Rumble Street

Inevitably every game will tweak or expand upon existing rules or create new ones to provide a better fit for the game. oWoD rules were written more with table top in mind for example, and the focus of plots and progress can be a little different from irc. The following threads are living documents and will be added or adjusted as required.

 

General house rules are rules that transcend the games and apply to multiple if not all types of characters within the game.

 

Active Powers

If you possess a power that is always on, or has no roll necessary to activate said power, you may assume that you also have the ability to deactivate or suppress this power at will.

 

Combat and Splitting Dice Pools

x20 Rules have simplified Multiple Actions and Splitting Dice Pools. This is here more as a clarification than a House Rule.

 

First you will declare how many actions you will attempt for the turn, and determine which action has the smallest dice pool. You may then allocate those dice among the actions as you see fit. The maximum number of actions you may use in a turn, is limited to your wits score. The STer may rule that some actions will be counter productive if attempted at the same time. The STer may also rule some actions will take too long to be split or even to be completed in one turn. Please respect the STer's call and do not argue a ruling in the middle of an event.

 

Example: Bobby the Brujah wants to hit Sammy the Setite three times and doesn't want to use celerity to do it. Bobby has a dexterity of 4 and a melee of 4 this gives him a dice pool of 8 to smack people with his bat. Bobby decides to use 2 dice for the first attack 3 dice for the second attack and 3 die for the third attack.Sammy decides that he's going to try and dodge two of Bobby's attacks and counter attack with a kick.

 

Sammy has a dexterity score of 3, an athletics score of 5, (He must have played college football!) but a brawl of only 2. Because of his low brawl score his pool will only be 5. Sammy declares 2 dice for the first dodge, 2 dice for the second dodge, and only 1 die to his attack.

 

Since World of Darkness dice work off a system of successes and penalties, every success that Sammy gets on his dodge rolls, subtracts 1 success from Bobby's rolls. So, if Sammy gets 2 successes on his first roll and none on his second roll this would mean that Bobby would need 3 successes on his first roll to have a chance of hitting, which with 2 dice is almost impossible, (without a specialization to add another success for rolling a 10) he would need 1 success for his second and third roll. But then Sammy gets to try and hit Bobby back with his 1 renaming die.

 

Splitting dice pools can offer a greater opportunity for actions and possible damage, but as you can see, if someone else splits their dice pool this can significantly hamper your efforts.

 

Recap

• Your maximum actions per round is equal to your Wits.

• Your dice pool will be the smallest value among each of the actions you will attempt.

• Each action must have at least one die dedicated to it.

• STer has final say on what actions may or may not be used for multiple actions

 

 

Seduction & Uncomfortable Situations

 

It has been brought to my attention that there needs to be a clearly defined house rule pertaining to this particular ability. Seductions and the like are for use with rolls against NPC's and storyline interactions.

 

At no time should anyone attempt to force another PC into a seduction test against your own PC. This is often an uncomfortable situation and cases where seduction might be a viable route to take should always be handled with ROLEPLAY as opposed to a mechanical check such as a dice roll. There should never be a time when someone is forced into a roleplay situation that they may not wish to be in because of a mechanical dice roll. If there is ever a case where you as a player are put into an uncomfortable situation, please notify an IRC OP immediately so that we can assist you in and through this situation in the interest of fairness and respect to your particular sensitivity.

 

These situations should not become an argument or move beyond politely informing another player that you are not comfortable with a die roll deciding this kind of situation for your character. You then maintain the log of the situation and notify an OP so that we can immediately moderate and find a suitable solution for both players.

 

In closing, situations between characters should generally be handled via Roleplay as opposed to dice rolls. Of course this IS the World of Darkness, so we should understand that unpleasant things may occur to your character, but this should not be something that causes undue stress to a player as there are multiple avenues for reaching a compromise. As always, when in doubt, as an OP.

 

Thanks.

 

Hacking

 

Bro! Do you even hack, bro?!

