Choice of the Vampire - community input [SEE POST 1305]

Choice of Games games Choice of the Vampire
756

Hm, it is a bit convoluted. In 1883, there is the matter of the flood and the levees breaking. One needs to be able to perceive the danger. In order to do so, Technology and Perception both need to be at least 1, and the haven needs to be in the east.

Afterwards, when one has a choice about how to spend the time, they need to select the option of investigating the failure or near-failure of the Venice levee. If the enterprise that was selected for St. Louis was the criminal underworld, it will give the player 2 points for investigating Memeskia, strongly implying that Memeskia deliberately arranged for sabotage so that the levee would fail.

Then, in 1890, with the pandemic raging in St. Louis, ask Memeskia if he has an opinion about what to do. Having more than 55 in rapport with Memeskia gives another point for investigating him.

I do not know of any other opportunities to gain points for investigating Memeskia. As it is, asking Memeskia about why West is so focused on St. Louis requires more than 3 points of investigating Memeskia for him to reveal anything about Tryphon. Since one cannot gain more than 3 points of such at this time, as far as I am aware, it does not seem possible, not unless the threshold is lowered, or there is another opportunity to gain one more point for investigating Memeskia.

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757

Correct. I haven’t come across all the origins, but Del worked fine for me. Hermann on the other hand


Not yet. Perhaps some kid gets isolated/abandoned by a parent/parents who join the cult.

758

I just want to let everyone know that I FINALLY have inspo to draw West. Mads Mikkelsen is actually a pretty good face claim
 I saw this video on Youtube of Mads fighting in some movie. He literally shows emotion. I will link it!

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759

So, let’s talk about this technology vs West angle.

I feel like a Molotov Cocktail might not be right. They weren’t invented until about 1936 and the Spanish Civil War. I suspect this has something to do with the chemical components: petrol/gasoline and other ingredients weren’t as widespread in 1904 as they were thirty years later—particularly after the Great War.

What was patented in 1901 was the flamethrower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fiedler But that was not ready to be demonstrated until 1905. Even then, this was a highly unstable, inaccurate, and undeveloped weapon. An independent development of the flamethrower arose from the Battle of Port Arthur and was demonstrated in 1907: https://www.historynet.com/these-hideous-weapons.htm

The other thing is that I’m always very hesitant to pursue the idea of vampires inventing things. Vampires aren’t human and they can’t innovate in the same way humans do. They can inspire or direct humans to do things—like the player does with developing a tuberculosis vaccine or advocating women’s suffrage—but the player themself wouldn’t be doing the work.

I mean, I get it. It’s so close! Just fudge it, Jason! But because the thing would be so primitive, it would most likely end up being a liability rather than an asset. Like, oops, you just set all the turnverein on fire.

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760

Hm, just as well that Memeskia perished mutually against his sire, now that I think of it. If Memeskia had survived and gone on to perform the mass human sacrifice, my priest would have predictably been horrified and revolted. My priest did not wish for Memeskia’s death. However, considering that Memeskia, a powerful ancient, was a Native, Wolf, and Revolutionary, while my priest is French, a Shepherd, and a Loyalist, to say that Memeskia made my priest tense and nervous would be an understatement. My priest cannot help feeling some quiet relief that Memeskia is gone.

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761

I felt sadness. Memeskia was a real one tho

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762

The simple grenade was in use for a very long time, and explosives such as dynamite sticks and nitroglycerin liquid was around since 1846 
 these would be things that vampires in America would be experienced with
 from railroads to mining, all sorts of applications of these materials were used.

Vampires adapt to new and known technologies, such as the gas lamp in New Orleans, so I do not see the barrier to using technology vs West as unsurmountable.

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763

By the way, I was thinking about the widow who survived West’s attack. My priest is involved with the newspapers, since he is further exploring the arts, the art of writing at this time. It is a simple matter to frame the James gang for West’s attack.

However, if the newspaper is not available as an option, is there an alternative to refusing to do anything about it or offering to kill the widow? If the PC’s sire is West, the PC can ask Bailey to erase the widow’s memory in exchange for a debt. Is there no possibility for a PC whose sire is not West to suggest that someone erase the widow’s memory? I am not sure if it would incur a debt in this case, since the PC’s sire is not West, and as such, it is not truly their responsibility.

