Dice It Is the Tide, Act 1

[Blackadder]

[QUOTE="Shining Lotus Sage]So your strike was 34 against 15, meaning you hit. And its overall quality was 34 against 10 is 24, so you're in the 20<net<40 range. Two ripples, and you would have forced a more durable opponent to roll their total ripples.

[/QUOTE]
That is to say, for clarification purposes, a full opposing character, rather than Minions or Lesser Legends - eg: Conqua.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Yes. Thank you. Exalt-tier.


And as far as I'm concerned, we're out of combat time until someone decides to roll initiative again. Diax utterly wrecked his set without spending any Essence, and River is desperately unlikely to take any ripples from the remains of hers. NPCs will take whatever consequences they need to. Feel free to take back narrative reins and not worry much about rules. End of battle rolls in a little bit.

 

[HeinzByTrade]

::grabs reins::


Now what?

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

I dunno, bruv. You're the one on the elephant.

 

[HeinzByTrade]

Excellent point

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Does anyone want to propose an end-of-battle result for Conqua before I roll for a Fidelity inspiration to submit to his people's justice system? Also, let me know how many ripples you each have.

 

[Random Word]

I have 1, I think, from the dual poison-arrow attack.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Yeah, that area attack caught all three of you on the wall for one ripple. And you have two soak/aura dice, so you'll probably be scot-free. I think Heinz is up to 2, though.

 

[Blackadder]

I have none, I believe, given what SLS said about the zombie attack glancing off.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Correct.

 

[hellrazoromega]

I don't recall any from the Zombies---did the area attacks include me?

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

No. It's really only the first three I was unsure about, but good practice anyway.

 

[Grey]

I have gotten no alerts in daaaaays.


Also I should repost that ST Tropes thread for giggles.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

I'm hearing no objections, so:

Spoiler

[dice]9018[/dice]


[dice]9019[/dice]


The dice say trivial inspiration. Boring. He's acceding already, so let's use surrender mechanics, which broadens it out to affect anything related to the concession he made, and defaults to minor. Not an inspiration for secret arts purposes, but an easy thing to use for a bonus to discover them.

 

[hellrazoromega]

I think we should shoot him now


[media]



[/media]

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Okay, then. Breather got.

Spoiler

[dice]9072[/dice]


[dice]9073[/dice]


18 - 11 is a result of 7, compared to your unarmored chi threshold of 12 means a Trivial condition. I say that being so wrong about his prediction rankled Mask, and now he has a Contemplation weakness. The mistake nags at his attention, for now, demanding explanation, vindication, or closure, but it's not enough to forcibly shape his actions.






[dice]9074[/dice]


[dice]9075[/dice]


15 - 28 means Sun Minh straight up laughs off this fight. There was one dodgy bit in the middle, but she got exactly what she went in for without suffering for it.






[dice]9076[/dice]


[dice]9077[/dice]


Man I still hate you.


 
@Grey - If you'd like to declare that the results I named are particularly unlikely, I'm open to arguments. Otherwise, you can roll your Confidence at the end of the next scene to try to shake it off. I'll explain the duration of 5 once it comes up. You'll recover naturally if you get a critical success on a Prediction before then, proving it was a fluke.


 
Outline for tomorrow's recap, since it's way too late:


Three resources


Two actions


Roll-then-declare


I really should sketch maps

 

[Blackadder]

I could be wrong, but wasn't the gist of Mask's predictions that the animals acting the way they did were signs of an attack coming soon, and lo and behold, an attack! It didn't really seem like he was wrong about the core of it.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

I understood it to be specific to the things attacking the villagers, and instead, there were ex-villagers, whose cause of death signs are now muddled beyond recovery. Grey's call, mostly.


 
So Deeds. This is a good time for Deeds.


@Random Word - The God of Justice heard that defense of Righteousness you dedicated to him, and will be sending his priest visions. Five chivalrous Joss, three points of Status with Sunlight Rain with a title that will be bestowed some time in the next scene, and two points toward the Victory 10 of getting a personal audience with his august personage. Her caustic personality still isn't endearing, but these folks have learned to endure worse saviors.


