Re: Pooled Influence Battles

by Valance Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:08 pm

So the ruling that states that backgrounds biased in different sub-domains can't be pooled kills a lot of my character concept. I'm playing a merchant that houses his backgrounds in the domains of PC lords, gaining their protection so that my toon can focus on the acquisition of wealth, and cutting the lord in for a share of the loot. I build ties with multiple lords, housing parts of my holdings in each of their domains. I feel this is a reasonable DE concept, and even a necessary justification given the Kingpin rules. The ruling is not based on anything in the books, since DE doesn't have rules for pooling and F&F doesn't acknowledge sub domains as a thing. Is this negotiable?

by Giric Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:22 pm

As a curiousity, wouldn't just buying 3 points of network and centering them all in york shire (thus expanding it to the local region) eliminate the problem entirely since all of yorkshire is in your network?

by Sigfried Le Danois Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:34 pm

To answer your last few questions Phil, as to why you would ever use fame to expand your influence in the first two levels since they should already be included in a base action your ate forgetting the other half of fame.

It's not solely a power you expand influence. It is a representation of how well known you are. Doo wine fame 3-5 does help influences fame 1-2 make you famous on a scale smaller then a city. A neighborhood activist would have fame of 1 or 2. They are recognized in their neighborhood.

If you remember the fact you have to pick a group of people you are famous with and remember that it says people outside that group may not recognize you, considering it to just be a background that improves another background is kinda silly. So that combined with the fact that lotn was written before dark epics existed and dark epics was made to alter the original role and make them better for large scale games, I think it's safe to say that fame should not and was never ment to ignore block actions.

by Guest Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:38 pm

For the same reason, as Faith and Fire was written after LotN, I believe Fame was excluded intentionally.

by Sigfried Le Danois Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:49 pm

im not against that. I suppose for, ease of understanding we should keep fame discussions in the fame post though

by Simon Molendinarius Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:32 am

I am not sure about your copy, but I am looking at my faith and fire right now and there are definitely bullet points. So not sure what you mean.
You actually should stop looking in Laws of the Night. We are not using that book and the rulings are slightly different in many cases. This game uses Faith and Fire as its core book.

by Simon Molendinarius Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:44 am

by Simon Molendinarius Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:44 am

Bullet points.

by UninvitedGuest Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:30 pm

You are right, and I was wrong about the bullet points in F&F.

Please read the second sentence, in the second bullet point, very carefully. Let me know what you make of it.

by Simon Molendinarius Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:57 pm

"Each Allies Trait you spend after the first Trait gives an extra level of expertise to your allies."

Ok. So for each point in Allies I burn temporarily off my sheet, I will get access to an ally with one extra level of expertise. Since expertise is a general word, and given that the previous sentence talks about expending multiple traits to gain multiple level of influence or ability, I believe this a catchall word used so they don't have to say influence or ability twice in the same paragraph. So this seem to really be a simple clarification of the first sentence, designed to help us know the scale of increase for spending multiple points of allies.

In other words. If you spend 3 points of Allies you can get either someone with 3 points in an ability or 3 points in an influence, or perhaps a combination thereof, though I think that is not a common request.

Certainly there is nothing in the second bullet point that refers to being limited only to follow up activities.

Thinking on it a bit more, it also seems like a strange limitation. Allies allows you to know a diverse group of people with various skills and talents, but none of them know anything that you don't already know. That seems a little odd. What real world justification is there for saying your allies are completely incapable of performing this project on their own unless you get them started, despite the fact that you may have someone with a lvl 4 or 5 ability/influence?

Now, the system you propose has possibilities. I don't think that sending someone to follow people for me will be very useful, but I can think of a couple skills I might have but want not want to spend time performing...Except that using a background costs an action point, so instead of spending an action point doing the thing myself, I spend an action point directing my background to do it. What is the point of that?

For influences I could direct my allies to follow up on a block or a watch or a defend and thereby free up my actual influence. That has possibility, but since you need to pay your allies with other backgrounds or things of equal value anyway, you really gain no advantage in this. Maybe you can convert money into a little extra influence power, but you could do that under the old system too.

It just seems like the rules you propose for allies leave them fairly useless. Which is actually OK with me, as it is an OP background to begin with. But I think it would be cooler if it could simply be treated as another influence. Being capped with one person having a 5, and allowing people to pool it as if it was an influence rather than a non influence background.

In either case, I have made my points. If you rule differently that's fine too.

by Giric Wed Dec 09, 2015 5:27 pm

(sorry that this isn't directly relating to what is above, but related to the topic)

I've been thinking about this rules change, and while it makes sense in many ways for the time period, I have this problem with it.