764

@Gadriel you can offer a debt to bailey to erase the widow memory regardless if west is your sire or not. you need

Lore 3
Charm 4
Status 2

765

Hm, I shall have to try it again.

So, with the new build, my priest chose to establish his haven in the Soulard neighborhood, which happens to fall under Aichinger’s purview, thus resulting in my priest now owing Aichinger a debt. It is
 inconvenient, but my priest vastly prefers owing the debt to a fellow Loyalist rather than to Bailey. I wish there were more opportunities to clear the debt to Aichinger. In the absence of such, my priest was content with extracting a debt from Aichinger. That is, my priest agreed to investigate why customers were being drawn away from the biergarten to go watch the baseball games. Normally, my priest would have been happy to do so simply to help a fellow Loyalist, but in light of Aichinger holding a debt over him, he felt that it was only prudent to, if not actually clear the debt in this instance, at least extract a debt from Aichinger in turn. They each hold a debt from the other now, so it is more balanced. Nonetheless, one would think that if helping Aichinger with the baseball situation is enough to extract a debt from him, it should also be enough to clear a debt owed to him. It does not seem unreasonable to ask Aichinger to clear the debt owed to him if the PC helps him with the baseball situation.

The other issue is the situation regarding the valet strife in 1893. Mine happens to be the situation where Maeve overheard some of my priest’s latest financial machinations and tried to profit from them herself. Unfortunately, she did not consider some crucial factors, so short of intervention, she will have wasted all her money on a faulty gamble. Regrettably, my priest does not have sufficient funds to quietly rectify the situation for Maeve. However, he has always treated her kindly, so he would not simply choose the option of saying that it was Maeve’s mistake and letting her suffer the results. Even without sufficient funds to directly solve Maeve’s situation, might there be some other option to try do something to help Maeve, regardless? It is the option that my priest would choose, because he would want to help Maeve somehow.

767

Looking through the Memphis scenes, it seems that all the memory erasure checks require charm greater than 4, which is impossible. Is this intentional?

768

I just pushed a new build where the haven/territory issue isn’t an unpleasant surprise for people who have the $lore to know better.

@apple yes, that’s intentional.

I likely won’t be able to address the other questions before the weekend. I have a lot of editorial and production work to do.

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769

This is just a mish-mash of things, some corrections, and a couple suggestions.

First for the suggestion. In St. Louis, if your Finance is high enough, your assistant like Maeve may try to enrich themselves. There are two options where basically it is a ‘the assistant gets what they deserve.’

Would it be possible to have a third option for a humane vampire. Maybe up the pay a little more to help her get out
but also putting her in emotional debt to the player.

The other suggestion is the Clotho romance if you are in Memphis. I’m cool with there being nothing, but it seems like since she is so interested in the school, even teaching the player how to read, maybe Clotho had a favorite book. Yes, I’m a fan of the ‘personal possession the player keeps’ like the letter from Clotho 1 or the harmonica.

Anyways, onto minor stuff.
Original: Memeskia is looking about the room. Trying to hide your impatience, you do your best to be polite. “Then how did you meet him?”\

Suggestion: There is a slash outside of the quotation mark at the end of the sentence.

Original: “But
he stayed here for a few months, and then went back?”
“Yes.”
“Did he way why he returned?”
“No, but neither did I ask.”
You clench your teeth in frustration. You are unsure what else to ask of him

Suggestion: The above is a snippet of conversation. The problem is with the middle sentence “Did he way why he returned?” I think you’re missing a word.

Original: (this follows the above text) “No.”
"Then why do you still do it?

Suggestion: There is nothing after the last sentence. It’s cool if Memeskia says nothing, but having even a brief line of ‘he refuses to talk with you further’ or something along those lines would be good.

Original: This is if you see Withers in St
Louis: She lights up at you approach.

Suggestion: You may wish to use ‘as’ instead of ‘at’ or go with ‘your’ instead of ‘you’. Either would make it read better.

Original: Another bit from the Wither scene: “Thank you for returning Maddox to me,” Withers offers.
You nod. “At your service, Quaestor,” you reply.
“You are most welcome, Quaestor.”

Suggestion: Nothing really wrong here, but having both ‘At our service’ and ‘Most welcome’ feels a little redundant.

