Gasping for clean air, dazed and more than a little confused, our heroes slowly realize their safehouse has been compromised.
Now they must fight for their very lives...
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 12: Shit Luck: Ep. 13: "Carbon Copy"
[music] Hello, and welcome to Nights of the Night actual play podcast. This world of darkness, storyline, shit and luck, was written and run by our storyteller Scott. [music] And now, please enjoy chapter 6, scene 1, titled "Carbon Copy". [music] Our old friend, the twin, gave an email to us. And this one says, "I'm very much taking your story". The situation with the envelope on the table with the answer written on it. I think that was very well thought out. And my blood pressure went up when they confronted the beekeeper in his backyard. Excited to keep listening. Well, it doesn't get much better than that when thanks very much for the compliments. I'm glad that the story is keeping your heart racing. I'm sure the players felt the same way in that situation. And damn you, too, for leaving that envelope on that table. The answer! The answer! It was more games he was playing with us. Probably. Did we get anything from that idol, by the way? Did that pan out to anything yet? No. Gotta talk to that boy. That's his dog. Were there any other comments? Yeah, there was one on... Well, there's someone on the white wolf. It's Aramis 13. And he says, "I've only been able to get through a couple so far. I have real fake-life concerns, i.e. memorizing lines for a play I'm currently in and work." But I like what I've heard so far. I was wondering where the dice rolling was, but then there it was. I thought you could go all hippie-gamer on me, which is completely acceptable, just not my play style. So, I was worried I wasn't going to find anything to beg, borrow, or steal. Question! If memory serves, quote unquote, is that because you're actually recalling these past events, or because you're making a statement, but allowing the players to interject their two cents and alter what you're remembering? Even if the former is true, I think I like the subjectivity of the statement. And then he goes on to give an example. Storyteller, as I recall, the room is completely empty. Player. I thought my character saw a baseball bat just by the door in case of robberies. Storyteller, of course. The baseball bat is right there, ready to smack some intruders. I like it because it keeps a good flow to the narrative, but if somebody wants to alter it slightly, it leaves some room for modification without ruining the suspension of disbelief. Even if this were not your attempt, I will be incorporating this into my next game, and see exactly how it pans out. I'm very much of the "yes" and, or "yes" but, instead of the "no" camp. And this is the perfect way to explore that play style. Anybody else have other ways of keeping the narrative flowing while allowing for creative input from the players? And my response to that email was a little above. There are often gaps of several weeks between play sessions as we are all seasoned gamers. We have a ton of real-life responsibilities that constantly get in the way of our weekly sessions. So many times, I'm really am trying to recall what the heck was said four weeks ago, in not a mean time. But it's also my nature to say "no" as few times as possible when storytelling. If you continue to listen, you won't hear me deny the players all that often. And even if I say "no", I usually give them a chance to try and change my mind with a well-reasoned rebuttal. And I thought the lack of dice was also an interesting comment because, you know, this is actually a long prelude to the main story. So the characters are just getting their first taste of the unknowns that slither under the rocks and back alleys of the world of darkness. Then we used to a lot more role-playing over the first few episodes. The action does pick up as the story progresses, but I always try to walk the fine line between using the dice and just saying "yes" at the request is a simple one. The dice are exciting for the players and for me, but they do disrupt the narrative flow a bit. So if their action is not game-changing, then I usually just say "yes" and move along with the story. And I said "thanks a lot" to Aramis13 for listening. Okay, so let's get it underway. So this is chapter six. In the world of darkness story, shit luck. I'm Scott, the storyteller. My name is Tom. I'm by Jay Alton, who served in Iraq and got involved with the ascending ones, brotherhood of phoenix. Basically, they take drugs to enhance and get superpowers to fight against evil and darkness. I'm involved with the siren group in which I was kind of forced into the leadership role, which is fine with my character because he is very confident of his own abilities and has no problem with shouldering that responsibility. I'm Jim. I'm playing Tony. I am part of the kinder and