Band attunements for servitors of the Game

[whswhs]

A servitor of Asmodeus gets 12 extra character points to spend on a Role, or skills for that Role. How does that work exactly? If I'm playing an Impudite whose role is that of a lawyer, and they put points into Fast-Talk, does that mean that they are brilliant at fast-talk when in that Vessel and Role, but mysteriously forget how to do it when back in celestial form? Or does the added knowledge and competence carry over to the celestial form?

If a servitor of Asmodeus buys a second band attunement, do they then get to buy a second Role and extra skills for that Role? Are role A skills available only to role A, or also to the celestial form, or also to role B, and conversely for role B skills?

If the servitor can make a case that one Role meets the criteria for two different band attunements (say, a psychotherapist who has both the Habbalah and Impudite attunements), can they spend 24 extra character points on creating that Role? Would Asmodeus applaud their creative approach to playing the game, or whack them upside the head for being munchkins?

Bill Stoddard

[milliken]

Originally Posted by whswhs

A servitor of Asmodeus gets 12 extra character points to spend on a Role, or skills for that Role. How does that work exactly? If I'm playing an Impudite whose role is that of a lawyer, and they put points into Fast-Talk, does that mean that they are brilliant at fast-talk when in that Vessel and Role, but mysteriously forget how to do it when back in celestial form? Or does the added knowledge and competence carry over to the celestial form?

I would assume the latter -- there's no mechanism for Role-restricted skills as far as I know. The Role and Vessel are tied together, but skills carry over between all forms, as far as I can remember.

I believe the reasoning behind the free Role is that it really just represents a package of things the Servitor received to operate effectively on Earth. What they do with them on their own time, is, of course, subject to inquiry, but perfectly within the rules. (Unless they're using them to break the Game's rules, and then the rule is "Don't Get Caught".)

Originally Posted by whswhs

If a servitor of Asmodeus buys a second band attunement, do they then get to buy a second Role and extra skills for that Role?

I think not -- at least, when we wrote the GURPS version, we moved the Role part into the general Servitor cost, and removed it from the attunement section -- the attunement is simply the ability to recognize a Band and dissonance in that Band. This maybe should be errata'ed for the original rules, or at least in the FAQ. (There is a FAQ item on the Band recognition part being bought multiple times.)

Originally Posted by whswhs

Are role A skills available only to role A, or also to the celestial form, or also to role B, and conversely for role B skills?

Skills are skills, and not actually part of a Role, but sometimes required to execute it properly.

Originally Posted by whswhs

If the servitor can make a case that one Role meets the criteria for two different band attunements (say, a psychotherapist who has both the Habbalah and Impudite attunements), can they spend 24 extra character points on creating that Role? Would Asmodeus applaud their creative approach to playing the game, or whack them upside the head for being munchkins?

Gaming the rules is part of the Game, but I don't think the core rules actually intended the Roles to be part of the attunement, per se, just a general perk of being a Game servitor. The text unfortunately put them in the same section. We fixed this in GURPS In Nomine.

So I don't think this works, no matter how clever.... On the other hand, at the moment the core rules don't actually say it this way, so you can play the First Edition Rules card and... oh, right, that's Munchkin, not IN....

---Walter

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by milliken

So I don't think this works, no matter how clever.... On the other hand, at the moment the core rules don't actually say it this way, so you can play the First Edition Rules card and... oh, right, that's Munchkin, not IN....

That really needs to be errata'd, then. Though I'm not sure it's worth it to the character to buy a second Band attunement if all they get is being able to recognize members of that Band.

Parallel questions arise about, for example, servitors of Nybbas, whose Band attunement perk is a mortal servant—do they get multiple servants for multiple attunements? If not, what DO they get?

Bill Stoddard

[alexondria]

As for the Asmodeus question. I think it was perhaps a bad place to put it, but the way that I read the paragraph I would say that they do not get the 12 points. As for the other not being worth it, you not only can identify demons with a perception roll, but you can determine how much dissonance they have. To a servitor of Asmodeus this would be especially usefully. Especially if that servitor had the Dissonance Binding attunement.

As for the question about Nybbas according to Superiors 2 it says that ""Restricted" attunements may still provide an additional servant of the typical sort- only the resonance-dependant part is not available." So I'd say that that is a yes you get the servant unless this has been erratted somewhere I didn't find.

Even though after finding the answer to the Nybbas Question I wonder about the call I would have made on Asmodeus. Asmodeus expanded is in play test now- does that clarify it?

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

A servitor of Asmodeus gets 12 extra character points to spend on a Role, or skills for that Role.

Essentially, you get the Role (and Status) paid for out of the 12 points, and whatever skills that you need explicitly for that Role. The GM is allowed to give you the hairy eyebrow and ask why you're funding generally-useful skills out of the Role points, but basically it's to give you the Role and whatever you need to make it work and not have laughing Malakim landing on top of you in five days, wondering how you thought you could pretend to be an X without the skills of an X.

