Word on the Street: The Cacophony and You

Vampire society has had a network of communication since long before the Internet, a semi-mystical discussion space where Kindred could share warnings, instructions, invitations and gossip. It is an inherently vampiric system, so only Kindred can read and interpret the Cacophony.

Many groups of Kindred claim responsibility for the Cacophony: the Circle claim that it is based in blood magic, but no-one can be certain.

Not all Kindred can interpret the Cacophony. It takes effort to tune in and you need to know how to read the signs, and once you’re in, you have to keep up to date with the constantly-shifting symbols, messages and memes. The Cacophony does not give without taking, and you must feed it to benefit from its knowledge.

We will sometimes drop plot into the Cacophony or give hints about current events in it, as well as it being a great resource for rumours, scandal, alliances and feuds. However, if you have heard about something through the Cacophony (or second hand through someone who can read the Cacophony), there are likely to be other ways of investigating it.

Mechanics

The Cacophony exists within Dark Metropolis independent of players viewing it, but to tune in, you must buy the Cacophony Savvy Merit with Experiences. This conveys its own benefits, to do with drawing out information about the city (see the Blood and Smoke book for more details) but it also allows you access to the Cacophony board on the Dark Metropolis forum. People without the merit can be told information from members of the Cacophony but cannot read it directly from the Cacophony.

So how do you buy into it? Well, any character can buy the Cacophony Savvy merit just by trying to interpret the signs. Maybe they’ve been told where to look, maybe they’ve heard rumours and are hunting for it, or maybe it’s just the right time for them to have a flash of understanding. Using the format covered in our downtime blog post, give us your justification or description for buying the merit, spend your Experience and away you go! You may not be put on the Cacophony board until after the downtimes are returned, but if you haven’t been put on the board by the game, shoot us an e-mail.

The merit has 1-3 dots which must be purchased in order. Once you have a single dot of Cacophony Savvy, you must start contributing to the Cacophony and can read the Cacophony board. This means that in the downtime period you need to send an e-mail to the Dark Metropolis ST address with a subject like ‘Cacophony Contribution’ containing the information you are putting into the Cacophony. Don’t worry about style: everything is fed through the Cacophony anyway, so the STs will rewrite it as others will perceive it. This is partly because we may well end up with half a dozen versions of the same rumour, so we will rewrite things as we want to.

You only need to contribute one thing per downtime to the Cacophony – if you have more Cacophony Savvy (say, three dots) you may want to consider finding more interesting things that fewer people know to contribute. You can add more contributions if you want, but there is no requirement to do so, even as you buy more Cacophony Savvy (and you cannot ‘bank’ contributions – you must still contribute every downtime). All that is required is one e-mail with one piece of information in it. The important thing is that we as STs know a) which character is contributing b) what you are trying to put into the Cacophony c) if it is unclear, what the contribution pertains to. If in doubt, go for clarity. If you want to make it super mega clear, copy the e-mail into the end of your downtime to show you have contributed, but please also send us a separate e-mail.

E-mails make it easier to keep track of who contributed what and it's clearer when someone is not contributing. If you miss a downtime cycle of contributions, you lose access to the benefits of the merit for that month (though not to the board, as that would be a faff). If you continue to miss contributions, we may remove the merit from your character sheet (because of the Sanctity of XP rule, you will get the Experiences back but you will have to re-buy the merit) and your permissions from the board.

The reason players can’t post directly to the Cacophony board is so that the rumours can remain anonymous, which adds a level of mystery to the whole thing. Players are not required to tell other players that they contribute to the Cacophony (and if they do such knowledge is to be treated as out of character until confirmed in character) but since Dark Metropolis is a collaborative game, there is not any particular reason not to tell others.

Style

The Cacophony is more than the words that players see on the board: it is information gleaned through lots of little moments, hints and symbols, passed through dozens of whisperers who all put their own spin on it. However, there are certain common threads that can be recognised by those who know how to interpret the Cacophony, and you may be able to see the styles of certain contributors showing through.

People who can read the Cacophony don’t know who else can inherently. However, voice does begin to show through and it is possible to track down who is contributing to the Cacophony with a bit of detective work. After all, the Cacophony mirrors the Kindred who contribute, and from the perspective of the game, it should be risky to spread dangerous rumours or information.

