Resources Redone

[Pnizzle]

So in my table I am doing away with resources = money. I'm amalgamating resources as basically Arsenal/Equipment/whatever else was said in other books. If they want to be rich, then their character needs a higher finance skill.

I'm probably recreating the wheel but here goes nothing.

I definitely have NPC hunters and I fully expect players to deal with Sabbat. There's more then likely players who'll pool resources to get better gear if they're smart.

[Pnizzle]

EXISTING INFO
RANGED WEAPON	RESOURCE COST	DAMAGE	RANGE	ROF	CAPACITY	CONCEAL	SPECIAL
LIGHT REVOLVER	1	4	12	3	6	P
HEAVY REVOLVER	2	6	35	2	6	J
LIGHT PISTOL	2	4	20	4	15+1	P
HEAVY PISTOL	3	5	25	3	13+1	J
RIFLE	4	8	200	1	3+1	N
SMALL SMG	3	4	20	3	17+1	J	capable of three-round bursts, full auto, and sprays
LARGE SMG	4	4	50	3	30+1	T	capable of three-round bursts, full auto, and sprays
ASSAULT RIFLE	5	7	150	3	30+1	N	capable of three-round bursts, full auto, and sprays
SHOTGUN	3	8	20	1	5+1	T
SEMI AUTO SHOTGUN	5	8	20	3	6+1	T
CROSSBOW	1	5	20	1	1	T	FIVE ROUND RELOAD

MODIFIERS	RESOURCE COST	EFFECT
SILVER WEAPON	+3	EXISTING WEAPON OR AMMO IS SILVER
DRAGONBREATH
EXPLODING ROUNDS
LASER SIGHTS	+1
IMPROVED CONCEAL	+1	CONCEAL RATING IS BETTER.
IMPROVED RELOAD	+1	CROSSBOWS NOW RELOAD 1 PER TURN. ALL OTHERS ARE AUTOMATIC IF YOU SUBTRACT 1 FROM YOUR FIREARMS DICE POOL.
IMPROVED ROF	+1	DOUBLED ROF.
IMPROVED CAPACITY	+1	X10 CAPACITY.
NIGHT VISION	1 OR +1	NEGATES VISION PENALTY.
IR VISION	1 OR +1	SENSES HEAT. CAN IDENTIFY VAMPIRES.
NON LETHAL ROUNDS	+1	DAMAGE CANNOT KILL VICTIM AND IS BASHING ONLY.
POISON ROUNDS	+1	DAMAGE REPEATS ITSELF AT THE NEXT SCENE.
ARMOR PIERCING	+1	NEGATES 3 ARMOR/TOUGHNESS.
...	...	...

So i saw some of these in Project Twilight which sparked my interest. This is just what I patched together for firearms. One player with a resource of 5 chose to have a crossbow which was decked out to reload faster, hold more ammo, and be more concealable.

[Pnizzle]

MELEE	RESOUCE COST	DAMAGE	CONCEAL
SAP	0	1	P
CLUB	1	2	T
KNIFE	1	1	J
SWORD	3	2	T
AXE	4	3	N
STAKE	0	1	T

Melee weapons kinda seemed straight forward. But then again anyone can grab a fireaxe. But a reliable axe as a weapon? Probably not. May need revision. Only could consider silver weapons for this.

[Pnizzle]

ARMOR	RESOUCE COST	ARMOR BONUS	DEX PENALTY
REINFORCED CLOTHING	1	1	0
ARMORED T SHIRT	2	2	0
KEVLAR VEST	3	3	1
FLAK JACKET	4	4	2
FULL RIOT GEAR	5	5	3

Straight 1 for 1. Nothing special I can think of except maybe removing the dex penalty or increasing the armor bonus.

[Pnizzle]

I have zero thought of what to do about cars. I dislike the whole section. Why add a world war 2 tank?!

Maneuver restrictions kind limits someone who is a master of driving, they can only use a formula one racer then.......? No. Too many action movies have negated this logic.

