Doubt

Qaenyin · Post by **Qaenyin** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:28 am

The trick here is what information should players be allowed and how can you deprive the players of that information. You can't just have "Charts" because anyone can look up those charts or make copies for themselves. There have to be direct limitations on what can be performed and those limitations must be based on unreliability or unpredictability(Either the player doesn't know if it will work or the player doesn't know if it CAN work). These things must be able to be practically hidden behind the DM screen(Or the other side of the computer screen, for those doing things online). So either dice rolls or things up to GM judgement.

Like, for example, standard DCs. DCs can be arbitrarily determined by the GM, but there must be a general consensus on what type of thing is harder or easier to do. Basically make a rule on what makes things harder or easier to do and leave it to GM judgement on exactly HOW harder X particular thing is in Y situation, then the GM doesn't disclose the DC of something, only says "Fail/pass".

If there's no concretely predetermined DC for a given action that means the player is not sure whether what they tried to do CANT work, or what they tried to do just didn't work, since the player won't have the ability to directly run the numbers themselves. Metagame-wise, even, they'll know they have powers, but they won't entirely know the extent of those powers, and will have to be at least somewhat conservative with relying on them.

The real problem with that though is it does nothing to prevent players from abusing things they KNOW they CAN do, either to screw things up by demonstrating their powers to eachother and/or randoms or whatever. So the probability of something succeeding must have some sort of restrictions in place on when it can't be used, or at least when it's not easy enough to use to rely on, and in a way that progressing their character's power still makes these restrictions nontrivial.

For combat you can just do opposed rolls and not disclose the opposed modifiers though. For example say you roll a d20 to try and divert a bullet and the enemy rolls a d20 to override your diverting of the bullet, then you add your modifier of +7 and the DM adds his modifier but doesn't reveal it to you. Ok, but you got shot by the bullet. Does that mean there's something preventing you from diverting the bullet or does that mean the opponent just rolled a 20, or does that mean your opponent just has an absurdly high "make bullets hit" stat? You could even add it to the rules and roleplay it specifically so that there is no visual distinction between a "fail" and an "immune", and that opposing rolls must always be made even in situations where they aren't necessary(to add obfuscation).

So lets say you do the shooting, and the enemy makes the roll to divert the bullet. Ok, the bullet didn't hit. Did it not hit because of the result of the rolls, or did it not hit just because that particular monster is just flat out immune to bullets and the bullet didn't get diverted and just ricocheted off the enemy's bulletproof hide?

Player:"I make a roll to shoot the monster."
DM:"Ok, this is my opposing roll."
Player:"Your opposing roll to do what?"
DM:"Not telling. Maybe I'm just rolling a dice to screw with you and make you think I have an ability to oppose the roll you made?"
Player:"skjdhakjdals"

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 3:18 pm

Qaenyin wrote:Like, for example, standard DCs. DCs can be arbitrarily determined by the GM, but there must be a general consensus on what type of thing is harder or easier to do. Basically make a rule on what makes things harder or easier to do and leave it to GM judgement on exactly HOW harder X particular thing is in Y situation, then the GM doesn't disclose the DC of something, only says "Fail/pass".

If there's no concretely predetermined DC for a given action that means the player is not sure whether what they tried to do CANT work, or what they tried to do just didn't work, since the player won't have the ability to directly run the numbers themselves. Metagame-wise, even, they'll know they have powers, but they won't entirely know the extent of those powers, and will have to be at least somewhat conservative with relying on them.

This also leads to floating, uncertain doubt about their own characters, which does a lot to break immersion. To not know what's going to happen when you use arcane powers is one thing, but it's entirely another thing to tell people that they have no idea whether they'll be able to leap over a gap with a running start.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Wed Dec 22, 2010 1:21 pm

The idea is to have characters that are plausibly doubting their own abilities, correct? I don't think you can extend this to the players, and I'm not sure it would even be desirable, but I can think of a simple way to have the characters doubt their abilities.