It would be useful if you could give us an idea of how your character contributes to the Cacophony (anything that leaves a mark on the city is acceptable, though it can’t be through people or animals). Do they put up neon posters for concerts that give no time or place? Do they conceal their messages in Banksy-like meme graffiti or spray-painted tags that convey more than just a signature? Do they write their messages on bathroom stalls or program the signal interruptions of a TV shop’s display models? The crosswords of the local paper? It doesn’t matter how weird and obscure the medium is, because the Cacophony interprets and reposts, and the messages spread like a virus to those who know how to read them.

The Cacophony is only really interested in Kindred news – Kine news is boring, but news of other supernaturals or weird and wonderful things of the world might pique the interest of some members.

Lying to the Cacophony

The Cacophony has no inherent truth-telling device. It can repost a lie if a member of the Cacophony tells it first. However, if your character regularly lies to the Cacophony, they risk being found out (or attracting the attention of someone who can discover who they are).

Some Kindred make the mistake of assuming the anonymity of the Cacophony means there are no consequences for lying. This is untrue. If your character is lying to the Cacophony, make it very clear and tell us what the true facts were. We want to make it fun to play with the limits of truth, scandal and the social games of Kindred, but if your character consistently lies to the Cacophony, they may well provoke unwanted interest from others with Cacophony Savvy and potentially other injured parties.

Feeding: There's no right way, but there are wrong ways (for you)!

Picture this:

A tall, broad vampire, trained in the art of combat and stealth, feeds by... charming pretty young socialites at posh parties.

Maybe this tall, dark and mysterious vampire also has the social stats to support that method of feeding...but maybe they don't.

There are lots of different ways of getting your daily dose of Vitae. We've thought up a few common possibilities, though there are far more options! Feast your eyes on the below...

Feeding Strategies:

All the Right Parties: This Kindred prefers to be on the edges of their preferred social scene, be it débutante balls, house parties, raves, or model railway clubs, and feeds from the kine that come to know and trust them.  Good Manipulation is a must here, as well as Empathy, Socialise and an appropriate Skill to match with the social group in question.  (Academics for chess enthusiasts, Crafts for railway modellers, and so on...) Majesty can really grease the wheels using this method.

Because I'm Fabulous: This Kindred works on a least effort approach - why hunt your prey when you can make them want to come to you.  It's all about being desireable yet approachable - a difficult balance to strike, but one that can get you rich rewards if you can pull it off.  Good Presence and Manipulation are a must, along with Persuasion and Socialise. Dominate  And, of course, Striking Looks and Resources never hurt this approach. Again, Majesty is a big plus.

Clubs, Drunks and Drugs: Ah, the intoxicated Kine. So easy to hunt! Perhaps you'd offer to walk a couple of party-goers home and feed as you go - which would require Manipulation, Persuasion, Socialise and Subterfuge to appear trustworthy. Or perhaps you snag people in dark corners of the club for a speedy feed - in which case, Brawl, Stealth, Socialise and Strength would all come in handy. However, it's important to note that feeding from inebriated vessels does have an effect on the Kindred in question - they will feel somewhat inebriated themselves until the blood leaves their system.

If You Can't See Me...: Stealth, Obfuscate, Subterfuge, with Dexterity and Composure to match. This Kindred sneaks up on its prey - perhaps with some additional Larceny they break into houses and feed on sleeping victims; perhaps with a small amount of Brawl they jump people in dark alleyways. Dominate could come in handy, making sure victims don't scream or not remembering the entire experience.

Time for a Beating: Thugs, criminals, or perhaps people who are just there - these Kindred feed using violence. Strength, Stamina, Brawl or Weaponry, plus some Athletics to chase down quicker prey are all essential. If the Kindred wants to scare their prey into submission, Intimidate or Nightmare would be very useful, and Streetwise helps them track the prey down in the first place. Some Kindred may lighten their preys' wallets to make it look like a mugging, but beware - it's a Humanity 7 sin to do so. Of course, all those beatings are likely to cause Humanity issues somewhere along the line...

The Noah's Ark Approach: For Kindred of Blood Potency 2 or below (or in possession of certain abilities that allow them to always feed on animals), it can be easier to feed on unsuspecting animals. Whether this is urban or rural hunting, Animal Ken is an absolute must. Survival, Stealth and Athletics will also make things much easier. Perhaps you might set traps, using Crafts and Survival. Without a doubt, Animalism will help. Without Animalism 1, all animals will react strangely towards Kindred, and feeding on animals will always be more difficult without it.

Why do it Myself?: Ah, retainers. So very useful. A social-primary ghoul could be your source of Vitae, if they attracted prey and then brought it to you. This allows a Kindred to feed in safety and secrecy without leaving the comfort of their own home.

