10-09-2018, 05:24 PM | #1 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Wormtooth Nation
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Ghostly Movement, Variants
Ghostly Movement (page H20) is super creepy, super fun to fight, and even more fun to wield.
I've been playing a character (a monster hunters crossroads witch) with Ghostly Movement for the past four years. We've had to rule on some weird questions about how it works. I'll list some of those questions and our house-rulings for your consideration and comment. It's become clear there are two distinct interpretations of the advantage, with important differences in what they can and can’t do. I'll expand on that with write-ups of two variants of the advantage. First, the questions. Quotes are from Horror pg 20.
The answers depend on the power source – is it a special effect of being just that good E.G. Batman, or is it the literal ghostly movement of a supernatural being? The original text allows for both possibilities but does not distinguish between them. Lets try: Variants Ghostly Movement (Cinematic Speed) Your movement is the result of ninja-like skill. You can only move through barriers that you could conceivably pass using your skills in one second. Make the skill rolls for each obstacle as you discover them, moving sequentially through the obstacles exactly as if you were doing so without the Warp advantage. For example, to pass a wall, the wall must have an air-vent that you might fit through and you must have enough Move to reach the vent and get through it. You actually unscrew that vent and climb through it, you just do so very quickly. You get perception rolls to notice complications, may apply additional skills, and can stop whenever you choose. For example, if the vent has a laser tripwire, then you first roll to open the vent, then to notice the wire, then to disarm it, and you may stop at any time, leaving you that far into the process. Any failed roll produces its normal consequences. Ghostly Movement (Pathed Warp) Your movement is the result of being a Threshold Entity, or some other Power. You can pass any barrier as long as you know a long way to get past it, can pass the skill rolls, and the destination hex is within Move yards from the starting hex. Not only do you leave no traces, but you literally don’t pass the intervening space. The GM makes all the skill rolls to pass the obstacle(s) in advance of beginning the Warp, auto-failing any perception rolls to notice complications, such as if you knew about a door but didn’t know it was trapped. If any roll fails, including Perception, then the Warp fails and you don’t know why. This leaves you where you started, with no memory of the attempt except that it didn’t work. Powering Up Powering Up to go further requires changing two of the original writeup’s limitations:
Pathed Warp: You don’t need additional advantages. Instead, just buy down the Range Limit. You can warp further! In conclusion: I'm comfortable with these answers to questions 1 and 3, but I have no idea about question number 2. What do you think? Have you played with Ghostly Movement? Did you encounter these questions? What were your answers? See anything I missed? Cheers!
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"Guys, I think maybe this whole time we've been the villains." |
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10-12-2018, 08:34 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Nov 2016
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
This is one of my favorite advantages, it’s especially useful for NPCs!
Here are my 2 cents… For question number 1, I think you cannot get to the other side of such wall instantly, because (supposing you are standing in the ground by the center of a 50 yards long, 1 inch wide and 100 yards tall unbreakable glass wall) you still require a “Move” of 100 yards per second in order to comply with the limitations of the advantage and instantly get exactly at the other side. If you can break the wall, then you can instantly “ghost warp” to the other side leaving the wall untouched, but not because you can stroll around it (that still requires a “Move” of 100 yards, disregarding running and other stuff -but you could run-). From my perspective, if they don’t see you and the wall is unbreakable, it might take you 20 seconds getting the other side, but you can ignore stuff such as doing dexterity rolls or climbing rolls, etc. Regarding question number 2, you just need to comply with 2 requirements: being unobserved and having the skills/tools to achieve the feat. So, in combat, first you got to take complete cover or success at “hiding in plain sight” (if possible in combat*), then (if you have the skills/tools) you can declare your “ghost warp”. So, you don’t have to roll to enact the warp per se; however, you might have to roll to prevent others to see you in the first place. And now question number 3, if you have skills/advantages that enhance your move capabilities, I might allow them in favor of the “ghost warp”. Finally, the explanation of Ghostly Warp depends on your setting, if you allow it in your setting, suspension of disbelief is granted. *because, for example, the basic book states “invisibility art is useless in combat”. - Hide |
10-15-2018, 11:54 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
Can anyone recall examples of film moments which depict whatever horror trope this ability was meant to represent? I couldn't nail it down. Which monstrous users? I'm guessing it's probably something Jason Voorhees has done? He's had a lot of films though.
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10-15-2018, 03:52 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
Not a horror fan but in crime/action, the Leverage tv show. Parker the thief (one of the best in the world) is at the rear of the group as they are getting out of the building where security has been alerted. They come to a locked stairway. They turn their heads and go Parker to get her to unlock the door. She opens it from the the other side where she has somehow gotten past them and through the locked door already. Another case, Nate the leader and a temporary ally are talking in a conference room. Parker suddenly chimes in from where she is sitting on the coulter of the sink and coffee setup in the corner. She was not in the room when they went in, the windows don't open and they were facing the only door.
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10-15-2018, 04:32 PM | #5 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
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10-15-2018, 04:42 PM | #6 |
Never Been Pretty
Join Date: Jan 2005
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
Every movie or tv show where someone looked at another character, quickly looked away, and when they look at the character, he's no longer there.
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Daydreams of a Dragon: My blog |
10-16-2018, 01:10 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
Quote:
Kwai Chang Caine and some of the other Masters do this sometimes in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, though I'm not sure if the Kwai Chang from the original series did that, as he was rather younger.
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. |
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10-16-2018, 01:46 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Wormtooth Nation
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
Here are some external, youtube links to scenes featuring the trait. I watched these with my sound off, so I don't know how loud they are.
Jason Bourne: https://youtu.be/wuuBc6WgO14 Batman: https://youtu.be/1JHmy5xMwqs?t=30 Freddy Kruger does it at the beginning of this scene - warning horror movie listicle vid - https://youtu.be/lpqtLlzCA3M?t=225 Here it is in The Witch, where she can apparently succeed a Filch roll along the way (cinema sins vid) - https://youtu.be/zI-aTycmzbo?t=75 Justice League disappears on Commissioner Gordon. - https://youtu.be/1qV9JRv3EgQ?t=145 It supplies the justification for the Stealth Hi/Bye Trope and is described in detail as Offscreen Teleportation https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...n/StealthHiBye https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...nTeleportation
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"Guys, I think maybe this whole time we've been the villains." |
10-16-2018, 03:17 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
Presumably the Igors from Discworld should have something similar, limited to appearing directly behind their marthter.
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10-17-2018, 10:15 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: Ghostly Movement, Variants
Quote:
It's hard to think "only Ghostly Movement could explain this" in these instances, because "walk/climb to, if given time" means they could always do it in some amount of time, so we would need to know that they definitely needed more time to do any of these things than the time they had to do them in. Flash/Freddy could have enough maneuvers to do it. Batman doesn't have superspeed but I'm not sure how long it takes to climb and contort through cage bars. It's also possible what we saw that seemed like a moment looking down at a picture was much longer and she was entranced. |
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Tags |
ghostly movement, horror, powers |
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