Downtimes: A Guide

Downtimes are already covered by the Rules Document, but I'm explaining them here for a quick reminder and ease of reference for those new to the system.

 

Between each game, you get to submit a list of actions that you want to accomplish before the next game. This gives you a chance to do things that don't fit into a live-action game session, such as spy on players, acquire equipment, explore the hedge or follow up on plot leads. The maximum number of such actions you can submit is equal to your Willpower + 2 (with some exceptions).

 

Downtimes are initially due the Wednesday after each game. This means that the first downtimes are due Wednesday 14th. Anyone who gets their downtime in by midnight on Wednesday receives 2xp. If you still get your downtime to me by that Friday, you'll get 1xp instead. After that, you can still submit something and I'll try to process it, but if it comes in later than the weekend there's no guarantee it'll be processed (most likely I'll throw you a bone or two but some actions won't get through).

 

So, what can you accomplish with a Downtime Action? Here's some examples:

-Spending XP to improve your character. Each expenditure requires a separate action (unless you are improving the same thing more than once, such as taking a skill from 2 to 4), and should be accompanied by a brief explanation on how or why your character is improving in that area. For instance, increasing Allies could involve making some bribes, or just engaging in some smooth-talking, while increasing Athletics likely involves a physical workout.

-Tracking another character, or meeting with someone else to work together on something. If your downtime action involves another character helping out, make sure they mention it in their downtime too.

-Entering the Hedge. There are multiple reasons to do this, such as looking for Goblin Fruits, tokens, or asking the local Hobgoblins for information, but the Hedge can also be dangerous.

-Calling upon Allies or Mentors. A character may do this once without spending an action. After that, each action spent can be used for two actions involving Allies or Mentors. Each Ally or Mentor can only be used once each downtime. Retainers don't require actions to use, but each Retainer can only perform one action each downtime.

-Performing extended actions, such as Crafting and Research.

-Harvesting Glamour. Characters get one free Harvest Action each downtime, and get their Harvest dots in Glamour for free. However, additional actions may be spent to increase the amount of Glamour gained. For each Harvest action taken a character gets one Harvest draw, and takes the highest to determined how much Glamour they gain. To Harvest Glamour, a Changeling needs to find someone experiencing strong emotions. These emotions produce "Glamour" that the Changeling can absorb to fuel their magic. If the emotion is the one associated with that character's Court, then they receive +1 to their Harvest draws.  Only Mortal sources create Glamour (with the exception of some Goblin Fruits). The mortal and their emotions aren't actually affected by the harvesting, but if a character tries to harvest from the same source too often it may run dry.

 

Really minor things, like walking into a shop and buying something, don't use up an action. Include them as "minor actions."

 

In addition to your actions, feel free to include some notes about what's going on with your character. If you're plotting with another character or discovered something about someone else, it's useful for me to know. Also, if you're having any trouble with the game, you can let me know as well.

On top of all this, you should include a list of a handful of people you want to nominate for roleplaying XP. Each person nominated will receive 1xp (players only gain 1xp this way each downtime, no matter how many nominate them).

First Game: Wednesday 7th March

In case you have forgotten, the first game will be this Wednesday from 6pm-10pm. The game officially begins from 7, but there'll be plenty to go through beforehand, so turn up earlier if you can.

If you haven't finished your character yet, you can still show up! You can play an NPC for the evening and still get XP for playing, which will go towards your character when you make it. Alternatively, you can bring along your unfinished character and I'll look at it before the start of the game. However, if you want a bit more to do, I recommend at least sending me your backstory and which backstory-relevant merits you are taking, so I can actually have stuff prepared for you.

This is the last time I'll be making posts about when the game is (except for if dates change from their usual pattern). From now on game dates and times will be posted in the heading description.

See you all at the first game!

We have a forum!

We now have a forum for the game here. It's hosted by Diatribe, a forum run by NZLARPS (a New Zealand LARP Society). As the Lost In Manhattan forum is a subforum of Diatribe, remember that all of Diatribe's rules apply to this forum as well.