Trouble Spots

Characters can get into trouble when they use a feeding method that their character sheet doesn't support.

• Someone who lacks the social skills to appear trustworthy or friendly to potential vessels won't be able to get close enough to feed.

• Someone who wants to infiltrate a specialist group such as a neighbourhood watch committee or a hobby group needs to be able to talk the talk on the interest so they don't stand out.

• Feeding on the street requires a familiarity with said streets - otherwise the character may find it difficult to find suitable prey in the first place.

What feeding methods have we left out? Are there any unusual methods you've thought of that we haven't? What do you think of the skills we've flagged up for various methods? Leave your comments below, or email us at shadesofnorwich@yahoogroups.com!

On Contacts, and why "The World" is too general

The Contacts merit is a funny thing. In our rules area of the board we describe the Contacts merit as:

People tell you things. You choose a field in which you have Contacts, who will provide you with information (or help you uncover it).

We want to make sure that people use their Contacts in the most rewarding way possible - which is why we want to bring up a particular question that sometimes gets asked of Contacts but actually won't be hugely informative for the player character in question...

"What's going on in the world of this Contact's field?"

It's a very common question: it gets asked a lot, and in the past we've given out information as best we can in response. But we're moving away from it for the following reasons:


From Our Perspective

It can be pretty difficult for us to respond to a general question like this. The Shades of Norwich world is a rich tapestry indeed, and though your Contact might well know what's going on in their field, we don't have all its finer details, and it can be difficult for us to know what you are looking for. We don't know if you're looking for plot, flavour, or something else entirely.


From the Contact's Perspective

Imagine you have an interest, and you know someone who occasionally asks you select questions about that field. How would you respond to the question of "What's going on in the world of fly-fishing/whitewater rafting/crocheting/the police/crime?" Would you know how to answer?


We're trying to move towards recognising that your Contacts are real people in the Shades of Norwich world, with motivations and interests of their own. As such, like us, they'll be happier when responding to more specific questions about their interests than general ones.


Other Ways of Getting General Information

Of course, if you really do want to keep an eye on what's going on in certain fields, there's another option available to you: the Newsposts.

The function and content of the Newsposts is a blog post of its own, and they are an amalgamation of reflecting PC and NPC actions, new and developing plots, and general flavour. They, more than anything else, reflect what's going on in various fields.


How to Use Your Contacts

The last thing we want is to tell you what not to ask, without giving you some suggestions and starting points!

Think about what you want from your Contact. Are you...

Looking for plot? If so, the more specific you are, the more we know what kind of plot you would like us to make for you. Some possibilities (which of course depend on whether or not you want these kinds of plots!) might include...

• Contacts (Occult): Do you know any stories of local hauntings of murdered children?
• Contacts (Police): What's the strangest unsolved crime you've got on the books at the moment?
• Contacts (Smugglers): Is anyone in particular snooping around our business?
• Contacts (Anything): Is there anything I can do for you this month?

Looking for a general overview? If so, the most relevant Newspost might be a better option. If you don't have access to that Newspost, you could consider spending XP on the relevant Skill.  Having Academics, Computer, Medicine, Occult, Politics, Science, Socialise or Streetwise at 2 dots or higher gets you access to the Newsposts for that Skill.

Looking for a specific snapshot of a facet of their interest? If so, try to indicate to us what in particular you're interested in - that way, we know what you'd like to hear from us!

• Contacts (Archaeologists): What digs are happening in Norfolk at the moment?
• Contacts (Media): What's your biggest story about the police/socialites/big business/etc?
• Contacts (Crime): What drugs are most popular at the moment?

Are you looking for something else that we haven't discussed here? Please tell us in the comments below - it's all anonymous!

To succeed or not to succeed ... at your downtime action!

Working out whether a character's actions succeed in Shades of Norwich is sometimes straightforward. If we're in uptime, or in a downtime scene, we can turn to card draws.

But what about in downtime?

We've had a couple of players ask us how we decide how successful a given action is in a downtime. The short answer is: it depends on the situation, and it's with some finagling, a bit of faff and the occasional card draw. The longer answer is below, and some things might surprise you more than others...


1. What stats are most appropriate for the given action?

We generally pick a combination of Attributes and Skills we think are appropriate for the action. This all depends on what the character is trying to do - trying to tail someone without being spotted would be Dexterity and Stealth, but their Wits and Investigation would come up too - after all, being super-stealthy doesn't help if you can't spot the person you're trying to tail!

