Lores.

[Thornstar]

Word.

[Joseph Mayek]

Good points. Though I'd like to point out that the examples of Path's aren't knowledge of paths, but individual powers in Paths, for all you know, they could all have been part of the same path. Sure, logic may say they're different paths, if you know anything about magic.. but you likely don't know any details about the Principles of Thaumaturgy, major or minor (or if you do, someone needs a nice, hard smack).

Also, you shouldn't know the Oath, our internal Politics, Houses within the Clan, any real details of our history, and such. And that's all 3 and below stuff.

That still doesn't discount the matter of forgetting you saw a tremere fly, summon things out of thin air, or throw fire, though.

[David Price]

Most of the people that "needs a nice, hard smack" aren't playing their thaum-users any more, so here's some of the information.

I tricked a few tremere into spilling the details regarding paths and rituals and their interactions a while back. There were at least three Tremere who were in Arlo's "self-defense" class, two of whom requested private training. During the private training, Arlo explained that to properly create a fighting strategy for them, he needed to ask general questions regarding their abilities. He asked them whether they could fly (Seen from Victor and Joh's tremere), they said no. Arlo asked them whether they could shoot fire (Seen from Victor), they said no. He asked whether they could boil people's blood (First hand witnessed from Victor to Walter Steiner, then explained by Radik), they said "Not yet." He commented that they should use quarterstaffs to channel their power (complete wizard stereotype nonsense) and they responded, "How did you know about that?" and "Well, not yet." A few quick questions regarding how the "what you can do vs. what other people can do" works and what they _can_ do (spending blood really quickly/making people frenzy, lowering gen, oh, and that person can suck out blood from people far away but I'm still learning that), and Arlo not only knows what the specific levels of path of blood are (since he's seen Victor use Path of Blood 1 and knows it wasn't Blood Walk, and that was the only one he was missing), but knows that separate paths have equivalent chains. And if you think I can't trick people out of that kind of information, you didn't watch me play Samuel Vinson.

From a comment overheard about not being able to fly yet, but seeing Victor pin Isaiah to the ceiling, Arlo's determined that Movement of the Mind can effect other people than the user and has levels of strength, so counts as a path. He's seen various levels of Lure of Flames (specifically 1, 3 and 5, which entertainingly correspond to the jump in damage), so assumes it isn't a ritual, although doesn't know the specific strengths. And he's pretty sure Path of Conjuring is a path due the massive diversity of items created, although given how so many people use the ritual to increase the amount, he's not entirely sure whether the levels of the path are how much you generate or what you generate. So far Arlo's just assumed the things he knows aren't paths are lumped together in rituals, especially since paths seem to be instantaneous and rituals take a while to set up. Radik explained Blood Walk and Illuminate Trail of Prey, he's seen Nigel and many other tremere use Rutor's Hands and the familiars (name escapes me at the moment), he's seen Nigel use the splinter servant, he's seen Nathan Coleman (and one of the other tremere that I can't think of offhand) use Scry (and Extinguish), he saw Joh's tremere use Burning Blade, various mentions of the use on Amadeo of drawing out his beast were made, he was there during the demon plot where everybody got ward vs. demon stuff (and has weapons that are warded vs. kindred and ghouls). He got speed-laced Setite blood capsules, an Assamite gifted him with 7th gen ventrue blood in a magically preserved container... the list goes on and on. Arlo's a two and a half year character. People were really stupid back then. Arlo's fairly smart. And yes, many tremere when faced with the knowledge that Arlo knows about all this have reacted, "Holy cow, there are really stupid tremere in this city." and then they've given Arlo information and then stopped being playable. It's a fun cycle.

And the not knowing the Oath and whatnot is part of my reasoning- how should I know Tremere Lore 4 stuff and the majority of Tremere Lore 3 information without knowing any of the Tremere Lore 2 things? I clearly shouldn't be buying Tremere Lore 4, but Arlo should know the paths and rituals he's found out. The only way to fix the situation is to allow Arlo to know the things that he's learned in scenes without buying the dots OR forgetting the information.

[satyavati]

vidihawk said:

gorf said:

Oh, and by the way, under Camarilla Lore 3 it gives the example of "What any Nosferatu or Tremere would know", so do you really think everyone should be able to get that easily?...

Well, not everyone... what about Nos or Tremere, though? Should every Cam-loyal Nos or Tremere start game with that much Cam-lore?