Give each character a doubt score, which is used to power their special abilities. A higher doubt score means you are less likely to successfully use an ability. You get a penalty added to your doubt score for being witnessed, so you have a harder time pulling off anything in public. And anytime you succeed in using your ability your doubt goes up, so you can't reliably use anything. The score goes down over time, or perhaps it resets between sessions.

Qaenyin · Post by **Qaenyin** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:45 am

A Man In Black wrote: This also leads to floating, uncertain doubt about their own characters, which does a lot to break immersion. To not know what's going to happen when you use arcane powers is one thing, but it's entirely another thing to tell people that they have no idea whether they'll be able to leap over a gap with a running start.

Sorry, I left some ambiguity with what I was referring to.

I meant purely stuff regarding the application of supernatural powers. Clearly uncertainty wouldn't affect mundane things, as that'd just serve to continually frustrate players since they wouldn't have any "fallbacks" in situations they can't afford to fail. My idea was more along the lines of "You can use your powers, which you have no idea of the effectiveness of, or you can use mundane capabilities, which are reliable but less powerful". So there's a tradeoff of a gamble vs a less effective certainty.

My usage of a gunfire example was probably a poor example since that's really a mundane thing if you don't apply a "make my bullet bypass their anti-bullet ability ability".

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 11:04 am

Observer effects are bad, because they cause all kinds of problems in Mage as regards paradox resolution. The entire point is that magic effects are unobservable to the user, it doesn't matter if anyone else is watching or not.

-Username17

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:29 pm

Qaenyin,

I have trouble with the idea that you choose to use magic or not on a given action. My understanding was that it would be possible for a character to use his powers not only without believing in them but without consciously trying to use them. So, many powers "like bullet resistance" should kick in automatically.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:42 pm

Orion wrote:Qaenyin,

I have trouble with the idea that you choose to use magic or not on a given action. My understanding was that it would be possible for a character to use his powers not only without believing in them but without consciously trying to use them. So, many powers "like bullet resistance" should kick in automatically.

Would that be distinguishable from a setting where it was just harder to shoot straight? This way gets rid of an evidence for paranormal effects, which is just as bad as providing concrete evidence.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 8:03 pm

Passive effects like bullets missing you a lot are good, because your character doesn't know whether they were going to be missed or not. Having some sort of bullet target randomization system would go a long way. You having the power on means your name isn't on the list, but since you can't see the list, it's hard to know it's working.

-Username17

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 11:40 pm

That works fine if the characters have a good feel for how often bullets should hit them in the first place. By your original description, the characters won't be using guns much (correct me if I'm wrong about that), and I didn't hear a lot of opportunities for third parties to get shot at. Cinematics don't count because those shots hit or miss by fiat anyway.
So the players are getting shot at, and eventually figure out that they have (e.g.) about a 20% chance of getting hit. If that's all a passive ability, how can they figure out that the shooters would otherwise hit them (e.g. again) 30% of the time?
tl;dr: How do you test hypotheses without a control?

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 11:50 pm

Here's a proposal: powers are all deployed automatically when thenplayer declares mundane activities.

"dodging an attack"
"looking for an object (in one's house/car)"
"betting on something"
"doing some research"
and
"going looking for somebody"

All generate a roll on a magic power table when declared, even though they are also legitimate mundane activites. All you need to do to instill "doubt" is have a Potency stat like in aWoD, but players aren't told what Potency they have (or what disciplines). It could be anywhere from 0, no powers, to 10. They won't know until they have been through enough adventures to estimate their success rate, and in a short game they won't get enough data to be confident in their estimate.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 10:07 am

I think the important thing to remember is that the whole reason for the bullet deflection ability is so that the PCs will run around with melee weapons instead of shooting the bad guys. So, it's not super important that the Hollow Men or whatever have anything special happen to their sanity when they're shot at. The bullets just have to miss.

