Doubt Mechanics

[Lokathor]

Entropomancy I like more than my previous vote for Fool's Luck.

As to having a game where you play as characters that develop schizophrenia... I mean "Slippery Slope" is a potential fallacy, but that does sound like an actual slippery slope in this case. I don't trust tabletop RPG players to be respectful of the condition any more than I trust the general public. Which is to say that I don't trust them at all.

I think that the game's position should stick to being that there is real magic going on, and there are real supernatural things going on, and that the player characters aren't insane, they're just totally unable to pin down any solid facts. Like Mulder in X-Files or something.

The player characters might end up appearing crazy to outsiders that don't have Hyper-Perception, but that's just par for the course in any game with a Masquerade going on.

In terms of an Arcana that gives you extra insight into the workings of magic above the average Luminary, that's totally a thing that could happen. Lots of design space for divination and detection based powers.

[Username17]

-All three of Naming, Devilspeak, and Temptation do not much sound like what it actually is, because yes "speak of the Devil" and "tempting fate" are very relevant phrases, but when I hear "Devilspeak" I think of some method of contacting Hell directly and when I hear "Temptation" I think of either playing on people's lower instincts or being a middleman in Faustian bargains. Naming also calls to mind knowing true names rather than any kind of thing that you can actually do in Doubt. Out of all of them, Temptation sounds the coolest.

How about "Evocation"? It has the advantage of literally meaning exactly that, but it has the disadvantage that in Dungeons & Dragons it is used for "shooting fire bolts at things" rather than its actual meaning "calling things forth by speaking their name".

-Username17

[echoVanguard]

Possible Uses	Possible Arcana Names
Extend gas tank Shoot extra bullets Cause battery to expire	Innumeromancy
Cause bullets to miss Allow a car to break in time Walk across rotten floorboards	Entropomancy
A change in weather when you just mentioned it Getting called by someone you just mentioned Meeting someone you just mentioned	Serendipity
Pull a forgotten item out of your pocket Break into a car's trunk and find what you need Find a remaining copy of a "sold out" item	Felicitomancy
Walk by people without getting noticed Pick someone's pocket Hide in plain sight	Innocuomancy
Pick winning numbers Choose the correct apartment door	Dead Reckoning

Some suggestions =-)

Picking winning numbers seems like a thing we probably shouldn't be doing in this game. Maybe guessing a safe's combination or a computer's password would be better examples, and they should probably be a different Arcana than finding lost objects and detecting the locations of hidden objectives. I propose:

Possible Uses	Possible Arcana Names
Extend gas tank Shoot extra bullets Cause battery to expire	Innumeromancy
Cause bullets to miss Allow a car to break in time Walk across rotten floorboards	Entropomancy
A change in weather when you just mentioned it Getting called by someone you just mentioned Meeting someone you just mentioned	Serendipity
Pull a forgotten item out of your pocket Break into a car's trunk and find what you need Find a remaining copy of a "sold out" item	Felicitomancy
Walk by people without getting noticed Pick someone's pocket Hide in plain sight	Innocuomancy
Find lost keys Choose the correct apartment door	Divination
Guess a computer password Predict a safe's combination	Numerology

I know Divination sounds kind of lame and doesn't have the -mancy suffix, but it *is* the correct name (based on traditions like dowsing rods).

echo

[schpeelah]

Possible Uses	Possible Arcana Names
Guess a computer password Predict a safe's combination	Numerology

echo

Why would you name an Arcana "Numerology" when the numbers Arcana is a different one? Anyway, both of those examples would fall under Evocation (maybe it should be Calling?). I suppose it could be called Numerology if it was a character-specific variant/specialization of Calling where using it causes significant events to match some specific numeric pattern, with the password corresponding to 4 8 15 16 23 42 somehow. (BTW I haven't watched Lost, but if I'm reading this right, those did in fact first turn up as winning numbers on a lottery ticket).

Picking winning numbers and winning would be a bad thing to happen to you in the game, and dealing with the consequences foolishly doing so might be a campaign hook (also, would be a use of the good luck Arcana). Picking winning numbers and recognizing that you or someone else have the winning ticket in their hands would probably fit in with Divination.

[Chamomile]

How about "Evocation"? It has the advantage of literally meaning exactly that, but it has the disadvantage that in Dungeons & Dragons it is used for "shooting fire bolts at things" rather than its actual meaning "calling things forth by speaking their name".

-Username17

I would go with Devilspeak over Evocation because D&D has very thoroughly ruined the second one for use outside of blaster magic. How about Invocation, though? Its definition isn't quite accurate, but it's very similar and there's no conflicting definitions attributed to it to confuse people unnecessarily. Alternatively, Schpeelah's Calling is pretty good too, and it even has slightly magical overtones in this case benefited by D&D's nomenclature.

