From: Cameron Blackwood <c.blackwood@rdt.monash.edu.au>

Problem: How do you play botches?

Player goes to Auspex an NPC (who they suspect of being a vampire killer).

Player: "Ok, I examine the aura of the dude in the corner with the coat."
<rolls dice>
Player: "Umm a botch..."
ST:	"Gee umm ok the man in the coat looks.. umm normal. No evidence of
	being a killer, actully looks like the sort of person
	who would pick flowers and give them to his mother."
Player:	"Gee cant be him then" with smile :-)

  I ran into this problem and didnt like it. Giving people incorrect
after they roll a botch means they KNOW otherwise even if they role
play it and it kind of ruins the suspence in the game, I think.  So,
thinking about it, I cam to the conclusion that I should store them.

  In the above example, I may give an incorrect result, I may give an
auspex reading of 2 sucesses, eg, obsessed and hateful. If I give a
sucessful reading, then I note it down and sometime later in the game, I
will play that botch when the player rolls a sucess.

Advantages:
  * Adds to dramatic possibilities for ST.
  * Makes players really PRAY for no botches.
  * Keeps suspence as they cant always trust their rolls, even when
  they go well.
  * Allows players to roll dice even when they should not know the
  result. Saves ME lots of work.
  * fair total fails/sucesses still the same.
  * Works for: Hunting, Dominate, Auspex, lots of things.

Disadvantages:
  * Extra bookkeeping. I have a file (I use a laptop to keep track of
  my evil) with entries like....
    Rob: Auspex(2,3) Hunting(*1)
    rgg: Auspex(2,1) Hunting(*2)
    dwagon: Dominate(3,1,3,5,2,5,5,3,2)
  The "Rob" line means 2 botches for auspex (no really!), one 2 sucess
  replacement and one 3 sucess one. Also one botched hunting roll (say
  just give them some blood and play the botch out in FULL later when
  that evil mind has worked out a really nasty situation :).
  (This is a made up example people who play in my game.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Stephen Childs <sechilds@cs-acad-lan.lakeheadu.ca>

Problem:    the language rules in Storyteller are somewhat strange
for 2 reasons:
                1. limit on the number of languages you can learn
                2. learning new languages becomes harder the more you
learn.

Solution:
            Institute an new "secondary skill" called LANGUAGES -
each dot represents a language spoken, there is no limit to the level
of this stat.
            This stat is acquired in a strange way...

            1. one free point per dot in Linguistics
            2. exactly like a secondary skill normally is bought
            3. with experience points
                    Linguistics         Cost per LANGUAGES dot
                        -                   buy Linguistics 1
                        *                   4 experience
                        **                  3 experience
                        ***                 2 experience
                        ****                1 experience
                        *****               1 experinnce

                        or something similar...

This means, the more points you have in Linguistics, the easier
languages are for you to learn and a character can speak many
languages without needing to be the world's best linguist (though he
will probably be a pretty good linguist once he knows a lot of
languages throught learning the similarities).

---------------------------------------------------------------------

From: blr3r@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu

Galliard Gift 'Call of the Wyld' is pitched slightly beyond human hearing.