Facade from 'Mask of Humanity'

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In my campaign, PCs still make checks against the Facade, even though they know about the supernatural. It's a feature of the campaign world that even experienced occultists often have problems remembering exactly what happened when they encountered powerful paranormal phenomena.

The PCs have extremely high Will, as one of the main things that distinguishes them from ordinary mortals and makes them capable of being the protagonists, so failing the rolls is rare. However, this provides a narrative justification for the players to have incomplete information about events in their own character's pasts and some of them have traits that reflect that their characters believe incorrect information about past events.

I want to to be able to introduce meaningful Reveals in the style of Jim Butcher's elaborations on protagonist backstories in the Dresden Files, where the information that the reader was previously presented with is revealed to be incomplete or false in crucial ways.

That can work, but I personally would find that tiresome to implement for PCs. How do you keep up the supernatural vibe while saying "You forget X"?

Originally Posted by Icelander

I avoided Wild Card skills or other traits with narrative-shaping powers*, as reality was supposed to be extremely hard to change with supernatural powers and the PCs were supposed to be able to fail or even die. However, I note that I allow spending character points to get extra uses of Luck and I allow Serendipity, and that these are very similar traits, albeit ones that exist on a meta-level more than inside the world of the setting.

Failing is as important as success and the use of Wildcards in my campaigns has not stopped that one bit. It gives the PCs an edge sure, but it doesn't make them unstoppable. If I recall correctly you have PCs who are in the kiloton range for this campaign. (In fact, I think we discussed this before so I'll just leave that alone.)

Originally Posted by Icelander

Given the fact that most of the PCs are, in some way, figures of destiny**, allowing traits that give points for Impulse Buys might not do too much violence to the campaign. I'll have to consider it carefully.

Surely not. I suggest Impulse Control from Pyramid #3/100. I explicitly wrote it so you could have narrative control for PCs while also enhancing that control for the GM.

Originally Posted by Icelander

*One of the things that served to distinguish events in the Dreamworld from the real world is that the PCs had a pool of Destiny Points there which could change reality in quite dramatic fashion, reflecting a Neo-like understanding that they were in a lucid dream-like shared delusion and that what the saw was, to some extent, under their control.

Me likey.

Originally Posted by Icelander

**Albeit with that destiny yet to be revealed, in each case, as some of them could equally well be destined to be tragic Greek heroes or even Woobies, Destroyers of Worlds, as they could be the Big Damn Heroes.

All of which could benefit from Impulse Points I'd think.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Surely not. I suggest Impulse Control from Pyramid #3/100. I explicitly wrote it so you could have narrative control for PCs while also enhancing that control for the GM.


All of which could benefit from Impulse Points I'd think.

Impulse Points already encourage this by the staggered cost when spent on certain things. Players tend to want the most bang for the buck so if a subtle or narrative promoting application exists there more likely to use that than a flashy dramatic option that burns more points.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

That can work, but I personally would find that tiresome to implement for PCs. How do you keep up the supernatural vibe while saying "You forget X"?

For example, Teddy Smith believes that he experienced around two years of time in the twilight, sidereal realm of the Nommo, but has difficulty remembering exactly how long his sojourn lasted. He also doesn't know how he got home. The player is aware that there are gaps in Teddy's memory, but the PC resists attempts by doctors, psychologists and occultists to explore whether they are caused by physical trauma, psychological defence mechanisms, psychic shock or supernatural influence.

Alice Talbot and Lucien Lacoste both had near-death experiences and in both cases, the players agreed that their characters were unaware and to a degree unwilling to confront exactly how they survived. In play, it's becoming clearer that Alice's survival had quite a lot to do with the Entity which is bound within her, and, in fact, it may be that Alice actually did die, and was reborn as something more (or less) than ordinaty human. In any case, Alice's player was happy to declare that while his PC has spent the time since she was sacrificed in an occult ritual trying to find answers about her condition, she is also strangely unwilling to examine her memories about the night in question.

As for Lacoste, he was in a coma for weeks and when he awoke, he could see the Spirit World, in particular, a spirit he believes to be the ghost of his dead partner, LaDarius 'Dee' Fournette, who died in the shooting that left Lacoste comatose. Lacoste's player indicated a desire to have his character's awakening be more mysterious than a mere physical recovery and the fact that his Nana Lacoste is a New Orleans 'voodoo queen' of legendary repute might not be unconnected to his miraculous revival. Did Lacoste die and have his soul wrenched back into his body by his grandmother and is that why the Spirit World seems as real to him now as the world of the living?

Also, is his spirit Ally really Dee's ghost or is it a free spirit that has taken his form and is drawing on Lacoste's knowledge of him? Lacoste doesn't doubt this, at all, but that's because he doesn't necessarily remember everything that he experienced during his near-death experience and subsequent coma. If Lacoste spent time in the Spirit World, as a spirit, he doesn't remember it now. And even if Lacoste trusts a given spirit to tell him the truth, the thing is that most spirits seem to have imperfect memories and a mallable nature, so cross-examining them tends to be unreliable.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Failing is as important as success and the use of Wildcards in my campaigns has not stopped that one bit. It gives the PCs an edge sure, but it doesn't make them unstoppable. If I recall correctly you have PCs who are in the kiloton range for this campaign. (In fact, I think we discussed this before so I'll just leave that alone.

