Racial Memory (single ancestor) Pricing

[oneofmanynameless]

Alright, I was thinking about how to price a weaker version of Racial Memory that gave only one ancestors memories, instead of the whole breadth of your ancestors. Obviously, this should only matter if the breadth of your ancestors could be useful in your campaign. But that said, I was thinking that this is a bit like the difference between a Contact and a Contact Group, and thus a fair price for "Racial Memory (single ancestor)" would be about 1/5 the normal price of Racial Memory, since contact groups are about 5 times as expensive as contacts for a given level of skill and reliability. Making it 3 CP for passive access to a single ancestors memories, or 8 cp for active access to a single ancestors memories. Does that seem fair?

[Pursuivant]

3 CP for Passive, vs. 8 CP for Active Racial Memory seems a bit pricey unless your ancestor was truly exceptional (e.g., a major historical figure like Mohammad or Charlemagne, or someone with extensive skills and life experience like Marco Polo).

x1/5 cost is the same as an -80% limitation, however, so per RAW it's fairly priced.

Unless the memories provide regular benefits, I'd treat passive Racial Memory for one relatively ordinary ancestor (e.g., a peasant farmer who never got more than 20 miles from his home, and whose one useful skill was Farming/TL1) as a perk.

Racial memories for just certain events in your ancestors' lives might also count as a Perk (e.g., just memories of every wedding or execution they attended, or every meal they ate).

[oneofmanynameless]

I agree that if the ancestor in question is thoroughly ordinary it's just a perk. Presumably they have to have useful knowledge and life experiences for it to be a useful advantage. Should probably be similar in usefulness to an 8 cp contact (for the active version.)

For racial memories for just certain events like you said I'd treat it as a separate limiter, similar to the Focused modifier for Wild Talent, or Aspected for Luck, or really just an Accessibility. With the scale of the limitation dependent on how narrow the domain of your memory of your ancestors lives is (and how useful the specific memories are in the context of the game.) The ability to remember every wedding every member of your ancestry ever had could be very useful in a game centered around court intrigue where your character is the heir of a long line of nobility. And then it'd might be more than a perk (although maybe not.)

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Alright, I was thinking about how to price a weaker version of Racial Memory that gave only one ancestors memories, instead of the whole breadth of your ancestors. Obviously, this should only matter if the breadth of your ancestors could be useful in your campaign. But that said, I was thinking that this is a bit like the difference between a Contact and a Contact Group, and thus a fair price for "Racial Memory (single ancestor)" would be about 1/5 the normal price of Racial Memory, since contact groups are about 5 times as expensive as contacts for a given level of skill and reliability. Making it 3 CP for passive access to a single ancestors memories, or 8 cp for active access to a single ancestors memories. Does that seem fair?

Accessibility, One specific person/target/place only is canonically -80%, per Power-Ups 8.

[Donny Brook]

Clairsentience with Time-Spanning and a selection of workable limitations almost always produces more satisfying results than Racial Memory.