There also needs to be some sort of reason why the bad guys don't use guns on the PCs. This can be done by giving them bullet deflection as well, but it can also be done by making the enemies inexplicably bad shots when they're using their powers. Or just declaring that Hollow Men do not like guns for whatever reason.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 12:52 pm

It seems odd to me that these people are supposed to be unsure whether they even have powers, and yet confident enough in these powers to declare guns useless and all stick to swordfighting.

I'm not sure the player doubt angle is working. It seems like the proposed system is being mangled in unfun ways (rolling every time a player declares an action? Randomizing player abilities every few hours?) to accomodate it.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 4:32 pm

They don't need to be confident in their powers to be confident that bullets don't work on hollow men.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 8:22 pm

Anyway, players want to be able to sit down and say "I'm playing a Such-n-Such" and have that mean something to the other players. White Wolf caught lightning in a bottle with their clans idea - vampire types that implied things about your character and fixed your super powers and also gave you disadvantages. They've been trying to duplicate that ever since. But for modern stuff it works pretty well, and as long as you aren't too blatant about it (Werewolf: I am looking at you), it makes people happy.

So you could have each playable "type" have something going on that makes them question their sanity or possibly even existence. Just off the top of my head:

The Ignored - these characters don't get recognized by electronics. When they press the elevator button, nothing happens. The automatic doors won't open for them. The soda machine doesn't dispense anything. And so on. On the plus side, they don't set off airport metal detectors no matter what they are carrying.
Nameless - these characters don't have any family or identification. When they try to contact their family or friends, they are either unavailable or don't recognize them. One day, their life just stopped existing. Like they were Hollow Men, at least that one time.
Mediums - these characters can see stuff no one else seems to be able to see. Ghost like beings, creepy girls giving them cryptic advice, or whatever. Sometimes these visions are disturbing or threatening, but no one else seems to react to them.
Wanted - these characters wake up one day to find that they have suddenly been accused of having done something horrible and that "everyone knows" that they have a long history of horrendous crime. While they can apparently frighten even real hardened criminals with their universal reputation for villainy - it means that their old life is basically impossible.
Curs - these characters are hated, or perhaps creepily watched by, animals. Everywhere they go, all the birds and dogs stare at them unless and until they decide to attack instead.

So the beginning of your life as a mage would be the part where you wake up and you're in a paranoia-inducing thriller. With your choice of character type determining whether you are in The Fugitive, Nowhere Man, Jacob's Ladder, or The Birds.

Vampire did pretty well with seven clans, and kind of fell apart when they tried to add more. Werewolf sucked with 17 tribes and nEverything feels kind of stale with 5. So I'd prefer to add two to four types to that list. And since I came up with them in a couple of minutes, I'm totally willing to swap out names or replace some of those groups with other cooler groups.

-Username17

Wulf · Post by **Wulf** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 1:10 am

Perhaps another group whose senses are twisted. Recently experience game called Song of Saya, which someone saw everything covered in meat and organs and humans as monsters. Ofcourse, then he meets a normal looking girl.

But it doesnt haven to be that extreme. Perhaps it is more like Assasins creed, you see hidden symbols, which are actually hints of what is happening REALLY around town.

So a group who cant trust their own senses..are you seeing another delusions? another part of reality? does everyone sees what I see?

EDIT: hmm. I see now it has overlap with mediums.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 2:11 am

Suggestions:
[*]Solipsist: Out of sight, out of mind. If you don't pay attention to it it simply doesn't happen to you. On the one hand, it's nearly impossible to sneak up on you. On the other hand, good luck dealing with phones calls without having an answering machine.
[*]True Seer: You can see how people really are inside, and that's all. No faces, no names, no clothing, just the truth.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 2:15 am

Alternates - These are people who believe they are survivors of a parallel world or timeline. The universe has altered to accept them - their histories line up, their new "families" remember them and have the correct genetics and everything, but at the same time everything feels wrong to them. The alternates remember everything about their other life, the people and places that no longer exist - but have to live the rest of their lives in this world.

Advantage: Alternate Insight - Events and information from their alternate reality give potential hints about the current reality, secret history, etc.

