1001 Messy Criticals

[Shakanaka]

In this thread we write-up Messy Critical scenarios:


Etiquette: You're at an important Elysium meeting, doing extraordinarily well in impressing the others; then all of a sudden you go wild and ranchid, shocking everyone. Now you lose a ton of face for your nonsensical random outburst.

Science: You're making a bomb to trade to another Kindred client to destroy their rival. You're such a practiced and skilled Chemist (metawise, having a large Intelligence + Science pool) that everything in the concoction seemingly goes well.. until suddenly you can't control yourself at all and deliberately, prematurely set off the reaction right at your chemistry workplace; giving you a Final Death and blowing up the lair/building you were in.

Stealth: Your skill in the art of stealth is unparalleled in the region you give your services in. A high profile client hires you to steal an artifact from a private museum, with the artifact in question actually being a cultural item to them for generations but it was stolen during colonialism. Your skills are in good use and going through the layout of the museum seems like childs play... until OOC-wise your character gets a Messy Critical, then the whole operation gets botched because now all the security on the site knows your there.

Performance: Being a Vampire, having a night-time gig makes sense outside the informal (often illegal) economic means most Kindred do to gain money. Your singing to a particularly packed room this night and was doing perfect, never before have you done this good! ...You get a Messy Critical. Then all of sudden you screech and go rabid, out of your control; very beast-like. The crowd is confused and scared, the club manager gives you the boot.. then the Sheriff pays you visit.

Academics: After nights of studying a particular Thaumaturgic lore, you finally unearth the exact epiphany you were trying to discern in regard to particular ritual. So crazed in finally gleaning it, you out of nowhere and uncharacteristically grab all your Unlife's worth of notes and rip them up... Messy Critical.

[Shakanaka]

Politics: For decades you've coat-tailed, swayed, and politicked with the Prince in attempt to try to get him to charter you the approval to sire a mortal of your choosing. On the fateful night when you attempt to persuade him, you seem to be reeling him in with some beginning arguments; suddenly out of nowhere (Messy Critical) you suddenly insult and curse directly at the Prince, shocking him and the Sheriff present in the room. All your years worth of build-up and status have dropped.

Subterfuge: Your doing the nightly bout of seducing your Touchstone (Twilight style of course), but then out of nowhere despite this one mortal (being the pinnacle of your undead existence apparently) you smash her to pieces in a random blood-buffed induced rage.. Its a grave, traumatic-event that will mar you for many nights.. but as per the new metaphysics of VTM, you must now get a new Touchstone less you suffer degeneration with no way to stop it(nevermind the fact that some humans who lose an important loved one choose to never get a new one again); in which you also run the risk of irresponsibly having the same thing happen again.. over and over again, for all of your unlife.

Animal Ken: A loose Bygone creature is reeking havoc night-by-night. Even though this creature isn't a Vampire, the sudden creature still risks all Kindred in the city since it'll attract more mortal authorities, Second Inquisition, Independent Hunters, or even worse; the Imbued. As being noted to be exceptionally great with animals, you are summoned and dispatched of to commune with it as its too powerful to kill. For many nights you shift it away from killing; to an extent the heat dies down around the city. However one night at the precipice of finally cowing it, maybe making it a good Camarilla asset, you suddenly snap for no reason at all. The outburst shocks the Bygone and destroys at the rapport you gave it nightly. It gives you Final Death, then ramps up its attacks throughout the city; this time much more violent.

Streetwise: You were recently dispatched to Bangkok as a task for your sire to make contact with a point of interest who is rare to speak with. You arrive months in advance of the aforementioned time when the interest will be in the city. Hours is spent contacting the right people, giving the right amount of bribes, and talking your way smoothly through the kine population (after learning spending months previously learning Thai). Finally you learn of where the contact is; a secret temple located in the maintenance undercrofts of an apartment complex. You spend another set of time trying to gain entry to the temple. When finally admitted in and attempting to negotiate on behalf of your sire with the Sage-Elder from a rare South-East asian bloodline; the discourse goes smoothly and almost PERFECT... then a Messy Critical happens and it shocks the Sage and the temple guards. They take your mysterious and sudden outrage a grave insult and quickly give you Final Death.

[Desparen]

These seem more like Bestial Failures than Messy Criticals. Whilst there is an option for Messy Criticals to cause a failure to the roll, I think it's a poor one and the fact that it's last certainly implies to me that it should be an option of last resorts.

Fun and effective Messy Criticals should cause other things to go wrong or for there to be consequences to your success - you still critically succeeded, after all.

Even aside from that being more fun (and arguably fair), if failing (badly) is a standard consequence of Messy Criticals, then in the interests of verisimilitude, Elders should basically never be able to get anything done given their high dice pools and resting Hunger.

[IllithidActivity]

Agreed, a Messy Critical is still a Critical. If the overall roll is a success then it should reflect the PC doing what they wanted exceptionally well, but in a bestial way and not in a human way. All of these suggestions seem to be "Hah, you thought you were allowed to PLAY this game? You thought you could roll DICE?"

A Messy Critical for Etiquette where you wanted to prove your place in high society might be something like you end up talking circles around your guest/host and humiliating them in front of mutual company. Everyone else is surprised and impressed by you but the person in question marks you as a target for revenge, or maybe even Fury Frenzies in front of you. A Messy Critical for Animal Ken when you wanted to cause an animal to back off might involve your Beast establishing dominance over the animal and by extension others of its kind, to the point that they start unnaturally congregating around you and getting in the way of your affairs. A Messy Critical for Streetwise might get you whatever information you were looking for, but you present yourself as such an imposing figure that local gangs start making moves to take you out of the picture out of concern for their own well-being.