revising Interventions

[Matthias Wasser]

I like Interventions; or at any rate I like them a lot more for In Nomine than I would a simple set of crit rules. But they way they are implemented does seem to be a case of the bad kind of parallelism - maybe I'll talk about this later, but maybe you all know what I mean - in need of uprooting. Regardless of whether it should be, the Symphony isn't neutral in the War; the rebels are rebelling against the way the world works; and Lucifer is the opposite of Michael, not God.

Solution 1 is to eliminate Infernal Interventions and keep doing whatever you're doing with the Divine ones.

Solution 2 is to eliminate Infernal Interventions and split the Divine ones into Merciful and Wrathful varieties. Both tend to support Host against Horde when that's what's at stake, but Merciful may let a demon live another day that she might repent later, and Wrathful might allow her to bring great harm to men or angels to teach them a lesson. Merciful always looks to maximize people's opportunity and willingness to walk the road of selflessness and humility; Wrathful to dispense cruelly humorous poetic justice, with the distinction from Kobal's Word being that Dark Humor is about the recognition of absurdity and mockery of hierarchy and sacred values, which Wrathful Interventions always deny or reassert, respectively.

[Jason]

I guess this kind of depends on what you're trying to communicate with your game. Personally, nothing could make me eliminate 666 interventions entirely. That seems to be the whole inspiration for a "d666" system; the 111 as "holy trinity" (or, if you prefer, the unity of body, mind, and soul implied in many spiritual traditions) seems more shoehorned in, though I appreciate the parallelism.

Moreover, while Lucifer was beaten by Michael once upon a time, he's grown quite a bit since then; he's no longer the Archangel of Light, but the only demon capable of actually bestowing Words himself. In a way, he's accrued a BUNCH of his own Words that don't get assigned to other demons. After all, depending on the source, he has been referred to as the Lord of the Pit (or is it Lord of the Flies?), the Prince of Hell, the Prince of Darkness, and the Prince of Lies. (You could also argue that he has dominion over the Word of "Demons," "Fallen Angels," or "The Devil," as well. He might even still have "Light," implying that enlightenment means removing Heaven's tyranny so folks can think and act for themselves, which may help explain why Heaven has never reassigned the Word.) And if Hell (and its master) were not capable of actively rewriting the Symphony, Heaven wouldn't see them as much of a threat in the War at all. In short, I don't see it as unreasonable to make 666 interventions mean something.

Making 111 the uber-intervention also implies a certain understanding of God in the game world which is not quite the one I subscribe to. This implies that God is continuously self-aware and capable of acting at any moment, even in the smallest of situations. My personal understanding of God notwithstanding, I approach the divine very differently in In Nomine, more as a collective consciousness made up of all souls, which materializes only from time to time to make things happen. God as a fixed being with an identity ceases to be God, and becomes Yves (a manifestation of God's desire to see the Symphony achieve its destiny, and for souls to ascend to Heaven and become one with God) or Kronos (a manifestation of God's understanding that the beings in the Symphony also have a right to personal choice and individuality, and so should be encouraged to embrace this to the last). In other words, I don't see the 111 Intervention as necessarily more powerful or reliable than the 666 Intervention.

That said, if you can forgive my ramblings on different approaches to the philosophy and cosmology of the In Nomine universe, I do think there are ways to indicate through Intervention mechanics that Hell has something of an uphill battle. (After all, it's kind of like trying to oust an incumbent politician ... from a royal family that founded your kingdom.) Either of your proposed choices would indeed imply this, but would also imply to me that there's no real risk of Hell winning at all (and would sadly take away from the deep-seated terror of seeing that 666 come up in an angelic game).

Instead, I'd propose keeping both 111 and 666 interventions, but making the 666's less spectacular. Maybe the 666 doesn't represent the devil's hand taking notice at that given moment, but instead represents that the person making the roll happened to stumble upon a plot that Lucifer planted years ago and set off to run on its own. Maybe it just represents that the person who made the roll remembers to be a little more selfish, independent, or insubordinate. A 666 roll may be a "the devil made me do it" moment, which we know really means falling prey to our own darker nature. And for demons, this may just mean a small boon, momentary mastery of their own personal Symphony, such as the removal of some dissonance or discord, or an automatic success at resonance. Overall, these kind of 666 interventions would be less astounding than a holy light coming down to fry the opposition, but would still give players reason to stare dumbstruck at the dice and look to the GM to find out what happens next.

[Matthias Wasser]

I'm fine with the greater implications of Interventions being biased in Heaven's favor - it's perfectly consistent with more Fates being met than Destinies, there being more demons than angels, there being more Infernal tethers than Divine, or whatever. At a practical level there are any number of things that can be an advantage, and part of what I want to do in "reducing the bad kind of parallelism" is allowing each side to have distinct advantages. Biased interventions imply that that the universe is on the side of the angels without being actually dispositive. The rebellion of the angels, like human civilization, is premised on the idea that conscious choice can trump the natural way of things.

(I also share your preference of God not really being a person - I tent to read "Symphony" whenever the books say "God," and flat-out ignore any of those that only make sense if She's a person - all of which are political interventions which can be given far more interesting political explanations in any event. But that's really an orthogonal question.)