conspiracy. The hardest dead guy perks and was an Afghan Marine who, like, blew things up and was also in the medic and wasn't blowing things up. And he got dragged kicking and screaming into the conspiracy and now has been thrown into this siren group trying to help keep everybody alive and figure out what's going on. I'm Brian playing John Beamer, a laid-off labor, blue collar worker who joined the conspiracy, the kyron group, to make some money. I'm Bob playing Shoe Park, a rescue agent who is a crime scene investigator, and he's kind of here against his wishes. He'd rather be out stopping murders. When your character wakes up, John, and he's coughing and gagging and taking the bashing damage because of the inhalation of the poison and you're dizzy and you're nauseous, what is the first thing that you do? That'll catch you up with everyone else from last week. Everyone got a turn basically to act if they were awake. That's carbon monoxide. Having read the papers last night with everyone, assuming you showed up late to the meeting because you had some things that you were taking care of. He was working. I think that's what we decided. And it came back late at night, got filled in, read some of the paperwork, and it was obvious that there was some carbon monoxide poisoning going on in the deaths of the previous owners of the bike shop. I don't think it would be a huge thing to have you wake up and go, "Oh my God, it's happening again," just to know that you can't get a full breath in. I'm going to say you can pretty much act however you want to act for that one turn. We're on the second floor. You are on the second floor alone. You can be on the street side. Basically, there's a condo here that overhangs Market Avenue, and then there's a condo in back. That overhangs the alley. That side street, Billy, walked up and approached you on the very first time we were playing. There's a hallway in between which leads to this hallway. Actually, this is Market Avenue right here. And this is the alley right here. These are the doors on Market Avenue that you use to go up, and then you split off to your condos up the three levels. So you're in the middle level, which would be level three. And you're either on the street side or you're on the alley side. I think I'd be on the other side. Okay. So you have a door to your condo that leads out to the hallway, and you have some windows that overlook the alley. And you heard the crashing of glass in the alley. What do you do? I'll stick my head off the window and try to get some air. All right. So you go up to the window, hit the lock, open it up, stick your head out, go ahead and make another perception roll, please. Just one, but just one is enough. You see a form of a man in a heavy trench coat with a hood over his head, leaving the alleyway. You see what looks to be a metal pole or something, some rebar lying on the ground near where he was running away from. And you see him as he hits the side street, which I believe is 28th. No, it's 26th. So as he hits the street right here, he starts heading north on 26th towards Carroll Avenue. But you lose sight of him as he rounds the corner. At this point, everyone can roll for initiative. Okay. Initiative was? So just 10-sided, plus your initiative modifier, yes. Each turn is supposed to be held on three seconds, just about half of a D&D turn, so it's fast. Chew, what initiative? Did you roll? Wow. John? Thirteen. Did you like early morning, like four o'clock? Yeah, it's three don't. And I still have math. Being that I have five bashing damage, that means what? I have a minus one penalty to everything? Yes. At five, you're minus one, at six, you're minus two, and at seven, you're minus three. Your last three squares are minus one, two, and three for your effects as you become dazed and brutalized. So basically, Chew isn't very well right now. He's probably retching a bit. You're very dizzy. You're probably the concrete spinning around a bit, and you're really out of sorts at five bashing damage from breathing in the poison. All right. What am I wearing? You tell me, please, you know, whatever pajamas probably sleep in full combat gear. Of course you do. That's the Mando style, yeah, exactly. In your bedroom, your window is just a window on the alleyway. It's off of your kitchen. There's a small patio, very small, like a little hunk of concrete. You can go out and barbecue a little bit on or whatever, but you're not near that now. It's actually in your bedroom, at the bedroom window. The fire has been forever. The fire escape is where? The fire escape is off of the small patio in your off of your kitchen. Okay. Take a deep breath, and try to get as much fresher in me as I can. And I'm going to go run and, I guess, put on some pants and grab my gun and head off to the kitchen. I guess that's all I could probably do in about three seconds. So you've got a leg in one pant leg, and you've got your gun in your