Yes. If they are that political, they should. I built my character to be a political creature. I specifically have Clan lore, cam lore and kindred lore for my apropriate age and status in the clan and city.

Learning something ingame and using it without buying the dot is like saying that because my charater teaches a brujha to meditate, they don't need to spend the xp because I actually RP'ed it.

Justify your knowledge like everything else on your sheet.

[Daddy]

I never really thought lore represented knowledge. I thought it represented expertise. Something researched, pondered and looked at from all angles.

If an anarch walks up to you and says "The Convention of Thorns," does that qualify you to identify anarchs? Does that justify spending xp and learning all the first level anarch lore knowledge? Or would you have to spend more time talking to anarchs or (if there is such a thing) reading books about anarchs.

It seems to me that there's really only two ways to justify learning lore. You can use occult influence to learn lores, or you can have a PC or NPC teach you. Learning lore is as intensive as learning any other knowledge.

Let's look at other knowledges to see if this makes sense. I choose politics. Let's say a guy has politics at 0. He lives in the US and has no idea who the president is. Now, we have anouther guy go up to him and say "The president is George W. Bush" every day for a month. Let's say the guy is taking karate lessons at the Y and spends all his exp for the month on brawl and dodge. At the end of the month, will he have learned who the president is?

I'd say he would. I'd also say that if he got out of the Y and spent some time reading, he might also learn about how the american political system works, the electoral college, the branches of government, etc. And if he did, he could spend exp and learn politics one.

I'd also like to step aside and mention how stupid it seems to me that you can only teach knowledges up to one level lower than you have. So if I had anarch lore 1, I couldn't teach anyone what I know about anarchs, because I don't know enough about them to be able to tell others what I know.

Anyway, it seems to me that lore should represent a wide, well researched knowledge base that seperates fact from fiction. If the average Cam vampire sees a newly embraced Sabbat with a shovel mark in his forehead, the Cam dude is as likely to determine that the sabbat only embraces guys with shovel scars as he is to know the creation rites. Unless he does his homework.

Lore should enable you to get answers from the STs, because your character knows what's up. Cam lore 4 shouldn't just let you talk about conclaves, you should be able to walk up to an ST and say "I've got cam lore 4, what do I know about Archon Scatter?" Lore shouldn't just be a control on meta-gaming, it should be a resource that you can call on to get knowledge of our setting.

[Mike Lohmann]

Word.

[Joseph Mayek]

Yeah, I can see the justification of knowing of those paths with what you said there even without knowing anything about the Principles of Thaum or knowing how they work. Maybe should fall under Occult, or maybe something like "thaum lore", as you've got info on it, but not the Clan so much.

*wonders how Daddy read his email to the ST's* lol

Made some of the same points and actual examples that I did, almost by word.

But I'd like to say that lores -are- knowledge.. they're secondary knowledges, a refinement of other knowledges, or stand alone knowledge in some cases.

As for the matter of teaching to 1 below you're knowledge, I somewhat understand you're point of view.. you'd think you could teach all you know.. but I can also understand having some restrictions on em.. especially disciplines and the like. But, anyways.. I think it's about time for sleep for me.

[Kevin K]

On the question of: "If you don't buy it, you forget it" In Arlo's case with the cyborg, I'd say that he isn't clear on the details. Something big and mechanical attacked them for (4 rounds) .. about sixteen seconds before it blew up. It seems like it ought to be too much for current technology, but.... how much Science and Computers does Arlo have? Even if it's enough to come to that conclusion, I'd say that until you've spent the XP, you haven't, and you haven't thought about it in enough detail to be able to share it with others.

If it seems odd that you can go through a scene that puts you in a position to learn a lore, and then the next night you don't know it, remember that it's the same kind of odd as if someone spends 20 minutes showing you how to shoot a gun (firearms 1) and the next week, you don't know how to do it. It just didn't stick.

I don't know what to say other than sometimes your character has to put priorities on what he/she pays attention to, and what she lets slide. Anarchs coming into a Cam city are a perfect example. Likely as not, you'll be bombarded with information that you never had a need for or access to in the past. What do you listen to? What can you listen to and remember? It's a tough call, but you have to roleplay your choices.

In other news, we have some announcements coming up wrt to how Lores relate to Occult and Politics, which grew out of good comments from Drake. Just FYI, we'll have the post ready in the next couple of days.

