Kindred Status Merits

Given that there seems to be some confusion as to how the Status merit works when applied to clan, covenant and (the vampiric) city, we thought we’d take the opportunity to clarify and also tweak the rules to produce a better play experience.

The Status merit is bought separately for each different kind of Status at 1 Experience per dot, with each kind of Status having 1-5 dots available. This covers mundane Status (in professions or areas of the setting) but the clarifications we want to talk about are specifically the Kindred Status merits.

Each character has three kinds of Status available: clan, covenant and city. The default for each character that we recommend is one point of Status in each.

City Status means that you’re acknowledged in Kindred society and protected by its laws, and can hold Feeding Grounds.
Clan Status means that your clan accepts you as one of theirs and their structures (e.g. the Necropolis) will allow you access without any trouble.
Covenant Status means that your covenant accepts you as one of theirs and, more importantly, will potentially allow you access to their secrets.

The likelihood is that every character will have a dot of each of these - if you start the game with 2 or 0 points of Status in any of these, make sure to talk to the STs about it, as it is unusual for a starting player character. It is possible for these to change in play but thanks to the Sanctity of XP, you will have the Experiences for any stripped Status merits returned to you so you can spend them on something else or work to regain your Status.

You will have a primary Status for both clan and covenant. This is your character’s clan (or the clan they have announced themselves to be part of publicly, if they are hiding their clan) and the covenant they are part of at the start of play. If they are Unaligned at the start of the game, primary covenant Status will be the first covenant they join in play.

Their primary Status can potentially change. This is unlikely to happen for clan but is possible, if your character has their Clan Status stripped and is adopted by another clan - this happened in our previous chronicle. However, this is an exceptional situation and you should talk to the STs about it should something like this occur.

By the word of the rules, a character’s secondary Status in other covenants cannot equal their primary Status (so, if your character originally joined the Lancea et Sanctum, they would need to have 2 dots of Lance Status before they could buy 1 dot in Invictus Status). However, we are changing this: your character’s secondary covenant Status cannot exceed your primary covenant Status but can equal it (so, now the Lancea et Sanctum Kindred only needs one dot of Lance Status before they can gain a dot of Invictus Status). This is for simplicity and because of the lower power levels in our game.

Your character can only have access to the covenant secrets of your primary covenant (Cruac, Theban Sorcery, Coils of the Dragon, Invictus Oaths and Carthian Law) without risking serious in-game consequences. A player character or NPC can potentially teach you the secrets of their covenant when it is not your primary covenant, but it is highly dangerous for both teacher and pupil, leading to at best expulsion from the covenant and at worst...well, whatever punishment the covenant can cook up to fit a crime of that magnitude.

If you started in one covenant and have become disillusioned, don’t despair! You can change your primary covenant. In-game this involves finding members of that covenant who are willing to accept you into their society, then letting the STs know you want to change your primary covenant. Once you have changed your primary covenant and gained Status within it, you can learn that covenant’s secrets with minimal repercussions, though there may well be social consequences for your character from their old covenant, especially if they have learned covenant secrets in the past. Depending on your relative levels of covenant Status, you may lose some dots of Status in other covenants and mentors may become less accessible. However, any merits you no longer have access to will be refunded or you will have the opportunity to regain them.

Your total number of Status dots in all the covenants put together cannot exceed 5 at any point.

If this seems overly complicated, please do come and ask an ST to explain it. Changing covenants is meant to be a big deal in the game and should be an important part of your character’s arc, but we also need to make sure there are restrictions on and consequences for covenant secrets being shared. It is possible to hold secondary covenant Status and even be part of the Circle of the Crone’s Chorus or a Lay Member of the Lancea et Sanctum without changing covenants, but learning any of the unique mechanics of that covenant or covenant secrets will have the consequences discussed above. Covenants guard their knowledge fiercely and don’t take kindly to people joining just to learn them. For instance, we have an NPC called Melissa Pryor who has declared herself ‘covenant neutral’ - she started in the Invictus and has 2 dots of Invictus Status, but she also has a dot of every other covenant’s Status except the Carthian Movement. She does not have access to Cruac, Theban Sorcery or Coils (or at least, if she does, she’s keeping it quiet).

Example:
Larry is a Lancea et Sanctum vampire with 1 dot of Lance Status as his primary covenant Status (and 1 dot each of Gangrel and City Status). He finds himself increasingly drawn to the Invictus rather than the Lance and an Invictus player character, Tommy, helps him to gain the respect of other Invictus, meaning that he can buy 1 dot of Invictus Status. All fine and dandy. If Tommy then teaches Larry Invictus Oaths and anyone finds out, both Larry and Tommy are in all kinds of trouble.

Larry decides that he wants to learn Invictus Oaths and become a Notary, but he doesn’t want to risk him and Tommy being chucked out of the Invictus for it. He tells the STs that ha wants to change his primary covenant to the Invictus, meaning that the Lancea et Sanctum is now his secondary covenant Status. He can now learn Invictus Oaths without it negatively impacting his standing in the Invictus. However, he also knows 1 dot of Theban Sorcery - the Lance don’t like him leaving the covenant with that ability, so he has to assure them that he will not use it and if he does use it again and anyone finds out, he’s in trouble! He also finds that his mentor in the Lance is more distant and his old friends and allies there trust him less, and some in the Invictus suspect him of being a Lance infiltrator. He can work on these through socialising and proving himself trustworthy, and potentially keep his Lance mentor or have the Experiences refunded.

As a final point, the effective maximum any player character can have in a single clan, covenant, or city Status is 3.  If you get more Status than that in one group or the city as a whole, you’re moving into the lofty arena of the High Court, and so will become an NPC.  Don’t worry, we won’t impose this on anyone, although it’s a fine end of game goal to have for your character.

As ever, if you have any questions about this or want to clarify anything about your character’s Status merits, please e-mail us at shadesofnorwichdarkmetropolis@gmail.com.

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!

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!