@Grey - Mask maimed Conqua pretty significantly with no intention of letting him die. That Ferocity isn't something he's tickled by, but nailing him in the eye by kicking shrapnel into a tornado is just the kind of elaborate trick shot he respects. You have three more malicious Joss and three Involvement with Conqua, now, representing a rivalry that's only friendly in so much as he wouldn't kill Mask, either.


@HeinzByTrade - Showboating as dramatically as possible in a delicate location, you have impressed the town with your Ruthlessness. You befriended Ki-Lan earlier, but Xiar-zi and Riverworn Stone find your recklessness infuriating. Five Malicious Joss, but you'll have to work against your new Status as the foreign troublemaker who traumatized Treem Ngoc and ruined the town water supply, if you want to get any politicking done. The wall is the watch's turf, so your building project goes ahead. Among the populace, though, you're going to be pretty unpopular until you give them a reason to think otherwise. No one will dare stand against you if you get intimidating, though.


@Blackadder - Diax's display of precise, expertly applied Force has impressed the merchant caravan. Your three Status with them can't countermand Heinz, generally, but they're a good source of getting things done, and there will always be a few skilled laborers around who owe you their lives and down-time. And 3 chivalrous Joss, 'course.


@hellrazoromega - I know you didn't get much time to jump in, but I'd call trying to trap a herd of zombies as close to you as possible, so they don't reach anyone else, an act of considerable Benevolence. You gain four chivalrous Joss, and I know I put together an explanation of that someplace in these 300+ posts. You can PM me for what Joss does, if you have questions. Ki-Lan, whose ass you pulled out of the fire, is going to be pretty impressed. It's exactly the kind of selflessness she prides herself on, so you better believe she thinks of River as a dependable comrade-in-arms, as a four-point Involvement.


And you all get to assign one Deed apiece to any character but your own, if you wish. I won't try to moderate that process, generally, but if you're assigning something that gives specific mechanical effects, I want to review it a little before signing off on. There's a reason I did all Status/Involvement/Victory things this session; good to sink roots so you have something to measure progress against, later.


 
And everyone take 3 Destiny you can spend on whatever you can justify based on your character's recent actions. Let me know what you pick.

 

[Blackadder]

Woot. Just noted the Status/Joss add and thinking over Destiny options.


 
At this point I'll grab the first rank of the Haymaker technique for Titan of the Streets.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

I'm down. And I'm not going to ask an Endings to justify learning what amounts to an MA charm. I read that as penalizing your defense, whichever you choose to use, note. And it would stack with something like a blocking-better-dodged penalty. Clearly, though, making your damage even more impressive will devastate some meatbags.

 

[Blackadder]

[QUOTE="Shining Lotus Sage]I'm down. And I'm not going to ask an Endings to justify learning what amounts to an MA charm. I read that as penalizing your defense, whichever you choose to use, note. And it would stack with something like a blocking-better-dodged penalty. Clearly, though, making your damage even more impressive will devastate some meatbags.

[/QUOTE]
Yeah, pretty much. Ultimately, no matter the training, the core of Diax's fighting style is very unrefined.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Three resources


These are things I would like you to keep track of, because no way can I do it for five people plus worldbuilding plus characterization for NPCs as modified by your entanglements and secret arts.

1. "Joss", or Fortune
   • 
     This is handed out on a narrative timing scale, and has pretty sweeping effects. There are two kinds, Malicious to hurt your enemy, and Chivalrous to help yourself.
     
   • You all started with three, split however you like. Heinz and RW spent some. I'm trusting you to remember or record how much, because I sure don't.
     
   • There are two ways to gain it, generally:
     
     Grey gained one, for accepting my offer to turn his failed 0s into an even more problematic failure. Successful 0s can sometimes become a complicated success, with collateral problems, which is also worth one.
     
   • Deeds are about as much as this time, this often. This is the primary source of Joss, honestly, so it takes a while to bank up.
     

[*]You can save up 10 of each type.


[*]River dice

• So as you've had a chance to see, some of these are available each round, generally, if you're willing to spare them.
  
• There is a specific cycle of bank–spend each round, so you get to use them most often if you always put a set in from your initiative roll and always use them.
  
  (not always optimal)
  

[*]When they match dice in your roll, you're basically spending them for a +10 each. That's roughly the same as a three-point stunt, in Exalted terms, or two motes and the good fortune of having studied just the right technique for the roll in question. They're powerful when timed properly.