Sometimes, an action might be more complex. Ingratiating yourself into a subculture might be Manipulation and Socialise, but if you're basing a lot of your social power on lies then we would include Subterfuge as a skill of interest, and if you're trying to butter up the University Fellows then Intelligence and Academics will start to come into play as well!

Without a doubt, if you're talking to NPCs, whether human or supernatural, and trying to get information out of them or befriend them in any way ... you're going to want to have some Empathy on your character sheet.


2. What are the character's dots in those stats?

This can be the real kicker - we're all geared up to write a fairly positive response for someone trying to get information from the kids on the local estate by making friends with them because they've got Streetwise 3, but when we check their character sheet we discover they have Presence 1, Manipulation 2, Empathy 3, Persuasion 1 and Socialise 0.

Now, a couple of those stats aren't so bad. With Streetwise 3, the character can find the kids in the first place, and they really know the streets like the kids do. With Empathy 3 they can tell very well whether or not the kids are telling the truth, and what they think of the character. But 1s in Attributes and 0s in skills show that the character is fundamentally bad at that thing. They are below the human average.

Having 1s in Skills is often less of an issue, if the action in question is not unreasonable, and if it isn't particularly risky. But 1s in Attributes are always a flag for us, and we will always pay attention to it. An Attribute at 1 will have more of a negative effect on the success of an action than just having a smaller draw pool!

Back to our example, we'd focus on their Presence 1 and Socialise 0. That's subsantially less than the NPCs they're trying to interact with - after all, the kids know when's best not to swear to adults, and how to fit in at parties with their peers.

So our example character's prospects have gone from looking fairly promising...to suddenly not so good.


3. What factors are there that may affect the character's efforts? 

In almost every situation, to a point, we would rather someone succeed than fail in a downtime action! We look for other factors on the character sheet that might make a difference - in our example above, the character may have Allies or Contacts (Street) of some kind, and if they aren't being used for something very different we might rule that 'word gets around' that the character isn't such a bad person to talk to.

Of course, sometimes there are things going on in the wider world of the game that means that the action might be more difficult than normal. Perhaps the kids are more suspicious of strangers because of the actions of an NPC...or even another PC. We always do our best to ensure that the ripples of one character's actions reach the distant shores of other people's downtimes!


4. What can I do to improve my chances of success?

The most reliable method of improving your chances is buying up relevant Attributes or Skills with your XP.  The STs are generally happy for you to improve an Attribute or Skill as part of an action in which you're using it, so using our example above, we would be happy to approve buying Presence 2 or Socialise 1 from the action.

However, sometimes you need to get something done and don't have the time or XP to buy up the Attribute or Skill before you try to use it.  Under these circumstances, there are other options available.

- Try a different tactic. Perhaps the example character actually has Intimidate 3 - in this instance, though their Presence 1 would still be an issue, if they got information out of the kids by being the tough guy and making a few threats, it might go better for them.

- Get another character involved.  Taking a "good cop, bad cop" approach, or finding someone who makes up for the weaknesses in your character's skill set, can improve your chances of success.

- Use your disciplines.  Dominate, Majesty and Nightmare can all help to move things along in social situations, but will generally increase the chances that your actions will be noticed unless they're used carefully.  Animalism and Auspex open up a wide range of investigative possibilities when used well.  Obfuscate and Protean have a wide range of applications for investigations, stealth and general survival.  Note: Making extensive use of disciplines that cost Vitae or Willpower may affect your starting totals for those traits at the next game, and it's always worth keeping the Masquerade in mind...

- Use Willpower.  This will mean that you start the next game down at least one point of Willpower, but can be a helpful last-ditch effort when you really want something to succeed.  We'll never assume you're spending Willpower in downtime, so if you want to use this option you need to be explicit about the fact that you're using Willpower and how many points you're willing to spend.  Even then, there's only so far it can go to make up for a lack of Skill dots and the knowledge they represent - a character with no dots in Science certainly isn't going to be able to write a ground-breaking physics paper, no matter how much Willpower they spend!

Remember:

Though our example uses a character in a social situation, it's not just social skills that have this issue! A few blind spots we notice skills-wise are things like...

- Being in the wilderness without having Survival/Athletics/Animal Ken
- Doing research with low or no dots in Academics or Investigation
- Trying to bribe people or negotiate deals with no Politics

So when you're planning your downtime actions, if there's anything particularly complex or risky you're doing, or something you've had issues with in the past - think beyond the main stats you think you'd use in a card draw. What else might contribute and are you trained in those things? If you aren't, maybe another method would work better (or you could spend some XP) - if you are, then fabulous!