[oWoD] Translating old manuscript, example of how I deal with extended actions

Extended actions are those where you need certain number of cumulative successes to finish your task. Usually long term tasks like repairing a machine with several different parts in process or translating a manuscript where are several different sections. That manuscript translation is an example I am going to use here.

Core System For Extended Actions


I have to say that I've played Vampire: the Masquerade (most used oWoD system for me) so many years that I am not any more sure what is a house rule and what is written in the book. oWoD has evolved to this point how I play it now and I rarely have to check rulebook nowadays. So, I might give this core system for oWoD extended actions as it is presented officially, or there might be some house rules also. I am not sure anymore.

When Storyteller gives player character an extended action, Storyteller should determine these steps:

• What attributes and skills is dicepool
• What is the difficulty
• How many successes is needed to accomplish the task
• How much time one roll takes

Player can roll as many times as he has time to spend in his extended task or he fails miserably to negative overall successes.

Successes And Advancing

Every time player rolls his dice pool, it takes the amount of time Storyteller has ruled it to take. In that time player gets as many successes to his overall task accomplishment as he had successes in that roll. These successes are cumulative.

Example 1. Rolling successes.

Character is trying to translate manuscript. Storyteller tells, that it uses Intelligence and Occult for dicepool. Difficulty number is 7 and one roll takes 2 hours to accomplish. Storyteller might or might not tell the final successes needed, but in this example Storyteller has told that translating the manuscript needs total of 10 successes.

Player rolls his dicepool and gets 3 successes. In 2 hours he has advanced roughly 1/3 of translating the manuscript and can continue the work.

When player character gains all needed total successes, he is done with the task.

Time

Time how much one roll takes time in game world is essential. It determines, how much player character can do it in a row. For a vampire night might turn to morning before she can continue or there might be a deadline in which time period it must be ready. But in some situations studying and translating the manuscript there might be infinite time available if player does it for his character's own purposes. Still, there might be other activities what can delay the work.

Failing A Roll

When player fails his roll not gaining a single success he hasn't advanced a bit in his extended task.

Example 2. Failing.

Character has already translated 3 successes worth of the manuscript during the first 2 hours and continue his work. Player rolls dice, but doesn't get a single success. His character spends next 2 hours, but cannot advance in his translation at all.

Even though character fails advancing in his task, if there is time to continue it right after or even later some other day, he can do so without a penalty. It only means that during that last 2 hours he didn't advance in what he did. Maybe there was a hard part, his mind wasn't completely set in a task or what ever. He spent that 2 hours trying, but without advancing.

Botching

When there are no single successes and result 1's, character botches (basic rules). That means, that during that period of continuing the work something went wrong, and player character looses as many successes that far as there are 1's. But you should also include this in roleplaying. Some possibilities in manuscript translation why character's work had a step back.

Example 3. Botching.

Character has already gained 6 successes of needed 10 and he continues his work. This time his highest number is 6 what is not a success and also he got three 1's. He botched and decreases 3 from his overall successes this far. Storyteller tells, why player character's work had a drawback. He spilled coffee on his work and must do that part again.

There are several possibilities to explain botching and the drawback it caused. Here are few to give some inspiration for botching translating manuscript:

• Spilled coffee on work
• Forgot to save and computer crashed
• Fire alarm set off (in this Storyteller can roleplay this, or just tell how fire alarm set off and now player character is standing outside of the building with his notes he had time to gather some of them missing, or took his laptop in a haste and forgot to save)

Also you might not want to set drawback to successes but instead rule that something came in the way that disturbed character's work so much he cannot continue it for some time. Urgent things to take care of, office he is working in fire, hostage situation or something...

Or if character gained enough 1's for really bad botch (at least 5) then combine the two. He lost the work and also is disturbed so much cannot continue for a while.

When It Just Doesn't Work?

You might also rule, that when successes are in negative (botches after botches) the current work cannot be continued at all. It is up to you, should it be -1 to successes or even -5 when character must basically start all over again after he has for example advanced in skill dot or even gained new knowledge or new resources to continue.

It doesn't mean that character cannot ever again do it. It just means with those skills he has now or with currently available resources it is not possible. So character must re-invent the study with new resources.

It could simply be buying and installing a better software for a computer, getting a book or two around the topic of the manuscript, learning more with experience (points), talking with more experienced person to gain new ideas or even a small side quest.

If your adventures main plot is to translate that manuscript to be used it would be really inconvenient if it just was not possible. Work your way around so character can do it. It might take extra trouble, investments to better equipment or even a side quest to continue that.

