Let's Play VtM: Wild Nights - Chapter 10

[ElectricOtter]

H) A mix of several of the above. That would include:

- Oscar is availible by phone, so we should call him and ask him to track the Land Rover. No need to pin it on du Marchais just yet, or at all. It may yield interesting information in and of itself. If it provides us with a way to frame du Marchais anyway, we can entertain the idea then.

- Fellowes is also availible by phone, so we might ask him to perform another task. Which task shall it be depends largely on how much can we trust him. The problem is, he seems to be only good for violent stuff, and none of the options requires any, for now. Maybe he could be our envoy to our potential Gangrel/Malkavian tracker? Or maybe to Karthik?

- Personally we should follow A) and question the men who saw Rannigan kidnapped. But that does not mean neglecting phonecalls!

- If possible, maybe we could consult du Marchais by phone? Or is such technology too much for him? Anyway, the intent would be to scam him for info without divulging too much of our own info.

This seems like a good compromise. Voting for this.

 

[Erebus]

Du Marchais is acting highly suspiciously and his invitation might well be a trap. Framing him would be amusing, but it could backfire and it would leave us in the dark as to what's going on. (Of course, he might actually be guilty, but we shouldn't rely on that.)

I doubt that the men who saw the kidnapping will have much useful information. At best, they'll offer some clues as to what Rannigan was doing there. At worst, they took part in the kidnapping and will only lie to us.

Even a good tracker would have a hard time finding one man in London (and, let's face it, we're probably not going to understand what a Malkavian might tell us). Using Wilkinson is tempting, but we'd be wasting our time if the Sabbat isn't responsible. Oscar might be useful, but we should perhaps not use him unless we have to. Delegating doesn't seem sensible.

I'm voting E. Karthik might give us some useful tips that will tell us what, who and where we should investigate.

 

[Kz3r0]

Frame Du Marchaisk in such a way that Kirkbec position gets weakened , let him realize that he does need our help, not the other way around, just verify if Sabbat is involved trough Wilkinson, just to know if we are against a bunch of psychos or something more dangerous.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

A
i like the sheriff


Could you also add more about how we look? And maybe an addendum with names and such. I am getting lost already.
I would like to add that this is my favorite LP on the Dex as of right now right after the Battles of the Buldge LP.

 

[grotsnik]

Good thinking; I'll add a dramatis personae when I get a chance. And thanks!

As to your Ventrue's appearance, I had this in mind-

A proper young gentleman, you’d say, upon looking at him. Slightly old-fashioned, perhaps, even conceited, in the conservative cut of his blonde hair and his quietly courtly language and bearing. Wearing a dark suit that’s expensive without being flashy, and, upon occasion, carrying a silver-tipped cane that might seem an eccentric, even absurd quirk in someone with less natural presence.

But if you looked a little closer, you might begin to notice the coldness of his sardonic smile; the callousness lingering beneath those blue eyes. And the way his fingers constantly tapped at the pommel of his cane...

 

[Serious_Business]

This is cool man, I really hope you'll be doing this for a long while. I don't keep up with these story LPs usually, but this one I will because I am definitively a Masquerade fag. I used to play games back then, good times, I love this setting. Plus I like your writing so far.

I don't know how these LPs usually work, but I find the H) option to be superfluous. You shouldn't give players the ability to make their own options, or this will get out of control, in my opinion. Unless this is particular to this phase of the story ; but I feel we'd try to make the best of all options, which removes the pressure of making a choice that excludes the others, which is the point in the first place in my opinion.

So with that in mind, I'm voting for B. If we're going asshole, might as well go full asshole. We need to think ahead and be aggressive bros - take down this sucker, he can be an obstacle in the long run. This is all about climbing the asshole ladder

 

[Cassidy]

E) Two random witnesses may not help much. Trying to frame anyone and make declared enemies so soon, with so little information, is as unwise as

Spoiler

Doing everything and more for a sarcophagus when you don't know what is inside.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

 

[Erebus]

Looks nice ! Well, not really nice, but she looks good. Hopefully, we won't make her kill us.

 

[Rod Rodderson]

I'll echo the thought that H seems to somewhat defeat the purpose. Although, it does open the opportunity for something valid that might have been overlooked, and an eclectic approach does hold the risk of spreading yourself too thin, which could be interesting. But that isn't always applicable. Just thoughts.

Anyway, E. It seems like a solid approach at this stage.

 

[ironyuri]

How do you plan phonecalls to work, grotsnik, bro?

I will vote E, I like the Karthik option as well. However, since you said we'll be able to make phonecalls at any time-

I suggest doing as storyfag did. Phonecall to track the rover, ignore Fellowes. Proceed with option E.

