What would YOU do?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

It's afterschool special-time, World of Darkness-style! For the
following, assume that you are a member of the various Supernatural
race:

1) You discover that a member of your Coterie has been blood-binding
local residents to your haven (newspaper boy, mail man, etc). If
confronted, he denies it. Do you tell your Coterie, the Prince, spy on
him?

2) In an engagement with some leeches, one of your Packmates succumbs
to Presence, running away yipping into the night, while the rest of
you succeed in resisting. Later, while you (the packs' Galliard) are
shaping the story to tell to the Caern elders at a moot, he asks you
to omit that part of the story, as he could earn a Punishment Rite for
it. Do you?

3) The Ecstatic member of your Cabal seems even more spaced out than
usual; you notice that she's indulging in her focus a *lot* more than
is normal, but if confronted, she claims to be furthering her
understanding of the Spheres and that you just don't understand her
paradigm. Do you accept this or arrange for an entervention in the
Chantry?

4) You learn that a couple of Pooka in your Motley think they've found
a way around the Sidhe's inherent immunity to looking foolish, and are
going to try out their new theory at Court; the prank is a
particularly vicious one, almost Unseelie (tho they are not) and might
even draw Mortal attention. Do you talk them out of it, warn the
Nobles, or help them pull it off?

5) A friend of yours insists on using Outrage to make a local family's
lives miserable, claiming that they destroyed a Fetter of hers. You
know that the family is innocent, but can't prove it, and she won't
take your word for it. Do you aid the family, call the Heirarchy, or
help your friend in some other way?

6) A Wu-mate of yours confides that she wants to change her Dharma,
tho doing so would certainly bring disgrace to the Face of your Wu.
Further, her comments indicate that she favors a heretical Dharma,
such as the Scorpion-Eaters. Do you encourage her, try to convince her
otherwise, or have her declared Akuma before the Courts act against
all of you?

7) Though the Kuei-jin relish racial division among themselves, the
Beast Courts normally rise above such issues (not really being human
at all helps); but a member of your Sentai continually makes
prejudicial comments about a certain nationality, so much so that you
don't believe his claims to just be joking. To make matters worse, a
just-awakened hengeyokai of that very nationality is soon to be added
to your Sentai. Do you talk to your Sentai-mate, try to get him
disciplined, try to get the newcomer transferred elsewhere or just
hope things work out?

Dex,
wondering what Tribe MacGruff belongs to...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

smilinglord@hotmail.com (Hand-of-Omega) wrote:

> It's afterschool special-time, World of Darkness-style! For the
> following, assume that you are a member of the various Supernatural
> race:
>
> 1) You discover that a member of your Coterie has been blood-binding
> local residents to your haven (newspaper boy, mail man, etc). If
> confronted, he denies it. Do you tell your Coterie, the Prince, spy on
> him?

My haven? Assuming he knows where I sleep, I apparently trust
him enough that I would assume he's doing it for my protection,
`cause I'm trusting like that.

The Prince wouldn't care unless he violated the Masquerade in
creating ghouls without permission - assuming that the Prince
requires permission to Ghoul and the thralls know they've been
ghouled.

How do you detect these strangers are bloodbound? When would a
vampire ever meet his paperboy or lettercarrier?

It strikes me as weird, but only threatening in that it's so
damned weird in its pointlessness. Absolute strangers would
probably have been better choices. A paperboy's curfew may be
before I wake and he may not be awake before sunrise (or would be
busy with his paper route), making him a particularly bad choice.
Lettercarriers only have an excuse for being in the area in the
middle of the day, and most modern developments have a communal
mail center, so he or she wouldn't even get as close to my haven
as the paperboy.


> 2) In an engagement with some leeches, one of your Packmates succumbs
> to Presence, running away yipping into the night, while the rest of
> you succeed in resisting. Later, while you (the packs' Galliard) are
> shaping the story to tell to the Caern elders at a moot, he asks you
> to omit that part of the story, as he could earn a Punishment Rite for
> it. Do you?

No, his conspicuous absence is enough. If he earned a Punishment
Rite he will get it anyway, as the elders have heard enough tales
to read a Galliard like an open book.


> 3) The Ecstatic member of your Cabal seems even more spaced out than
> usual; you notice that she's indulging in her focus a *lot* more than
> is normal, but if confronted, she claims to be furthering her
> understanding of the Spheres and that you just don't understand her
> paradigm. Do you accept this or arrange for an entervention in the
> Chantry?

