[Conversion] Storypath elements in 2E Storytelling System games

[Graylion]

The character sheet is absolutely gorgeous and I would love to see a Mage version.

Only thing I'm wondering is why The sheet still has Willpower, is there a reason for it?

You are absolutely very observant I initially removed willpower and tried running without it unfortunately so many things have been tied to willpower in Chronicles of darkness and vampire that I had to bring it back. However I took inspiration for willpower from the inspiration mechanic for talents.

Here is my link to revised willpower mechanic for the story path system

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/creatio...lpower-article

Also Mage will happen I'm just not sure how long it will take

[Mateus Luz]

Maybe (just maybe, because it would change a bit the meaning of spending the points) you can use Momentum instead of will power.

[Graylion]

Ya that's what I first used. One of my hurdles was blood sorcery and Mage expending permanent dots and that was the final straw.

I am actually very happy with my revised willpower mechanic, again similar to the talents Inspirarion mechanic which is the other item that pushed me over the edge for bringing back willpower.

I would enjoy feedback the Wiilpower write up from the link.

[Mateus Luz]

I like your adaptation. The way it works as inspirarion is great for a non powered, but still heroic human.

I was working on a stress track to use on horror / war games, where the characters becomes broken inside as well as outside due to the stress. Instead of spending willpower, I was thinking on acumulativo stress, and as you accumulate it you gain conditions, like shaking, distracted (at low stress), to seeing things and paranoia (at high stress). Those conditions would take some time to recover (and in some cases never recover)

You gain stress when facing horror and fear, and also when resisting supernatural influence, like telepathy. It would work as a mix between humanity and willpower

[Graylion]

I like your adaptation. The way it works as inspirarion is great for a non powered, but still heroic human.

I was working on a stress track to use on horror / war games, where the characters becomes broken inside as well as outside due to the stress. Instead of spending willpower, I was thinking on acumulativo stress, and as you accumulate it you gain conditions, like shaking, distracted (at low stress), to seeing things and paranoia (at high stress). Those conditions would take some time to recover (and in some cases never recover)

You gain stress when facing horror and fear, and also when resisting supernatural influence, like telepathy. It would work as a mix between humanity and willpower

Hey makes me think Cthulu Madness level, also Dystopia Rising has a Mental Stress track on par with Health Track which I found interesting.

[Mateus Luz]

Hey makes me think Cthulu Madness level, also Dystopia Rising has a Mental Stress track on par with Health Track which I found interesting.

Those are exactly the sources I went after wen working on it.

It’s basically Mental Stress track, but instead of a big trauma in the end, I went for little ones in the middle and a big one if you don’t give up in middle (like the injuries system).

CoC insanity rules are complex and I didn’t went deep in it honestly, but, if put in an easy way, have the short term effects and long term effects, and I think it can work fine as short term condition and long term conditions. I tried CoC D20 back in the day, but end up dead before mad... so I never used properly the insanity rules to test, even them being a “less deep” version of the original CoC.

[Graylion]

Those are exactly the sources I went after wen working on it.

It’s basically Mental Stress track, but instead of a big trauma in the end, I went for little ones in the middle and a big one if you don’t give up in middle (like the injuries system).

CoC insanity rules are complex and I didn’t went deep in it honestly, but, if put in an easy way, have the short term effects and long term effects, and I think it can work fine as short term condition and long term conditions. I tried CoC D20 back in the day, but end up dead before mad... so I never used properly the insanity rules to test, even them being a “less deep” version of the original CoC.

Love to see them when your done, something like this is on my todo list.

[Graylion]

Would you mind glancing at this Vampire the Requiem conversion for Physical Intensity, Frenzy, and Vigor.

The purpose of this House Rule is to blend Scale and CoD supernatural power level, and I think I'm getting closer. This is version 3, I think.

My thought is if I can get the Vampire one done including Celerity and Resilience it will make all other conversions easier like Werewolf, etc.

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/creatio...delete-article

[Mateus Luz]

I like the way you handle it, while I am not really familiar with how much blood potency a vampire can have before becoming unplayable. If it’s more likely we never reach more than 3, the scale grow seams nice.

The enhancements are fast on making a simple hit into a monstruous success, 1e is basically the same as 3 dice. Yet, the enhancement itself is not the issue, but the scale is. Scale 3 vampire can create a hole in a ship hull with a single punch, and a scale 4 can put down a skyscraper with little effort.

My suggestion is controlling the stacking of enhancements, I like to use the limit of 3e if stacking +1e, 4e if there is at least one +2e, 5e if at least one +3e or +4e. Beyond that, no stacking at all (2 +5 is still +5). The reason for that is brute accumulation of low enhancements (like the example with +7, in the book) would result in a monstruous enhancement.

other than that, the enhancements looks good and the way you applied them too.

[Graylion]

I like the way you handle it, while I am not really familiar with how much blood potency a vampire can have before becoming unplayable. If it’s more likely we never reach more than 3, the scale grow seams nice.

The enhancements are fast on making a simple hit into a monstruous success, 1e is basically the same as 3 dice. Yet, the enhancement itself is not the issue, but the scale is. Scale 3 vampire can create a hole in a ship hull with a single punch, and a scale 4 can put down a skyscraper with little effort.

My suggestion is controlling the stacking of enhancements, I like to use the limit of 3e if stacking +1e, 4e if there is at least one +2e, 5e if at least one +3e or +4e. Beyond that, no stacking at all (2 +5 is still +5). The reason for that is brute accumulation of low enhancements (like the example with +7, in the book) would result in a monstruous enhancement.

other than that, the enhancements looks good and the way you applied them too.

Thank you for the great feedback I will review my progression, math, enhancements and scale tonight.

