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WIR : WoD Core Wrap-Up Party
So, I'd looked into the G-M Chronicle and so far I've liked what I've seen, but it's probably going to call for fairly in-depth commentary. Not only does the PC I'm making today get the rules update treatment (to see what it's like to convert from the old system to the new, if one chooses to do that), but I'll probably want to comment a little on almost all the changes. This might be a good time to de-friend me for a little while if you haven't been okay with this.
Today I'm going to play a little 'Let Me Tell You About My Character', since we're going to be employing the rules book a little in the service of making something to take to a game. I'll make a seriously starting character with no bonus experience and then add 35 to show progression in the WoD after he's been through some bumps and bruises. The 35 points will represent progression strictly as a mortal through an unspecified campaign to see what applying the exp is like in practice.
So, I know I said I was going to stat up 'Atol', but that's not a very common name. In fact, it sounds something like a shadow name... What we'll do instead is use his given name. We'll call him Andrew. I forget his last name, so we'll give him a new family name - consider this a reboot. Atol Non's birth name is Andrew McNamara. (After my favorite war criminal.) I've already read the whole book, so I turn right to page 34, the Character Creation page. Now that I've looked everything over, I actually find that I can pretty much make my entire character right from here; point values are listed for Merits and the derived attributes like Speed are listed too. Let's get to work.
Step 1 is listed as Choose Background.
Andrew's a college senior. I picked this point in his life because you get an okay number of skills, merits, and attributes but if you want someone who's generally capable, it's pretty easy to run out. It makes the most sense to give him a smattering of 1-2 ratings in his skills and maybe one or two three ratings. 35 points is for someone with some fair experience.
Andrew is from a fairly well-off family who's busy a lot but has a good amount of money. He doesn't share their values but he's too cynical to blow them off. He's attending a good out of state university on scholarships and his parents money. He's studying computer science but his first love is music and history; he likes making electronic music but hasn't played it for any venues. Like a lot of smart college undergrads, he coasts a little on natural talent and spends time in clubs, but his other time is spent at the library. He's a minimalist and considers himself to be a little smarter and more moral than the people who surround him. He's cynical and a little disgusted; he hasn't come to terms with himself in the world.
That's quite enough. A lot of that is to serve as background for various merits and skills.
Step 2 is Selecting Attributes
These are broken down into 5/4/3, but you get one dot in everything to start with. Andrew is mentally gifted, and he's spent a lot of time honing that, so he'll get 5 there, 4 in social (he's something of a conniver), and 3 in physical (he doesn't spend much time doing anything particularly athletic or strenuous). Broken down into the Power/Finesse/Resistance grid, he'll look like this :
Intelligence: 3, Wits: 2, Resolve: 3 - Andrew's smart, but not a genius. 5 points doesn't really get you that far.
Strength: 1, Dexterity: 2, Stamina: 3 - Andrew works hard for long periods and isn't really clumsy. That leaves Strength at 1
Presence: 2, Manipulation: 3, Composure: 2 - Andrew's cynical and that lends towards manipulation, but we only have 4 points.
Nothing really super-exciting here. What I've learned is that unless you really curtail your other Attributes, though, it's difficult to get something past 3, even with your top-rated Attribute. You can really cheat if you know you'll have more EXP coming, though, and we'll talk about that in a bit.
Step 3 is assigning Skills
Just like Attributes, Skills get a tiered breakdown of whatever it is you specialize in. We have 11/7/4 to mess around with. Typically, you might figure that you'd almost automatically assign them based on your favored Attribute set, but that's not always true. I found it helps to write down what skills you actually want and determine how many points you'll need, then assign the tiers based on that. I figured Andrew might want Academics 3, Computer 2, Science 1, Empathy 1, Expression 2, Persuasion 2, Subterfuge 2, Athletics 1, Larceny 1, Stealth 1. That gives us 6 for mentals, 7 for socials, and 3 for physical skills, which actually has the social skills edge out the mental ones. I want to round out the abilities a little, too, so let's see the finished breakdown.
