Sin Again: Daeva Now Available on Storytellers Vault (2E Requiem Clan Book)

[Yossarian]

Briefly reacquiring conscious thought after last month reduced me to a puddle of unthinking goo so I can say that I had so much fun doing art for this book! In particular, the Histrions and VLAD were a joy to illustrate, though the Flowers might be my favorite piece I contributed.

The illustration for VLAD really brings the whole thing together, honestly.

Fish did all the illustrations for Chapter Four, so if you like those, you can send your praise her way! My personal favourite is the Children of Nirriti illustration, because it really captures the spirit of our new version.

[Yossarian]

Alright, I promised a little treat for Friday, so here it is!

Disclaimer: This isn't really done, in the sense that nothing I do is ever done until forces conspire to make me stop. That is, I'll be tweaking it for a while yet, but I wanted to do the title reveal with the cover (even though I'm pretty sure I spoiled the title before!)

Coming soon...

[21C Hermit]

The Wild Hunt. Ooh. Wonder if we’d get some ghostly and fae motifs added to the usual bestial & therianthropic motifs of the Gangrels.

[Yossarian]

Hey all, just popping in to let you know that from now until end of day December 31st, we're offering a big discounted bundle of all our Vampire books! If you haven't had a chance to pick these up, or want to complete your collection, now's a great time!

2021 All Night Society Bundle

[Excess]

Yossarian
Two questions: in the Blowout system I am confused by one mechanic. The Exceptional Success for the desperation action says that no desperation action took place. Aside from the direct contradiction it makes me think that you get the same result if you solve all the hurdles beforehand. The difference in extra scenes is not a trivial one. I tried looking in both the pdf and here for a clue either way but found no elaboration. Could you clarify? Does solving all hurdles give an option between an extra scene or regaining the 10-again for stalled tilts?

Another thing. How is your progress with the Gangrel? Percentage of completion? Approximate time to release?

[Yossarian]

Yossarian
Two questions: in the Blowout system I am confused by one mechanic. The Exceptional Success for the desperation action says that no desperation action took place. Aside from the direct contradiction it makes me think that you get the same result if you solve all the hurdles beforehand. The difference in extra scenes is not a trivial one. I tried looking in both the pdf and here for a clue either way but found no elaboration. Could you clarify? Does solving all hurdles give an option between an extra scene or regaining the 10-again for stalled tilts?

Another thing. How is your progress with the Gangrel? Percentage of completion? Approximate time to release?

The Resolution Results are for the Tilt altogether, not the desperation action (though I see why you'd think that, because it's written rather vaguely). If you manage to clear all of the Hurdles without taking a desperation action, it's an exceptional success, whereas it's always a normal success if you manage to eke things out with a desperation roll. There isn't a specific exceptional success result for the desperation role, which is a little confusing, because a dramatic failure is the same as the overall Resolution one. Long story short, what's written is a bit muddy, so I'll make sure to address that in an update, probably whenever Gangrel comes out (there are a lot of updates coming...)

Speaking of Gangrel, I'm hoping late this month or early next! Still waiting on some final things, but it's imminent!

[Yossarian]

Just because this is a fairly simple fix, here's the rewrite. Does this make things a bit clearer?

If all hurdles are overcome after each character acted, the Tilt is resolved with an exceptional success. However, if any hurdles remain, the coterie must make an act of desperation. To do so, the players elect a point character to attempt a final, heroic effort. Her player describes a Hail Mary action and then makes a roll penalized by the number of remaining hurdles, plus any other modifiers. This action uses a different Attribute + Skill than the one she used before, as something needs to fundamentally change about the character’s tactics. The number of remaining hurdles should influence the narrative complexity of this effort.
Succeed or fail, the character refreshes a Willpower for taking this action. The results of this roll are only pass or fail, but the troupe can choose to make a regular failure a dramatic one if the choice is unanimous.
Tilt Resolution Results
Success: All hurdles have been removed, but the coterie had to resort to desperation to do so. The Tilt ends and each coterie member gains a Beat for contributing. A scene passes.
Exceptional Success: The coterie cleared all hurdles without a desperation action, and the issue was handled so efficiently that they have time to spare. Choose one: Don’t lose a scene or regain the 10-again quality on a stalled Tilt.
Failure: The coterie left hurdles in place; the Tilt continues to wreak havoc and a scene passes. The team must begin from scratch on another attempt later in the evening. If the coterie has can’t stall any further scenes, the Blowout is also a failure.
Dramatic Failure: The coterie resolved no hurdles or chose to dramatically fail the desperation action. As with a failure, but the Tilt gains an additional hurdle for later.

[Excess]

I have issues that can keep me from responding a long while. So forgive the few days this took.

I would have quoted you here to make my point easier, but I don't know how to quote a quote. (I will understand if you don't want to do any more editing, I have a mind for little errors)

Anyways Yossarian, yes, it is clearer, but I still see some issues. Three errors here and a question.

The "failure" outcome has one too many "has".

You describe the roll as "only pass or fail", but four outcomes isn't binary.

You still simultaneously say that having hurdles remain means that a desperation must happen and yet doesn't have to.

Despite all that you still make it clearer because I no longer doubt what Exceptional Successes can do.

My question is on the "Hail Mary". Is it the official name for the mechanic and "desperation action" just means the Hail Mary had less than an Exceptional Success?

I also reread the Blowout mechanics. I was trying to see if your changes here caused a contradiction elsewhere, thankfully that wasn't hard. You kept the mechanics nearly entirely contained in one small part of the book. It is not like this is a mechanic's guide to cars or anything.

The closest thing to a contradiction I found was that your example story with the "joyless (Nosferatu) asshole" tilt referenced desperation actions and I still don't know if you changed the name. I am fairly sure you didn't.