Disadvantage: Alienation - The character has trouble fitting in. At some level, they and their closest friends and families know the character is an outsider. The character cannot take intimate personal contacts starting out and suffers social penalties when dealing with anyone from their past - except for other alternates.

Dr_Noface · Post by **Dr_Noface** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 2:30 am

Do you think this overlaps too much with Mediums?

The Chosen - these characters receive messages (evidence of which quickly fades) telling them to commit various acts, ranging from the mundane to murder. Not acting on these instructions may lead to mass mayhem ... or nothing at all.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 2:51 am

Statistical Anomaly: rare, unusual and seemingly meaningless things happen to you ALL THE TIME. It's like you're a protagonist in some sort of poorly written sitcom or a character in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. You flip a coin and get heads sixteen times in a row. The first Pick-Six lotto ticket you ever bought was 3-1-4-1-5-9, the next was 2-6-5-3-5-8 and so on through the digits of pi. Every time you hit on a girl at a club, her name turns out to be some variant of "Rebecca".

This means you find weird and occasionally useful things just walking to lunch, like that time you answered a ringing pay phone and won that radio contest. However, it also means you can't go outside in a storm for fear of being struck by lightning... again.

True Disbeliever: maybe you used to suffer from an anxiety disorder or maybe you were really paranoid to begin with. Regardless, you are normally beset by worries and pessimism (What if my car gets broken into? Did I remember to lock it?). However, you get these concerns sometimes that just don't make sense ("Did I check under the bed for monsters this morning?") and for some reason, those are the ones you have learned to follow up on... or else.

The True Disbeliever receives clues in the form of worries and can cause them to exist or not exist based on performing whatever anxiety-ritual springs to mind (If I don't say hello to the neighbor each morning then they'll vanish and no one will remember them). Whether the True Disbeliever's power create these terrors (in which case the character is performing rituals to prevent their powers from running amok), is merely the unwitting recipient of premonitions (on a hunch they check under the bed and witness/kill a Night Terror) or are simply suffering from an under-medicated anxiety disorder is unknown.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 3:21 am

One more...

Unknown Benefactors: Sometimes it's good... you come back from a sick day and find all your work done for you. Its all there on your desktop in a folder called "working from home", only you spent the entire day in a Nyquil comma and left your laptop in the office. You call your mom the day after her birthday to apologize for forgetting and she answers by thanking you for the thoughtful card and flowers you sent her yesterday; it shows up on your bank statement but you sure don't remember doing it.

Other times it's not so good... the folks at the courthouse are thinking you're an indecisive nut-job since "you" keep changing your legal name to "Jonathan Bancruft" and then calling them up and changing it back. You receive tons of junk mail from about a dozen charities "you" keep donating to... NAMBLA, The Church of Scientology, Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence. It's like The Registry has taken an interest in you, or maybe just confused you with one of its own...

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 3:56 am

Synchronist: Events that can't possibly be causally related have meaning when taken together. Get in a barfight while on vacation, and chances are that all twelve people involved turn out to have exactly the same name. Overhear someone talking about a monster they read about on Wikipedia, and you'll encounter that monster later that day.

Shatner wrote:dozen charities "you" keep donating to... NAMBLA, The Church of Scientology,

...what?

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 4:47 am

Vebyast wrote:
Shatner wrote:dozen charities "you" keep donating to... NAMBLA, The Church of Scientology,
...what?

The Unknown Benefactor character has letters, emails, forms, etc. filled out on his behalf by unseen, unknown forces. So, imagine you come home and find this month's Sports Illustrated in your mail. It turns out you have been signed up for a five-year subscription (the money has been deducted from your account and everything) but you know you never signed up for anything... you don't even LIKE Sports Illustrated.

Then you get an email from the local theater; for some reason you were signed up for their mailing list. You didn't do it and if you call them up and ask them about it, they will show you an email sent from your email account (from your IP address even) four weeks ago requesting they sign you up. You didn't do it but, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, "you" did.