Mental
Academics 3 This is his favorite...
Computer 2 ... but this is the skill he's learning professionally. You can see the preference in the skill rank.
Science 1
Politics 1 His last name is McNamara...
Physical
Athletics 1 I didn't want him to have nothing here. Paid attention in gym class.
Larceny 1
Stealth 2
Social
Empathy 1
Expression 3
Persuasion 2
Subterfuge 2
Socialize 2
Streetwise 1
Whoops, 11 is a lot more than 7! I ended up with a lot more points than I initially banked on, so suddenly Andrew is a pretty practiced schemer. I think he prefers to be an academic and that's where is natural talents like, but the skills for social interaction are surprisingly granular and the ones for academics are important but pretty separate disciplines. Andrew's becoming a little more developed; in my head, he's someone who doesn't trust people so cynically manipulates them into getting his way quickly so he can be left to his own devices.
I bumped Expression up to 3, which I don't think he merits, but I'll explain when we get to spending exp. I consider 3 to be something of the expert range, where 4 and 5 border on amazing and world-class. I tend to feel that for whatever level of learning you're at, you can usually bump up one rank up the chain and just be noted as especially competent for wherever you're at. 2 is kind of grad-student, and Andrew should probably have stayed at 2, but he's at three for the same reason Expression is at three.
Step 4 is Specialties
We get three free Specialties, which is a bonus die we're given when we meet certain conditions for a skill roll. I'm giving Andrew Electronic Music for Expression, History for Academics, and Programming for Computer. Computer nerds will probably note that 'programming' is very vague, but most WoD games are not going to get granular enough for C++ to be noticeably different from Java or C#, even though they totally are.
Step 5 - Apply Supernatural Template
I'm not doing this one, but if you're creating say, a Changeling right out of the book, then this is when you'd do it. There are rules for that in the major splats.
Step 6 is determining your Advantages.
Merits might modify these later, but let's see.
Defense: 2
Health: 8
Initiative: +5
Morality: 7
Size: 5
Speed: 8
Willpower: 5
Virtue: Prudence (Previous games listed it as Hope, but this makes a lot of sense for him now.)
Vice: Pride (Andrew is proud of himself and sets himself above others.)
In my head, I saw him as more clever, with better defense and speed, but this isn't borne out in the Advantages. The truth is that it's not skills you want better Attributes for, since Skills are so much cheaper. Your derived Advantages pull directly from your Attributes, so good Defense, Speed, Health, and Willpower comes right from nurturing your base abilities.
Step 7 is buying your Merits.
We get 7 dots of Merits, which isn't too bad. We always want more, but let's see what we can do.
Languages: 1 (Spanish)
Eidetic Memory: 2
Resources: 1
Allies: 1 (Parents)
Status: 1 (University Student)
Iron Stamina: 1
I really like explaining why characters have what they have. First, I like to occasionally give characters ratings in different languages. Andrew's Academics are unusually good, and this is a way of illustrating that a little better. It doesn't have to be Spanish - it could have been Mandarin, French, Latin, Japanese, or Russian. Any would have been excellent bets. Eidetic Memory helps, in part, explain good mental skills, Resources represent a combination of frequent monetary gifts, loans, and grants. Allies (Parents) represents people he can turn to for support when things go wrong. They have expectations for Andrew and will, in turn, support him materially to an extent, or shelter and aid him. As parents, they're very caring and willing to do a lot, but the 1 dot rating represents fairly limited means besides what we've described. Status (University Student) isn't really a joke. Students have access to a lot of things that non-students don't. They can check most books out of the libraries, have access to almost all the facilities, are expected to be on grounds and are provided IDs, and have access to university professors when the professors can be arsed to recognize his existence. Status 1 doesn't get all that much, but it's basically a license to be on university grounds. Iron Stamina represents his skill at avoiding fatigue, which almost all students pick up at some time or another.
I wanted to give him Barfly again, but 7 points isn't a lot and I liked the existence of Allies (Parents) and Status (Student) too much to ignore.