hand because it was probably your top drawer of your dresser or something along those lines. And you're not quite out of the bedroom yet. And you're holding your breath. And we'll say, because of your lack of oxygen in your lungs, generally speaking, the rule is you can hold your breath for your stamina in terms. Before you start having to make a roll to see if you breathe. So whatever your character's stamina is, is how many turns you hold your breath. And this counts as one of those turns as you, you took the, you set the air before your turn really began, and then moved into the room. So you held your breath for most of that three seconds and you try to throw on a pair of pants and grab your gun. So one turn. I also want to grab my phone if it's, I don't know, by the nightstand or whatever. By the nightstand. Okay. Right now, gun, one pant leg in, and we'll take it from there. But one of your stamina now is gone. Meaning the turns you can hold your breath for. What is your stamina? It's two. It's two. Okay. That's going to make it interesting after next turn. John, you are up. I think I'm at the same boat. You are. You're on the... Wait. I can only hold my breath, sorry, only hold my breath for six seconds. He just took it. That's pretty short. He just took a partial breath of air as well. Yeah, in that I get my concern was more or less that he had a lot of not fresh air in his lungs for the last couple of hours. I'll look up the rule and I'll get back to you and choose. We go around the table. So it's not going to change what you're doing anyways. But yeah, there's... Well, it'll delay my actions and heading out. That's just my... Hopefully in the index, you know, breathing or holding your breath or some don't know on those lines. Yeah. And if it's not. So go ahead, John. You're up next. And you are on the second floor and you said you were on the alley side. Yeah. And you looked at the window and opened it up and your head is now sticking out. The window feeling much like Chu is feeling above you, which is probably not the best place to be right now right below him. What is it? Or else. Turn on your... Same situation. You know, you've got a small patio, a little concrete slab off of your main kitchen. You know, you're very nauseous. You're very dizzy. The room is spinning. The concrete is wavering. And you saw that form kind of moving off out of the alleyway and up north on 26th towards Carroll. And that's where you're at right now. So what do you do? It would be quicker to, like, hang drop out of my window than to... There's a firescape at the upper windows. Go out the firescape? On one side of the building. The firescapes are on the back end of the building. We're the alleys. Which is where he's at. He is. He is. No. Your second floor, what did the second floor above the market avenue? The ground floor and then first floor. And then second floor. So you're at least two points. Right. There was a G. Right. There's a G. And it's pretty tall G, too, because it's a wine bar. It's not like it's got, you know, really low ceilings. It's pretty expansive. It was actually, if I remember I was recessed with it, it's the ground. But then the tall ceiling is coming. Yeah. So you're probably 20, 25 feet up, somewhere in that ballpark. I'm going to go down the firescape. You're wearing a pajamas, so you're just going straight out. Yeah, the guy already out at the corner. I'm going to see if I can... Alright, so it's bottom. You take a breath. I'm assuming. You then run through your bedroom, out into your living area, spin around, go to the kitchen. You know, you bang into a few things as you're kind of scrambling and you get to the store. And you're unlocking it and you don't quite get it open. That's your three seconds for your return. Tony and Jay, you tied on initiative. Can you pull roll? I know Tony, Tony, you're asleep right now, but no matter later on. But you're first now because he's still sleeping. That's alright. Which is kind of important because... Yes. I, if you remember correctly... Is your head showed up? My gun and went on to the hall and tried to yell and couldn't... Could you force the yell there? Yes. So then I tried. I'm assuming his door is locked, so I'm just hitting it full of the shoulder. Yes. Pusted. True. So, go ahead and make a rank roll. The only thing that comes close is under poisons and toxins under inhalation. Yeah. It just gives the effect of what you inhale. Strength is what? Stamina. How do you look under the characteristic of stamina? At the beginning of the book. Page 30 or 50 or wherever it actually starts doing stuff. So it's holding breath as a reflex to the action page 49? Thank you. Oh wow. Page 49. I'm spending a will and a zero minus of course. You have eight strength, right? Eight health, excuse me. Yeah. I'm strong. Yes. I do. So you're currently not at a minus. I'm going to say no. Because I'm spending the will power because I know that