Lores.

[Kevin K]

So, as Broney points out, the big question we're left with is "What about being told specific tidbits at higher levels?" Let's dive right into the stickiest situation with this example:

N00bie McNewberson has Kindred Lore 1 (phantom dot--No necromancy needed for phantom dots). McNewberson is talking to Logan le Longtimer. Logan tells McNewberson, "Don't be alone with the damn venture, they'll Dominate your head into your ass and your ass into a sling." McNewberson responds appropriately by saying, "Domi-what?" Logan continues to give a general explanation of Dominate, as befits someone with Kindred Lore 3 and who doesn't have the Discipline. "They've got the ability to hypnotize you at will. I think you haveta be alone, but they can make you do stuff you don't want to. Maybe even make you forget things."

So now McNewberson's been told this very powerful piece of information. It's powerful in the sense that it allows McNewberson to accomodate for this power in his night-to-night plans. It's a far cry from Kindred Lore 3, though. What does he do?

I honestly don't know. If McNewberson and Logan keep talking, he'll be justified the expenditure. How much is more? A quick followup conversation about "hiding well except for cameras" and "manipulating emotions, including the desire to go somewhere" gives you a very potent set of information, the very set that makes Kindred Lore 3 so powerful.

How, as a staff member, can I access when someone "knows too much"?

At the moment, we're erring on the side of non-meta-game-twinkiness, which is "if you weren't told it tonight, and you don't got it, you don't know it". That has flaws, but so does the flipside of, "you don't have to spend XP for what you learn in-character."

Ideas?

[Joseph Mayek]

I've ran into this problem before, too.. A person sits down and tells me IC a buncha stuff about Cathayans.. but when I went and asked if it was enough to justify learning it.. I was told no... So yeah.. broney's question of "I forget?" is appropriate, cuz this was damn near a year ago, and I still recall it.

And Erm.. I've an idea... but it would require people to be more like Ross, or myself and a few others. Ie, writing things down.. And it's likely asking too much. If everyone had a list of the lores they'd like to learn and check marked things when they'd been told them, then would likely need an ST to sign off on it.. and when they got em all check marked.. then go buy the lore.

But that's alotta work for just recalling a bit of information.

The easiest idea I can think of. Well, there's a point when you've gotta give players some responsiblity and trust about such things. I believe someone, somewhere in here said that in the past 'rule of thumb' was "If you can recall it, then your character can". Sure, it has it flaws, not everyone is as intelligent, or stupid, as their character. But that's a rule of thumb for you.

If they claim to know something you (Player or ST alike) don't believe they should, well, slap that arm across your chest and say "Do you have *insert lore?*" they say "No, but blahblah told me it." There you go. If it's something they -really- shouldn't know. Go ask the person they say told them. Make em accountable.

The main thing would not be abusing this. And I'd suggest strong repercussions for those that do.

And really, is it worth lying about?

Knowledges are something you need. Especially of your sect, clan, and Kindred. It's important, -very- important. They decide what kind of character you are. If you want to play the knowledgeable Elder, -create- the knowledgeable Elder, if you want to play the fledgling.. give the knowledges that are appropriate.

[Deimos]

I believe Drake has hit the proverbial nail on the head with his statements.

[Kenneth Ashland]

Still on the topic of the thread, but a bit away from the bulk of the discussion:

Hypothetically (which means something like this is actually occurring; I botched my subtlety roll),

let's say Terry Tremere has his Clan Lore at 5, but Kindred Lore only at 2. He decides to educate Buford Brujah on his Clan and its history a bit, just for the sake of good PR. Buford has Kindred Lore of 2 as well.

Now, in this instance, Buford isn't being trained as a Tremere, obviously, but Terry will be relaying the general history of his Clan and, as a consequence, the interactions of the other Clans throughout its development.

Even though Terry and Buford are equal in Kindred Lore, would this information justify Buford raising his Kindred Lore to 3, instead of buying the first dot of Tremere Lore?

Reason being: Buford isn't going to be told the inner secrets of the Tremere (unless he and Terry are suicidal), and he is certainly not being inducted into the Clan, but the additional history lesson(s) would make more sense as a "general overview" of Kindred society.

Can Lores "cross," I guess is the question.

[benime]

Ross brings up a good point - can't you learn lores from basic interaction, as opposed to taking notes from a character with more lore? I'd trust knowledge I earned for myself far more than the words of a lying bastard bloodsu... er... um... vampire (regardless of the fact that I'm best buds with the player of that vampire... whoops, looks like I failed my subtlety roll too).

[Kevin K]

The problem with "if you remember OOC it from someone telling you, you remember it IC" is how the knowledge itself increases exponentially, and decreases the value of the lores themselves.
Once you learn something interesting, you're going to tell your clan/pack/coterie mates, and thence from there to half the playerbase. There should be a cost to accumulating that knowledge and having it at the ready, just as there is to accumulating the knowledge to use a sword.

The "you-remember-so-your-character-remembers" approach has also the problem that as a player, you aren't gaining new knowledge (Chris alluded to this, I believe). Assuming you know the system and setting already, what you're actually doing is checking off things you already know. It is much easier to remember "I've been told about Obfuscate" than it is to learn what it actually does. Consult some of our new players for an example here.

And even worse, you're using your player's abilities in place of your character's abilities. The last thing we want to do is devalue stats like Intelligence.

It's a hard problem, and ultimately we'll have to go with something that breaks in some way. I'd like to pick something that doesn't penalize those characters who choose to focus on knowledge in their XP expenditure.