What kind of gear is he probably equipped with? Probably a good laptop with music software and a compiler, a library card, student ID, and driver's license. Probably a passport. A fairly new model car with solid handling. Student dorm room. He might have a fifth of vodka hidden somewhere in his room and a decent wardrobe. These all merit between 1-2 bonus dice for most activities, and many are found in the book. He's got nothing as ridiculous as weapons or armor.
Geeze, that's it. I don't really want to spend the time to do the 35 exp thing but, in for a penny, in for a pound. Let's go.
First of all, no extra exp makes for a pretty solid character. I mean, it makes a regular person with some high points and some low points. Andrew isn't going to win many (any) fights, but most people honestly don't need to. I'd be really surprised if the people reading this get in to one fight a year. It's probably closer to none, ever. Most people don't need to run from things, or shoot things. Most people don't need to survive in the wild. Andrew considers himself to be a modern guy who's adapted to dealing with societies rules (no matter how crummy they are) and is interested in studying, computers, and music.
Such a sensitive soul.
Let's imagine, though, that along with some other people, he's thrust into that world of the supernatural. They survive a conflict with vampires, defeat some ghouls, or put some ghosts to rest and survive. It was a pretty intense ordeal, but Andrew is graduating college a year later and he's earned 35 exp and some friends and, possibly, some potent enemies.
Now, his academics were high enough that he doesn't need to buy those up to represent graduating, but he's probably picked up one or two combat dots. He's hit the bars in search of tips and honed some investigatory skills. He's called in some favors with his parents, and they were a little concerned but he's graduating at the top of his class anyhow, so they're letting it slide.
Here's where we spend the points. First of all, 35 doesn't really go all that far, and we'll discover that soon. Second, if you know you're getting a decent amount of EXP right out of the gate, then it's prudent to buy up the skills you think you'll really want to be high level initially and spend that EXP to buy low-level Skills or Attributes at 1 you want to be 2 with them. An Attribute at rank 2 is 10 exp. An Attribute going from 3 to 4 is double that. A new Skill you want to buy up just to round out your character is 3 exp. A skill at rank 3 is 9. If you think you'll need it or you figure a rank 3, 4, or 5 skill is in character but you're worried about missing out on the rank 1's and 2's, you're better off going big. Fill in the blanks with session exp.
Did I do that with Andrew, here? Not really, no. I wanted to present a fully fleshed starting character who needed what he had, and I think I did that. But I also cynically gamed the system by leaving Strength at 1 and buying up Academics and Expression right out the gate. If I were playing for LARP, do you think I would have given him Intelligence 4, Wits 1 out the gate and used Cam EXP to fill in the blanks? You bet your sweet ass I would have. Using exp is preferable to the highly gameable Bonus Points options of Classic WoD, but this is still an issue. I think it's one you can't ever really get rid of without static costs for things.
So, Andrew buys Strength +1 (10), Firearms +1 (3), Brawl +1 (3), Barfly 1 (2), Contacts +2 (Hospitality, University) (4), Investigation +1 (3), Occult +1 (3), Streetwise +1 (6) and has one EXP left over. His equipment expands to pepper spray, a small pistol (licenses aren't covered in the book and they don't cost much, so I assume he's got a permit and went to a gun safety course, explaining his new dot), a military surplus flack jacket, a maglight, and a box full of kosher salt. Welcome to the World of Darkness, kid.
Please, by all means, ask me questions about spending exp and character development if you have any. I feel like there's a lot to discuss but I've run out of things to elaborate on without a prompt.
Today I'm going to play a little 'Let Me Tell You About My Character', since we're going to be employing the rules book a little in the service of making something to take to a game. I'll make a seriously starting character with no bonus experience and then add 35 to show progression in the WoD after he's been through some bumps and bruises. The 35 points will represent progression strictly as a mortal through an unspecified campaign to see what applying the exp is like in practice.