[David Price]

Arlo has Perception+Computers 6 (Int+Computers 7), was using auspex to look at the thing for weaknesses during the round it was on the elevator, and has computer aptitude (So if those apply, he had something like 10 dice at the time). He also has Lightning Calculator, Int+Science 6, and secondaries in mathematics and various sciences. When making a test with STAdam at the time, Arlo won once and tied once to determine that it was science that does not currently exist, giving him a total of ~5 successes. A six-agg laser beam punched through the building wall by his head. He's also got video tapes of the action from multiple points of view. How hard is it to make the conclusion that a functional cyborg with a laser beam arm is past anything resembling present technology? _I_ know that, and I certainly don't have 7 dice.

And how should I handle the knowledge of paths and rituals without knowing the tremere Oath and whatnot?

Arlo's spent something like 30 exp into Lores already (including silly things like fae lore that will never come up), so this isn't me trying to get completely out of these things, but scenes like the cyborg requiring me to buy the lore would mean that I used all my exp of that night just remembering that a thing existed, completely ignoring the fact that I also demonstrated leadership, fortitude, and melee. And it doesn't take me a month to remember that a tremere is flying every time combat breaks out (I can count four different instances just off the top of my head).

We've run memory things in the past where if you as a player can remember the information, your character can, and if you forget, you can occasionally make a test to see if you remember. I remember throwing a stake into thirteen's face from across the room, I remember taking damage from the mortals with assault rifles. I remember Ethan coming over Arlo's headset asking for weakpoints just as the cyborg's elevator reached the floor I was on and saying "A little busy now." while staring right at it. I can remember things like where we were all _standing_ during the scene. I remember what _tests_ I threw (I do not have eidetic memory. This is merely because it was a very intense scene for my character). How am I supposed to forget that the very reason I was going into that scene was because we discovered that mortal science mages had created Thirteen from multiple vampires and were doing bioresearch on how to use that technology? (Information received from Victor and Mr. Minion)

Technocracy Lore is so vastly unlikely to ever come up in play again. OOC there is no benefit to my character for me spending the exp. IC Arlo would not spend any more time researching the event other than to verify that they left the city and reviewing the tapes of the fight. But people will praise him about fighting a cyborg. People who were there. I'm supposed to say, "Oh, no, those things are all over the place, standard stuff really."? Or "Sorry, I don't recall what you're talking about?"

Arlo is not an expert on the technocracy. He doesn't know their goals or methods. He doesn't know their groupings. He doesn't know what kind of government backing they have or how they're organized. He does know that superscience exists and they capture supernaturals and have cyborgs with massive laser beams that blow up when destroyed.

Just for a quick chart, from the website- Just to know that the other spheres exist, the various factions of vampires _exist_, and to be able to recite the traditions and know basics about vampires, I figure you'll need: Cam Lore 2 (level 1 doesn't get you the traditions to the point of being able to recite them!), Sabbat Lore 1 (if you don't have Sabbat Lore 1, Sabbat don't exist!), Kindred Lore 2 (without kindred lore 2, you don't know about the embrace! Where the heck did you come from? Without kindred lore 2, you don't know what the clans are! Kindred Lore 1 just gets you that clans _exist_), Ghost Lore 1 (ever been to the gaslight?), Lupine Lore 1 (3 if you feel like knowing that silver does squat, which is ridiculous since in the werewolf book it specifically mentions that it's public knowledge), Cathayan Lore 1 (Hello? Are you _in_ Seattle?), Infernal Lore 1 (only for people who were in that plot, if you were at the bridge, hey, look, demons exist), Fae Lore 1, Mage Lore 1 (okay, those last two are stretches, but if you don't like them, subtract 4 from the end total). That's 20 exp right there.

Want to know your ass from a hole in the ground? Try Brujah Lore 1 (otherwise you don't know brujah are quick to anger or have celerity, potence, and presence!), Follower of Set Lore 1 (Look! Settites exist! Better go buy lore), Gangrel Lore 2 (otherwise you don't know their clan flaw or that they're split among independents and Cam, and you haven't heard of city gangrel), Giovanni Lore 1 (Giovanni have necromancy and are independent. Check.), Nosferatu Lore 2 (Nosferatu are in the sewers, ugly, and know information? Que surprise!), Ravnos Lore 1 (Ravnos exist? Shucks, there went two exp), Toreador Lore 1 (Toreador like art? Wow, I never knew...), Caitiff Lore 1 (What, there are vampires without clans?), and Lasombra Lore 2 (Anybody met Amadeo? You now know that lasombra exist outside the sabbat. Unless you just weren't paying attention and forgot, of course). That's another 21 exp.