Also, I want to meet this Ravnos fucker, doesn't everyone else? Let's meet this Ravnos. FUCK BROS RAVBRO

edit- if we can't have a collar grabbing Brujah, then I think our ventrue needs to be a true bro in other ways. Karthik sounds like a true bro. BROS DO IT FOR YOUR BRO OR I WILL GOUGE YOUR EYE SOCKETS

 

[Crooked Bee]

C.

We've got enough cunning not to be tricked, ain't we?

 

[laclongquan]

BEwaRE The hIDDen eNEMY, for THEY THE oNe sTRIke FIrst.
bEWARe THE pEBBLe UNderfoot, FOR UNSEEn sTuMBLe AT cRItICAL MoMENT.
dO NOT LET...

that said, do not let events happened in your domain without your knowing. All options lead to ignoring this threat are eliminated. This could may lead to one strong and upcoming faction.

Contact with Sheriff to forge connections, and get 1st hand vampiric senses 's impression of the event. We know nothing at this moment.

Mind you, a phone call to that crazy nosferatu Oscar to see what he can find on street camera: car's plate, faces, that sort of thing. If it's convenient.

 

[ironyuri]

grotsnik my dear bro, I shant be nitpicky, don't let me tell you how to run your show. But I think there may be too many options all at once in a post such as this.

Also, if it's possible to make phonecalls each round, perhaps you could have 2 votes per post?

a,b,c: vote on who we can call for info (only one call per round / turn possibly?)
1.2.3: vote on chosen course of actions in response to previous round.

It may also be useful to only have 2-3 options per round so that voting does not become so diffuse. I had this problem in my /gd/ forum roleplay, people will not go where you want them to go and too much choice makes the choosing difficult (all the options you offer are useful, but not all seem to be immediate courses of action).

Framing Esteban for example is a long-term plan, whereas contacting the Ravnos or the Sheriff are immediate courses of action. Framing Esteban is a long-term narrative decision, which is yours to make, whereas if we are voting on the immediates you can then direct us through unfolding narrative towards the idea of framing Esteban to be a desireable long-term outcome, or something entirely different.

edit- infact, the way you did last decision was perfect, so we could vote b/b. what the fuck am i saying.

 

[grotsnik]

Motherfucking excellence. Bravo!

The sage advice of SB, root, Rod and yuri is heeded. H was a bit unnecessary. No more H. H is gone from all of our lives.

In terms of options, yuri, yeah, you're totally right, there were too many there, in retrospect, and the du Marchais one was out of plac - but I am planning it that the particular physical action you take in this choice will...well, shit will happen as a result. Meaning there'll probably be a few less possibilities in future choices. But again, wise input of you guys = awesome unt incredibly helpful.

Phone calls I intended as a 'free' action within certain limitations...basically, I did consider having a cap on them, but it seemed much more devious and fun just to have those natural constraints in place. If you trust too much to your juniors (as storyfag has done? Maybe. Maybe not) there's a higher chance of one of them getting something wrong, the incompetent bunglers. If you call up X for help every 5 minutes, he may consider you weak and act accordingly. Keep pestering Y on his day off and he might just be so pissed off that he ignores your call when there's sixteen angry Sabbat members with shotguns cornering you in a cupboard and you need to call in the cavalry. So don't worry...spamming that mobile will come back to haunt you in the end.

 

[ironyuri]

Motherfucking excellence. Bravo!

The sage advice of SB, root, Rod and yuri is heeded. H was a bit unnecessary. No more H. H is gone from all of our lives.

In terms of options, yuri, yeah, you're totally right, there were too many there, in retrospect, and the du Marchais one was out of plac - but I am planning it that the particular physical action you take in this choice will...well, shit will happen as a result. Meaning there'll probably be a few less possibilities in future choices. But again, wise input of you guys = awesome unt incredibly helpful.

Phone calls I intended as a 'free' action within certain limitations...basically, I did consider having a cap on them, but it seemed much more devious and fun just to have those natural constraints in place. If you trust too much to your juniors (as storyfag has done? Maybe. Maybe not) there's a higher chance of one of them getting something wrong, the incompetent bunglers. If you call up X for help every 5 minutes, he may consider you weak and act accordingly. Keep pestering Y on his day off and he might just be so pissed off that he ignores your call when there's sixteen angry Sabbat members with shotguns cornering you in a cupboard and you need to call in the cavalry. So don't worry...spamming that mobile will come back to haunt you in the end.

good stuff, bro. I didn't want to sound like an asshole, so I'm glad you took it the right way. I think you need to add a layer of options each time for a phonecall to direct people.

ie: a. call oscar and have him try to find info on the rover/kidnappers/terrence
b) call secretary have her look for information regarding x

in my /gd/ forum roleplay I indicated in first post that people could "search" the room in each room, and gave a list of possible commands. But because it was in the first post, that was quickly forgotten. People, and no offense to my prestigious fellow codexers, will not remember they have the call option unless you indicate it and give an option with it so that each post we can make a call or two that have specific purposes, otherwise there'll be a clusterfuck of people saying "call x for phone rape its the only option lololololololollllolollllooooool". One of the options obviously can be, no phonecalls, in which case, we move on to action straight up. :>

 

[Esquilax]

I think it would be best to go visit Karthik. He's a neutral source of information and is willing to provide for all parties. It seems far more reliable than getting a good Gangrel tracker or trying to decipher what the fuck a Malkavian is talking about. We only have a finite amount of time to find the Baron, and we can't be out there chasing after info that might lead to dead ends.

