[Madness Dossier] Skill of the Week: Esmology

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

A variant of Prime found in the Syndicate convention book.

I've only glanced at that, and I don't think I had done so when I came up with the Sphere of Society.

My inspiration for the Sphere of Society was the idea that where dualists tended to make God the supreme being, the source of moral obligation, and so on, materialists tended to put Society in the same role, as in Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity, described sarcastically as "Catholicism without God," which worshipped humanity as a collective entity.

On one hand, what I did with Society was make it a source of magical power, the way Prime was. But where Prime gave you Quintessence, Society gave you Capital, which could be used to access material resources that embodied the ability to do amazing things. Hence the magical credit card.

On the other hand, Society let you manipulate social reality the way Life let you manipulate organisms, or Forces let you manipulate energy. At 1 dot you could sense social forces and relations. At 2 dots, you could adjust social groups; at 3 dots, you could create social groups or adjust organizations; at 4 dots, you could create organizations or adjust polities; at 5 dots, you could create polities. This wasn't creating the personnel or the material assets (for that you would have needed Mind/Life or Matter); it was mobilizing those that already existed into new forms. For example, Jesus calling his disciples was creating a new group, which later became the nexus of a new organization.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I've only glanced at that, and I don't think I had done so when I came up with the Sphere of Society.

My inspiration for the Sphere of Society was the idea that where dualists tended to make God the supreme being, the source of moral obligation, and so on, materialists tended to put Society in the same role, as in Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity, described sarcastically as "Catholicism without God," which worshipped humanity as a collective entity.

On one hand, what I did with Society was make it a source of magical power, the way Prime was. But where Prime gave you Quintessence, Society gave you Capital, which could be used to access material resources that embodied the ability to do amazing things. Hence the magical credit card.

On the other hand, Society let you manipulate social reality the way Life let you manipulate organisms, or Forces let you manipulate energy. At 1 dot you could sense social forces and relations. At 2 dots, you could adjust social groups; at 3 dots, you could create social groups or adjust organizations; at 4 dots, you could create organizations or adjust polities; at 5 dots, you could create polities. This wasn't creating the personnel or the material assets (for that you would have needed Mind/Life or Matter); it was mobilizing those that already existed into new forms. For example, Jesus calling his disciples was creating a new group, which later became the nexus of a new organization.

At least Capital sounds vaguely similar to the things people said about Primal Utility, but I am merely stating my superficial impressions.

As for mystically manipulating society in a way that Life manipulates organisms, I'm finding the idea interesting overall. In some ways, all this discussion reminds me of the way Socialize works in Exalted. Most notably, there's an ability that doesn't affect individuals directly, but ensures that they tend to perform or avoid some sort of activity as a group, leading to the hilarious result that they e.g.can't afford to team up against you because then they'd be counted as a group and thus a ban against doing something you don't want kicks in. To me this sounds like in vaguely the same direction of uncanny abilities that should be at home in Madness Dossier, but it's probably still a bit outside the sphere of Esology (even if related to it).

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Heh. I wrote up the Sphere of Society for my Mage campaign, substituting it for the Sphere of Prime in the Technocracy setup. It worked pretty well.

I remembered that, but a Sphere of Society that allowed social and cultural manipulation and transformation was what I was thinking of.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I remembered that, but a Sphere of Society that allowed social and cultural manipulation and transformation was what I was thinking of.

That was the other part of it.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That was the other part of it.

I only remembered the Prime aspect. Sorry to underestimate you.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I only remembered the Prime aspect. Sorry to underestimate you.

See post #21 in this thread.

[sir_pudding]

Any thoughts on how to showcase this skill better for the player of the Applied Anthropologist in my game?

[Phantasm]

What would be a good use of this skill for a game that's not a "Madness Dossier" type game? Would it be useful for a Monster Hunters, swords-and-sorcery, superhero, or space opera type game?

[sir_pudding]

You need the assumption that groups of people are operating under predictable programs. Also the name has significance in setting so you might want to change that

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Any thoughts on how to showcase this skill better for the player of the Applied Anthropologist in my game?

The basic way would be to set up situations where predicting the actions of groups of people is important. This requires a different way of looking at the world, since we're so used to focussing on individuals, but it's something that Project SANDMAN would want to do.

Aha, an idea: Groups not acting in ways that are predicted by the skill may be under Anunnakku influence. This is not foolproof, since you might have failed the skill roll, or they may have other kinds of hidden influence, but it's a plausible way of getting a start in an investigation.