Don't let dice to ruin your game, let them be your guide what possibly can happen and how.

Underwater karaoke [Skill/feat/advantage]

I saw a dream, where I kinda played this roleplaying game, kinda wrote it. Not sure, but sometimes dreams can be a bit blurry in detail. But this game was Dungeons & Dragons but with Storytelling system. And there was a skill called Underwater Karaoke (or I was writing it). Sounds strange? Not necessarily. Well, the name is a bit strange...

Underwater Karaoke


Underwater karaoke is character's skill or quality, where he is as good performing underwater as he is on solid ground. So there are no penalties to his action. Name "underwater karaoke" simply means, that character can perform underwater. Usually fighting, but can also include other dexterity and strength based actions. It doesn't help singing, talking or breathing underwater.

System


It can be handled:

- As a skill. In my dream with Storytelling system Underwater Karaoke cost like any other skill, but performing actions underwater doesn't use the usual attribute + skill combination, but Underwater Karaoke + skill. The point is, that Underwater Karaoke as a skill is cheaper to buy and advance than an attribute, and it also covers both Strength and Dexterity.
(It is overpowered skill (underwater) and really unbalanced. But it was a dream and I just write it down here. From this point ideas were not in my dream, but I present them as I write).
- As an advantage. It can be an advantage (in ST system, or basically in any system what uses advantages). Cost for oWoD games could be 2pt merit.
- As a feat. For D&D players Underwater Karaoke is a feat. It could be bought by more physical classes (like fighter, rogue, monk etc.). I don't see any other restrictions here.

Side Note


I somewhere have heard, that in fantasy games (or games in general) where swimming is a skill, you actually need to sacrifice your precious character creation and development point, it is rarely taken. In fantasy it is realistic. Swimming wasn't that popular. In modern games swimming is usually included in Stamina/acrobatics etc. and isn't necessarily a skill of it's own. But if swimming was it's own skill, what does cost as much to buy and develope than... for example spell crafting, swordsmanship, survival and others, how many characters you know who are really good swimmers?
Usually andventures take place in dungeons, cities, forests, generally on solid ground. They might go near the water, but usually with ships. If you are in the water, you have been:

1. Thrown there
2. Fumbled your roll there
3. Escaped burning ship there

So, is Underwater Karaoke that unbalanced? It makes your character awesome in water considered to other characters, but how often it is used? 1/10 sessions? I don't remember when my player's character was in water performing something. And I remember games of Vampire: the Masquerade, Fading Suns (there was this water planet, but they only dipped their feet on the water. Oh, and character swam with native alien race for laughs), Dungeons & Dragons, Praedor... and many others.

But if the adventure's main theme is around the water, it is completely acceptable, that even one of the characters can perform better in the water than others. Because otherwise the whole campaign would be just -X to your character because you are in water. Like if campaign is set in water, it is norm like campaign set in solid ground. You create first level character, but because of your GM thought it would be cool to set the scenario in water enviroment your character is actually -25% (example) lousier than in a campaign, where is more solid ground.

So, concider this skill/advantage/feat, and give it a shot. And the name Underwater Karaoke is kickin' awesome!

Using specific item is a bonus (A-Z letter U)

Even though I am not that interested in new World of Darkness rules, there is one thing I find interesting and working solution. Items give bonus to dicepool. This is something, I would rip easily to oWoD game.

You got an item you can use in your task roll? Good. Item description shows do you get a bonus to your dice pool from this item. For example binoculars might give bonus to dice pool when observing something from a distance. Simple and in all of it's simplicity genious.

Also, you easily make difference in combat.
Laser sight, get +1 but if trying to shoot someone and trying to be unnoticed, it's easier to be notice.
Weapon stand gives bonus dicepool when aiming.
Silencer gives negative dicepool for surrounding guards to hear the gunfire.
Etc.

Also there might be a difference with equipment quality. Add price to item, get bonus to dicepool when using it. Cheap Wallmart tools are not as efficient as more expensive Black&Decker tools.

In general I like to give or decrease dice from dicepool in V:tM than adjusting difficulty number. It's easier to determine general difficulty, and then make small tweaks with dicepool modifications. Easily it otherwise goes into:
It's raining so the roof is slippery: difficulty 7
But player character's combat boots got good grip: difficulty back to 6.

Just keep the enviromental difficulty at 7 and give one extra die for combat boots. Much easier than tweaking difficulty number back and forth thinking about every aspect what can affect it.

This simple and quick rule works with every old World of Darkness game (I know of).

Before nWoD I made houserules almost nWoD

Before you could find nWoD in stores, I did a rules hack to old World of Darkness. So basically before new World of Darkness rules were available, I did a rules hack/house rule similar to it.