As for framing him, short-term it's great, but long-term, it is a terrible decision. Even if we manage to succeed, we still have to find who actually did the kidnapping. And if they strike again, people are going to be suspicious of us. There's a big problem out there that needs taking care of - yes, we need to cover our asses and make sure we don't get fucked over by du Marchand, but we need to actually work towards actually doing something useful before we start making power plays. Plus, the whole framing thing smacks of some pussy shit that LaCroix would do. We are a BRO Ventrue - yeah, we plot and scheme, but we get shit done too.

So, on that note, E.

Hey guys, what do you bros think we should do about Wilkinson? Do you think we can gleam anything useful from her at this point? I think we might be disregarding option G a little too much. Because even if we find out that the Sabbat weren't involved, that's still great, because we can rule them out and move on to something else.

I'm thinking that these options might be various degrees of risk and reward. It's not highly likely that you'll understand the Malkavian seer, but if you do, you'll hit the jackpot. Karthik won't give us a huge break on this investigation, but he'll probably leave us something solid. Likewise, with using Wilkinson, we might end up with nothing, but if it IS the Sabbat, then we've got a big lead.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

 

[Esquilax]

Another nice one, Bart.

Bros, I am tempted to vote C and try to trick du Marchand into giving us more info than we do for him, but I am not certain how we'd go about it.

 

[Storyfag]

i saw we call fellowes, tell him to rough up the witness until they admit they did it (even if they didn't) and meanwhile we go see Du Marchand.

Aren't the witnesses the Prince's men? If so, we can hardly have Fellowes rough them up. But talking to du Marchand is a good idea for sure.

 

[Storyfag]

the prince is a twat.

Either that, or he carefuly maintains the facade of a twat.

besides, we can always conjure up a reason. we might 'have proof' they were involved. and in any case, when they admit to the crime, why would the prince care if they are his men?

But, for the moment, we've got *nothing* to pin on them. This might work later (though I still fail to see the reason to do so), but certainly won't work at this point!

 

[laclongquan]

Old chaps, how certain you are of the old Baron knowing something of use to us? What make you sure that he doesnt plan something stupid like invite us in to trick info out of us?

I dont think that old fossil know anything.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

I tend to check for updates on weekends very often... But there are none :/

 

[grotsnik]

Yeah, sorry. I almost had it done, then my sports team lost and I had to go cry into a beer in Westminster (while strolling past and researching some cool future locations!). Those pics are badass, BBC, btw - if you're happy for me to do it, I'll copy 'em into the OP.

Chapter 3 - A Game of Words

You awake early – almost before dusk – and help yourself to a blood bag from the fridge in your polished, unlived-in Primrose Hill apartment. Peeling back the plastic lip, you drain it, slowly, without finesse, enjoying yourself. The blood of a duke, once wealthy and well-respected, now too impotent and deranged in his expensive nursing home to prevent the warders from draining him every week.

Delicious.

The day’s papers await you, as ever, in a heap at the front door. The Mail goes with ‘IT’S WAR!’. The Times and The Guardian appear concerned with the budget crisis. Finally, in a small item on the second page of The Evening Standard, you find it;

Civil servant’s daughter missing: Peter Glenville, (43), alerted the police to the disappearance of his daughter, Lucy (7), early this morning. Mr Glenville was taken in for questioning but released later this afternoon.

Your lip curls, with something not unlike satisfaction.

*

“Oscar?” you snap, neatly leaping over the outstretched legs of a drunk, dead or unconscious, on the pavement.

A muffled voice, amused and not nearly as respectful as you’d like it, responds in a fake Cockney accent from your phone,

“All right, guv?”

You picture Oscar’s beastly little red eyes glinting with mischief; his misshapen paws rattling away at two different keyboards in the dark dank of the Under-Underground.

“Pay careful attention,” you tell him. “Usual fee. Doubled if you find something I consider useful. A Kindred was snatched up in Whitehall last night.” It probably isn’t necessary to tell him the victim’s identity. “Black Land Rover. I want the licence plate, I want the identity of the kidnappers, and I want to know where they went if you can suss it. Got it?”

A deliberately theatrical sigh.

“Aye, sure, blueblood, sure…well, I’ll do my best, y’know? Got a lot on my plate right now. Clan business an’ that.”