[David Price]

My vote's still for "you remember, but are not entirely convinced and don't know details but cannot explain it convincingly."

So Arlo could say, "Um, yeah, I fought a robot. It was... metally. In that robot way. And had a laser beam arm. It was tough. Try not to fight robots. Or really anything that seems like it shouldn't exist. Bad times." but not "Yes, those HIT Marks are deadly. Don't mess with the technocracy. They have their hooks into everything and hunt supernaturals to protect mortals."

If it comes to a point where I should gain more lore to justify my character's knowledge, I'm perfectly willing to buy kindred lore 4 to justify Arlo's knowledge regarding disciplines (and if people are willing to lump thaum paths/rituals and necromancy paths/rituals under that heading without specifics regarding how to go about learning or doing said paths/rituals, I'm happy with the resolution). But if they're still requiring a teacher for that level, I'm otherwise in a limbo state where yes, Arlo has over half the basic disciplines himself, knows about all the clan specific disiplines including specific paths and rituals of both necromancy and thaumaturgy... but can't remember them.

Basically I'm advocating for a "If the STs do not feel the knowledge warrants buying a next level of lore, but that the information was gathered in a legit manner, the character should still be able to remember the information, but is unable to teach anybody else that information with any coherency. If the STs feel the knowledge warrants buying a next level of lore alone or combined with previous knowledge, they must purchase the lore to be able to use any knowledge of that level, but can then teach that information to people." I don't think people should be stuck in a situation where I can shout deep kindred secrets at the top of my lungs and just because it doesn't justify a full lore dot they forget it the next night. Not able to repeat it convincingly until they spent the time to back it up, sure. It enabling people to buy the lore but requiring them to do so, sure although a little weird. But the messages I've been getting so far have been "That doesn't justify learning that lore because the person teaching you didn't have that lore (since people don't need kindred lore 4 to know their own disciplines), so you don't understand what they're saying and forget the knowledge." which just seems kind of... dead-endy. It kills the gameplay style of putting forth little bits of information from everybody into a semicoherent whole. If I get the brujah to explain presence, the tremere to explain thaum and the gangrel to explain protean and the giovanni to explain necromancy and the lasombra to explain obtenebration... I think that justifies knowing a decent chunk of discipline powers like kindred lore.

[Deimos]

Here's another clarifcation that I recall making back in the day.

If you learn something, you know it, but you can't bank on it for tests without the lore.

Example: Your character learns a bunch of info about the Sabbat from 'the grapevine'. Your character decides to attempt to infiltrate the Sabbat. You go to the ST. You say, "My character knows this, this, this, this, this and this about the Sabbat. I'm going to infiltrate them." the ST says, "What's your Sabbat lore?" You say, "Uh, one?" The ST says, "The Sabbat eat you for being a poser cammie."

Get what I'm saying here? I'm talking about dots on your sheet as solid 'system' currency. You can go around all day in your leather and your pierced nipples saying you are a badass, but when the Brujah beat your ass down like a punk because you have 2 dots in Brawl, you'll get what I'm saying.

[derrikruik]

It seems me that if you believe everything your character hears from other vampires he wont last long enough to buy those lores he wants so badly. And if you are only believing when vampires tell you something because you know OOC that it is true, that is meta-gaming. We are all killers and decievers one and all. Even if you saw tommy Tremere fly and throw fire and you asked him how he did it, and he said "I am a student of the >insert path name< and i can do this, this, and this. It really gives you no knowledge of thaumaturgy and how it works. Only a smattering of information about one path. After all there are many paths and even having a detailed description of three paths would not necissarily say you know alot about how thaum works. And to all those tremere who feel like spilling their secrets I will be available in Elysium this weekend so feel free to come by and tell me how you powers work too, I won't tell anyone else I promise.

[Joseph Mayek]

Decent points about the lying and such. But that's the pointed difference of lores, and general knowledge, truths, from lies.

And, Arlo never said he knew alot about how thaum works. He said he'd seen paths in action and had categorized em vaguely.. Hence the problem with buying Tremere lore high enough to know about 1-3 paths. Cuz it's not vague. Besides, he's malk, someone who doesn't know better's going to think the Malk is mad when he says he's seen tremere fly ;P

[Kevin K]

Chris has a point, but there are other powerful usages of lore that don't involve rolling the lore dice. These will come up in plans and strategies. One of the most obvious of these is taking precautions against Presence 4: Summoning. What if someone told you about it three weeks ago, or you even saw it used? If you don't have the Lore dots to know it, can you tell someone else how to prepare against it? Can you prepare against it yourself?

That's a powerful lore, it is allowing you to negate (with some IC work) a 4th level Discipline. And this is the reason I'm all up in your gear about Lores, they can be *very* powerful in the right situation. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to do it, I'm saying you should have an XP cost of some sort for it.

So, what if we say you remember what you remember, but you can't prepare for things if you don't have the lore? The problem there is that it doesn't make *sense* that you can talk about something, but you can't put it in practice. The only way to be consistent is to limit what it is your character can talk about to the same set of ideas that she can act on.

[Webmonkey]

I would just like to note that the origional intention of adding lore requirements was to give new characters a benchmark for what their character knows coming into the game, so those people that know all of the WOD books by heart don't instantly walk in and start spouting the knowledge of the hidden masters.

It was never meant to micro-manage learned in-game knowledge.

How the current staff chooses to use lores to administrate their game is of course, up to them however.