So. To know _basic_ information regarding the various clan flaws and stereotypes, and the basic knowledge that is mentioned on a _daily basis_ in elysium... that's 37 exp. Or four months of roleplay (three with lots of noms).

Any of the Lore Police feel like starting to crack down on people mentioning clan names who clearly don't know what clans are? Or mentioning sabbat or cathayans exist without the lores? Hey, do all the Cathayan NPCs have Cathayan lore 2? They might not even know they exist and think they're some sort of weird vampire.

Calling "You need to have Lore" for various bits of information are all well and good, but in a domain where sabbat, anarch, and cathayans are the _main antagonists_... denying their existence because everybody apparently wasn't paying attention when the Sabbat attacked the city or the various announcements regarding it seems _really_ silly.

[Daddy]

In all fairness, you get a good amount of basic info on the other clans by buying Kindred Lore 3.

But it still doesn't cover the cathayans.

[Deimos]

I would like to point out that there is a difference between having one bit of information contained within the general lore list and having the lore.

There seems to be an assumption that is being refined along with these arguments that posits that, and that has never, to my knowledge, been said.

There is also a difference between knowing a bit of information and teaching it to others.

What was said before is that if you want to teach or regurgitate it, you should have the lore to back it up.

These are two distinctions that I believe have been obscured by the dueling rules-lawyers here.

On another, completely personal note, I find myself a bit taken aback by the fabricated logic used to probe for Tremere thaumaturgy paths and levels. Knowing beforehand OOC what constitues the paths and rituals and then using that information to assert IC probing questions that come from that base of knowledge to create alternately justifiable paths of logic to those same conclusions is so close to the slippery slope of metagaming that it's almost academic.

The rules are not about how smart you are. They are about how fair the game is from a level playing field, taking into account all modes of play and ability levels.

Saying, 'I'm smart enough to get lores in game without needing to buy them' is utterly moot by this standard.

These players are clearly smart enough to be able to logically justify most rules arguments from at least one perspective. That doesn't mean the justifications make the game any more or less fair.

I will remind everyone involved in this debate that the Storyteller system is a fluid one, by design, and while not every rule is utterly mutable, many remain flexible. Where that line is drawn may change, but sometimes should do so based on the situation, player or circumstance. That is how the tools are written for the ST.

It is possible for the structured mind to balk at this and cry favoritism or bias, but again, I say, bias of a sort is the basis of that flexibility. To give the storyteller more tools to avoid godhammering, and to help the ST provide the player with a range of choices within the story even if the outcome seems restrictive.

I think that geting intensely granular about lores is a mistake that ultimately takes choices a way from the storyteller, and by that, the player. The more granular a system, the more difficult to express, the less powerful and useful it becomes.

Which I believe is at the heart of the matter for these structured minds. At thend of the day, What I am hearing said is: "Lores are too powerful. They restrict my IC knowledge too much and my OOC XP spending too much." That's a fine opinion, but let's not tear apart lores for the sake of argument. Let's deal with the central issue.

Discuss.

[David Price]

Actually, Kevin stated it rather plainly at last post-mortem- if you don't buy the lores, you forget the knowledge that would be associated with that level. Most of what I've been doing is arguing that that should not be the case in situations where information is not enough to merit buying the lore but is information nonetheless. If the current system allows for this, then I'm fine with how things are going, but I want a clarification due to the various ST comments of "You don't know that." and "You've forgotten that." It has sounded to me that they're taking the most restrictive view of IC knowledge/lores possible, and I want a clarification of that. While complaining about 2 freebies for Cam Lore 2 is admittedly a little petty, when you start needing Cam Lore 2, Kindred Lore 2, Sabbat Lore 1, Anarch Lore 1, and Cathayan Lore 1 just to set foot in Seattle, it starts getting a little oppressive. I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea that you need the lore to teach it, and have stated this. For instance, Arlo has never brought up the cyborg technocracy thingie, and in fact has never mentioned to people that cathayans or sabbat exist. I'm just a little touchy on being declared to have forgotten that I've been introduced to Johnny Ko as a cathayan, have his business card, and have talked with him if I don't buy the dots.