So, I know I said I was going to stat up 'Atol', but that's not a very common name. In fact, it sounds something like a shadow name... What we'll do instead is use his given name. We'll call him Andrew. I forget his last name, so we'll give him a new family name - consider this a reboot. Atol Non's birth name is Andrew McNamara. (After my favorite war criminal.) I've already read the whole book, so I turn right to page 34, the Character Creation page. Now that I've looked everything over, I actually find that I can pretty much make my entire character right from here; point values are listed for Merits and the derived attributes like Speed are listed too. Let's get to work.
Step 1 is listed as Choose Background.
Andrew's a college senior. I picked this point in his life because you get an okay number of skills, merits, and attributes but if you want someone who's generally capable, it's pretty easy to run out. It makes the most sense to give him a smattering of 1-2 ratings in his skills and maybe one or two three ratings. 35 points is for someone with some fair experience.
Andrew is from a fairly well-off family who's busy a lot but has a good amount of money. He doesn't share their values but he's too cynical to blow them off. He's attending a good out of state university on scholarships and his parents money. He's studying computer science but his first love is music and history; he likes making electronic music but hasn't played it for any venues. Like a lot of smart college undergrads, he coasts a little on natural talent and spends time in clubs, but his other time is spent at the library. He's a minimalist and considers himself to be a little smarter and more moral than the people who surround him. He's cynical and a little disgusted; he hasn't come to terms with himself in the world.
That's quite enough. A lot of that is to serve as background for various merits and skills.
Step 2 is Selecting Attributes
These are broken down into 5/4/3, but you get one dot in everything to start with. Andrew is mentally gifted, and he's spent a lot of time honing that, so he'll get 5 there, 4 in social (he's something of a conniver), and 3 in physical (he doesn't spend much time doing anything particularly athletic or strenuous). Broken down into the Power/Finesse/Resistance grid, he'll look like this :
Intelligence: 3, Wits: 2, Resolve: 3 - Andrew's smart, but not a genius. 5 points doesn't really get you that far.
Strength: 1, Dexterity: 2, Stamina: 3 - Andrew works hard for long periods and isn't really clumsy. That leaves Strength at 1
Presence: 2, Manipulation: 3, Composure: 2 - Andrew's cynical and that lends towards manipulation, but we only have 4 points.
Nothing really super-exciting here. What I've learned is that unless you really curtail your other Attributes, though, it's difficult to get something past 3, even with your top-rated Attribute. You can really cheat if you know you'll have more EXP coming, though, and we'll talk about that in a bit.
Step 3 is assigning Skills
Just like Attributes, Skills get a tiered breakdown of whatever it is you specialize in. We have 11/7/4 to mess around with. Typically, you might figure that you'd almost automatically assign them based on your favored Attribute set, but that's not always true. I found it helps to write down what skills you actually want and determine how many points you'll need, then assign the tiers based on that. I figured Andrew might want Academics 3, Computer 2, Science 1, Empathy 1, Expression 2, Persuasion 2, Subterfuge 2, Athletics 1, Larceny 1, Stealth 1. That gives us 6 for mentals, 7 for socials, and 3 for physical skills, which actually has the social skills edge out the mental ones. I want to round out the abilities a little, too, so let's see the finished breakdown.
Mental
Academics 3 This is his favorite...
Computer 2 ... but this is the skill he's learning professionally. You can see the preference in the skill rank.
Science 1
Politics 1 His last name is McNamara...
Physical
Athletics 1 I didn't want him to have nothing here. Paid attention in gym class.
Larceny 1
Stealth 2
Social
Empathy 1
Expression 3
Persuasion 2
Subterfuge 2
Socialize 2
Streetwise 1
Whoops, 11 is a lot more than 7! I ended up with a lot more points than I initially banked on, so suddenly Andrew is a pretty practiced schemer. I think he prefers to be an academic and that's where is natural talents like, but the skills for social interaction are surprisingly granular and the ones for academics are important but pretty separate disciplines. Andrew's becoming a little more developed; in my head, he's someone who doesn't trust people so cynically manipulates them into getting his way quickly so he can be left to his own devices.