Minor Inconsistency. If you go the Parish route, you can choose to claim land from wilderness. If you do that, you still get the following:
You do your best to signal your arrival and intention to stay in the community without raising too many eyebrows.
The locals seem to pay little mind to the Engel’s new tenant farmer.
You are, however, shocked by the appearance one Sunday of a motley collection of slaves from the nearby plantations.

Suggestion: In this case, the bit about the Engel’s farm shouldn’t appear since you didn’t claim anything from them.

Here is a screen cap of Dido surviving while Apollo mentions offing her:

Also here is the cap where Del leads the remnants of your cult, except in this play through I had killed him.

This is the other cult screen that happens after the above. Again, Del is dead, Amanda was already killed
I do have a screen cap with the first confrontation if you need it.

3 Likes
770

First, I wanted to thank you for putting in that Maeve bit :slight_smile:

Anyways, here are a few more things, and a couple of screenshots.

First are some minor things.

Original: Yates looks dashing in his suit and top-hat. The vest flatters his shape, and his cardinal tie is a surprisingly avante-garde choice.
“Shall we walk?” you say, gesturing towards XXX.

Suggestion: In the second sentence, there is a XXX. I admit, my mind thought of some kind of
interesting
demonstration with that :wink:

Original: “We shall meet again,” she nods at you before you part.f

Suggestion: In this sentence, there is an ‘f’ after part.

Original: You and Clotho set about preparing for the reception. The two of you may an excellent team, and you feel the two of you growing closer in working towards a common goal.

Suggestion: In the second sentence, I think you mean to use ‘make’ instead of ‘may’

Original: The most notable scuttlebutt around town is the danger posed by Jerome Preston, the chief of the St. Louis Pinkerton bureau. The various criminal enterprises are convinced that he is not susceptible to bribery and that makes him a significant threat to their operations. Your landlady’s son soon arrives in the house. He bows unsteadily when he meets you and introduces himself as Thomas; you later learn that he was named for Thomas Paine, the Founding Father who argued most vociferously for the quality of all people.

Suggestion: There isn’t anything really wrong here, but I think making a second paragraph with ‘Your landlady’s son’ would be helpful. Especially where the first part details crime rings and police.

Original: It’s otherwise all very casual—one not attuned to he social norms might mistake you for old friends—but slowly a circle grows around the two of you as the grandees of the city stand back in amazemen

Suggestion: I think the ‘he’ before ‘social’ should be ‘the’

Original: Police arrive to disperse the crowd, but it’s too late for Norris. In the chaos, someone even sets fire to the arena; the wooden frame goes up in flames with little hesitation.
Maeve reports these events to you with no small amount of disgust for his own involvement in the affair.

Suggestion: Slight gender disagreement in the sentence with Maeve, the ‘his’ should be ‘her’ before ‘own’

Original: At some point, Calkins’ protests grow more sharp—he says something about your endangering your immortal soul—buy your are insensate to his cries.

Suggestion: I think the ‘your’ should be the contraction you’re. Also, the ‘buy’ should be but.

Original: It’s otherwise all very casual—one not attuned to he social norms might mistake you for old friends—but slowly a circle grows around the two of you as the grandees of the city stand back in amazemen

Suggestion: The ‘he’ before ‘social’ should be ‘the’

Original: “He does! But given his reach and influence, he would have discoverd us eventually anyway. Better to have invited him in to the party than leave him outside wanting to burn it down.”

Suggestion: ‘Discoverd’ is a misspelling; there needs to be an e before the last d.

Original:“You do?”
“He is your maker. It’s your responsibility.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“I wish you luck in your endeavor.”
“Thank you?” you reply. Does that mean he will support you? Whatever the case, his mien implies that the subject is concluded.