I'm also still waiting to hear what the STs would like me to buy as lores if Arlo doesn't care to know about the Oath and politics but cares about Thaum paths and rituals. "Thaum Lore" is an entertaining idea, but having a secondary skill be a subset of a secondary skill seems a little shaky. Unless Arlo can get what he knows out of the first one or two levels of it, Tremere Lore would end up being more worthwhile as an exp expenditure. 2-3 exp is reasonable to me to expend on something Arlo's spent this much time researching. But I don't know how the STs want to handle it.

And regarding "fabricating logic used to probe for tremere paths and levels"- I hadn't even known the path of whatever it was Mick's character had even _existed_ before Arlo knew what two of the levels of the path did and knew they were path levels not rituals (he used them in elysium on camera with no prep time, clarified by Mick and Erin's characters later when asked about it (Arlo does not call them paths and rituals, I should point out. There are things that have prep time and things that don't. The things that don't seem to be connected in groups)). People have flat out _explained_ things to Arlo without him asking questions. The fact that I asked leading questions based on the information he had been flat out given is completely in character for Arlo. I can't not know the OOC information that I do. I wish I could sometimes. But I've carefully kept track of what things Arlo _does_ know IC, and making logical deductions from that information is perfectly legitimate. You've seen me play Arlo. I didn't know that Jack Griffin had Kenneth Ashland OOC (I'd even missed that entire _game_). I didn't know that the STs were playing a cappadocian in the shadowlands (I'd thought it was a joke, but it came up IC and I ran with it). You've _seen_ me make leaps of logic with Arlo with no OOC information _available_ to me. I made the prediction regarding Scion's transformation two days before it was posted (Sara can back me up on this. Unfortunately I don't have the chat log any more). I am really getting fed up with people claiming I'm metagaming. I've taken to documenting every action I take and information I have and I've been exonerated every single time. If I have to go hunt down the players that gave Arlo the thaum information and get them to sign a paper stating what information they'd given him I will, but the people that make me do that don't get to accuse me of metagaming again afterwards. I have tried to restrict myself as much as is possible in investigating this sort of information, but powers kindred have is something that Arlo is intensely interested in and has researched extensively. I have yet to be informed on what Lores Arlo should buy to represent this knowledge but not represent everything else random.

Arlo's already spent something like 25 exp on Lores. That's more exp than many of the characters in the domain have, if the new faces are any indication. This has not been me arguing that I'm too smart to need to buy lores. This is me arguing that the way lores are organized make expenditures misleading. Certain information is in more than one Lore and they occasionally make basic levels of lores useless due to being included in higher levels of other lores, it's possible to get information from Lore 4-5 without the information from Lore 1 or 2, and requiring exp to know that active antagonists and characters exist drains a lot of the customizing potential of people's characters with seemingly no active reward. These are the issues that I have.

[Kenneth Ashland]

I think it needs to made clearer, or a higher hurdle needs to be set, as to exactly what justifies an increase in lore.

From the website description, it seems that if you have heard, IC, a handful of relevant trivia towards the level of the Lore desired, I guess you can take that Lore.

Now, I really, really like how Ventrue Lore is spelled out on the website: what you would need to know to justify 1 dot in Ventrue Lore? Holy bejeezus! If you sought-out/learned IC half of all that...well, you'd be halfway there, right? But...damn. There is a lot to learn before you can call yourself even slightly educated.

And don't get me started on going towards Level 2 or (christ ) level 3.

I'll take the Arlo vs. the Hitmark example (and if I'm repeating points already made, forgive me):

Ok. You get attacked by uber-robot. So, you know that somehow, science has progressed that far. Well, we always knew the government was holding out on us, right? Maybe you can take a dot in Secondary knowledge: Conspiracy Theories.

But Technocracy Lore? If it's anything like Ventrue Lore, you better have a member ghouled to you giving you night lessons for a few months.

As far as Thaum: I can watch a professional skateboarder do tricks. I don't know the names of the tricks; I'd break my skull if I tried them; and I sure as hell am not going to understand professional skateboarding unless I do it, and practice, practice, practice.

Maybe we need outsider Clan lore, based off the stereotypes: Warlock Lore, Blueblood lore, Sewer Rat Lore, etc.

Make lists of vague generalizations one can make via observation, and tier them.

