Facade from 'Mask of Humanity'

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In my campaign, PCs still make checks against the Facade, even though they know about the supernatural. It's a feature of the campaign world that even experienced occultists often have problems remembering exactly what happened when they encountered powerful paranormal phenomena.

The PCs have extremely high Will, as one of the main things that distinguishes them from ordinary mortals and makes them capable of being the protagonists, so failing the rolls is rare. However, this provides a narrative justification for the players to have incomplete information about events in their own character's pasts and some of them have traits that reflect that their characters believe incorrect information about past events.

I want to to be able to introduce meaningful Reveals in the style of Jim Butcher's elaborations on protagonist backstories in the Dresden Files, where the information that the reader was previously presented with is revealed to be incomplete or false in crucial ways.

That can work, but I personally would find that tiresome to implement for PCs. How do you keep up the supernatural vibe while saying "You forget X"?

Originally Posted by Icelander

I avoided Wild Card skills or other traits with narrative-shaping powers*, as reality was supposed to be extremely hard to change with supernatural powers and the PCs were supposed to be able to fail or even die. However, I note that I allow spending character points to get extra uses of Luck and I allow Serendipity, and that these are very similar traits, albeit ones that exist on a meta-level more than inside the world of the setting.

Failing is as important as success and the use of Wildcards in my campaigns has not stopped that one bit. It gives the PCs an edge sure, but it doesn't make them unstoppable. If I recall correctly you have PCs who are in the kiloton range for this campaign. (In fact, I think we discussed this before so I'll just leave that alone.)

Originally Posted by Icelander

Given the fact that most of the PCs are, in some way, figures of destiny**, allowing traits that give points for Impulse Buys might not do too much violence to the campaign. I'll have to consider it carefully.

Surely not. I suggest Impulse Control from Pyramid #3/100. I explicitly wrote it so you could have narrative control for PCs while also enhancing that control for the GM.

Originally Posted by Icelander

*One of the things that served to distinguish events in the Dreamworld from the real world is that the PCs had a pool of Destiny Points there which could change reality in quite dramatic fashion, reflecting a Neo-like understanding that they were in a lucid dream-like shared delusion and that what the saw was, to some extent, under their control.

Me likey.

Originally Posted by Icelander

**Albeit with that destiny yet to be revealed, in each case, as some of them could equally well be destined to be tragic Greek heroes or even Woobies, Destroyers of Worlds, as they could be the Big Damn Heroes.

All of which could benefit from Impulse Points I'd think.