Suggestion: There is nothing wrong here. However, the first line ‘You do?’ and the second one ‘He is your maker
’ are both spoken by Eliot, so it may be confusing since typically back and forth are different people.
In this cult screenshot, I chose to look for the mole, and got this error:
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/8fc73bcd-3a3d-4ce7-824d-ee492b10f336/de42olp-8d1646a2-7f21-418d-b45f-d9405c8c6681.jpg/v1/fill/w_1210,h_660,q_70,strp/cult_mole_by_lysanderxen_de42olp-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD02OTkiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC84ZmM3M2JjZC0zYTNkLTRjZTctODI0ZC1lZTQ5MmIxMGYzMzZcL2RlNDJvbHAtOGQxNjQ2YTItN2YyMS00MThkLWI0NWYtZDk0MDVjOGM2NjgxLmpwZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD0xMjgwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0._Aozs-AaQuKa0gNCsrl56lqUPQV51P73Ac0W1CG9Wvs

Additionally, there is an interesting bit if you have someone fashion a message for/against Mrs. Thompson
well, if you look at it, it mentions the player’s name. It really doesn’t make sense, and that is why I assume it was for the valet. Part of the choice is in blue, but there is one below that with a similar problem (hence the for/against I mention)
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/8fc73bcd-3a3d-4ce7-824d-ee492b10f336/de4487u-15593bb7-0527-4539-b29d-df498bf48e2b.jpg/v1/fill/w_1270,h_629,q_70,strp/valet_by_lysanderxen_de4487u-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD02MzQiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC84ZmM3M2JjZC0zYTNkLTRjZTctODI0ZC1lZTQ5MmIxMGYzMzZcL2RlNDQ4N3UtMTU1OTNiYjctMDUyNy00NTM5LWIyOWQtZGY0OThiZjQ4ZTJiLmpwZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD0xMjgwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.xtElbuV-JfiHUd4A0dHoA8YC-P_h4GfCO4aAqrN1wFg

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771

well, that last one uncovered a series of bugs. Thanks, as always!

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772

Just a random thought, but the confession and absolution scene with Father O’Shaunghnessy was incredibly touching. I am glad that a Catholic vampire could experience such peace of mind, as brief as it may have been.

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773

Another minor thing. If you play with the German background and talk with Harding, it says you don’t share a language
 However, as this screenshot shows, the game goes forward anyways:

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774

Yes, the confession to Father O’Shaunghnessy was particularly poignant for my priest, not just as a devout Roman Catholic but as a member of the clergy. He struggled with it all the while, yearning to go to the Cathedral to confess and yet not daring to defile the holy ground with his presence. When the actual confession came, my priest again struggled, knowing that he could not reveal anything about vampires yet also yearning to honestly confess his sins as much as he could in the circumstances. In the end, despite the risk, my priest’s religious devotion won out, and he confessed as much as he could without violating the Masquerade. Being assigned a penance and absolved was like a cool breeze carrying the priceless gift of hope.

Hm, as to helping Aichinger with his biergarten and the matter of baseball drawing away customers, my priest did ask Aichinger for a debt in return for helping, to which Aichinger agreed. However, though my priest investigated and helped Aichinger establish the orchestra, there was no confirmation of the debt owed. Truth be told, my priest would rather use the opportunity to ask Aichinger to clear the debt that my priest owes him because of the haven matter in exchange for helping Aichinger regarding the baseball situation.

1 Like
775

I think my MC ZĂ©phyrine and your priest could have gotten along well, both being devout, compassionate Catholics. She might even be willing to overlook his political allegience. (ZĂ©phyrine is a fervent revolutionary.)

ZĂ©phyrine incidentally does not have any issue entering churches, and perhaps is not even aware that it can be such an issue for some. As a result of being heavily infuenced by Enlightenment philosophy in her youth (which I roleplayed with choices expressing interest in science and disdain for superstition), her rationalism score hovers somewhere between 55-60.

ZĂ©phyrine has faith in God and the One True Church, but also holds a very Nostra Aetate attitude towards practictioners of other religions. The thought of referring to Lesczynski as a “Christkiller” would never cross her mind. Nor did she hold any true opposition to Hiram attending a Unitarian baptism.

In fact, had ZĂ©phyrine been there on the night of West’s demise, she would have even wished death on Padre Carlos. That the praetor was a revolutionary priest, and her dearest friend was a Unitarian hereric would have meant absolutely nothing to her. He stood by with apathy and allowed the kindest vampire she had ever met to die.

“That should have been you,” she would have spat.

(Too bad that can’t really happen in my run since her combat skill is so low.)

2 Likes
776

@gadriel if you want to clear your debt with aichinger you need to kill slattery he will absolve your debt in exchange for killing him