I bumped Expression up to 3, which I don't think he merits, but I'll explain when we get to spending exp. I consider 3 to be something of the expert range, where 4 and 5 border on amazing and world-class. I tend to feel that for whatever level of learning you're at, you can usually bump up one rank up the chain and just be noted as especially competent for wherever you're at. 2 is kind of grad-student, and Andrew should probably have stayed at 2, but he's at three for the same reason Expression is at three.
Step 4 is Specialties
We get three free Specialties, which is a bonus die we're given when we meet certain conditions for a skill roll. I'm giving Andrew Electronic Music for Expression, History for Academics, and Programming for Computer. Computer nerds will probably note that 'programming' is very vague, but most WoD games are not going to get granular enough for C++ to be noticeably different from Java or C#, even though they totally are.
Step 5 - Apply Supernatural Template
I'm not doing this one, but if you're creating say, a Changeling right out of the book, then this is when you'd do it. There are rules for that in the major splats.
Step 6 is determining your Advantages.
Merits might modify these later, but let's see.
Defense: 2
Health: 8
Initiative: +5
Morality: 7
Size: 5
Speed: 8
Willpower: 5
Virtue: Prudence (Previous games listed it as Hope, but this makes a lot of sense for him now.)
Vice: Pride (Andrew is proud of himself and sets himself above others.)
In my head, I saw him as more clever, with better defense and speed, but this isn't borne out in the Advantages. The truth is that it's not skills you want better Attributes for, since Skills are so much cheaper. Your derived Advantages pull directly from your Attributes, so good Defense, Speed, Health, and Willpower comes right from nurturing your base abilities.
Step 7 is buying your Merits.
We get 7 dots of Merits, which isn't too bad. We always want more, but let's see what we can do.
Languages: 1 (Spanish)
Eidetic Memory: 2
Resources: 1
Allies: 1 (Parents)
Status: 1 (University Student)
Iron Stamina: 1
I really like explaining why characters have what they have. First, I like to occasionally give characters ratings in different languages. Andrew's Academics are unusually good, and this is a way of illustrating that a little better. It doesn't have to be Spanish - it could have been Mandarin, French, Latin, Japanese, or Russian. Any would have been excellent bets. Eidetic Memory helps, in part, explain good mental skills, Resources represent a combination of frequent monetary gifts, loans, and grants. Allies (Parents) represents people he can turn to for support when things go wrong. They have expectations for Andrew and will, in turn, support him materially to an extent, or shelter and aid him. As parents, they're very caring and willing to do a lot, but the 1 dot rating represents fairly limited means besides what we've described. Status (University Student) isn't really a joke. Students have access to a lot of things that non-students don't. They can check most books out of the libraries, have access to almost all the facilities, are expected to be on grounds and are provided IDs, and have access to university professors when the professors can be arsed to recognize his existence. Status 1 doesn't get all that much, but it's basically a license to be on university grounds. Iron Stamina represents his skill at avoiding fatigue, which almost all students pick up at some time or another.
I wanted to give him Barfly again, but 7 points isn't a lot and I liked the existence of Allies (Parents) and Status (Student) too much to ignore.
What kind of gear is he probably equipped with? Probably a good laptop with music software and a compiler, a library card, student ID, and driver's license. Probably a passport. A fairly new model car with solid handling. Student dorm room. He might have a fifth of vodka hidden somewhere in his room and a decent wardrobe. These all merit between 1-2 bonus dice for most activities, and many are found in the book. He's got nothing as ridiculous as weapons or armor.
Geeze, that's it. I don't really want to spend the time to do the 35 exp thing but, in for a penny, in for a pound. Let's go.
First of all, no extra exp makes for a pretty solid character. I mean, it makes a regular person with some high points and some low points. Andrew isn't going to win many (any) fights, but most people honestly don't need to. I'd be really surprised if the people reading this get in to one fight a year. It's probably closer to none, ever. Most people don't need to run from things, or shoot things. Most people don't need to survive in the wild. Andrew considers himself to be a modern guy who's adapted to dealing with societies rules (no matter how crummy they are) and is interested in studying, computers, and music.