[JCD]

I would say that from a historical standpoint, it might have been just as Matthias stated preKronos. With his ascension, he wired Hell with sound, as they put it in H&H. Thus they have their access to someone on their side strumming the Lyre Strings of the Symphony.

How much or how hard Divine vs Infernal Inteventions work is up to the GM...but I would say this. If you are going to run it that the demons are fighting all uphill, with lower number of forces, fewer goodies AND you take away Infernal Interventions, then don't be surprised if no one wants to play a demon. And you need to indicate this to the Players BEFORE you start play, not after.

[Matthias Wasser]

Originally Posted by JCD

I would say that from a historical standpoint, it might have been just as Matthias stated preKronos. With his ascension, he wired Hell with sound, as they put it in H&H. Thus they have their access to someone on their side strumming the Lyre Strings of the Symphony.

I generally prefer to nix Kronos and Yves, but Kronos making Interventions is a lot more sensical than Lucifer doing so, yeah.

How much or how hard Divine vs Infernal Inteventions work is up to the GM...but I would say this. If you are going to run it that the demons are fighting all uphill, with lower number of forces, fewer goodies AND you take away Infernal Interventions, then don't be surprised if no one wants to play a demon.

I don't think game balance concerns make sense except in the internal differentiation of the PCs. The proper things to balance are Choirs against Choirs, Bands against Bands, Archangels against Archangels, &c. (Insert your own joke here.)

And you need to indicate this to the Players BEFORE you start play, not after.

Well, that's just trivially true of all rules and setting changes.

[Azel]

I always liked thinking of Lucifer leaving "wheels within wheels" machinations. Y'know, Prince of Lies leaving little trip-wire bombs with his super-duper special Celestial Shields all around the Symphony sorta makes for entertaining meta-narrative for me. Or that the Lord of Darkness, though he may not sense the Symphony at a level like Kronos, has figured out how to calculate subtle ripples causing remote effects. But that's just me.
:)

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Matthias Wasser

I like Interventions; or at any rate I like them a lot more for In Nomine than I would a simple set of crit rules. But they way they are implemented does seem to be a case of the bad kind of parallelism - maybe I'll talk about this later, but maybe you all know what I mean - in need of uprooting. Regardless of whether it should be, the Symphony isn't neutral in the War; the rebels are rebelling against the way the world works; and Lucifer is the opposite of Michael, not God.

Solution 1 is to eliminate Infernal Interventions and keep doing whatever you're doing with the Divine ones.

Solution 2 is to eliminate Infernal Interventions and split the Divine ones into Merciful and Wrathful varieties. Both tend to support Host against Horde when that's what's at stake, but Merciful may let a demon live another day that she might repent later, and Wrathful might allow her to bring great harm to men or angels to teach them a lesson. Merciful always looks to maximize people's opportunity and willingness to walk the road of selflessness and humility; Wrathful to dispense cruelly humorous poetic justice, with the distinction from Kobal's Word being that Dark Humor is about the recognition of absurdity and mockery of hierarchy and sacred values, which Wrathful Interventions always deny or reassert, respectively.

I would go with option 2, if I had to choose.

You know, we only call them Divine and Infernal interventions because that's what the rules call them, and very possibly what the angels and demons call them. But none of those celestials know from whence these interventions come. Most demons might see a 666 intervention as being "Infernal" (coming from Lucifer, or, they might believe Kronos, or possibly if they're more broad minded about it they might believe it's God indulging in the concept of selfishness that He created); but Habbalah may well believe what they've experience was a "Divine" intervention, albeit of the Wrathful kind as you put it. Angels will also have varied feelings and beliefs about such things. Certainly no one (God, Yves, Lucifer, Kronos, Metatron, Hyperbeing X) is coming forward to take credit for them (that they can prove anyway).

I think there is a lot of value in keeping it ambiguous. I like your idea mostly for that reason - it allows for a different way of thinking about interventions, and that means ambiguity. One of the coolest things about In Nomine is that you have these mighty celestials, making their homes in the actual Heaven and Hell, and, for the most part, they have to rely on faith and their own personal belief systems no more nor less than us crummy little humans. Must be a bit of a let-down for a human having a long chat with an angel about such things, but so it goes. Allowing for the possibility that interventions could have alternate sources (like they all come from different aspects of God, as per your idea) adds to that richness, IMHO.

[Acolyte]

I distinctly recall something about Infernal Interventions not working in Heaven but Divine ones operating fine in Hell (just another card in the deck weighted against the Horde), so that's one important distinction conceptually right there. It might not come into play much (Heaven isn't really the most exciting place to adventure except in the most political of angelic games), but that doesn't mean it doesn't color the entirety of Interventions.

l don't think that the Intervention system as written falls prey to parallelism, mostly because the flavor makes it clear that Infernal ones are the result of one being running around like mad (Lucifer) whereas Divine ones are just God/Symphony acting in ways beneficial to its own plan. That makes it hard to adjudicate low-importance Infernal Interventions (why would Lucifer care?), but you can always hide behind the inscrutability of both prime actors (God/Lucifer). Even if the effects are similar, their underpinnings are not. And the way they tie into the gorgeous d666 make me loath to adjust them.