Say I am a kindred who has dumped all of his xp this far into backgrounds. Now I have made my home in district a, but session is unlikely to take place there. In fact I use my social standing and influences to make sure I am quiet comfortably alone and safe there without anyone really knowing. With this new change, at session I will have access to my allies and contacts (only at 1 lvl though since it take a while for network to build them up for where you are currently) and one influence use through fame expenditure. This means that this influence heavy vampire can do almost nothing at session with what he has spend his xp on, even if he buys the background to help him extend his reach. If I were playing such a character I would seriously consider rerolling a new character with this change, or accept that I am no longer going to be able to use much of what is on my sheet at any game.

Also worth noting, during the down time, since I have made my personal paradise that almost nothing happens in, I can't interact with the plot that inevitably takes place elsewhere.

And since session moves, even if I buy influence in the city it took place in the last few session, it may very well move and I would be out twice as much xp spends compared to those who didn't.

However there is a somewhat darker side to this. Since plot will inevitably take place wherever session is held, if you don't buy influences, and BAD things happen in your domain, no one can help in any real way. Maybe a handful of players are willing to use their fame to gather information on the problem, but then how will they actually solve it if it requires influences? An evil minded prince can hold court in someone's domain he wishes to test, and them bring them low for failing to deal with the problems that arise.

by Guest Sun Dec 13, 2015 5:30 am

^ This. Mostly this.

by Simon Molendinarius Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:20 am

So the new rules are now in effect. Can we get some final rulings? I heard a lot of conflicting information at last session. So just some questions I need answered in order to write my report...

How are we running allies? Does your interpretation as stated here stand or will we be doing something different? Does it cost action points to use allies?

How to we go about choosing locations for our influences?

If two people have the same influences located in different areas, are they able to pool those influences per Faith and Fire rules, and if so where are they able to exert influence?

Do you have to be physically present in an area to maintain influence or can you effortlessly maintain separate influence in a dozen different cities with no problems?

Are Kingpin rules in play, and if so is there a different kingpin for each city or is it regional?

Are we truly saying that only cities listed on the map exist for influence purposes? This map includes none of the cities in most of the southern districts. There are major cities in these areas. Wakefield has been established since Roman times. There is a major market there and multiple annual fairs. Bradford itself is a moderate mining and milling community, with a number of established communities. There is a castle in Sheffield built to protect the city there. Doncaster has several cities, a moot hall, the Church of St Mary Magdalene and a marketplace, the Hospital of St. Nicholas, a grammar school, and several roman stone bridged. This area in particular is highly developed, but pretty much each of this districts has at least one city of note. Moreover, any Cainites that have now sworn to one of the two new Baronettes has no choice but to move to these regions. I hope for their sake that the cities that historically existed in these areas are still there.

by Simon Molendinarius Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:23 am

*any Cainites that have not sworn

by Simon Molendinarius Mon Dec 14, 2015 12:10 pm

One more questions I just considered.
It has been mentioned that some influence actions make no sense when confined to a single city. Transportation is a prime example since the most common use of transportation is to ensure safe travel between cities.
Does that mean that this influence is not tied to a city? Can anyone interfere with my Transportation influence or do they have to have their own influence located in the same city as me in order to interfere?

by Valance Tue Dec 15, 2015 10:15 pm

I don't see the advantage in breaking up the play area into 20 cities? And a bunch of sub domains where no influence works. Can we not do that?

by Guest Tue Dec 15, 2015 10:35 pm

^

I have yet to hear a single player (or ST, save Phil) express positive view of requiring that influence be based in a specific city, and thus vastly limiting the interaction of influences. How does doing this help the game?

by Simon Molendinarius Thu Dec 17, 2015 10:17 am

Just pointing out that we cannot write our downtime reports until these questions have been answered. If possible, please let us know soon so we don't have issues with getting too close to the deadline for reports.

by Brother Dominic Mon Jan 04, 2016 3:35 pm

Simon Molendinarius wrote:Just pointing out that we cannot write our downtime reports until these questions have been answered. If possible, please let us know soon so we don't have issues with getting too close to the deadline for reports.

I would like to start working out my DTA plans as I am a bit busy over the next couple of weeks, but some of it hinges on how these details shake out.

by Simon Molendinarius Mon Jan 04, 2016 3:47 pm

Agreed. Is there some ETA on when we can expect these rulings? I don't think that it will work to wait until after the ST meeting since that will be too late for us to submit reports for this month.
It's more than reports though. These changes effect my entire character agenda, and I am unable to even plan my future moves until I know how it's going to work.

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