not only for him, but for me, this is probably pretty important. Right. Because I haven't taken a clean broth. All right. Here's the breakdown real quick. One dot, thirty seconds, two dots, one minute, three dots, two minutes. Exactly. Minutes are much different. In combat. But some more than three seconds and minutes. Yeah. It's a huge difference. Some are between the two, maybe. Okay. And we'll say you have longer than two stamina to hold your breath. Okay. Even though you're sick and you're nauseous and you're in a stressful situation, we'll say it's at least thirty seconds that you have for holding your breath. Because somewhere in that rule book, it says in combat, you can only hold your breath for stamina amount of turns because you're exhorting yourself. That's an insanely short one. All right. Yeah. It does say that. You can hold your breath for one turn per stamina dot. Okay. Well, I am not in combat. You're not in combat. It's a stressful situation, obviously. But it's not like you're being punched in the gut and swinging for your light. So, let's just say thirty seconds, which is ten terms, which should be more than enough time to get you out of the apartment. All right. I had three successes. Is that clean air? Is that clean breath? Yeah. Three successes. The door has properties. And let's take a look at some of the door. Every four successes you lose. The door bar wouldn't interior. It's not metal. It's got a durability of one size structure of six. So, the durability of one removes one of your three. And it takes two damage to its structure of six, which brings it down to four. And it tries to do one die worth of damage back to you. You can't just find that shoulder damage. So, you definitely take a bashing head as you throw your shoulder into it? The door... No, no, no. You can't use my die. Oh, come on, Pete. You're nice. I hope not to damage by my own dice. You know the wrong that is? You have a door on your way out. It's a good weapon. You have a door on your way out. It's a good weapon. You have a door on your way out. It's a good weapon, apparently. I'm going to wear a door from that armor. Wow. I'm going to strap a door into a stick and beat people with it. It's called a shield, guys. That's right. Okay. So, there's more dice for people who might need them. And then I will re-roll in case, and I hit you again. So, good try. You take one damage. I'm going to say you're holding your breath. Obviously. And you can hold your breath for stamina amount of turns because you are like your combat. You're throwing yourself through the door and you're exerting yourself very aggressively. The door took two damage. So, it buckles a bit and does not break. You, now it's your turn. That was your three seconds. Tony, you get to make another perception to wake up. And you get to add two dice to your perception roll because of the noise that Jay makes slamming into your door. And I call out Tony as I do. Right. Two successes. You wake up. You immediately take five, you take five bashing damage last week, this and it. Okay. You take one more bashing damage. As you go. And you start gagging and choking and basically you're not in very good shape but that's not your whole three seconds. You wake up. What do you do immediately? You wake up realizing that your problem is being poisoned. Realizing how much damage I have taken. I probably see. And then I can't breathe very well. Right. My first reaction would probably be to do what a lot of people want. It's one of the window open up. Try to get breath of pressure. Right. I can't breathe. I'm one more damage and I'll pass out. Just really quick. Once you reach your limit for holding your breath, you make a roll. And then for each success, you get either 30 extra seconds or one extra turn if you're in combat. So, you get to make a roll. That's excellent. You'll get to make, and it's a straight up stamina roll. Right. That's what it says. Right. So, you'll roll your stamina and dice. Just your stamina. Not any minuses because of being wounded or what not. Just a straight up stamina roll. And as long as you succeed. And I believe, I see no reason why you couldn't use willpower in that situation as well. Just for those of you who are near death. So, you run to the window. You open it up. You stick your head out. And you try to take in a huge moment there. Go ahead and make a perception roll. Because of your state. Minus two dice. No success. The pavement is weaving and spinning. You're ratching into the alleyway. And you do not see anything. Two, you're up. All right. So, I finished putting in my pants. Second leg in. Pulled up. To the dresser. Grab your phone. And make it to just about your door or your bedroom. Before the three seconds are up. That sound fair? Okay. All right. John, you got to the sliding glass door. You flip the lock this turn. Swing it open. Step out into your patio. Anything else you're trying to do? Nope. Just trying