So you want to be a computer hacker. Lots of people like the idea of being the rebel computer wiz able to strike fear into the hearts of internet users everywhere. Well, if that person is you, then I will post the system you need to follow in order to effectively hack a computer/network. It should be noted that while some of you are computer wizards in real life, not all of us are. This system is meant to represent a mechanically sound method for computer hacking in the World of Darkness and for Rumble Street.

 

System for Hacking

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Computer + (equipment) versus Intelligence + Computer + (equipment)

Difficulty: 7 OR *Variable

Action: Extended and contested (5-10+ successes; each roll represents 20 minutes of active hacking).

 

Gaining root access to a network requires talent, creativity and patience, and often results in a battle of the minds with the system's administrator(s). Before the hacking attempt begins, the Storyteller determines the network's level of security. If there is a system administrator on duty, the hacking attempt is an extended and contested action. If the network has specialized hardware and software for fighting off intrusions and the like then it will count as if you are in a contested roll against a sysadmin. If the network is protected by basic security software alone, the task is simply an extended action.

 

In a contested and extended action between hacker and sysadmin, roll Intelligence + Computer + any equipment modifiers for both participants. The winner is the first to accumulate the required number of successes.

 

The hacker needs to accumulate a number of successes equal to the network's basic security setup. This can be anywhere from five to 10 based on the sophistication of the network.

• The sysadmin needs to accumulate a number of successes equal to the hacker's Intelligence + Computer.If the hacker wins, he gains unfettered access to the network.

• If the sysadmin wins, he kicks the hacker out of the network and can block any further attempts from that invader that day.

• If the network is protected by basic security software alone, the hacker needs to accumulate a number of successes equal to the network's basic security setup, as above.

 

[Roll Results]

Botch: A botch on the part of the hacker indicates that he's been kicked out of the network and can't access it again for 24 hours. Worse, if a sysadmin contests the task, make an Intelligence + Computer roll to determine if the admin manages to gain the IP address of the hacker. A botch on the part of the sysadmin indicates that the hacker brushes aside his efforts and penetrates the network automatically.

 

Failure: Your character does not succeed in making any headway in his effort.

 

Success: Your character makes progress in his effort.

 

Exceptional Success: Your character has found a vulnerability he can exploit against his opponent, giving him a substantial advantage (as reflected in the number of successes you achieve in one roll).

 

[Suggested Equipment]: High-performance computer (+1 to +3), broadband Internet access (+1), disk of scripts (+2), system passwords (+3).

 

[Possible Penalties]: Outdated computer system (-2), slow Internet connection (-3).

 

It should be noted that the penalties and bonuses listed above represent needing either more or less successes during the course of the contested roll and not a reduction or addition to the difficulty of the roll itself.

 

*The only exception to this rule is if you are making an extended roll vs. Someone's software alone, this can impose a difficulty modifier of +/- 1 to +/- 3.

 

Creating Custom Viruses

Part of Hacking, often includes trying to get information from someone else or some -where- else. But, sometimes you just need to be a jerk and at those times you wish to make a virus and infect someone with it.

Normally, you would use already accepted versions of malicious code out there to do something like this, which would grant you various equipment bonuses on your hacking rolls. But, if you are enterprising and there doesn't appear to be a piece of virus software out there to suit your needs then it stands to reason that you'll need to make it yourself. To that end I have created a system which you may use in order to create said computer virus.
 

• Dice Pool: Intelligence + Computers
  Difficulty: Variable
  Roll Type: Extended

Viruses will have statistics of their own and they are as follows:

• Encryption: This stat measures the virus’s ability to remain hidden within files and programs, escape detection from a piece of anti-virus software or a system admin who is checking over the network for any issues.

• Potency: This stat measures the efficacy of your virus. Is it a Resident Virus meant to live in system memory watching for various programs and then interrupting, overcoming or even interrupting system operations? This stat would determine how strongly it can do these things.

• Speed: This stat measures the speed in which the virus can propagate itself. Is it a Direct action virus meant to spread and replicate itself and then act when executed? This stat measures how quickly it can do this.

• Intelligence: This stat measure just how adaptable the virus you’ve created is. While a piece of software is meant only to perform as it is programmed to, there are contingencies for a virus, will it have the code necessary to infect RAM memory? Will it simply hang out in a file folder or will it spread through the registry? Can it infect something other than a windows machine? And lastly this stat represents its defense against being neutralized when a system admin or anti-viral program is on the lookout.