BULLET PROOF VEHICLE

4

CARS HAVE ADDITIONAL 5 TOUGHNESS AGAINST BULLETS.

I think WOD Armory had a toughness rating system.

Could have another features akin to Knight Rider or that old James Bond Junior tv show.

[chipotlechris]

How would this work with a socialite that has inherited money? They wouldn't have any dots in finance (in the extreme, but i can see that being common) so that would mean they have no cash? Same with Giovanni - they are bankrolled by the clan when they're proving useful. Someone with lots of Guns, wouldn't necessarily have a mansion they lived it (think of all the lone Gun nut stereotypes), but someone with enough money for a mansion could comfortably have many weapons. If i wanted to play a reclusive Gangrel prepared for anything, in normal rules i'd say having resources 2 would be enough for that - they live in a shithole, but it's a well armed shithole. I can see what you're getting at with the above, but at the same time you could just as easily fold this into the standard resources model that exists. i'm also not sure Full Riot gear would require 'Resources' 5 to obtain for example. whilst i'm sure it's not cheap, i'd imagine that it's affordable to people who know how to get it. with something like that, i'd say cost is less relevant than contacts - arms dealers or Police contacts would be the way to get that. Same with Assault rifle - frankly that's a resources 2 item - it's not like we've not seen enough of the Public using them! They're not cheap, but similarly, they aren't 'private jet' money! it's Birthday treat money.

My games are reasonably combat light, so i'm not sure i'd need this level of detail, and in addition, almost all the weapons my coterie have have been pillaged off the corpses of people that tried to kill them.

[jamiemalk]

i'm also not sure Full Riot gear would require 'Resources' 5 to obtain for example. whilst i'm sure it's not cheap, i'd imagine that it's affordable to people who know how to get it. with something like that, i'd say cost is less relevant than contacts - arms dealers or Police contacts would be the way to get that.

Yeah, £200 is more than enough to get a set. Less if you buy the pieces one at a time and are willing to mix army and police armour, the plates are the hardest to find, but not exactly difficult if you speak to army surplus guys and don't have a snitchy vibe. This is in the UK where i imagine it's actually harder to pick this kind of stuff up too.

[chipotlechris]

Yeah, i'm UK too - so i suppose an Assault Rifle (or frankly many guns) would cost a lot more and be harder to obtain. I suppose i'm basing this on the idea that a lot of WoD games get set in the US, or at least in places where arms are easier to obtain. Certainly if i set a game outside the US, i'd makes guns more common - this is the WoD after all - it's supposed to be a corrupt, violent hell hole!

[Heavy Arms]

I would highly recommend checking out the Availability mechanics from CofD 2e (they should be in the free GMC Rules Update PDF if you don't want to buy any of the CofD stuff) and how Resources relates to them for abstracting away from Resources = Money.

Availability as a concept does two subtle but nice things: (1) It's not just about how much something is worth, but how hard it is to get; something can have a market value of $5K and have an Availability rating of 1 - such as a cheap car - or 5 - such as a rare and highly collectible comic book - because supply matters a lot; there's even a +1 Availability rule to expedite something that normally takes time. (2) It gives guidance to getting things without Resources such as using other Backgrounds like Status or Allies, or traits like Abilities.

This doesn't make it directly Finances = wealth (also CofD doesn't have that as an Ability), but the same guidelines would make Finances very useful for greater purchasing power.

[Theodrim]

I wouldn't be so quick to draw a strong correlation between Resources and Finance. "Wealthy" is "wealthy enough to hire a good accountant", people of limited financial means must learn by necessity how to stretch meager resources, and coming from a profession in the financial sector is by no means a guarantee one is wealthy by default. Remember that post-V20, Resources reflects net worth and net disposable income, and starting at a rating of 3 assets, properties, and capital gains become more important to the rating than cash in-hand and account value(s). Which, as the core book points out, can lead to short-term liquidity problems for characters with exceptionally high Resource ratings due to the scale and value of their investitures, which is reflected in the "temporary living standards" downgrade for each rating value.