The forum has a main section for discussing the game, a subforum for In-Character Discussion, and private forums for each of the four Great Courts. My username on the Forums is Jangalian, and you can message or email me with who you are to get added to your appropriate forum. So sign up and start posting!

Character Creation Session 4: Friday 2nd March

Just a reminder that tonight is the last session for character creation. 6pm-10pm, Clubs and Socs Building, Room 2. If you want to make a character before the game begins, please turn up! I know some of you previously took your Character Creation Sheets home to work on them some more. Remember: Your character isn't finished until I've received it, so either turn up tonight or type it up and email it to me.

If you can't make it to Character Creation then you can try arranging another time, but to be honest I'm pretty busy at this point. The other option is to either download the rules and email me your character, or to play an NPC for the first night and make your character later.

Also, a quick reminder to those of you that have finished characters, please send me a brief background and a description of your character's appearance. I'm happy to fill in the gaps, but if you have a backstory in mind you should let me know.

Clarifications

Last session we had a lot of people who were new to the system, and I noticed some rules and concepts that weren't as clear as they could be. So for this post I'd like to go into a little more detail about some of the game concepts and offer some additional information.

Clarity

Choosing a Clarity rating for your character can be tricky, as it's a rather abstract mechanic that sort of wraps several ideas into one. It covers your character's connection to humanity, their grip on reality, and how well they avoid acting like their former masters. My general advice is to look through the list of Clarity sins in the rulebook and try to think of the worst thing your character has done since escaping from Arcadia. This isn't a perfect system, of course - each single act can only lower your Clarity once, so if circumstances lead to your character murdering someone but they otherwise go about their daily lives trying to be a good person, their Clarity probably isn't that low. In such cases, I'd suggest finding the worst thing your character would have done regularly, and then lowering it again by one if they have committed an exceptionally heinous act.

Of course, the question might be asked, what is actually the point of starting with low Clarity? It has no positive effects, and multiple negative ones. The truth is, it's largely a matter of honestly. If your character has been kidnapping humans on a regular basis for years before the game begins, it doesn't make much sense for them to only start being affected by those acts during the game. It makes more sense for narrative flow if your character's Clarity is at the level they'd have naturally settled at from the beginning of the game.

Anchors

Anchors seem to be the part of character creation that's the most difficult for many people, and I'd guess that's because it requires a lot of thought and has a much wider range of possibilities than picking from finite numerical choices. Anchors weren't actually part of the base Changeling rules, and were inspired by a mechanic introduced in the Vampire: the Requiem book Danse Macabre. I included them because I felt that with Clarity's abstract nature it would help to have a concrete focus on how losing Clarity affected the character's life, and further distinguish the system by showing Changelings' dependence on their mortal trappings to retain their human side. I also feel it helps to flesh out the parts of a character's life that aren't necessarily tied to mechanics like Merits.

Anchors can be pretty much anything - friends, family, favourite places, objects of importance, hobbies, habits, etc. The important aspects are:
-The Anchor can't be too broad. "Plants" is too broad, but if your character has a favourite garden, or likes to keep plants around their house, that works fine.
-The Anchor must provide your character with some level of comfort, and should be a stable aspect of their life.
-The Anchor cannot be supernatural in nature. The point of Anchors is they tie your character to the mortal world.
-The Anchor must be something that the character could potentially lose, or one that could become unstable.

Remember, losing Anchors doesn't necessarily mean the thing is gone, it just means the character can no longer depend on it as a stable source of comfort.

Derangements

Characters that start with low Clarity may also end up starting with Derangements. These are various forms of mental instability that are symptoms of the character's lowered grip on reality and antisocial behaviour. They can be either mild or severe. Mild derangements have a minor effect on a character's life, and might not even be noticed by other characters, but Severe derangements cause significant trouble for the character. When a character gains a derangement, they may either gain a mild one or upgrade a mild derangement to severe.