Also, on page 81 section "Hosting", you have an incomplete sentence. "Hosting is the night of."

Finally, if you put that section in the book as is the readers likely won't have the context of our conversation. They will likely guess that the "Exceptional Success" of clearing all hurdles is the same as for desperation actions, but you could remove that momentary confusion.

I really do have a mind for little errors. That is why I don't expect them all to be corrected, in anything I critique.

[Yossarian]

I have issues that can keep me from responding a long while. So forgive the few days this took.

I would have quoted you here to make my point easier, but I don't know how to quote a quote. (I will understand if you don't want to do any more editing, I have a mind for little errors)

Anyways Yossarian, yes, it is clearer, but I still see some issues. Three errors here and a question.

The "failure" outcome has one too many "has".

You describe the roll as "only pass or fail", but four outcomes isn't binary.

You still simultaneously say that having hurdles remain means that a desperation must happen and yet doesn't have to.

Despite all that you still make it clearer because I no longer doubt what Exceptional Successes can do.

My question is on the "Hail Mary". Is it the official name for the mechanic and "desperation action" just means the Hail Mary had less than an Exceptional Success?

I also reread the Blowout mechanics. I was trying to see if your changes here caused a contradiction elsewhere, thankfully that wasn't hard. You kept the mechanics nearly entirely contained in one small part of the book. It is not like this is a mechanic's guide to cars or anything.

The closest thing to a contradiction I found was that your example story with the "joyless (Nosferatu) asshole" tilt referenced desperation actions and I still don't know if you changed the name. I am fairly sure you didn't.

Also, on page 81 section "Hosting", you have an incomplete sentence. "Hosting is the night of."

Finally, if you put that section in the book as is the readers likely won't have the context of our conversation. They will likely guess that the "Exceptional Success" of clearing all hurdles is the same as for desperation actions, but you could remove that momentary confusion.

I really do have a mind for little errors. That is why I don't expect them all to be corrected, in anything I critique.

Thanks for pointing out the typos (“night of” isn’t one, though; it’s just an idiom). Hail Mary was my way of trying not to use the word desperation eight billion times in a single paragraph; however, capitalized words in White Wolf books are always dodgy, so better to go with clarity over style in this case. TL;DR, it’s not a name change.

From your response, I think I just need to rewrite the section. The distinction between the results of the desperation roll and the results of the Tilt overall is too confusing.

In the meantime, for clarity sake, here’s how it’s supposed to work:

If the players clear all hurdles in the allotted turns, clearing the Tilt is an exceptional success.

If the players don’t clear all hurdles in the allotted turns, they must make a desperation roll, mandatorily, no other option. If that desperation roll succeeds, the Tilt is a normal success, as listed. If it fails, the Tilt fails. This individual dice roll is only pass or fail, but the players can choose to dramatically fail it. If the player rolls an exceptional success on the desperation roll, it would only be a regular success for the Tilt. I think that’s the source of your confusion: the exceptional success is for clearing all hurdles without desperation; it’s not what happens if you roll five successes on the desperation roll.

Anyway, I really do appreciate the feedback! I’ll make sure all of that is communicated better in the update.

[Excess]

Thanks for pointing out the typos (“night of” isn’t one, though; it’s just an idiom). Hail Mary was my way of trying not to use the word desperation eight billion times in a single paragraph; however, capitalized words in White Wolf books are always dodgy, so better to go with clarity over style in this case. TL;DR, it’s not a name change.

From your response, I think I just need to rewrite the section. The distinction between the results of the desperation roll and the results of the Tilt overall is too confusing.

In the meantime, for clarity sake, here’s how it’s supposed to work:

If the players clear all hurdles in the allotted turns, clearing the Tilt is an exceptional success.

If the players don’t clear all hurdles in the allotted turns, they must make a desperation roll, mandatorily, no other option. If that desperation roll succeeds, the Tilt is a normal success, as listed. If it fails, the Tilt fails. This individual dice roll is only pass or fail, but the players can choose to dramatically fail it. If the player rolls an exceptional success on the desperation roll, it would only be a regular success for the Tilt. I think that’s the source of your confusion: the exceptional success is for clearing all hurdles without desperation; it’s not what happens if you roll five successes on the desperation roll.

Anyway, I really do appreciate the feedback! I’ll make sure all of that is communicated better in the update.

Three outcomes (dramatic failure) still is not a binary, otherwise, you are now making more sense about this than ever.

One other thing. I asked about the Gangrel book earlier. If you merely said you declined to give an approximate due date then fine, but not answering at all is annoying. It really doesn't matter because it will be out eventually and you will have my money.

[Satchel]

One other thing. I asked about the Gangrel book earlier. If you merely said you declined to give an approximate due date then fine, but not answering at all is annoying.

It's also annoying and extremely rude to ignore an answer and then call someone annoying for not giving you something they gave you:

Speaking of Gangrel, I'm hoping late this month or early next! Still waiting on some final things, but it's imminent!

[Excess]

It's also annoying and extremely rude to ignore an answer and then call someone annoying for not giving you something they gave you:

Didn't notice that. My bad.

[Excess]

Last thing Yossarian: I couldn't find the "night of" idiom on the internet. I read long lists of idioms that contained the word "night", even if only in the examples of said idioms. Couldn't find that one, so I literally don't know what it means. Even if you tell me I can't corroborate you. Truth be told I am just about done with editing "sin again". If you ignore it, I will ignore it.

[lnodiv]

Last thing Yossarian: I couldn't find the "night of" idiom on the internet.

https://ell.stackexchange.com/questi...t-of-something
Refer to Jacob C's answer.

Also, Laurel's answer here:
https://english.stackexchange.com/qu...sage-of-day-of

Truth be told I am just about done with editing "sin again"

Sorry, are you the editor of this product or something?