07-09-2021, 02:07 AM | #1 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
Oracle [15] is a supernatural mental ability, which supplies information, largely at the GM’s discretion. You gain this by noticing and interpreting omens, events with hidden significance. This advantage appeared during the GURPS 3e period, but I haven’t been able to discover just when.
You usually have to deliberately look for omens, which takes about an hour, but the GM is at liberty to make them obvious. The kinds of things that you interpret as omens depends on your background and the setting, but the flight of birds, eclipses, meteor showers or thunder are possibilities: things that a higher power could influence, but are beyond the control of men. The GM rolls twice in secret for you: the first roll is to perceive the omen, against an appropriate sense. Critical success gives you +5 to the interpretation roll, and critical failure means you’ve spotted a false omen, an ordinary event. The interpretation roll is against your IQ. Success gives you vague information, and a critical success something fairly clear. Critical failure gives you misinformation, quite possibly dangerous. A false omen tells you something based on your own fears or wishes: maybe false hope, maybe something you don’t want to hear. Sensible limitations for Oracle include Aspected, to some particular sphere of interest, such as a spirit’s portfolio; Pact, requiring you to retain the favour of some power, and power modifiers, tending towards divine, (un)holiness, necromancy or shamanism. Useful enhancements include Inspired, +100%, from Powers p. 65, which gets you much clearer information; using a skill in place of IQ, or IQ (only for Oracle interpretation, ‑80%); Reduced Time and Reliable. DF11 Power-Ups has Oracle (Scholarly), which requires a library to use, and Fantasy has guidance on soothsaying in general. Locations: Hellsgate has a spice that can give anyone a use of Oracle, and the nightmares aren’t that much worse than life in the city, honestly. Powers adds Oracle (Digital), which requires access to large quantities of information, but uses Research and Intelligence Analysis skills. The specific advantage of Oracle is that it will tell you about things you aren’t aware of, and can’t form questions about. Blessed can give answers to questions (Powers, p. 65), and might be a sensible Alternate Ability. I’m fairly sure I’ve never had Oracle on a PC, although I’ve just realised how applicable it would have been to a 1930s Romany wise-woman character I had for a while. I’m not sure if the GM would have allowed it, though. Has Oracle guided your games?
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07-09-2021, 05:39 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
I don't think I've ever seen it in play. Even though it has potential as a "get the players into the next part of the adventure if they can't figure out the available clues"-type of Advantage, you also need a character with a concept where it fits and the willingness to pay the points. And if it only gets used as "Advance the plot" [15], it has the potential to make a member of the party feel like they have 15 less points to work with.
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07-09-2021, 05:45 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
One of the characters in the mythic Atlantis campaign had it, but I don't think it was ever terribly useful. (First time I ever used Reliable - Powers was still in playtest, I think - because this was definitely not an IQ-based character.) I might use the (Scholarly) or (Digital) non-supernatural versions in a highly cinematic game to represent turbo-boosted Research, but in a highly cinematic game that sort of thing is usually a job for NPCs anyway.
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07-09-2021, 07:25 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
It appears in several places in Madness Dossier, representing the ability to perceive some kind of true nature of reality. GM’d right, it could be nicely creepy there; I think that I once put it on a Taisher PC in a demo game.
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07-09-2021, 09:30 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
I think I only ever used it once and it was hard work for the GM coming up with stuff that sounded sufficiently mystical and weird but was comprehensible enough for the players to get the point of the Big Signpost the GM was giving out.
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Michael Cule,
Genius for Hire, Gaming Dinosaur Second Class |
07-10-2021, 06:58 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
I have added it to several played characters and recommend it for relevant player characters in games I run.
Its one of those meta advantages that a GM can use to further the plot and/or help the characters who are stuck on something. Oracle (Digital) and Oracle (Scholarly) are also good in cinematic but nonmagical campaigns for cinematic researchers and you could apply it to many skills for a player to use as inspiration or mystery solving - though I'd give it a good limitation for that narrow a focus. Oracle (Forensics, -20%) could let a detective character who investigated clues make intuitive leaps not really supported by the gathered evidence (Skill alone should handle that) and give them highly cinematic leads.
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07-11-2021, 02:36 AM | #7 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
I have an impression that as written, Oracle has too many hoops and too much vagueness, thus being not worth the 15 points unless the GM goes out of the way to make it either more informative, or easier. As written, “an enemy approaches” or “a great power, long dormant, is stirring” are not helpful hints, they may as well be campaign pitches that only make sense in hindsight after the events happen.
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07-11-2021, 10:51 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
Quote:
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07-11-2021, 11:29 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
I wrote Kromm about this a while back. Here is what he had to say:
Quote:
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07-11-2021, 01:24 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Oracle
Oracle is one of those things that you seem to end up giving to NPCs designed to steer the plot.
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