Inconsistent/Undocumented Rules?

[Marc (Admin)]

While RAtC's rules have been well documented in the past, the gaps seem to be widening as of late.  This is due to a number of factors including lax website updates and even nonexistent rules that people believe to be in place and undocumented.  Early feedback from the player survey suggests these are growing problems.

Whether you agree with RAtC's rules or not, we'd like to hear some more feedback.  Please use this thread to:

1) List any rules that you believe to be in place, but are unable to find documented in the House Rules or Character Development notes.  These need not be long, drawn-out explanations; just a sentence or two that gets the point/mechanic of the rule across.

2) List any rules where you have first-hand experienced (or witnessed) a particular inconsistency.  We don't need all the gory details, but the inconsistency observed and how many times over approximately how long would be helpful information to provide.  To be clear, the inconsistencies we are looking for here are within RAtC.  Inconsistencies with similar or differing rules in other games or events (OWbN or otherwise) is not being measured at this time.

Please note that this thread is NOT a discussion thread.  It's sole purpose is to gather feedback on where lax documentation and/or inconsistencies have been observed or are observable.  Posts that stray from this topic may be deleted.

Thank you for your support!

[Conor (Former ST)]

I'm going to assume that the #1 problem here has to do with gaining Rage and making Frenzy chops.

[Damien Eneas]

The difficulty of Raging Back.  I just checked the rules, and it said it was a Simple Test, but the one time I've had to use them it was not a Simple Test.  The difficulty was based on the Moon Phase like most Rage tests, I recall.  I suspect the problem with this one is it comes up so infrequently that no one actually remembers the rule.

[Conor (Former ST)]

Where did you see the phrase Simple Test in relation to raging back?

[Damien Eneas]

House Rules 'N' to 'Z' > Raging Back

"When a character takes a number of Damage that puts her below Incapacitated, she is dead, with the opportunity to spend a Rage trait, and make a Rage Challenge with the staff (Simple Test, Retest: Rage, by default)."

[Jerry Castillo]

I would appreciate clarification on the tests to gain Rage. I understand the process (if you fail, you gain no Rage and don't risk Frenzy; if you succeed, you gain a Rage and chop vs. Frenzy) but not always the exact chops involved. Is the first chop a Simple Test? Is the second chop current Willpower or perm Willpower vs. current Rage or perm Rage? With moon phase adjustment?

Other things I would love to have clarified:

1) The existence of a Frenzy Retest (I think this mostly something that only Kat did, but people still ask about it sometimes)
2) The resolution of group attacks (i.e., several Garou waiting for the lowest Initiative among them and then all attacking as one, with or without Unified Force). Does the defender chop separately for each or once for all? I have seen it run as once for all, which affords something of an advantage to groups of at least three, who can effectively guarantee that SOMEONE will win outright regardless of differences in Traits.
3) I recall having the Crinos negative Social Traits bid against me by another Garou in a Social Challenge, and then was told when I later attempted to do likewise to a Spiral that Garou can't bid these against other Garou. This seems reasonable but I can't find documentation for it, and particularly for in-combat use of Gifts like Distractions I would like it clarified.

[Mike]

Some games allow for renown traits to be bid along with social, is this game one of them?

Basically if a character chooses to not recognize the renown it adds another social dynamic.
But using your renown too much in that situation risks losing some of it.

[Conor (Former ST)]

* Conor (Storyteller) takes notes.

[Seven Mountains]

Given my lack of physical attendance as of late I can't add much recently. Though having gone through the 20th Anniversary book there is one thing which is there that I think clears something up in my mind

Pure Breed, Page 138, end of the first paragraph

Each point of Pure Breed adds an extra die to formal challenges (such
as Rank challenges) and to Social rolls involving other
Garou

Interesting as it lists formal challenges, not Social formal challenges and after pinging them about it it seems the intent is Silverfang do in fact get their Pure Breed in dice pools for Combat, Game Craft and Staredown.

Just finally understanding how it is that SilverFang lead so many Septs and packs but had almost no advantages to allow for it.

[Mike]

Combat, Game Craft and Staredown

Are we sure that is what is considered a formal challenge?

[Jerry Castillo]

I assume that when Vance says "Combat" he means "combat as part of a formal challenge at the Challenge Mound" and not "every time you get in a fight with some Wyrm beastie." Ditto the other two.

That would certainly make Pure Breed cooler, if true.

[Mike]

I do not think this game should allow Brody to add ten traits to "formal" challenges.

Just saying

[Seven Mountains]

I think formal challenges are those that are formal, including the mound and the master of challenge. There are 3 types of formal challenges. There are 3 types of common challenges, Facedown, Gamecraft, Duel.

Page 54 of the 20th TT book:

Dominance and Submission
By law of the Litany, when a group isn’t in the middle
of immediate danger, its leader is open to be challenged at
any time. Millennia of conflict have refined three particularly
common methods of testing dominance: facedown,
gamecraft, and duel.

Also I wasn't aware Brody had pure breed 10?

[Mike]

Brody is a dirty bastard

[Lars Nielsen]

The other game I received a ruling from a player that sounded odd to me about bidding and refreshing form traits - When can I bid a trait granted to me by a form other than homid, and do they refresh when I spend a Willpower?