[Judging__Eagle]

It's more fun for me as GM if I don't know how things will shake out.

Which is why I tend to run player character driven seat of the pants type campaigns myself.

I'm very much entertained by the unexpected actions that the players will take, and then try to narrate what happened to the players at the table.

[Username17]

I would go with Devilspeak over Evocation because D&D has very thoroughly ruined the second one for use outside of blaster magic. How about Invocation, though? Its definition isn't quite accurate, but it's very similar and there's no conflicting definitions attributed to it to confuse people unnecessarily.

Thank you. That was really helpful. Probably not in the way you intended, but it really put things into perspective. See, the actual D&D longform name for the fireball school is "Invocation/Evocation", just as the school with dominate person in it is called "Enchantment/Charm". Heck, in 4th edition there's an Invoker class but not an Evoker. It shoots lightning at people (with their Wisdom stat, so it's totally different than a Wizard).

The correct answer of course, which I should have seen immediately, is to not give a second's fuck about what fucked up names other games have used for magics, because none of that shit matters. Various games have used all kinds of bizarre magic names to fill in various casting schemes. We don't have to stop talking about "enchanting swords" just because D&D decided to go all in on "enchantment is mind control". Evocation is simply the actual word for magic where people show up and events happen because you called them by name, so that's the name it should use. You calling out Invocation really put that in perspective.

I know Divination sounds kind of lame and doesn't have the -mancy suffix, but it *is* the correct name (based on traditions like dowsing rods).

No, you're totally right. The Arcana that lets you guess who is calling when you hear the phone ring should be called "Divination", because that is what that kind of magic is called.

It's more fun for me as GM if I don't know how things will shake out.

That of course will have to be in the game regardless. The very nature of magic is when you use it, there is retroactively a perfectly logical explanation of how that happened. And that could very plausibly lead to some pretty radical changes in the expected direction of the plot. Imagine for example, that one of the players Evokes the kindly and helpful Doctor Fisher to his current location, which happens to be the abandoned warehouse that the Hollow Men have been storing bodies in. At the very least that introduces some sort of element of someone luring Dr. Fisher to the warehouse to dispose of him, and possibly implicates him in the conspiracy itself.

Since the players get some pretty radical story adjustment powers, the MC is going to have to adjust the mystery on the fly.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

See, the actual D&D longform name for the fireball school is "Invocation/Evocation","

I know. The difference is that no one ever uses the longform name for anything, so the vast majority of players know Invocation from sources other than D&D. Likewise, most people encounter the notion of "enchantment" as a child listening to fairy tales, a decade or more before playing D&D. Evocation is a word that most people have never encountered before D&D, which means D&D gets to define it, and they chose to define it as something that is very counterproductive to anyone using it for anything else.

[echoVanguard]

Why would you name an Arcana "Numerology" when the numbers Arcana is a different one?

Innumeromancy, by definition, is not the "numbers Arcana". It specifically deals with the concept of unknown quantities of something, which is quite different from significant numerals. Numerals signify, quantities exist.

Anyway, both of those examples would fall under Evocation (maybe it should be Calling?). I suppose it could be called Numerology if it was a character-specific variant/specialization of Calling where using it causes significant events to match some specific numeric pattern, with the password corresponding to 4 8 15 16 23 42 somehow.

No. Guessing a safe's combination is not Evocation/Calling by any stretch of the imagination, particularly because you don't have to say the combination to guess or enter it.

The discipline of discerning a numeric sequence unknown to you is definitely needs to be Numerology, not least of which because of the awesome crazy rants that using it can produce.

"We're on the fourth floor, and it's the fifth day of the week, and 4 x 5 = 20, and 2+0 = 2, and the second wall of this room, going clockwise from the door, faces North. Converting "north" into numerals produces "14 15 18 20 8". That's the second instance of 20, so we add 20 to the front, to get 20 14 15 18 20 8. The double 8 can be removed as it's vertically symmetric, so 20 14 15 20....and all of those are double-digit numbers, so we take the digital root...2 5 6 2...and the prime polynomial factors of 2,562 are 2, 3, 7, and 61. So the combination must be 2, 3, 7, 6, 1!"

echo

[Username17]

I am totally sold on Entropomancy, by the way.

Felicitomancy and Innocumancy not so much. I think there are limits to how much mileage you can get from putting "-mancy" at the end of a word.

The discipline of discerning a numeric sequence unknown to you is definitely needs to be Numerology, not least of which because of the awesome crazy rants that using it can produce.

"We're on the fourth floor, and it's the fifth day of the week, and 4 x 5 = 20, and 2+0 = 2, and the second wall of this room, going clockwise from the door, faces North. Converting "north" into numerals produces "14 15 18 20 8". That's the second instance of 20, so we add 20 to the front, to get 20 14 15 18 20 8. The double 8 can be removed as it's vertically symmetric, so 20 14 15 20....and all of those are double-digit numbers, so we take the digital root...2 5 6 2...and the prime polynomial factors of 2,562 are 2, 3, 7, and 61. So the combination must be 2, 3, 7, 6, 1!"

