And so it begins...

[robinbloke]

It's time to construct the document of my life.
I've chatted with the people all the way up the vamp chain one way or another and the idea in principal has not been outright rejected.
I now have to write a storming background, a kick-ass proposal, a presentation to market my idea and wonderous new creation to the world.

My wonderous creature must live!

It's not going to be easy, hell the character isn't even going to be "hard" as such or gooby (imho) just unusual; I've played 3 straight characters (with one requiring RST clearance for 1 merit at the start) before now and this is my shot to split away and play a character I've always wanted to...

Wish me luck!

Comments

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

It's not a giant cockroach is it? *said hopefully*

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Nope... although that reminds me I've not played paranoia in ages.

Paranioa

[borange.livejournal.com]

the game of choice for a fun day for all :o)

that or Tunnels and Trolls (mostly for the loads of dice and zany spell names :o)

Re: Paranioa

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

T&T! My friend had a (I think) lepricaun wizard type character who had a giant lemming as a familar, who could also cast spells and gave the impulse to leap off cliffs to his master, unfortunately the lemming was considerably tougher than the wizard

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Which venue is it for?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

He'll be for C&A
Can't possibly play another changeling while I have Fox, who's my favourite character
Garou... not really interested
Wraith, nah
Mage, got a character, but not all that excited about
Sabbat, nope, sorry.

Huh?

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Don't tell me George or REMIII's dead!

Re: Huh?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

George was -nearly- dead, praxis of his domain has been taken and he's been exiled which puts him in a really awkward position... after considering all the options (one of which would be to use his many many influence points to rip the city, the masquerade and the prince to bits, possibly killing the game) I decided that he'd sit back, wait a few years or so for the new prince to get himself killed then stroll on back in; which means I'm retiring him basically.

REMIII is still alive, noones got around to killing him yet for some reason...

Approvals suck

[pure-simon.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting to find out the results of the whole "Shade situation" before sending off my new character for sanctioning. Until now I've not had anything that needed SANCTIONING at all..although I did have to go to Ozzy to get a funky curse for my Torryfop.

Now, I'm applying for an ANST (I think) clearance Thaum path for my tremere..
And ANST clearance for the character to replace Shade..
and the stupid thing about both, is that it REALLY doesn't make the character any more powerful!! The thaum path will only be at low level to start with, partially due to XP constraints and me rarely playing him, but also cos he's only a very low level apprentice, and once you start hitting the intermediate levels he becomes pretty damned useful..(I don't think I'll be the only person in the country with the power, but at the same time there won't be many of us..only 1 or 2). All the same.....*droooooooool*. As I say, it won't make him hard, or scary or anything, it just fits his background perfectly and is a LOVELY path.

Then the shade replacement, it's a character with "KILL ME" kinda scrawled across it again (Like Vincent had for an entire year and a bit), and this thing I need sanctioning for will also add to the "KILL ME" factor of him, I really wish there was a way you could JUST have an intermediate discipline, skipping over having the basics (even if you still pay the same XP)...without this one thing, the character doesn't quite meld together, and I can't actually GET the power I need at the minute due to not having enough XP on the character at startup, but it's going to be the first thing I buy!


I just really hate paperchains and sanctioning requests are the longest slowest paperchain I know of!!

Re: Approvals suck

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

True on the waiting, but I believe they're very justifyably needed, or we'd be flooded with goob or ridiculous numbers of uncommon clans.

re: Your Thaum; make sure you're allowed IC to start with it as well ;)

Still roughing out my first skeleton for my proposal at the moment...
Currently he requires 1 top level approval and 3 high level approvals... oh dear.

Re: Approvals suck

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

Harbinger of skull antitribu?

Re: Approvals suck

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Maybe if this one doesn't get approved ;)

Harbingers are squiffy!

Death to the Giovanni!

Re: Approvals suck

[pure-simon.livejournal.com]

IC approval isn't a problem for me. My mummy is a Lord with goob coming out of her ears (in a nice way), there was mention of me going from A3 to Acting-Regent cos of the political situation I entered...(I'm appointed to Brum chantry, oh..there IS no Brum chantry, so therefor I MAKE Brum chantry and am in charge of it!) and it's background stuff..I'm still buying things that SHOULD have been on the character at startup to match his history and back story...and the reasons why he's even IN the UK. So I don't need to worry about going and asking people ICLY. (Also got told by Dave he had no problem with me saying "I had approval" IC to cover getting it yonks ago!)

It's just the OOC bullshit. It's NOT a gooby path, it starts getting a little teenytiny bit gooby at advanced...but surely you could have the approval level for the advanced power "cos it's hard to learn" or something. I KNOW it's a rareish path, but it's a path that IS about and is being picked up more and more ICLY....so damnit why does it come down to Andy R??
DST or maybe even RST approval...fair enough...
but ANST???
Damnit all I can do is stop a bloody disk from working!