to get down in a second. Okay. There is right off your patio. A fire escape actually. And there is a small gate off of the side of your patio that leads to a little platform of the fire escape. So you can open that gate up and step onto the fire escape. How much damage do you have? I have five and I have eight. Oh. Oh. So you're not unduly influenced. Okay. Go ahead and make a perception roll. Straight up. Two. You see two other forms in the alleyway. They were at the very back end almost like they were vagrants who were sleeping or resting in the alleyway for the night. You see them moving across the alleyway below you running in the direction of where that last form who dropped the rebar had turned the corner and started running north on 26th. You see two forms down there. They look relatively, I don't want to say they're huge, but they're definitely male figures or really well sculpted females, but they're relatively large. So that's what you see. They're moving below you, below the fire escape, and towards the front end of the alley. So that's what you see. Go ahead, Jay. Unfortunately, he didn't shout out that he was okay. But he was getting wrapped like he needed to. Breathing and retching. Oh, you could have heard some. Yeah. Let's go ahead and roll. You should be checked. You might be moving right now. Anyways, for being moving and subtract a die just for things in between you, wouldn't door between you and what now? Yeah, I don't. Unfortunately, you don't hear anything. This is the second turn of holding your breath in the hallway. All right. Is your stamina more than two? Okay, it's three. Oh, good for you. Yeah. So, where's the closest window? The closest window is down the hall and up the stairs. No. You got two ways to go. You can go to the for you. You can go to the right of down the hall to the right. And that leads down to the staircase. You can go to your left and there's a window at the end of the hall where there's a window kind of hanging over 26th street. Right. And you could try to open that window up and get smeared from that window. Those are your two choices or, of course, pounding on Tony's doors and you don't really know that, no, I just don't. He's not okay. Is there rolls in part with darkness or shooting a door? I'm going to treat it just like you were attacking it with a strength plus stamina roll, but you'd be doing it with your gun. Right. Because I don't want to treat the organ because that hurts. Right. You don't want to pass out. You're going to get door. That would be bad. So, what would that entail? It would be your firearms plus your dexterity, which is your typical shot. Minus any minuses you have for your firearms. Plus my dexterity and minus one for being out. One success. One success. But at least one success, man. Oh! Well, I have a dice mod of two, though, for my gun. So, what is that? You get two extra hits. Sorry. It's dexterity plus firearms plus your gun minus fires. One success. That's unfortunate because the door has, until you get halfway past its durability as durability is five. So, you did three damage, but it had one armor, which means you did two damage to the door. We took it from five down to three. One more would have made it more than half, which means it loses at one point of durability, which means it wouldn't have any armor left, but it still had one armor left. So, you shot it in the door and we're going to say because you're nothing sick. You did nothing this turn, but you held your breath for another turn and it didn't take any damage that, in itself, it was. Victory! Jay, you hear a firearm. Yes. Hey, my door. Something quick to say through your... Oh, whiz. She can see that a bang on the door kind of opened me up. I turn around and I scream. Jay, I'm all right. Okay. So, you take a deep breath. I take a deep breath. Put it back into your room. Jay, I'm all right. What I want to do is grab my phone and my gun and then go back and go out the window. Okay. Knowing that the window would be a fault, it's not where the fire escape is. The fire escape is off your patio. Each of you has a patio off your kitchen. I'd say on the bottom floor, we're on the one floor up. We're on the lowest of departments, but it's still... The wine bar is the bottom floor. That's the ground level, if you will. So, he's on level one, so you're still about, you know, 15, 18 feet here. Then I would take a breath, open my door and grab my phone and my gun. That's probably not what I'm expecting. Take a breath. You're gunning your phones in your bedroom. I'm going to sit. So, you grab those and you open the door to your bedroom? I open my door. I want to let him in so he gets... Okay. I don't know in three seconds if you can grab both and open the door to your bedroom and get all the way across your living room. You know, the condos are pretty big. So, we say you opened your door to your bedroom, but you still got to shout out. You're okay to