You can't expect nine separate and almost antithetic Traditions
to blend without this being the norm. Beyond standard concerns,
it depends too much on the characters and context.


> 4) You learn that a couple of Pooka in your Motley think they've found
> a way around the Sidhe's inherent immunity to looking foolish, and are
> going to try out their new theory at Court; the prank is a
> particularly vicious one, almost Unseelie (tho they are not) and might
> even draw Mortal attention. Do you talk them out of it, warn the
> Nobles, or help them pull it off?

Kill them immediately, of course.

You did say they're Pooka, right?


> Dex,
> wondering what Tribe MacGruff belongs to...

Vis Sierra

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Vis Sierra <visitant@geocities.com> wrote in message news:<29fqc010pdogv4pl1rjn0follmqo7jatv9@4ax.com>...

> It strikes me as weird, but only threatening in that it's so
> damned weird in its pointlessness. Absolute strangers would
> probably have been better choices. A paperboy's curfew may be
> before I wake and he may not be awake before sunrise (or would be
> busy with his paper route), making him a particularly bad choice.
> Lettercarriers only have an excuse for being in the area in the
> middle of the day, and most modern developments have a communal
> mail center, so he or she wouldn't even get as close to my haven
> as the paperboy.
>
>

Paperboys have an excuse, indeed a requirement, to visit your house
ever day. They can report about any changes, vehicles that may be
parked there, when they are parked, deliver packages to your house,
and even come up and ring the doorbell without much suspition at all
if you didn't know he was bloodbound. They can't give much
information, but they gather it ever single day.

More importantly, letter carrier's have an excuse to handle your mail.
Would you know if you're getting it a few hours or even a day late?
You may not send any mail but you probably get some. Do your bills get
delivered to your house? Does the landlord ever send out memmos? What
name does they show up under. Does it get thrown out unread? Does the
name on that bill own anything else in the city?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

marc17@painandgreed.com (marc17) wrote:
> Vis Sierra <visitant@geocities.com> wrote in message news:<29fqc010pdogv4pl1rjn0follmqo7jatv9@4ax.com>...

> > It strikes me as weird, but only threatening in that it's so
> > damned weird in its pointlessness. Absolute strangers would
> > probably have been better choices. A paperboy's curfew may be
> > before I wake and he may not be awake before sunrise (or would be
> > busy with his paper route), making him a particularly bad choice.
> > Lettercarriers only have an excuse for being in the area in the
> > middle of the day, and most modern developments have a communal
> > mail center, so he or she wouldn't even get as close to my haven
> > as the paperboy.
>
> Paperboys have an excuse, indeed a requirement, to visit your house
> ever day. They can report about any changes, vehicles that may be
> parked there, when they are parked, deliver packages to your house,
> and even come up and ring the doorbell without much suspition at all
> if you didn't know he was bloodbound. They can't give much
> information, but they gather it ever single day.

A street-side observation can easily be made by anyone. I doubt
J. Random Ghoul would be noticed driving through my neighborhood
once a day, just like everyone else on their morning commute. A
paperboy doesn't see any more than anyone else, and unless you're
in a gated community a total stranger /regularly/ passing through
is not suspicious.

As for ringing the doorbell or leaving packages on the doorstep,
since it's highly unlikely the vampire has a relationship with
the vampire, it's no more suspicious than any stranger doing so.
More to the point, being a neighborhood regular means that if he
does do something strange in ringing the doorbell or in leaving a
package, you will have a place to start tracing the source of the
strangeness.

These are two jobs for two different types of patsy. One is the
regular (stranger or no), who performs cursory surveillance. The
other is the blind drop, the complete stranger the vampire will
never see, except through Auspex 3 or on a surveillance camera.

Out of curiosity, what percentage of vampire PCs subscribe to a
newspaper?


> More importantly, letter carrier's have an excuse to handle your mail.
> Would you know if you're getting it a few hours or even a day late?
> You may not send any mail but you probably get some. Do your bills get
> delivered to your house? Does the landlord ever send out memmos? What
> name does they show up under. Does it get thrown out unread? Does the
> name on that bill own anything else in the city?

Nod. I had considered that. It seems like a hell of a lot of
work when anything really interesting would either go to a P.O.
box or would be handled by more covert means.

