Highlander (ish) style quickening mechanic

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Drakyrias

Any comments on my system?

It appears that the primary beneficial effect of winning the fight is not dying. :)

Even if you weren't fighting someone of fewer cp than yourself (useless to you but more attractive to them) you will apparently gain more Dark Quickening pts than regular ones. All other things being equal 2 and 1/2 x as many.

Of course, you'd probably get a few regular Gurps cp every session with no strings attached and that seems as though that would be you primary path of advancement.

I might be back to cutting off the arms and legs of annoying challengers and burying them alive.:)

[Drakyrias]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It appears that the primary beneficial effect of winning the fight is not dying. :)

Even if you weren't fighting someone of fewer cp than yourself (useless to you but more attractive to them) you will apparently gain more Dark Quickening pts than regular ones. All other things being equal 2 and 1/2 x as many.

Of course, you'd probably get a few regular Gurps cp every session with no strings attached and that seems as though that would be you primary path of advancement.

I might be back to cutting off the arms and legs of annoying challengers and burying them alive.:)

Within the mythos of Highlander, Immortals who do nothing but pursue the game and kill others turn psychotic and dark (it's even called dark quickening for them turning steadily more evil) resulting in the Kurgan or the Kain in Final Dimension.

I'm also trying to embody a certain amount of the system Nakano/Kain when killing Nekano garners Kain immediate powers of Nekano's sorcery.

Taking a head gives you their memories regardless.

The additional sources I'm including just cause negative side effects for taking another immortal's life, namely gaining their personality or physical traits.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Drakyrias

Within the mythos of Highlander, Immortals who do nothing but pursue the game and kill others turn psychotic and dark (it's even called dark quickening for them turning steadily more evil) resulting in the Kurgan or the Kain in Final Dimension.

I'm also trying to embody a certain amount of the system Nakano/Kain when killing Nekano garners Kain immediate powers of Nekano's sorcery.

Taking a head gives you their memories regardless.

The additional sources I'm including just cause negative side effects for taking another immortal's life, namely gaining their personality or physical traits.

Gurps Disads are _serious_. Gaining 10 cp of regular abilities and 25 pts of Disads is a disaster.

The Kurgan may not have had more than 50-60pts of Disads anyway. He didn't get a lot darker between killing Ramirez and the Gathering either. Most of his charming personality was attributed to being raised by vicious barbarians.

[Drakyrias]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Gurps Disads are _serious_. Gaining 10 cp of regular abilities and 25 pts of Disads is a disaster.

The Kurgan may not have had more than 50-60pts of Disads anyway. He didn't get a lot darker between killing Ramirez and the Gathering either. Most of his charming personality was attributed to being raised by vicious barbarians.

But there also wasn't a huge age difference between the two either. Infact the highlander wiki places the Kurgan as possibly older then Ramirez.

I'm open to advice to improve this. That's the whole point of the thread.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Drakyrias

Within the mythos of Highlander, Immortals who do nothing but pursue the game and kill others turn psychotic and dark (it's even called dark quickening for them turning steadily more evil) resulting in the Kurgan or the Kain in Final Dimension.
...

Wouldn't that be expected to happen for anyone that decided to go on serial killing sprees lasting centuries?
I'd almost say that you have to be psychotic before going on such pursuits purposefully rather than just when near other immortals due to magical compulsion.

[Drakyrias]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Wouldn't that be expected to happen for anyone that decided to go on serial killing sprees lasting centuries?
I'd almost say that you have to be psychotic before going on such pursuits purposefully rather than just when near other immortals due to magical compulsion.

Just going off the wiki there.


Again any advice to improve it?

[Flyndaran]

The series does not match the movie well at all, and with most episodic programs, things quickly get inconsistent. Even then, I can't think of any major personality changes that weren't purely for story purposes far outside internal consistency.
Good people kill bad for centuries without any change, and same goes for the reverse. But in these handful of cases something does happen... but nothing but vague near nonsensical reasons were given in story, that I recall.

It's usually best to start with what you want then work backwards to the rules that allow that to happen.

How often should observable changes occur? How many killings would that normally suggest? Those kinds of questions are what I'd start with.

[sir_pudding]

What about just using the corruption rules as written, give a fixed amount of of corruption per quickening and allow some kind of cleansing over time?

[Refplace]

Will every PC be an immortal? If not you should charge a UB for this.
I would likely apply Meditation and time towards reducing Dark Quickening points.Mostly based on the TV series when McCloud went bad.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

What about just using the corruption rules as written, give a fixed amount of of corruption per quickening and allow some kind of cleansing over time?

That will go toward explaining all the meditative practices of long time immortals in the series at least.