Its not some hacker who has stolen your identity. Nor is it some data entry typo gone awry. It just. keeps. happening. Sometimes its good (bills getting paid that you forgot about), sometimes its weird (getting signed up for the "Cheese of the Month" club) but other times it seems like you are being used for something... like that time "you" wired $4,000 to a dude convicted of committing mail fraud so he could post bail.

Regardless, you can't prove to anyone that you aren't the instigator of these remote requests. All the forms have your signature; the withdraws from your checking account were made with your card and your pin number; and all the emails originate from your gmail account. It's a perfect paper trail leading back to you every time.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 9:07 am

Sorry, I should have phrased that better.

I understand what you mean with your suggestion. I was actually wondering how you chose those particular charities to use for the example. I can't quite tell if it's accidental or if I just didn't get the joke.

Also, more ideas.
The One: some guy is always showing up and telling you that you are destined to do something incredible, insane, or impossible. Something like the g-man from Half-Life, or Morpheus from The Matrix. Of course, you'd just ignore him most of the time, but sometimes it seems like you actually can do impossible things...
Expy: A hit show just started up last month, and the main character is exactly like you. Looks the same, talks the same, thinks the same, and even does the same stuff. Is fiction imitating reality, or is reality imitating fiction?

Also, Frank, sorry about a possible thread derail. I feel like this many ideas might be more than you asked for.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 9:44 am

I could definitely see a playable character type who was like a mini-Registry. They seriously seemed to have multiple lives going, all under the same name, with extra properties and accounts and stuff generating a flawless paper trail all the way back to them.

I could also see something like in Lain, where there was apparently another version of the character out there doing stuff and all kinds of people were excited by or angry at them for whatever this alternate version was doing.

Certainly, one way or the other having a character type where they were constantly uncovering evidence that they were actually a member of the conspiracy and had been the whole time is totally workable. It could be split up along the paper trail/ personal anecdotes line - or they could be merged or conflated into a single type called the Judas or something.

Expy: A hit show just started up last month, and the main character is exactly like you. Looks the same, talks the same, thinks the same, and even does the same stuff. Is fiction imitating reality, or is reality imitating fiction?

Having a character who is demonstrably fictional would certainly be interesting. Could go with or without a narrative running in their head like in Stranger Than Fiction. But it would certainly be interesting if other people knew that the character was simply pretending to be a fictional character from a TV or book series.

-Username17

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 6:29 pm

Vebyast wrote:Sorry, I should have phrased that better.

I understand what you mean with your suggestion. I was actually wondering how you chose those particular charities to use for the example. I can't quite tell if it's accidental or if I just didn't get the joke.

Oh. Yeah, with the exception of Scientology all of those are fictitious non-profits. With the inclusion of Scientology, all of those are joke non-profits.
NAMBLA: North American Man/Boy Love Association. Referenced humorously on both South Park and the Daily Show.
Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (MAVAV): created as a joke/project by a high school sophomore meant to show how quickly and uncritically information travels through the internet. Penny Arcade did a comic about it back in 2002.

Another source of inspiration for the Judas is Fight Club, where the character suffers black outs while their alter ego assumes control.

Another idea...
King for a Day: you aren't suave, refined, commanding or even particularly handsome but sometimes people totally act like you are. You walk into an art exhibit and, when someone asks what you think of the piece, everyone fauns over your muttered and confused reply. Street cart vendors give you more in change than you should and flatter you in languages you don't understand. Women way out of your league will buy you drinks and slip you their phone numbers...
...but as soon as you try to take one of them home the bubble bursts and everyone suddenly thinks you're a desperate loser pawing at a hot girl. Your life is like that Weird Al song Genius in France. Your glamor works erratically and seems more prone to failing as you continue to push your luck: ask the car dealer for 15% off and he slaps your back and calls you a savvy consumer; then ask for one of those free air fresheners and he tells you to stop wasting his time and has you escorted off the lot.

This way you get a character who can be the face for the party and still doubt his own powers and sanity.