[Jerry Castillo]

I just asked about this a game or two ago! The answer I got was that you can't bid or lose those traits - they are strictly for comparison on ties, just like weapon traits or other such things. To my mind, that's really the best way of handling them, since otherwise people would always spend their "form" traits first, and you could fight all day in Crinos and then revert to Homid and still have your 11 unspent Homid traits or whatever and basically be fresh as a daisy. Not to mention switching to other forms that grant different traits...

[Nike 'Slays the Patriarchy' Strilakos]

I just asked about this a game or two ago! The answer I got was that you can't bid or lose those traits - they are strictly for comparison on ties, just like weapon traits or other such things. To my mind, that's really the best way of handling them, since otherwise people would always spend their "form" traits first, and you could fight all day in Crinos and then revert to Homid and still have your 11 unspent Homid traits or whatever and basically be fresh as a daisy. Not to mention switching to other forms that grant different traits...

oh!  i was told recently that you had to bid your crinos traits absolutly...  that way even ifyou were a pansy in a fight, in crinos you still had though stam and str traits to bid

[Gabriel]

And I was under the impression that you could only bid them after you ran through all your permanent traits, but I'd never had to, so the question of refreshing them never came up around me.

[Seven Mountains]

By this logic a homid with 11 physical traits vs a werewolf with 3 physical and +8 crinos on ties each lose the trait. In 3 turns the Crinos garou can't bid anymore if they can not bid crinos traits and hence loses the fight to a homid. Additionally when the 3 physical garou reverts to it's breed form of homid it still can't fight, the advantage of the adrenaline and combat prowess of a Crinos has somehow sapped his ability to walk straight. Doesn't happen

Also you can bid any trait you currently have, including your form traits. You already can't break the veil, must submit to an honorable surrender all the wqhile combating the wyrm where it dwells and breeds. On those rare instances where you CAN be in Crinos those traits can be bid.

If they only wanted you to have the trais but never bid them then it would be +8 traits in Crinos for the purposes of ties, but instead they give you all of the traits by name. Additionally those negative traits which come with the form can be bid against you.

Any social challenge against someone in Crinos gets the neg traits Feral and Repugnant multiple times bid against them (Another reason spending a Will to ignore Social Challenges is an assanine rule). Please don't forget the negatives along with the positives when considering this.

[Jerry Castillo]

I definitely agree with the Negative form Traits being biddable against you (although I'm still unclear on whether Garou can do so or not); that is clearly the intent of the rules and makes sense.

But if all form traits can be bid and lost normally, that seems at least as logically wonky as them not being biddable. I don't see any reason why a 3 Physicals Garou, after exerting themselves in Crinos, would then revert to Homid (which is perforce weaker, with less strength and endurance) and NOT be exhausted. Maybe being in Crinos, with its super-regeneration and better cardiovascular and muscular strength, was the only thing keeping them standing. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Conversely, all of the forms give different traits. If I bid away my 8 Crinos traits and then shift to Hispo, do I have 8 new traits to bid now? That was a super-easy refresh, if so. If I then use THOSE up and shift to Lupus, do I get 5 new traits again? When I spend WP to refresh Physicals after exhausting those, do I get back 21 traits across all forms and get to do it again? This effectively turns the different forms into Pokemon that you rotate out as they get tired, which I guess could be interesting but isn't the way I've seen it done before.

Maybe you can only have one pool of up to 8 form traits, and once they're gone, an equivalent number are gone across all forms? I dunno.

[Mike]

The pool is 8 form traits and once you spend them you dont get them back by switching forms.
I've bid these traits once a game since I started playing, I'm kind of surprised its a question.
But I can definitely now see where the confusion lies.  I just never really thought about it I guess.

And I agree Vance the willpower rule sucks, I firmly believe it should only be used when the command etc. is making you act against your demeanor or nature.  The original intention of the rule when I put it in the game.  Well let me clarify, the original intention of this game's mechanics towards demeanor and nature as intended by the books in my opinion.

Part of the game and even part of playing a social character is figuring out what limits you can bring other characters to.  Figuring out someone is a traditionalist and cant get them to go against tradition.  Figuring out someone is a Matryr and not being able to talk them out of this suicide mission.  Or reverse winning an argument with a traditionalist by quoting tradition. 

[Seven Mountains]

So a modification I have seen work well:

When you bid a form trait and lose it, you lose the first one of them in all forms other than homid. When you bid and lose a second again all forms other than homid if they exist.

[Justin Northwood]

That is how I've always believed it to be also.
Form Traits represent a variable pool of traits that grows/shrinks depending on the form, but is not independent or unique to each form.
If you bid one of those Traits and lose it, then you are down one regardless of Form.
Some of the Attributes do differ from form to form, so just knock off one from the same category if you can.
For example, strike a Brawny from Glabro, Crinos, Hispo, and a Tough from Lupus.
A few years back I added the Form Traits to the character sheet template, specifically to make accounting for them a little easier

[Jerry Castillo]

Huh! Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

[Justin Northwood]

Again, a number of these things come down to clarifying ambiguous, undocumented or otherwise poorly communicated rules.