Such a sensitive soul.
Let's imagine, though, that along with some other people, he's thrust into that world of the supernatural. They survive a conflict with vampires, defeat some ghouls, or put some ghosts to rest and survive. It was a pretty intense ordeal, but Andrew is graduating college a year later and he's earned 35 exp and some friends and, possibly, some potent enemies.
Now, his academics were high enough that he doesn't need to buy those up to represent graduating, but he's probably picked up one or two combat dots. He's hit the bars in search of tips and honed some investigatory skills. He's called in some favors with his parents, and they were a little concerned but he's graduating at the top of his class anyhow, so they're letting it slide.
Here's where we spend the points. First of all, 35 doesn't really go all that far, and we'll discover that soon. Second, if you know you're getting a decent amount of EXP right out of the gate, then it's prudent to buy up the skills you think you'll really want to be high level initially and spend that EXP to buy low-level Skills or Attributes at 1 you want to be 2 with them. An Attribute at rank 2 is 10 exp. An Attribute going from 3 to 4 is double that. A new Skill you want to buy up just to round out your character is 3 exp. A skill at rank 3 is 9. If you think you'll need it or you figure a rank 3, 4, or 5 skill is in character but you're worried about missing out on the rank 1's and 2's, you're better off going big. Fill in the blanks with session exp.
Did I do that with Andrew, here? Not really, no. I wanted to present a fully fleshed starting character who needed what he had, and I think I did that. But I also cynically gamed the system by leaving Strength at 1 and buying up Academics and Expression right out the gate. If I were playing for LARP, do you think I would have given him Intelligence 4, Wits 1 out the gate and used Cam EXP to fill in the blanks? You bet your sweet ass I would have. Using exp is preferable to the highly gameable Bonus Points options of Classic WoD, but this is still an issue. I think it's one you can't ever really get rid of without static costs for things.
So, Andrew buys Strength +1 (10), Firearms +1 (3), Brawl +1 (3), Barfly 1 (2), Contacts +2 (Hospitality, University) (4), Investigation +1 (3), Occult +1 (3), Streetwise +1 (6) and has one EXP left over. His equipment expands to pepper spray, a small pistol (licenses aren't covered in the book and they don't cost much, so I assume he's got a permit and went to a gun safety course, explaining his new dot), a military surplus flack jacket, a maglight, and a box full of kosher salt. Welcome to the World of Darkness, kid.
Please, by all means, ask me questions about spending exp and character development if you have any. I feel like there's a lot to discuss but I've run out of things to elaborate on without a prompt.
no subject
If you were to continue in this non-specified game, do you think you'd keep with buying up straight dots, or stretch your XP a little by investing in more specialties?
Also, it's funny that I never knew Atol's non shadowname.
no subject
Exalted is one of those games you expect fives in, though.
Frank did something pretty similar in my Mage game, I remember. It's all in the back story. Mages are potent, driven entities (much like Exalts) and tend to be exceptional. I made a character trained by Heaven to be their agent and Seraph was a highly trained soldier. Queue high stats, high combat scores out the gate, and combat oriented merits, followed by combat oriented rotes.
The problem wasn't that he was a terrifying combatant, it's that it didn't mesh especially well with the tone of the game. We made it work, though, but he was a hard character to deal with when everyone else took my more-or-less street-level beginning request to heart. (Even the soldier-from-the-maybe-future guy.)
So how I'd actually stat Atol probably would be different depending on the game I actually expected to play. If I was running it, Andrew (Atol's) purchases would depend almost entirely on the circumstances. He's got personal goals and directions, but would probably need to be adaptable. Specialties are great in the short run, but in the long run straight dots are probably preferable and specialties become more useful when you need a boost now, you're capped out in the skill, or only expect to need to do one or two things.
Short game? Specialties and Merits. Long game, Merits, dots, specialties (probably in that order, depending on need). Merits tend to add depth and dots add capability.