But unless you have a member of the Clan sitting you down and training you like a Fledgling of their Clan, like hell are you going to understand point #1 about the Clan.

my $.02

EDIT: Cuz my brain wouldn't turn off:

In regards to the "if I don't buy the lore I forget it" caveat, and again back to the Hitmark as an example:

Yeah, you remember this crazy thing happened to you. You were attacked by a robot! You can tell people that. I don't think extreme experiences like that should be "smoke" that you can only retain via XP.

But how does that justify a Lore purchase, anyway? How does seeing one thing give you an understanding of an entire subculture/topic?

Like with Ventrue Lore, you have to learn, know and understand a LOT before you can consider yourself even lightly educated.

Politicial discussion at a cocktail party doesn't equate to a BA in PoliSci. People (generally) don't learn through osmosis.

We should be able to relay tidbits we gain IC, but being able to correlate it all into a context where a character would logically know enough to be educated (or educate anyone else with any legitimacy) on a Clan's inner workings...or the theory behind a secretive Discipline...that should be a pretty difficult mark to hit (mark to hit...HitMark...you like that? ;D )

[Deimos]

I see what Broney is saying about the clarification between having to forget a single piece of knowledge that is at a lore level or having to buy the whole lore. Many moons ago my general policy was that if you learned a single thing in game that happened to fit into Cam lore 4 you didn't instantly need to buy four lore levels to justify it unless your char decided to go around preaching it, but I dunno how these pimps are workin' that slap.

As far as needing to spend a cubic butt ton of freebies/xp to create an elder and justify what they know - I don't really disaggree with that. Usually the STs are pretty good about saying stuff like: yeah I want to build this vamp and he's this old, but I can't afford this, this and this yet b/c of his background, can I earmark those for later purchase and just not play that he/she recalls that particular data till then?

Obviously I took that to an extreme with Scion, having him literally forget his past, but you get what I'm saying. That is one of those 'unwritten' things that most players can count on if they are willing to work with the STs to make a good story.

By the way, please let me further clarify what I consider metagaming. It's perhaps a broader definition than other folks have, so see if you can pick up what i'm laying down here:

The way I see it, you can either have your character fabricate a thought process that leads you to determine the underlying system behind an in game function, or you can lead your character to make purely qualitative conclusions about that.

The extensive justification Broney provided led in one direction, the proposed justifications Ross wrote went in another. Some might think both are valid. I'm not one of those people. I recognize that this is a difference of opinion from some. But hey, everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I'm thinkin' there is no real reason for a non-tremere to /want/ to know the ins and outs of thaum unless it is their mission in life to dissect the tremere way of life. I would be wary of approving a character based on that concept, and I don't know of any character, past or present who has had that concept. I would hardly call Arlo a dedicated occultist, but then again, I don't know or remember what's on his sheet in that regard.

For the record I also hate players who do a lot of discipline trading. It's game unbalancing and twinky. Now and then I can see it making sense, there are a few stores that can justify it. Generally though, people that trade them like pokemon cards really fucking piss me off. That has nothing to do with this conversation however and was a general rant. In fact, ignore that comepletely.

Anyway, what I was saying was, if it pisses you off to be even vaguely associated with metagaming, stay away from having your characters probe into the nitty gritty details of thaum paths and rituals. I do. Then you're in no danger of that. Or, get over the issue and just do it anyway. Nobody has to listen to a damn thing I say anymore unless they want to. For me, my reputation among my peers is more important to me than most of the things my character knows, because I recognize the importance of this hobby to my personal sanity.

I'm not saying that incredible leaps of faith and lunacy can't be made with great effect. I'm all for those story-driving leaps of intuition. I just don't see what's story driving about learning the minutia and differences between thaum paths and levels. I'm not feelin' it.

Where I'm coming from is this: I've just thrown my whole character background (minus some surprises) up on the boards. Someone even dreams about thinking about metagaming even a little, and lets their out of game info lead their characters even a little, and my character is over. Guh-done.

Not to get all school yard up in here, but that'd be gay.

If say, for example, someone in the Gangrel clan decides on thier own to advocate that we all start behaving more like a pack as a thinly veiled excuse to keep closer tabs on Scion so they can get set up for their 23 surprise dice kung fu attack!!!11!1!!!11! when prior to the last post I made they had no reason to go to those extremes, then well, that sucks. That's getting punked by a Meta Gam0r. Snap.

