[RPM] What are some ways to make Mind and Body and sense effects harder to pull off?

[Raekai]

Hey, all.

I love RPM, but one thing that has been troubling me is how damn easy it is to read minds or tell if someone uses magic or is an alien. In my major setting, it's important to be able to hide those things in order not to be found out by a group which want to purge aliens and mages (but only those that aren't allied with them, of course). It seems pretty easy to be able to throw out a Lesser Sense Body and detect if someone is an alien in disguise. Of course, you can resist, but what if you don't want to? Let's say that you're suspected of being an alien, they take you in, and, to prove your innocence, you won't resist their detection spell.

I've thought about making countering magic pretty common. That's not a bad idea. But then they could just sense if you have any magic on you.

I've also considered making Mind and Body effects harder to do. As if using magic to affect willful beings is much harder than using magic to affect something that doesn't have a will, like stone. But I don't know how to go about that. Still, they could sense magic, or I might be able to argue that magic has a "will" of its own.

Or making sense effects harder to do. Or maybe even just getting rid of sense effects altogether, but would that break RPM? How would I go about establishing telepathy and other useful sense effects in that case? This seems like it might be the best idea for my personal needs, but I don't know what else I might need to adjust for such a radical change.

Any ideas are welcome. Even if they don't end up fitting my setting, I'm not too worried about that. New ideas are really helpful.

Thanks!

[Dalillama]

The first thing that occurs to me is to make all Mind and Body effects on humans/sapient beings Greater effects.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I rely on three rules when working on stuff for my games:

• Make it harder by adding a Greater effect. (e.g., Telepathy requires two Send Mind effects - one to establish the link and the other to facilitate communication)
• Make it harder by turning a Lesser effect into a Greater effect. (e.g., all "telepathic" effects - any spell which allows communication with another mind or alters it somehow become Greater effects)
• Make it harder by adding a static penalty no matter so only the best or most skilled can attempt it. (e.g., a -5 penalty to read all living minds)

[Refplace]

Besides the changes to RPM itself you can also have counters.
Magic Resistance can protect, so what if it happens to be fairly common?
Low levels can make things harder but manageable, even if its pretty common.
Then you have some who have higher, especially if its part of countermagic, training or even diet.

Obscure vs. Magic is another option.
Add stealthy to be sneaky about it.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

The first thing that occurs to me is to make all Mind and Body effects on humans/sapient beings Greater effects.

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I rely on three rules when working on stuff for my games:

• Make it harder by adding a Greater effect. (e.g., Telepathy requires two Send Mind effects - one to establish the link and the other to facilitate communication)
• Make it harder by turning a Lesser effect into a Greater effect. (e.g., all "telepathic" effects - any spell which allows communication with another mind or alters it somehow become Greater effects)
• Make it harder by adding a static penalty no matter so only the best or most skilled can attempt it. (e.g., a -5 penalty to read all living minds)

I actually just came across Ghostdancer's Personal Greater and Lesser Effects article which got me thinking about that. I was thinking about making a campaign switch with Lesser/Greater effects. Matter and Energy both go down one level while Body and Mind and Spirit go up one level. In this setting, it's much easier to move around things without a will, like I said, so I figured that would be a nice balance.

Under this assumption, basic Body and Mind and Spirit effects move from Lesser to Greater (×3), so do Greater (×3) effects move up to Greater (×5)? That makes sense to me, but I want to make sure that's right.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Raekai

I actually just came across Ghostdancer's Personal Greater and Lesser Effects article which got me thinking about that. I was thinking about making a campaign switch with Lesser/Greater effects. Matter and Energy both go down one level while Body and Mind and Spirit go up one level. In this setting, it's much easier to move around things without a will, like I said, so I figured that would be a nice balance.

Under this assumption, basic Body and Mind and Spirit effects move from Lesser to Greater (×3), so do Greater (×3) effects move up to Greater (×5)? That makes sense to me, but I want to make sure that's right.

That's workable. You're basically increasing the total of effects by another Greater Effect.

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by Raekai

Of course, you can resist, but what if you don't want to? Let's say that you're suspected of being an alien, they take you in, and, to prove your innocence, you won't resist their detection spell.

Well, if approaches like this would be a problem for you, there are ways to curtail this kind of behavior.

One possibility is that mages can't tell whether their spell was resisted or not. If the resistance is entirely achieved by nonmagical means, then the mage would have no way to tell if their spell worked properly.

Alternatively, you can add a strong subconscious component to resisting spells. A good way to handle this is to require a Will roll to avoid resisting spells cast by those antagonistic towards you. Most people resent being investigated enough to require this Will roll.

Even if mages could tell that their spell was resisted, they would have no way of knowing whether it was intentional or not on the part of the subject. So resisting a forensic spell couldn't be considered an admission of guilt under these rules. And would prevent forensic spells from becoming the end all be all of legal arguments.