[Mateus Luz]

Stress and Trauma
To avoid the terms Mental Damage, Mental Damage Rating and Mental Injury, it’s better to call Stress, Stress Rating (SR) and Trauma, respectively.
Stress comes from exposure to a source, that can be a person or environment. There is no stress attack, all the stress comes from exposition to the source, like indirect damage.
The results of stress are traumas, that are divided in 4 categories, Troubled, Distraught, Haunted and Burned Out.

Troubled (+1)
Troubled conditions are several effects that are usually signals of stress or fear, including but not limited to anxious, trembling, eye spasms, stomach ache, etc, increasing the difficulty of certain tasks by 1, for example anxious will make it hard to execute a task that requires focus, while trembling tasks that require fine coordination.
Resolution: It can heal naturally after resting for a few days with no sources of stress. A friend can spend a success from their Friendship bound to remove a troubled condition from the character between scenes.

Distraught (+2)
Distraught conditions are several effects that would be considered temporary or low level mental illness, including but not restricted to apathy, amnesia, antisocial behavior, exacerbated fear or paranoia, it’s also possible to be somatic pain, working in a similar way to an injury or disease.
Resolution: It will heal by itself with support from family and friends after one week with no sources of stress. A friend (or lover, or any name they use) can spend a success from their Love bound to remove a distraught condition from the character between scenes.

Haunted (+3)
Haunted conditions are several effects that would be considered severe mental illness, including but not restricted to phobias, depression or psychopathy. Somatic effects, like lost of movement of a limb, partial blindness, difficult respiration, or outstanding pain, are possible too.
Resolution: It will not heal by itself, requiring long term psychological treatment and possibly medicine to control its effects temporarily.

Burned Out
Burned out condition is the mental equivalent to the taken out condition, the character is unable to act, possibly fainted or paralyzed by the stress, but if immune to further stress sources. In a similar way to what happens to damage, a character can be taken out even on lower levels of stress to avoid worst conditions, for example fainting instead of receiving a Distraught condition for example.
Resolution: It will heal by itself in the end of the scene.

Stress Rating
Stress sources have a stress rating, that run from 1-5, 1 being a mildly stressful and 5 being true horror. Whenever exposed to a a Stress source, the character suffer a single trauma condition of level define by SR, SR 1 causes a Trouble condition, SR 2 causes a Distraught condition, SR 3 causes a Haunted condition, and SR 4 take out the character. The character can roll Resolve + Composure to resist, every success reducing the SR by 1, and if it reduce the SR to 0, the character suffer no trauma.
Stress sources can be both acute and continuous, the later having the Continuous (X) tag, and working the same way as for indirect damage.
A few examples of stressful environments, regular working place (1, continuous (hour)), stressful working place (2, continuous (hour)), prison (3, continuous (hour)), particularly violent prison (4, continuous (hour)), inside a battle royal style arena (5, continuous (hour)).
Resisting a successful try of influencing is stressful, a regular success in influencing the character has ST 1, but for every 3 additional successes the influencer invest on it, the SR increase by 1, to a maximum of 5.

Defensive Boxes
Stress is not affected by armor or any other kind of protection (except the ones that isolate the character form the source completely), and so there is no total protection against stress, but some characters are particularly resistant to it due to high Composure.
Any time the character would receive stress, it’s possible to reduce the SR by 1 point, doing so marks the box until the end of the scene. If the character have multiple boxes, it’s possible to spend more than one against the same source. If all the defensive boxes are marked, the character can’t use this option.
There are 4 types of defensive boxes: Indomitable, Trouble, Disturb and Haunt.
Fearless boxes allow the character reduce the SR to a minimum of 0, and can be used against any kind of stress.
Trouble boxes allow the character reduce the SR to a minimum of 1, and can be used against any kind of stress. Any character with Composure 5 or more gains 1 trouble box.
Disturb boxes allow the character reduce the SR to a minimum of 2, and can be used against any kind of stress. Any character with Stamina 3 or more gains 1 disturb box.
Haunt boxes allow the character reduce the SR to a minimum of 3, and can be used against any kind of stress.

Edges and Other Powers
A few Edges and Gifts are changed by the change in the rules.
Edges
Iron Will: Besides the regular effect of the edge, the character gains 1 defensive box, it will be a Haunt box if the 1 dot version, 1 Disturb box if the 2-dots version, or a 1 Trouble box if the 3-dot version. More information in Defensive Boxes, above.
Indomitable: The use of Inspiration to become immune to all forms of mind control continue working as described, but instead of becoming immune to all forms of mundane fear and mind effects, the character gains 3 Fearless boxes. More information in Defensive Boxes, above.

General Power Effect
Dealing with Mental Conditions: Traumas are mental conditions, and so powers that deal with mental conditions deal with Traumas. Troubled and Distraught are treated as temporary mental conditions, while Haunted is treated as a permanent mental condition.
Fear: Fear is the main cause of stress. All fear effects have a ST value (from 1-5, usually 2 for really big scares, 3 for viewing others suffering, 4 for personal life threat and 5 for a true horror). If let the fear take control, the character receives no trauma but will avoid the source at all costs, otherwise the stress caused will cause a trauma as usual.
Mind Powers: All powers that allow the target to resist a mental power with a Skill check, allow the target to receive Stress help resisting. Each point of stress grants 1 enhancement on the test (as per power). The target can chose to receive as much stress as needed after all the rolls are made, but can’t roll to resist it (can only spend defensive boxes to reduce the trauma).

Antagonists
Antagonists are immune to stress but also can’t use it defensively (as by resisting mind control). Antagonists don't receive stress also when resisting influence, instead follow the regular rules (granting a consolation to the influencer).