Jay. So, you've heard that. Is my... Is the patio off the living room? The patio is off the kitchen. Off the kitchen. Well, maybe I'll be... No. Right. Well, at this point, you're just getting your room so you can choose next turn once you do. And that takes us back to chew. So, I got my pants on. I got my gun. I got my phone. Yes. So, I opened up the balcony door, I guess. Okay. So, you move to the kitchen, open up the balcony, step out onto your patio. You know, what goes for a patio anyways. And you can probably open up the small gate that leads to the fire escape. But you can't wait to get out of the fire escape this turn. How is it situated? I'll try. Can I jump? This is something I can jump onto. You could try to leap over the small... There's a small railing basically around your stone slab, your small patio. Your patio might be five feet wide by six feet wide. It is small. And then there's a small gateway that leads to a iron fire escape platform. So, it's kind of like a graded iron fire escape. Basically, if you don't open that little door, you can jump over it. There's stairs coming down though. So, you kind of want to stay tight because you're going to be going underneath those stairs as you jump over that. So, you can either do either one. You can jump over to... Wouldn't it be a risk of me falling completely to the ground? Unless you had a critical failure. No. Okay. Excuse me. Then I'd do that if it'll save me time. It'll probably save you a little bit of time. So, go ahead and make a dexterity plus athletics roll. Minus one, two or three. You should get closer to being your health being gone. All your boxes. Remember, if all your boxes are gone, it's minus three. If all but one of your boxes is gone, it's minus two. If two of your boxes are gone, it's minus one. So, a minus one. Minus one. All the new ones exist. All your boxes are gone. All your boxes are gone. If all your boxes are gone, you're at minus three to add. At each turn, you must make a stamina roll to stay conscious of. Minus two then. Right. Okay. So, you leap onto the fire escape tube and I'll allow a perception roll minus the one die because of your being relatively sick and beaten up and to see what's going on in the alley. Okay. I have one success. All right. You do see the same thing that John saw, which is you see two forms moving underneath the fire escape towards the back end alley. But as you land on the iron grating of the bar, one of the two looks up and back like he heard the noise. Okay. Can I say something? Something short. Yeah. Three seconds is almost up, but yeah. Go ahead. What's going on? Excellent. John. Go down. Stairs. Right. You open the gate. You move onto the landing. And, well, now we'll just say you can move your movement maybe half of it since you're doing stairs. So, what's your, what's your movement of your character? Speed is ten. So, five, which it's actually 15 feet, right? So, you were at the second level, right? So, basically, you get down to Tony's level, which is the first level, and you're a few steps behind it. And you can see the guys in the alleyway a little bit closer. You can see that one of them turned around and grabbed the other by the shoulder is what you can see. You know, make a perception roll just to verify that. Isn't that fire state as well? I'm sorry? He's in the fire state as well. Yes. Below. Yeah. Lower. You're on third floor. Right. Third. Second. First. And now, John is moved beyond the first. Two. Okay. So, yeah, absolutely. You see them spin around and by the, you know, just the two weeks that you've worked at the Market Avenue Wine Bar and have had this policy of helping out the homeless with some free meals and some free wine or beer or whatever, you know, for these guys when they come by, their faces are much too clean to be any vagrants that you've seen. These guys don't look homeless to you. Okay. The one closest to the fire escape pulls out a, what looks to be a pistol. Oh, okay. And aims it at you, so that was his turn and his accomplice does the same thing. Couple steps further down the alley, way stops as he grabs his shoulder, turns around, pulls out a gun and is trained down you yet, but it looks like he's looking up a little bit higher than the one that's pointing at you. So, they both have fire arms and they're both looking in your direction. J-era. Thanks for listening to Nights of the Night at Action Play Podcast. Visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures, where you will find character stats, photos, storytelling props and even a forum for comments and suggestions, or you could email us directly at feedback@kotnpodcast.com. All music for this podcast has been created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom, professional music created for your podcast or business, please visit zanaudiosmith.com. That's all for now. Join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. [Music] (gentle music)