Bloodbonds take maintenance. If you've drugged someone into a
love-like bond, that's going to affect their behavior. If you
want a postal worker to break federal law, you're going to have
to support the bond. It's possible for things to go wrong here,
very wrong for the ghouling vampire. This had better be worth
it. Knowing I subscribe to Cosmo and my PG&E bill has arrived
are not worth it.

I won't cover the issue of having various names on mail sent to
the same address. If a character thinks that's how to maintain
an alias, that's his delusion.

By the way, how would my mailman know I've thrown out mail un-
read? Are you expecting him to go through my garbage as well,
or is that the job of a third Ghoul?


Vis Sierra

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Vis Sierra <visitant@geocities.com> wrote in message news:<appsc01v4tmq46ggh8gmuh2g71b445s74g@4ax.com>...
>
> By the way, how would my mailman know I've thrown out mail un-
> read? Are you expecting him to go through my garbage as well,
> or is that the job of a third Ghoul?
>
>

If he's going to bloodbond your paperboy, you can expect that he
already has your garbageman. Remember, these aren't ghouls, just
bloodbonded mortals. If you aren't actually interacting with the
mortals in question, bloodbonds take no maintenance. They might not
even know the bloodbonding vampire as he may not have revealed himself
yet or could be doing something strange like also using dominate and
removing all memories.

For that matter, there's no reason not to suspect that the vampire PC
in question might have had the same thing done to him and is doing the
bloodbonding under his own bloodbond and some dominate. Either way,
I'd just move.

I agree with the bit about needing to over come the mortals nature and
demeanor to do things like break federal law, but these are the thigns
that some vampires spend the many years of their unlives working on.
For that matter, bloodbond the manager in the post office who assigns
the routes and work on influence in the postal office.

There's plenty of reasons to bloodbond these types of people, but
whether or not it's actually warrented is another matter. We don't
know enough about the situation or the people involved to really make
any decisions to that reguards. Is the target a guy that lives in an
suburb house and gets no mail or does he live in a gated community
where everybody is watched while controling his mortal empire via
normal mortal means? We simply don't know.

How many vampires read the newspaper? Quite a few if the PCs in my
chronicles are repersenative. Several, mostly Ventrue and Toreador
types start the night by doing just that to catch up on current events
and business.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

marc17@painandgreed.com (marc17) wrote in message news:<2afb8ae0.0406150652.54b41de7@posting.google.com>...
> Vis Sierra <visitant@geocities.com> wrote in message news:<appsc01v4tmq46ggh8gmuh2g71b445s74g@4ax.com>...
> >
> > By the way, how would my mailman know I've thrown out mail un-
> > read? Are you expecting him to go through my garbage as well,
> > or is that the job of a third Ghoul?
> >
> >
>
> If he's going to bloodbond your paperboy, you can expect that he
> already has your garbageman. Remember, these aren't ghouls, just
> bloodbonded mortals. If you aren't actually interacting with the
> mortals in question, bloodbonds take no maintenance. They might not
> even know the bloodbonding vampire as he may not have revealed himself
> yet or could be doing something strange like also using dominate and
> removing all memories.
>
\> There's plenty of reasons to bloodbond these types of people, but
whether or not it's actually warrented is another matter. We don't
> know enough about the situation or the people involved to really make
> any decisions to that reguards. Is the target a guy that lives in an
> suburb house and gets no mail or does he live in a gated community
> where everybody is watched while controling his mortal empire via
> normal mortal means? We simply don't know.
>
The loose scenario I had in mind was a coterie sharing a haven in a
middle-class neighborhood. One of them is bloodbinding various people
around the haven ("newspaperboys, mailmen, *etc*--implying neighbors,
as well), but denies doing so. But maybe it's scarier if he's doing it
to your personal haven...

> How many vampires read the newspaper? Quite a few if the PCs in my
> chronicles are repersenative. Several, mostly Ventrue and Toreador
> types start the night by doing just that to catch up on current events
> and business.

But how many have comic book subscriptions?

Hmm...since I'm assuming they don't use their real names, is there a
part of the Camarilla that deals with crafting false IDs for Kindred?
An Office of Identity that has to keep track of all Kindred "deaths"
(intentional and otherwise)?

What a cool job for PCs--imagine having the detail that has to go
around to the local Elders and inform them that they've been living in
the same life too long and the Office strongly suggests they move into
another...

Dex