• Countermeasures: This stat works in tandem with Intelligence, together these work as attribute and ability in checks against a system admin or AV software. The higher the ability the more chance it will have to get around the heuristics check for this virus or even to replicate itself, change file name and directory.

Each one of these stats will have a number representative of their power from 1 to 5. These numbers will help to determine the difficulty of the programming rolls and how long your programming will take to create this virus.

So, as an example let’s say Mr. Pastry wants to build his own Virus and he wants it’s stats to be as follows: Encryption 5, Potency 3, Speed 5, Intelligence 4, Counter measures 2. Your base difficulty is determined by the highest stat, so in this case that is a 5. So we remove the first 5 as we’ve used that as our base, now we look at the rest of the numbers for every stat at 3 or higher it adds +1 to the difficulty for each point and for every stat at 2 or less will subtract 1 point from the difficulty. We’ve already removed the first 5 and made that our base difficulty, this leaves us with a 3, 5, 4, and 2 so our difficulty modifiers are 3 (+1), 5 (+3), 4 (+2), and 2 (-1) for a total difficulty of 5+1+3+2-1 = 10 but we will be using the Threshold rule for this so that means our final difficulty will be 9 + 1.

Threshold: If your difficulty goes above a 9 then each increase above 9 will add another required success.

Merits can lower this difficulty such as computer aptitude which will take 2 off of the threshold difficulty, in our example the difficulty of your rolls would be difficulty 7 instead of 9.

• Equipment can help to lower the amount of successes you need, are you running on a state of the art machine (-1)?

• Location can help lower successes needed as well, are you in a specific test environment (-2)?

• Friends can also help lower the needed successes, Do you have people helping you write the code (-1 difficulty per person)

• Modifiers will be on a case by case determination.

The next question is how many successes do you need in order to pull this off in your extended roll? Well that’s a little easier to determine, it is the sum total of the stats of the virus. So in this example our virus has stats of the following 5,3,5,4,2 you add those all together and get 19. So without any further modifiers you have a difficulty 9 virus that needs 20 successes to create during your programming. (Remember the +1 required success due to threshold)

Will this take time? Yes it will. Will you likely experience failures during this extended roll? Yes, you will. Is it possible to botch? Yes, it is.

[Consequences]
So, what are the consequences of this? A failed roll is just that, a failure you make any progress on the roll and to have wasted an hour of programming time, normally the rules for failure during a roll would increase your difficulty by +1, so we will use the threshold system here as well if your difficulty is already at a 9. This means each failed roll will add another required success necessary to achieve the end result.

On the plus side that means your difficulty will never be above a 9 but on the downside you might be working on this virus for weeks! But then, that’s just how programming works and the pitfalls of being human.

[Botching]
Now, if you botch this roll, thanks to the wonders of modern computers, backing up your data and having surge protection/UPS it’s very unlikely you will lose all of your work, but it IS possible that you can corrupt what you’re working on so if you botch you will lose a number of accumulated successes equal to double the botch amount. If you double botch you will lose 4 accumulated successes, triple botch is 6 and so on and so on.

[Resting]
Everyone regardless of who you happen to be must rest at some point. So it should be noted that if you sit down to write code you will need to take occasional breaks, the time needed for and between breaks is represented by your stamina, intelligence, and willpower score. In other words you will need a break after a number of hours working on code equal to your stamina + Intelligence and will need to rest a number of hours equal to the sum difference in your current willpower vs Stamina + Intelligence. As an example if Mr. Pastry has an Intelligence of 3, stamina of 2, and a current willpower of 4 he can work on code for 5 hours straight but will need to rest for 1 hour in order to get his head back into the game (Int 3 + stam 2 – willpower 4 = 1). As a follow-up, you can only work a number of hours on this code equal to 3 times your willpower score. So, if your willpower is a 4, you could work on code for 12 hours (excepting breaks) but every hour after that without taking the rest of the night off is going to incur a +1 to the difficulty of your rolls as your head begins to fog over