“Just get it done,” you snap, and hang up on him.

*

A few minutes later, crossing the deserted concrete stretch of Baker Street, you make out the faint lights of the one place in this all-too respectable part of town that appears to be open. A dusty red awning overhangs a couple of plastic tables, laid out on the pavement. The sign reads, in faded gold lettering, ‘Kama’.

And, perched awkwardly on one of the small plastic chairs, but with every sign of being comfortable, sits an ogre of a man. Not simply tall, but also quite monstrously fat, with matted black hair and a neatly curled beard, trussed up in a straining tweed suit; the hookah is entwined around his thick arm like a serpent.

Karthik beams at you as you take the nearest seat.

“And so,” he says, huskily, “the great wheel turns. And the Patrician of Whitehall – keh-heh-heh-heh-” He halts, wheezing out white gulps of smoke, to let out something that is not quite a cough and not quite a high-pitched, girlish laugh. “-and you come to visit me and smoke a pipe or two with me and exchange a few tales.”

“I’m here on business,” you respond. His eyes twinkle.

“Of course,” he says. “Of course, of course. This is about the upcoming war – correct? – between you and Baron du Marchais?”

You do not blink. Which is just as well, because he’s watching you intently, a little smile lingering on his mouth.

“Naturally,” he tells you, “as a friend to a friend, I will help in whatever wretched ways I can. For only a small return, I will happily turn over the contact details of a friend of mine. A kine – Russian. His men will fight your corner – no question. Stupid muscle. Plentiful muscle.”

A business card appears in his left hand. And just as quickly, another appears in his right. He lays them out, reverentially, across the table.

“Or perhaps,” he continues, “you’d prefer more of a…a hidden weapon, yes? Dangerous. Difficult to control. The Prince mustn’t know, though. Oh, no. Something in the sewers. A long trip. And you choose your card, Patrician, and – keh-heh-heh-heh! – perhaps I will give the other card to my other friend, du Marchais. If he happens to stop by.”

“I’m not here about du Marchais,” you insist. You lean forward. “You know a lot about what happens in London, Karthik.”

He shakes his head, mock-modestly, and takes another puff of the hookah.

“Untrue,” he says. “I know everything that happens in London, Patrician. Smoke? I get them to drip a little blood into the water. It doesn’t satisfy…but it gives a tickle of pleasure, keh-heh-heh.”

You refuse the proffered tube. Karthik pretends to be offended.

“Well?” he says, with a shrug. “What do you want to know? Last week the Centurion found three Sabbat boys beating up a Camarilla thug. He slaughtered two of the shovelheads and the Camarilla stooge, knocked the fourth on his arse – and then, and then, keh-heh-heh, he pressed a bloodied spine into his hand, said, ‘Sero venientibus ossa’, before wandering off into the night.”

You gaze at him, evenly. He’s trying to get a reaction out of you.

“They do say,” Karthik continues, as if in a world all of his own, “that the Centurion is the only person in the city Sheriff Erika Schiller is afraid of, don’t they? Well, what else do I have for you? Slim pickings, I fear. You’ll already know, for instance, that there’s a Follower of Set in London.”

You blink, betraying your surprise. You can’t help yourself. And Karthik grins, delighted to have caught you out, and claps his enormous hands together.

“Enough,” you snap. “Enough games. What do you know about Terence Rannigan being kidnapped in Whitehall the night before last?”

He gazes at you for a moment. An odd little smile crosses his face.

“Well, I’m sorry, Patrician,” he says, eventually. “But I don’t know anything about Terence Rannigan being kidnapped in Whitehall the night before last.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose.

“You just said,” you tell him, weighing every word, “that you knew everything that happens in London.”

“Oh, I do, Patrician,” Karthik says, eagerly. “I do know everything that happens in London. But I don’t –keh-heh-heh- know anything about Terence Rannigan being kidnapped in Whitehall the night before last.”

He meets your stare.

He knows something, you think…or, perhaps, he’s winding you up, as his clan are so prone to doing.

A) (DOMINATE.) Attempt to Dominate him to find out more. No more playing around.
B) Try and charm him – flattering him if necessary, using a little Presence – into being clearer. Play his game. Give him some information of his own to chew on.
C) Leave, of course. He’s already told me everything I need to know.
D) Leave. I’m wasting time with this blowhard.
E) A little threatening could go a long way. There aren’t many Ravnos left. Many of them live in poverty in the inner city. If worst comes to worst, violence itself might not be *too* extreme, mightn’t it?

And while you’re about it, what about Karthik’s offer of help?

A) His Russian kine thugs sound useful.
B) This secret in the sewers is just too tempting to pass up.
C) Neither. I just can’t trust him.

 

[Kz3r0]

C) Leave, of course. He’s already told me everything I need to know.

C) Neither. I just can’t trust him