[*]Some special combat techniques, be they granted by your weapon, your kung-fu, or even your secret arts, require you to spend a die or set of dice from your River. If these say "as the basis of" some kind of attack/action, you don't combine them with your roll, just use them on their own.


[*]There's almost always something that can be done with a spare set of dice, so you're always making a choice not to Do More Now when you bank dice in the river.


[*]Currently, you all have two (2) spaces for dice in your River. You can fill them, when you can fill them, with one-or-more dice that were part of a rolled set. The dice you so bank retain their facing—your pair of 8s stay as 8s until you spend them—and generally dissipate after combat, or at the end of the next roll, out of combat time.


[*]River tends to fluctuate across a combat, a little slower than rounds go. It lets you build and use momentum, basically. You gain it when you roll better than you need to, and you spend it when you roll worse than you need to. It's a way of averaging your performance, or of artificially exaggerating your boom/bust cycles.




[*]Essence, which is Chi in the book

• You each have one unflavored pool with 10+ motes in it, and most of you also have an aspect pool with 1m. When you spend your exalted aspect motes on actual techniques or to improvise a marvel with your internal style, they count double. This excludes mostly aura rolls. Nothing else I can think of right now.
  
• At the end of every round, you naturally recover 2m in your normal pool, 1m in your aspect pool, up to your current maximums. There are ways to increase this:
  
  Focus on Breath is a thing you can do on Initiative, if you have a spare set of dice or are fighting bare-handed. It grants you one or more extra normal motes at the end of the round you do it, assuming nothing goes wrong in between. There are fairly few things that can go wrong, and it usually involves vampires or some shit.
  
• Chi Conditions can have a Breath Bonus/Penalty as their mechanical repurcussion. Minor ones adjust the base respiration of normal essence by ±1/rd. Major ones adjust normal breath by ±2, or aspected breath by ±1.
  

[*]So if you've built a razzle-dazzle chi monkey around blowing a ton of motes every round for best effect, you probably made sure you can regain 3-5 normal motes and 2-3 aspected motes per round. That's an extreme case, but not quite as far as a starting character can twink this out. Call it the mage-like option.


[*]You spend this on internal techniques, obviously. But also, using Quick Work to replace your ordinary attack with an application of your medical or inspirational skills costs 1m. If you're actually taking dangerous hits from an enemy, which didn't come up for you guys this fight, you would also be spending up to 2m/hit on your aura, which is basically soak; it's what Toughness adds to by default. You also each have a technique you learned as part of your exaltation, which can be used in a(n unbalancing-) wide range of scenarios, for currently-up-to 2m/round that can be paid with 1m of your aspect.


[*]So you gain a bunch of this every round, and you can spend a bunch more every round unless you avoided studying any anathema magic like Sun Minh, who cannot possibly spend more than 5/6m per round unless she's taking heavy fire and has to blow through a shitload on her defenses against injury. The point is that you should feel free to go nuts with this stuff. LotW has none of the perfect-or-die and mote-attrition issues that Exalted does, and running out generally undercuts your offense before your defense.






So this shouldn't be harder than Exalted, ultimately. Instead of Personal and Peripheral motes, we have neutral and aspected. Instead of Willpower, we have River dice. And instead of four Virtue Channels, we have two types of Joss that you gain at rates determined by your ten virtues. Very similar economies and bookkeeping overhead. The systems have similar levels of crunch. I didn't notice any real confusion around the use of motes, which is good. And we got some good examples of using Joss. River dice seemed to be more perplexing, though, so hit me with some questions if I left any rough spots.


Next time:


Two actions


Roll-then-declare


I really should sketch maps

 

[Random Word]

Oh wow, it's raining Joss!

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Yup. Deeds are your stream for those, and you get one from me (and possibly from another player) every "Chapter"=Session=???.


 
Oh, also, I found this helpful:


Honor is principled, correct behavior.


Righteousness is justice and law.


Revenge is escalating retribution.


Loyalty puts hierarchy above self.


Benevolence puts the needy above self.


Individualism puts self above harmony.


Force is skillful accomplishment.


Ferocity is bloodlust.


Obsession is callousness.


Ruthlessness is kicking the dog.

 

[hellrazoromega]

Sounds good