The average session will include maybe 1-5 potentially dramatic failures per PC, 0-2 if they have decent Luck. Allowing Buying Successes removes those failures entirely, which is why I don't allow it, but even just the option for extra re-rolls once you've used up your Luck for the moment sharply reduces the frequency of PCs ever failing anything significant.

Add a renewable pool of reroll points per session to the uses of Luck and I'm concerned PCs will never again suffer awkward pratfalls when trying something too risky, never miss a difficult shot if it really matters, and, most important, never fail a Will check or Fright Check when failure would potentially be more interesting than success.

Regardless of PC power level, there are plenty of rolls which can possibly fail, especially when they roll for many challenging tasks in short succession, each at maybe effective skill 12-14. But if they have a renewable (players will usually rather fail and accept some mild consequences than spend a non-renewable character point) pool of points that can remove those occasional failures, I'm concerned that they'll all but stop failing at all.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Surely not. I suggest Impulse Control from Pyramid #3/100. I explicitly wrote it so you could have narrative control for PCs while also enhancing that control for the GM.



Me likey.



All of which could benefit from Impulse Points I'd think.

I'll consider it.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Icelander

For example, Teddy Smith believes that he experienced around two years of time in the twilight, sidereal realm of the Nommo, but has difficulty remembering exactly how long his sojourn lasted. He also doesn't know how he got home. The player is aware that there are gaps in Teddy's memory, but the PC resists attempts by doctors, psychologists and occultists to explore whether they are caused by physical trauma, psychological defence mechanisms, psychic shock or supernatural influence.

Alice Talbot and Lucien Lacoste both had near-death experiences and in both cases, the players agreed that their characters were unaware and to a degree unwilling to confront exactly how they survived. In play, it's becoming clearer that Alice's survival had quite a lot to do with the Entity which is bound within her, and, in fact, it may be that Alice actually did die, and was reborn as something more (or less) than ordinaty human. In any case, Alice's player was happy to declare that while his PC has spent the time since she was sacrificed in an occult ritual trying to find answers about her condition, she is also strangely unwilling to examine her memories about the night in question.

As for Lacoste, he was in a coma for weeks and when he awoke, he could see the Spirit World, in particular, a spirit he believes to be the ghost of his dead partner, LaDarius 'Dee' Fournette, who died in the shooting that left Lacoste comatose. Lacoste's player indicated a desire to have his character's awakening be more mysterious than a mere physical recovery and the fact that his Nana Lacoste is a New Orleans 'voodoo queen' of legendary repute might not be unconnected to his miraculous revival. Did Lacoste die and have his soul wrenched back into his body by his grandmother and is that why the Spirit World seems as real to him now as the world of the living?

Also, is his spirit Ally really Dee's ghost or is it a free spirit that has taken his form and is drawing on Lacoste's knowledge of him? Lacoste doesn't doubt this, at all, but that's because he doesn't necessarily remember everything that he experienced during his near-death experience and subsequent coma. If Lacoste spent time in the Spirit World, as a spirit, he doesn't remember it now. And even if Lacoste trusts a given spirit to tell him the truth, the thing is that most spirits seem to have imperfect memories and a mallable nature, so cross-examining them tends to be unreliable.

That is all seriously, very cool.

Originally Posted by Icelander

The average session will include maybe 1-5 potentially dramatic failures per PC, 0-2 if they have decent Luck. Allowing Buying Successes removes those failures entirely, which is why I don't allow it, but even just the option for extra re-rolls once you've used up your Luck for the moment sharply reduces the frequency of PCs ever failing anything significant.

Add a renewable pool of reroll points per session to the uses of Luck and I'm concerned PCs will never again suffer awkward pratfalls when trying something too risky, never miss a difficult shot if it really matters, and, most important, never fail a Will check or Fright Check when failure would potentially be more interesting than success.

Regardless of PC power level, there are plenty of rolls which can possibly fail, especially when they roll for many challenging tasks in short succession, each at maybe effective skill 12-14. But if they have a renewable (players will usually rather fail and accept some mild consequences than spend a non-renewable character point) pool of points that can remove those occasional failures, I'm concerned that they'll all but stop failing at all.

What I do is remove all meta-game traits like Luck, Serendipity, etc. and replace them with Impulse Points. It then becomes a game of "when do I spend these." Believe me, the PCs are going to try to hoard them or blow them on something important. So what you tend to get is more raw die rolls on most everything except the super important stuff. It comes out in the wash and works quite well I've found.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Impulse Points already encourage this by the staggered cost when spent on certain things. Players tend to want the most bang for the buck so if a subtle or narrative promoting application exists there more likely to use that than a flashy dramatic option that burns more points.

Yeah, pretty much this.