We can argue examples and counter-examples all day, which to me simply indicates the matter is best-handled on a case-by-case basis regarding the merits and drawbacks of the proposed character's lifestyle.

Oh, and in general, revolvers are more expensive in today's firearm market than semi-automatic pistols. It used to be the case revolvers were cheaper than semi-autos, but that was when semi-autos were more difficult and expensive to produce, and law enforcement heavily relied on revolvers which drove supply and demand. Then, in the '80s the US Armed Forces adopted the Beretta 92 as its standard sidearm, and law enforcement moved from revolvers to semi-autos, which triggered a glut in the revolver market as sellers traded in for semi-autos while manufacturers tried to offload surplus inventory.

Skip forward to today. Revolvers don't have the demand as pistols, and pistol supply is higher, which tips economics of scale in pistols' favor while at the same time pistols are simpler and cheaper to manufacture than ever. Revolvers have also significantly lagged behind pistols in terms of transitioning to aluminum alloy and polymer components, and involve more hand fitting in the production process, both of which run up prices.

[Pnizzle]

To provide my line of thinking:

It’s not just getting a gun. It’s getting a gun that isn’t traceable and be able to do it again reliably.

Yes. You CAN buy swat gear. But you’re on a watch list if you do. There’s paperwork for everything. Including cars. Actually, especially cars.

Yes you can go to a gun store but most places want a ridiculous amount of paperwork for it.

As for money, I’d reference the funny YouTube “How not to ventrue”.

But as far as money and lifestyles vampires can’t live on the grid in the public eye. Sure. Fame comes into play. Keep in mind your money dwindles over time. You’re also not paying for food and most utilities unless you choose to for whatever reason.

I’ll check out CofD. Sounds like it might fit my goal. Any other books?

Also. My goal is to come up with a way to make pooling resources worthwhile.

[Tubect]

For me, Resources are how you buy stuff, Contacts is how you know where to get it. If you have Resources 5 and Contacts 0, you're not going to be pulling together a covert, highly armed death squad because you don't Know A Guy. You can buy a sweet limo, but you're not going to get it modified to be The Beast because you don't Know A Guy. If you want a highly trained, super competent bodyguard you might need Resources to be able to pay him, but you're going to have to put dots into Ally too.

A way of representing "just throw money at the problem!" is to tie up resource dots if you're buying something that you should need a contact for. If you want that death squad, you can get it for a one-off mission but your lack of network means you're going to pay through the nose for it, in the form of "3 of your resources dots are tied up for a month/story/whatever while you throw them at this problem" and that death squad is going to peace out once the work is done (and may be unreliable/mercenary in general)

I've read stories of "help! my player is a resources 5 neonate and he bought a private island!" and the answer is "not without dots in Haven he didn't"

[Red Eye]

For me, Resources are how you buy stuff, Contacts is how you know where to get it. If you have Resources 5 and Contacts 0, you're not going to be pulling together a covert, highly armed death squad because you don't Know A Guy. You can buy a sweet limo, but you're not going to get it modified to be The Beast because you don't Know A Guy. If you want a highly trained, super competent bodyguard you might need Resources to be able to pay him, but you're going to have to put dots into Ally too.

This whole premise, actually, is one I think many tend to overlook, and one I am happy to see played out more expressly in the Chicago by Night V5 manuscript. As a brief example, on the character profiles in the manuscript the way that they end up detailing backgrounds is across a couple subcategories on the NPC - "Domain and Haven" and "Thralls and Tools" respectively. The things listed in these tend to be combinations of Backgrounds to make a single coherent concept. For further example without going too far into spoiler territory, one NPC has "Cultivar Cult" listed under their Thralls and Tools which is itself shown to be a combination of Allies, Contacts, and Retainers respectively at various levels to show how the character has integrated themselves into the cult.

This is repeatedly expressed across NPCs as the primary means of showing off what Backgrounds they have. I feel like folks tend to get stuck in this rut of looking at Backgrounds in isolation when they are much more reasonably viewed as a combination of points placed into overarching concepts.

