OOC

A note on the first scene. I had intended for you all to be working together already. Your cell, a hive of activity as you try to piece together the hows and whys of missing persons reports, kill monsters and clean up the streets.

That might not work for some concepts, though I think the game assumes you are all at least months into this thing.

If the opening scene works best as an individual scene for some, then we can work with that! :)

Fate has intervened. How will you travel to the Noose? Galaine’s van? On foot? Garbage truck?

We can be loosey goosey with location, if it’s easier for people to imagine.

For some reason, I’m imaging the ex-cop walking the route, while the other three jump in the Mystery Mobile.

Walk and public transportation for Brydon. He has a car, but it's gathering mothballs.

Van's fine, and Galaine doesn't have to, or want to, drive.

Got it! Posts incoming then!

Both groups actually rolled a random encounter. While it might detract from the main ‘mission’, I thought it was a nice way to flesh out the city a little, too.

Woo!

Had Saturday work today and then craft time with the kids. Will get a post up for our detective in the morning, and move the others along to the Noose.

Apologies, all! Have a great Saturday!

Ha! That was exactly the kind of van I had mind for the scene! Fits the city nicely!

I've been waiting 30+ years to use that van in a game!

Busy Saturday! Will get a post up in the morning to move us along! Thanks for being patient! Really enjoying the game so far!

Same! Wonderful cast of characters, and the setting is really intriguing.

It’s a good old fashioned bar fight, folks! What you do is totally up to you! Flee into the night with Martin as intended. Mix it up with the best of them. Or maybe pick a side and start slicing?

Take it where you will!

Gah! That willpower role was mighty close! While I’m not hint hinting, it is a good time to familiarize ourselves with our concept, positive and negative Dice (advantage and disadvantage), and Luck!

Not a huge fan of named initiative in PbP. So if it’s lame, we’ll discard it quickly!

"Named" initiative? Looking at it, I see Diogo has applied his whole "floor and ceiling" method to that d20 roll, with the floor being the HD of the opponents. Needlessly fiddly, IMO — but it should still result in [batch of PCs might go] [foes go in HD order] [PCs go.] Not *that* bad, is it?

While I’m here, some other things:

We need to keep "pushing the roll" in mind — it’s a core part of the game:In the current scene, to make sure I have this right:

Galaine just took 5 damage. His leather armor offers DR1, so that’s 4 damage, dropping his vitality to 10 from 14. Ouch!

The vamp going after Xavier had a Negative Die on her attack — from Galaine’s defense of Xavier on the prior round?

Big question: do we know if we’re way in over our heads with vamps or not? Feels like we’d have some experience with them. Is this a complete lost cause, or would we feel like we had a shot? Also, lore-wise, do we know what myths are true and which aren’t? Mirrors, running water, being invited in (evidently not), holy water, holy symbols, stake in the heart, decapitation + holy wafers in the mouth, burn in sunlight, can mesmerize, turn to bats, turn to mist… you get the idea. (Really trying to determine if standing and fighting is ludicrous, or just dangerous.)

For ease of play, we’ll say that all the usual tropes apply regarding how to kill the various monsters. Otherwise it would have people trying to lean into a genre and getting no reward for it.

The vampire brawling in the street called the leader a Youngblood. A clumsy way to denote that maybe these vampires are recent turns or fledgling vampires. Possibly deadly, of course, but there’s more of you than there are of them. Well… there were!

You can take them, I’ll say that much. Will you take them, the dice will decide!

I will say though, we are playing fast and loose with the rules (such as they are!). The enemies don’t have stats or abilities as such. They have maybe one thing they can do that stands out. But there’s no stat block with a leap ability, a claw attack, etc etc.

So it’s loose. The vampires can do some stuff not on the ‘sheet’ for narrative effect. Equally, when the vamp goes the 0 HP, feel free to dispatch it in a way that seems cool and appropriate and we’ll call it good.

Cool. Not trying to peek behind the curtain, just want to act in accordance with how dangerous these things are in the setting.

I’ll try to give some clearer indications on enemy power levels. You’ll most likely meet some stronger goons eventually. Good to know!