Is a Non-Persistent Environment possible?

[Anaraxes]

Step one is always to figure out exactly what you want an ability to do; only then worry about how it gets built.

In this case, if it's the universe itself that's erasing all effects from the mundanes, and all the PCs are immune to this effect, I wouldn't try to build it or price it at all. It's just the way the setting works. All the PCs have a campaign Advantage that gives them that immunity, but campaign advantages don't cost points, so it doesn't really need to be priced. Or you could call it a Disad for the mundanes; sucks to be them, but they also don't need to be built in detail.

If the PCs continue to see "actual" reality, containing the side effects of whatever havoc they wreaked, not recovered by the Masquerade, do they also know what changes the Masquerade did to cover up their actions? Say, they have a conversation with a mundane after the reset. Do they have some sort of "mundane vision" to know what the mundanes are seeing, or a dual-track memory so they know what the mundane world looks like? Using the "steal a vase" example, all the mundanes think the vase is still there. The PCs carry it off to decorate their base. The Masquerade hides the vase from any mundane visitors. A year later, are the PCs going to remember about this vase so they can be sure not to mention it in front of a mundane? And can they somehow "see" that Masquerade vase back in its original location if they go there? What if a mundane asks them to pick that vase up and bring it over? (I'm not trying to be difficult. Just trying to work through the implications. Alternate-but-similar worlds/timelines get pretty tricky pretty fast.)

I don't think I'd head down that route. Besides, threatening the Masquerade is a pretty standard feature of a wainscot fantasy for PCs to have to worry about, lest the reality-fixing come for them... do you really want all the fixups to be free and effortless, along with any lack of concern by the players as to doing something non-mundane?)

Sometimes people use Jumper to handle changes to the world, on the theory that you've "jumped" to a world exactly like your own, except with whatever changes you wanted in it. (Taken literally, that's a pretty godlike power. "You're attacked. Okay, I jump to a world where the attacked is dead. Oh, I know, he just never existed, so no body to worry about...")

[Coinage]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Step one is always to figure out exactly what you want an ability to do; only then worry about how it gets built.

In this case, if it's the universe itself that's erasing all effects from the mundanes, and all the PCs are immune to this effect, I wouldn't try to build it or price it at all. It's just the way the setting works. All the PCs have a campaign Advantage that gives them that immunity, but campaign advantages don't cost points, so it doesn't really need to be priced. Or you could call it a Disad for the mundanes; sucks to be them, but they also don't need to be built in detail.

Right, that was my actual thought.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

If the PCs continue to see "actual" reality, containing the side effects of whatever havoc they wreaked, not recovered by the Masquerade, do they also know what changes the Masquerade did to cover up their actions? Say, they have a conversation with a mundane after the reset. Do they have some sort of "mundane vision" to know what the mundanes are seeing, or a dual-track memory so they know what the mundane world looks like? Using the "steal a vase" example, all the mundanes think the vase is still there. The PCs carry it off to decorate their base. The Masquerade hides the vase from any mundane visitors. A year later, are the PCs going to remember about this vase so they can be sure not to mention it in front of a mundane? And can they somehow "see" that Masquerade vase back in its original location if they go there? What if a mundane asks them to pick that vase up and bring it over? (I'm not trying to be difficult. Just trying to work through the implications. Alternate-but-similar worlds/timelines get pretty tricky pretty fast.)

It's okay, I like the feedback. It's why I started this thread.

My idea is that the players cannot really do anything to the mundane world of any meaningful consequence.

Let me go to your example of stealing the vase. If the PC's tried, then they would have it for roughly 5 seconds before reality would "snap back" the vase
to where it was before the PC's. Think of it like a non-persistent environment in a video game. Same thing with a Mundane person. If the PC's hurt or kill a Mundane character, then that person's injuries are instantly undone or reversed, and their death is undone and they are stored to where they were before. Whatever damage or changes the PC's do to the environment is "non-persistent". (Of course, if a Mundane character hurts a mundane character or damages the mundane environment, then that damage is persistent.)

To answer your question with a Masquerade, I would just also utilize the Façade mechanic in the article "Mask of Humanity" by Christopher R. Rice in Pyramid 3/97. I would combine the two. Whereas the Façade removes any "mental" evidence like memories and witnesses, the "Non-persistent world" removes any physical evidence.

[Anthony]

The classic way of implementing this is that characters actually aren't in the real world, they're in a copy of the real world that gets moderately frequently synced to the real world, erasing any local changes. You see this occasionally in manga, I don't recall the term for it.

[Coinage]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The classic way of implementing this is that characters actually aren't in the real world, they're in a copy of the real world that gets moderately frequently synced to the real world, erasing any local changes. You see this occasionally in manga, I don't recall the term for it.

I have heard about this. Several anime have their own versions.

One example is in X1999, which has kekkai, or "barrier fields", which are alternate reality pockets that allow over-the-top battles without endangering the real world.

Similarly, the anime and rpg Night Wizard have Lunar Robes and Lunar Caskets, which are likewise alternate reality pockets that the various magical creatures to use their powers. In that anime, there is the The World barrier, a magical effect that erases and destroys any and all magic seen by normal people, and which repairs the world of any damage caused by magic. The magical beings use these aforementioned pocket dimensions to use their powers without being seen by the normies.

[Coinage]

One possibility I just thought of is to use Insubstantiality [80] (B62) with the Enhancement Affects Substantial [+100%] (B63).

One possibility is to add the limitation Nuisance Effect [circa 5%] (B113), like "Triggers Reality Quake that takes any physical matter that was moved or affected by this character, and after 1-5 seconds, restores them back to their condition as if they were not affected at all. Any matter in motion continues along their path as if they were not affected by the character."