Re: Approvals suck

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

Andy's usually quite cool about that sort of thing, though. I've made a couple of preliminary enquiries, and he's passed them okay. One, at least, was well out of order. If he says he doesn't want it, then he's usually got a damn good reason. If it's not Cam sanctioned, then he doesn't want a loophole to mean that you suddenly become invincible and piss off the other players. And Dave, bless his cotton socks, is only ASA Tremere, and his document isn't Cam Legal. IC, as Lord of Albion, it's up to him, but OOC there are other consequences. Say your RST says it's okay, and then you go outside of your Region, meet a bunch of characters and wipe them out with Levin Bolt. That RST is going to be spitting feathers. ANST approvals are the only way of making sure that there's not an overpopulation of certain characters. They're on your side, honestly.

P.S. Who do you play, Simon?

Re: Approvals suck

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

Actually, what do you mean, 'your mummy is a Lord?' There's only Bathory left, now, as Nathaniel's been 'hem' demoted, and he's not got any progeny I'm aware of.

Hmmm

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Regarding waiting, as Jason said last night, shouldn't last longer than 2 weeks per step up the chain. Yeah right.

What might Robin want to play that requires Top approval? I can only think of one thing and that would need a miracle. If Andy isn't allowed a Samedi (of which there are a couple in the Cam, US at least, I even met one and was told he was one) then I doubt very much that Robin would get one of those (if it is what I could think it might be)

Robin, is it by any chance a Clan you wrote the Clanbook for?

Re: Hmmm

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

A miracle indeed.
And I spoke to Andy on Sunday regarding it, he said words to the effect of it although the chances were amazingly slim at best - it wouldn't be immediately discarded - but it would have to be a totally storming background and approval petition.
This is what I intend to create, working on bits and pieces through the day, creating a skeleton history, fleshing out merits and flaws, building concept up from day of birth...
And yes.

Re: Approvals suck

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

Take two basics in your favourite disc and don't spend your Cam Prestige XP. Attend one Elysium, presto, one XP. Next sess, you've got seven xp, enough to buy an intermediate discipline with change left over.

Simple.

Re: Approvals suck

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but what's the point in creating a character that will very likely be killed? Especially if it needs approval? If I have to put a lot of work into it, I'd do anything I can to keep it alive.
A character grows over time. Look at Alucard. He was a stupid Malk to start with but I developed him into the strong character he died as after four years (and only because I retired him), all the while staying true to the principles and defining aspects (most notably his derangement, which was quite subtle towards the end but worked so much better).
I don't understand the players who either can't keep a character or don't care if they die. This is especially bad in the Central region where the turnaround is atrocious. This also poses a problem with IC continuity. In all the time Alucard was Prince, he didn't manage to put a proper court together because the characters that were there the month before would be gone...
Anyway, I stop ranting in Robin's LJ now.

Re: Approvals suck

[pure-simon.livejournal.com]

I'm not creating him to run around going "I'm here kill me!!"...

Vince was my first ever character in any roleplaying system ever, I didn't know the IC or OOC rules properly and had no idea what I was doing (other than enjoy myself)...hence my lovely calm sensible character managed to insult not only the pontifex of the UK, but Councillor Luxembourg, the Justicar, 3 archons, 1 shit hard assamite, some Nos, ALL the Giovanni (there were subtle hunts going on for me), a fair bunch of brujah, a gangrel, the anarchs, etc etc etc the list goes on...most of these people took a pop at me at some point or another..
I didn't CREATE vince to be killed, he just started down that road and didn't turn off in time!!

This new character, is something a lot of people hate...a child..I know a LOT of people have OOC issues with embraced kids, and I know that theres a lot of characters with IC issues of it, so thats why I accept the fact that bad painful things will probably happen to him. It isn't me going "oh, I know, I'll apply for a character who'll be killed first game.." it's me going "oh, this is a fantastic concept, and this is how and why it works and interests me, but I have to accept the fact that people will be taking shots at him." Thats WHY I've got some of the things on my char sheet that I have, because I'm trying to limit it as much as possible...it's just a sad fact of life that characters DO die..I don't try to kill my chars, it's the situations they get themselves into!

Re: Approvals suck

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

The point of creating a character that will likely be killed is to see how long they can survive.
It's like the dark fate "merit"
You're going to die
You can't avoid it
You don't know when
How much can you achieve, how much more of your goals can you finish before you die

That said I'd care if such a character died (I've played several with death hanging over them in multiple systems)

Classic tragedy.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Argh! Absolutely diabolically wonderful names!

Nope, it's not a Samedi, here, I'll put you out of your misery, well in this regard anyway.

Look here

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

Agghh, you absolute madman! Do you know how difficult it is to remove Woad?

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

And I'm writing my Nickutu background, as we speak.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Where theres woad theres a way...