Tokens

As Tokens are just one Merit I didn't include the full rules for them in the Rules Document, but I feel I should expand on them a bit. Firstly, all Tokens are activated the same way: Either by spending a Glamour, or by making a Wyrd test (which will be difficult for most characters). A character can bypass either of these by fulfilling a Token's catch. When coming up with ideas for Tokens, consider that catches will usually cover the items main intended use. For instance, a magical rapier's catch may be for when it is used in a formal duel.

Tokens are roughly similar in power to Contracts of the same level, but shouldn't be able to mimic a Contract's effects, and usually have a drawback or are limited in some way. Here are some sample Tokens to give a rough idea of what they can be.
●: Objects that have specific or minor effects: A Mirror that allows the character to contact their Fetch, or an ornament that allows a car to temporarily run without gasoline. These tokens will usually never aid a character in harming others.
●●: Objects that offer useful but small benefits: A Lantern that warns when a foe the character thinks of is near, or a ribbon that doubles the range of a firearm.
●●●: Objects that are of reasonable utility: A Doll that, when activated, allows the character to see through its eyes, or a Wardrobe that can instantly create new garments. This is usually the minimum level for tokens that harm enemies.
●●●●: Objects that offer significant benefits: A Weapon that causing agonising wounds to fester an hour later, or an Idol that can come alive and bite enemies with a hallucinatory venom.
●●●●●: Objects of legendary prowess: A Battle-standard that strengthens allies, or a blade that drains life from enemies to heal the user.

Fetches

When the True Fae take someone captive, they usually leave an imposter in their place. This duplicate is constructed from branches, vines and bric-a-brac, covered with the Mask to look like the character, and granted many of the character's memories. Ironically, this means that when many Changelings finally escape Arcadia, they find themselves to be the strangers in their own lives.

When thinking of your backstory, keep your fetch in mind. Not every Changeling has a fetch, but I would recommend only deciding your character doesn't have one if it actually adds something to your character's story. Consider how your character would have dealt with their imposter, and whether their character would attempt to rebuild their old life or start a new one. It's entirely possible you don't even know what happened to your fetch, especially if your character is fresh from the hedge, but consider that if your fetch is still out there it may have consequences.

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If you have any questions about something else you'd like to see clarified, let me know either through comments or email and I'll post up an explanation.

On another note, I'd like to state that I'm currently unhappy with the way the Pledge system works. I'm working on revising it, and I'll announce changes soon. The system likely won't change much - I mostly want to reduce the cost of invoking them. Rest assured I have no intentions of altering anything that affects character creation.

Character Creation Session 3: Wednesday 29th February

Thanks to everyone who came along Friday! It's great to see a good turnout. Sorry to anyone who I didn't get a chance to talk to, but if you have any questions go ahead and email me, or talk to me at the next session. Next Character Creation Session is this Wednesday at the Clubs and Socs Building in Rooms 2 and 3, from 6pm to 10pm. If you haven't made a character yet, come along!

There will also be some introductory tabletop roleplaying games starting up at the same time, as well as some MTG. Since these sessions will mostly be about sorting out who's playing what at beginning character creation, there's no reason you can't talk to me as well as engaging in these games.

For those of you who have finished your characters, could you please email me with a quick background description of your character, as well as any important details. In particular it would be good to know when your character was taken, when they came back, and how old they were when it happened, as well as a brief outline of your character's mien (their Changeling appearance).

Character Creation Session 2: Friday 24th Feb

Thanks to everyone who showed up to the first Character Creation Session. For those of you who haven't made characters yet, remember that you don't have to wait until one of the sessions to email me your concept. Sending me your concept early helps me see how the game as a whole is shaping up, lets me consider which concepts might be involved with one another, and allows me to consider ideas and suggestions for when you make your character.

The next session will be Friday 24th of February, in the Practice Room and the Clubs and Socs Building. There'll be an OURS meeting first at 6pm, with Character Creation to follow, but I recommend coming to the meeting anyway. We'll be there until 10pm.

Finally, Clubs and Socs Day is this Wednesday, so if you want to support the Roleplaying Society please come along!