in the city’s underworld. - Roll Charisma + Streetwise. DC 6. 1 point per roll, and you can spend as many points you wish up to max.
10. Going to the all night gun range with his pistol to practice shooting. – No roll required. You can spend as many points on this as you like, understanding that practice makes perfect.


So Francois takes this list and goes over it, deciding what to do with his 15 points. He settles on the following:

1. Use his Animalism to attract a stray dog and then ghoul it. – No roll required. 2 points.
2. Shadow the local mob boss and learn his habits over several nights. – Roll Wits + Stealth. DC 7. 2 points
3. Indulge his gambling addiction at the local casino. - No roll required. 2 points.
4. Set up an underground gambling ring in the abandoned buildings in his neighborhood. - Roll Manipulation + Streetwise. DC 6. 6 points.
5. Visit the Prince to petition to grant Domain for the area he’s setting up the gambling ring by explaining why that logically makes sense for everyone. - Roll Manipulation + Politics. DC 8. 2 points.
6. Going to the all night gun range with his pistol to practice shooting. – No roll required. 1 point.


The ST reviews and approves, then Francois makes his rolls.

2. 1 success
4. 2 successes
5. 0 successes

The ST replies with the results:
1. Francois gains 1 point of Retainer for the ghouled dog. It’s just a ghouled dog. Nothing fancy.
2. With 1 success, Francois learns where the mob boss sleeps, but that’s about it. The rest of his routine was too hard to follow and Francois probably should have spent more time on it.
3. While gambling all night one night, Francois learned that some local criminals are planning to rob an armored car in a few days. Francois can use this information as he sees fit.
4. With 2 successes, Francois is able to set up the gambling ring pretty well. It’s not a complete success, but it’s most of the way there, so his operation starts off missing a few non-critical things, but it won’t be long before it’s up to speed and well under way. This operation can be used for all manner of things going forward, potentially even giving Francois grounds to eventually increase his Resources.
5. Francois fails to convince the Prince and leaves empty handed like so many Ravnos before him.
6. Francois gains 1 special XP that can be spent toward Firearms or Dexterity increase only. He likely would have gained more if he spent more points on going to practice. NOTE: This may not be a 1 for 1 exchange in all cases. For instance, it might potentially take 5 downtime points to gain 3 special XP. It may vary.


Was this necessarily the most efficient thing he could have done? No, but again, we’re trying to make it feel like he spent a week doing things organically, not that he had a menu to pick from.



Alternatively, if you are starting a new character during this downtime, you will get to use this system, as well, but with the following changes:

You will have 6 downtime points to spend rather than 15.
You will gain 3 XP rather than 7 XP.

Otherwise, this will function the same way as it will for existing characters, and the assumption will be that you came to town and started working on your own things right away. You may want to spend some of your points getting the lay of the land, asking your superiors for information, etc. as that may all help to get you up to speed more quickly in meaningful ways. Just ask yourself what you character would likely do upon first arriving in town, then probably do that.
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