[Nosimplehiway]

To provide my line of thinking:

It’s not just getting a gun. It’s getting a gun that isn’t traceable and be able to do it again reliably.

Maybe it's because I live in South Carolina, but, umm... by your system, everybody I know are millionaires.

Yes. You CAN buy swat gear. But you’re on a watch list if you do. There’s paperwork for everything. Including cars. Actually, especially cars.

Yes you can go to a gun store but most places want a ridiculous amount of paperwork for it.

This sounds more like Larceny and Streetwise to me. Possibly, Law. Maybe, just Technology to use the internet and pick the first Google result.

I use Resources as a vague indicator of over-all lifestyle, rather than any actual cash value. If a player wants to buy something that seems a little too expensive or is arguably out of reach, that's when a Resources roll comes in. If a player wants to raise their overall rating, help someone else do the same, or do something complex (like finance a new house with a loan taken out using the recording rights to a hit song they wrote as collateral) that's when Finance skill is rolled.

Honestly, most of the time Finance has been rolled in my games it's been for records searches, rather than actual investing. eg: "Who owns this funeral home?" "Where did Lucia get the money for her new club?" "Which stockholder's proxy do I need for the takeover to be approved?"

What equipment a pc has I usually base on their rating in the appropriate skill, but with Resources flavoring the style and panache of the equipment. For example, someone with Athletics 4 likely has a complete home gym. If they have Resources 1, it's dumb-bells, a pull-up bar, and a jump rope. If they have Resources 4, it's professional level exercise machines, a sauna, and a treadmill with variable difficulty and full VR capabilities.

So, if you have high Firearms, you have a bunch of guns. If you have high Firearms and high Resources, you have a bunch of very pretty guns.

There are, of course, exceptions. I'll also give pcs equipment if it fits their concept. A pc whose concept is "formerly brilliant scholar who was embraced to halt the advance of Alzheimer's" might have Intelligence 2, and an Academics of 1. They likely still own a large collection of books, and if they say they want to have an antique chess set, covered in dust, they can have it.

[Heavy Arms]

Also. My goal is to come up with a way to make pooling resources worthwhile.

If you adopt something close to the CofD 2e method - which doesn't pool Resources since it's kind of pointless to pool as-written there - you could do something pretty simple here if you wanted.

In CofD 2e, your Resources rating is basically a measure of how often you can just make an Availability X purchase. Availability 2 or more below your Resources are effectively free for you within narrative reason. Availability of your rating or rating - 1 can be done once per Chapter without drawback. Additional rating/rating - 1 purchases, or a rating + 1 purchase at all, can be done but decreases your Resources rating for a month until you can recover from rapidly draining your assets.

If I wanted to make pooling attractive and adapt that, what I would do is:

1) The highest contributed Resources rating is the pools 'base' Resources. Four PCs donating Resources 1, and one donating Resources 3, doesn't get your Resources 7, it gets you Resources 3 with four extra points.

2a) Extra points can be spent to make an additional rating/rating -1 purchase per chapter without consequence, so in the above example they can make five Availability 3 purchases a Chapter instead of one. Extra points recover at the rate of 1 per Chapter, or fully at the start of a Story.

2b) Extra points can be spent to increase the cap on spending above your total, or to avoid a reduction in base Resources. Both require a successful (Intelligence + Finance) roll at a difficulty of (10 - the lowest contributed Resources), and the extra points spent are lost if for roll fails. So the example pool could try to make an Availability 6 purchase and not reduce their Resources for a month, but it would cost three of their extra points, and have diff 9 Finance rolls to deal with.

This does a few things. First it keeps pooling from getting a bit crazy, but there's some nice benefits for pooling if the group is a bit lopsided. Second, it provides a significant benefit in being able to get bigger things than you can do with personal Resources alone and/or more frequently. Third, it really helps if you have someone in your group with Finance now. And last, it really, really, benefits from continued investment as a bunch of low Resources characters banding together get some benefits, it's nothing compared to what five high Resources characters can do together.