So I'm throwing a lot of trust out there people, and when I see questionable stuff like that rollin' around, peeps trying to out-word eachother and justify things that skirt the line I say - save us all the trouble and embarassment of even having the conversation. If it's questionable - don't go there. your real reputation at EC is far more important than your character's status.

Peace.

[Joseph Mayek]

I don't think there's a need for Outsider Clan lores, not really, unless you're Clan is overly secretative and even if they taught someone about them, they'd keep things back (See Tremere Lore, specifying that certain things will -not- be known to outsiders)

Clan lores are things you shouldn't know unless you've given in depth research or taught. Even some of the descriptions they have, that seem like Clan lore 1 is pretty easy stuff to learn, are things you should actively research to know for sure.

And, I realized that the place that the kind of information such seeing some Thaum paths and rituals, basically some Tremere tricks, falls under Kindred lore 3. Something like Thaum lore would be more in depth than seeing some powers in use, or knowing that some are instant, and others take prep. It'd be more like knowing why some are instant and others aren't, very likely on your way to understanding the Principles.

[Kevin K]

Let me address what you need to play "someone who doesn't look stupid in Seattle":

Kindred lore 2 (what a common Kindred would know)
Camarilla lore 2 (what a newly fledgling would know)

4 freebies.

This gets you base Kindred powerz (bonds, diablerie), basic Kindred events (first city, carthage), The Traditions, who the officers are and what they do (sheriff, harpy, seneshcal). You understand boons. You know the main 7-9 clans. You've heard of Independants, Anarchs, and Sabbat. You've heard the names of neighboring Princes. You know of rumours that the end of the world.

Anarch lore may need to be revised, since it's oriented towards Cammies learning about the Anarchs (no mention of sabbat in anarch lore, for example). The biggest thing it needs is to specifically talk about the anarchs knowing the other sects. We probably should just add that.

"But what about the cathayans?" First, what did you expect? We have Cathayan lore defined nowhere right now. Cam lore 2 mentions "other groups", which I'd be happy to add Cathayans into. Until you have a lot of Cathayan lore, though, you must assume they're a lot like you.

So what don't you know? First let me correct a mistake. Somewhere along the line your friendly STs got confused and believed that Diablerie was Kindred Lore 3. It's actually Kindred Lore 2. Sorry about that.

Anyway, what don't you know? Specifics. You know that there are Ventrue, and that they're stuffy. Someone says Dominate, and you say, "Domi-what?"

You know that the Camarilla was founded, and that it has princes, but someone says, "Well, there may be a conclave soon" and you say, "Conla-what?"

You know that there are Sabbat, and they're bad, but someone says "anti-tribu" and you say, "Trip your what?"

You know that there are bad things outside the city, but when someone says "lupine" you say "loo-pie-what?"

You know that there's a Book of Nod, and it has vampirey things in it. Someone says, "Well, the book of nod starts with ..." and you say, "quote-ah what?"

You know people say that the world might end soon, but when someone starts talking about gehenna, you say, "get-yer what?"

You've heard of people calling things "ghosts" but you're not sure if they're real other sentient things, or just another in the laundry list of crazy ass shit you don't understand. "Necro-what?"

You've heard of Anarchs, but when someone says Baron you say, "Harkone-what?"

These costs seem pretty reasonable. If you don't get it at chargen, it's 8xp, or about a month to save up for. Get your first dot of each, and you can fill it out at the end of the night.

That's not so bad, is it?

[David Price]

Given that we use the "1*current" scale in vamp for secondaries, I think the math actually makes it 6 xp. I assume from this response that the STs are okay with certain lower level clan lores being effectively known through higher-level kindred lore (brujah in particular seem to have a fairly basic set of level 1 lore, especially compared to ventrue or tremere). I would still like to hear what they consider the rulings on knowing information that does not justify a purchase of lore (such as knowing specific things from higher levels of a lore but not enough to buy the lower levels).

[Kenneth Ashland]

astkevin said:

You've heard of Anarchs, but when someone says Baron you say, "Harkone-what?"

That had me rolling. ;D

[Webmonkey]

You know people say that the world might end soon, but when someone starts talking about gehenna, you say, "get-yer what?"

I believe the correct answer would be:

Caine: Get-er done!

[Webmonkey]

I would like to agree with the 'general' idea that not everything learned in game that has to do with a clan should nessecarily fall under a lore by the way.