Basically I thought, that for storytelling game fighting should be a bit faster. I mean, there are almost always three dicepool rolls involved:

1. Roll attribute + skill dicepool to determine did you hit or miss
2. Roll damage, what is weapon damage + successes from previous roll after first
3. Opponent rolls stamina as soak
4. Decrease successes of stamina roll to determine damage dealt

There are three rolls to determine did attack inflict wounds. I thought, it might be done easier.

First I thought, what if you decrease opponents stamina from your attack dice pool and the successes are damage. I found out when testing this, that damage was dealt more than previously. Problem was a target number of 6. So I tested with higher target numbers 7, 8 and 9 and found that with target number of 8 you got similar results as several rolls.

So, now I had one roll to determine did character hit, and how much damage was dealt.

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I also like exploding dice (get highest number from a die, roll again) but was not satisfied on how it was dealt in oWoD. If you had specialization in skill, you could roll 10's again when tried a task with that specialization.
So I modded it this way:
Everytime you score a 10, roll again for possible bonus successes.
Specialization in skill means that you get +1 to dice pool if you try a task involving that specialization.

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Those rules I houseruled waaaay before year 2004. But actually I never used first simplier combat rules because I felt that it was too much hack for the rules. Now was thinking, that maybe I should after all.

Old World of Darkness - Easy way to create a plot + Few ready made plots for you to use

You might have planned a campaign you are running, but you would like to run some side quest. Or you might have sandbox styled game but for the next session you are out of ideas. What ever the case is, here is simple way to get inspiration in creating a plot.

Take character sheet of the game you and your group are playing. You see, that skills are in three categories and in each category there are 10 skills. And V:tM uses ten sided dice.

Roll D10 for each skill category, and see what skill the die result points at. Write those skills down. They are moods, settings, ideas, actions etc. for your adventure, quest, plot or even campaign.
You just have to fill out the rest, how to tie together those skill based ideas.

You don't necessarily have to be 100% literal about the results. They are just for inspiration. If you get result "linquistics" but are inspired about political plot, do so.

I give few examples next based on Vampire: the Masquerade. It took only few minutes to come along with these plots after rolling the skills for moods.

Leadership - Firearms - Occult

Band of renegade Brujah in Camarilla city have found an old tome about city's Ventrue history what can be harmful for Ventrue leadership. Ventrue want that old tome away from Brujah renegades. Brujah renegades are heavily armed and won't give it up easily and are ready to protect that old tome to harm Ventrue leadership.

Leadership = Ventrue
Firearms = Heavily guarded Brujah renegades
Occult = Old tome containing harmful information about city's Ventrue past

Expression - Animal Ken - Politics

Gangrel are not happy with city's status. They don't like how their clan's ideas have little support in city hierarchy and Gangrel's close relations to Brujah could be dangerous. If Gangrel are not pleased, it would be easy for them to turn clan Brujah head also. Negotiations and politics are needed to keep Gangrel satisfied and loyal to Prince.

Expression - Negotiation
Animal Ken - Clan Gangrel
Politics - Gangrel who don't feel that city has anything common with their interests

Brawl - Survival - Linquistics

Characters' coterie is attacked in remote alley by unknown vampire coterie. Their clan, sect or motives remained unknown. Characters don't yet know was that only a random attack from angry caitiff, vagabond Camarilla members or even Sabbat brutes. It's character coteries responsibility to take action to find out themselves who attackers were or even tell some of the primogens or Prince what happened.

Brawl - Attack in alley
Survival - What is going on?
Linquistics - To find out who the attackers were

Athletics - Firearms - Occult

Atmosphere in the city has been dark for few nights. Everyone knows that something is about to happen. Character(s) while minding their own business in streets see in distance a strange person, who flees after notices characters seeing him. Character's might try to pursuit him. If character's capture this person, they find out he is a caitiff with strange symbol on his forehead. Caitiff refuses to talk and seems to be insane. Behind the curtains of Camarilla, there is Lasombra brainwashing city's unfortunate caitiffs to make his small shock troop army to keep Camarilly busy while Sabbat grows its roots into the city.

Athletics - Pursuit
Firearms - Brainwashed caitiff shock troop
Occult - Lasombra, who brainwashes caitiff to mindless Sabbat drones.

Final Words

Have fun with experimenting. If some result doesn't fit your idea, re-roll. If you suddenly get idea outside your rolls, use it.
This is just for inspiration, if you are out of your own ideas for plot, quest, adventure or even whole campaign.