If a servitor of Asmodeus buys a second band attunement, do they then get to buy a second Role and extra skills for that Role?

They do not. All Servitors of Asmodeus get a Role -- it's not part of their Band Attunement. It's just a perk of working for the Game. (Admittedly, this much more clear in GURPS In Nomine!) What they do get from another Band Attunement is the ability to recognize another Band of demons. Further Roles and skills are bought normally, or gifted by the GM as required by the plot and/or roleplaying.

Would it be more clear if the second paragraph's first two sentences were moved to be directly under Servitor Attunements? I can send errata to that effect, if so.


((EDIT: The expanded Asmodeus writeup, slated for e23, is explicit about the matter -- but with enough words that I can't easily just send in that errata. Anyway, if it were placed under Servitor Attunements, the amount of text ought to not change, so it would just shift around a little without frotzing the layout too much. Would that placement work?))

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

Would it be more clear if the second paragraph's first two sentences were moved to be directly under Servitor Attunements? I can send errata to that effect, if so.

I don't think that would work real well. Every single one of the band attunements is a description of the Roles that that band goes in for; none of them says a word about the Perception roll aspect. This in itself invites the incorrect reading—if you put a Role write under "Attunements" you are naturally leading readers to believe that the Role is the attunement—and it also is not going to make much sense if the reader hasn't previously seen the statement about "12 extra character points which must be spent on a Role, or skills for that Role."

Also, putting a statement about Roles that all demons of the Game get under "Servitor Attunements" is really odd. Servitor attunements are, by definition, optional—not all servitors take them. Not to mention that you're then going to need a back reference to that long list of Roles under "Band Attunements" which in fact are not band attunements at all. I think this will cause even more confusion.

Really, what this needs is a new section, called "Perks," which contains the first two sentences of the second paragraph, plus all the Role descriptions. Then "Band Attunements" would be stripped down to the first paragraph and the last sentence of the second, with no text about distinctive attunements for different bands—the only distinctiveness is "to correctly identify someone as a Balseraph/Djinn/Calabite/Habbalah/Lilim/Shedite/Impudite."

*****

And now the other question: Why this interpretation? In what way is it unbalancing to the game to let servitors of The Game have multiple cover identities on Earth? It seems like just the sort of thing spy agencies go in for.

Bill Stoddard

[alexondria]

Originally Posted by whswhs

And now the other question: Why this interpretation? In what way is it unbalancing to the game to let servitors of The Game have multiple cover identities on Earth? It seems like just the sort of thing spy agencies go in for.

Bill Stoddard

My opinion is the room for abuse.
For 5 character points you get

• the ability to recognize another band of demons while they are in vessels.
• the ability to tell whether or not they have dissonance
• whether or not they need drug forcibly back to Hell unless they can pay the proper bribes
• whether you would be wasting your time with dissonance binding if you have that
• All of this with out them even necessarily seeing you

And then if you get the extra role you get an additional 12 character points on top of that for the expenditure of 5. This seems very abusable to me, but if you don't see that as a problem their is no reason why you can't allow it in your game.

The Nybbas one seems abusable too. But on the other hand most starting pcs who will be buying the servants are only likely to have 3 or 4 forces. so that would be something worth 6 to 8 points for the cost of 5. Especially since only a couple of them get anything other than the servant, and of those only a couple get anything that would be useful to another band.

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't think that would work real well. [...] Really, what this needs is a new section, called "Perks,"

True enough, and we essentially did exactly that in GIN. However, I've not been given the go-ahead to make IN 2nd edition, so until then, any errata I submit is going to have to be something that won't break the formatting on the PDF. I can put those two sentences elsewhere, but I can't put in a whole new section without Thomas hating me. (I can also put in the FAQ; there, that's sent off to the right place, and should go up when she has time.)

And now the other question: Why this interpretation? In what way is it unbalancing to the game to let servitors of The Game have multiple cover identities on Earth? It seems like just the sort of thing spy agencies go in for.

There are two reasons. First of all, it's a 12-points-for-five hack that includes skills, which is mildly egregious on its own. But, more importantly, the way that Roles work in the game is not "poof, you have a Role." Someone must live that Role, and while Roles can be handed over (carefully) or stolen (risky sometimes), a Role that is not maintained will fade away -- and it's very difficult to maintain several high-level Roles. ((See the Liber Servitorum for more about Roles...)) And the Game tends to prefer high-level Roles... It makes the Servitors quieter, gives them more advantages on the corporeal plane if the Role has any status, and makes them harder to uncover by angels or other demons.

You can, of course, house-rule whatever you want, including "Poof, you have a Role!"

Having multiple paper identities, I should note, is something that can be part of the character background for free, or some token amount of points. Indeed, the Role of Spy With Multiple IDs would be a very nice little playing of the Game! The multiple IDs would merely be "on paper" and not fool the Symphony, of course (unless covered by the "Spy With Multiple IDs" Role!).