This I totally agree with. Although it might be better to call it "tangentiality" or something and let people draw inferences from other types of illogical tirades.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

That was some 'Sea... for Catwoman!' grade gibberish, there. I applaud you.

[erik]

I am totally sold on Entropomancy, by the way.

Felicitomancy and Innocumancy not so much. I think there are limits to how much mileage you can get from putting "-mancy" at the end of a word.

Yeah, I stuck mancy on so many because of your first decision-lock using the mancy-theme guiding my hand. I didn't know if 'mancy was required. I actually just like Felicity plain. I couldn't bring myself to stick a mancy on Serendipity since it reminded me of Dipsomancy from Unknown Armies, and I just liked "Dead Reckoning" too much to mar it.

I say this now. When I write about a necromancer. One story is required to be titled Dead Reckoning. I know this is a good title because tons of other authors have already used it.

[echoVanguard]

Although it might be better to call it "tangentiality" or something and let people draw inferences from other types of illogical tirades.

That would make it a little too broad. Numerology is a very specific brand of crazy, with well-defined avenues of behavior and a self-limiting field of application during gameplay. Drawing ridiculously convoluted inferences between non-numerical events should probably be its own Arcana, or maybe a general rule of invocation for an entire category of Arcana - maybe a significant subset of Arcana is "Periphery" and requires a nutty rant to activate.

echo

[Grek]

I'm down for Innumeromancy (changing quantities unknown to you), Entropomancy (avoiding dangers unknown to you), Envocation (making things happen because they get mentioned), Felicity (changing the qualities of objects unknown to you) and Tangentality (letting you make crazy rants that happen to come to a true conclusion).

I'm not convinced there needs to be an arcana that just does stealth. To steal a concept from one of the older threads, the arcana can be Authority, which lets you appear as if you are busy/important/in charge/someone who belongs here.

[virgil]

I was thinking about Doubt's magic system. First, I will assume that the decision to not leave players in the dark for how (or whether) their magic works remains. Second, sticking to the genre, we need to make sure the characters can't be 100% certain whether their powers work.

Part of it is the observer principle. An analyst's magic works better the fewer witnesses there are, and they aren't an exception to the witness restriction. Innumeracy flat-out works better when you've got dyscalculia (though Sterling Archer is still your kryptonite), and entropomancy works better for Quincy Magoo, and so on. My conclusion with this is that magic's effectiveness should be based on how significant of a flaw the PC takes on. I don't know whether the flaw should be self-imposed or not, from the character's perspective, or it should be a natural consequence of practicing the magic (just happen to develop cataracts). Correspondingly, if the magic is put on a restricted schedule or luck-based success rate (or both if you really want), then being the type of person who does it more often than that makes your success seem more like you're playing the numbers game rather than any legitimate supernatural skill.

• Flaws of Magic
• Innumeracy So long as the amount of something is unknown, it's sufficient for the character's needs.
  Connected Flaw Dyscalculia
• Imperium People react to authority. They don’t necessarily read badges or know what the limits of a police request are, but they in general try to do things that they are ordered to do.
  Connected Flaw Authoritarian and/or compulsive liar
• Dowsing If you don’t know where something is, you could find it anywhere.
  Connected Flaw Lose track of stuff and/or compulsive hoarder
• Intimacy Are there things that people wouldn’t do for someone who flirted with them and asked nicely? If you’re James Bond or a user of Intimacy, seemingly not.
  Connected Flaw Prone to unwanted and/or aggressive advances from others
• Equivocation Offer people ostensibly evenish trades for items or assistance in virtually any circumstance and have people take them up on these offers.
  Connected Flaw Habitually poor and/or addicted to something
• Entropomancy Bullet trajectories are essentially impossible to track and just happen to not hit them, and the same applies to rotten floorboards or poorly maintained vehicles that manage to not break just a little bit longer than they probably should have.
  Connected Flaw Poor perception in general (tunnel vision, myopia, etc)
• Evocation Direct serendipity to cause a change in weather with a mention, or have people they call for just happen to run into them, or even get a phone call from them.
  Connected Flaw Hard to choose here; be a gossip and give the power an extremely long cooldown?
• Numerology Get the correct phone number for someone, the right apartment door, or even the combination to a safe.
  Connected Flaw Obsessive superstition(s)
• Avoidance Most people are regarded with civil disinterest by those around them, making them effectively alone even while in crowds, you just blend in all the better.
  Connected Flaw Poor social skills to encourage being a wallflower

[virgil]

As of right now, I'm looking at the goals for Dowsing, which should give me some constraints in designing mechanics around.

• Lex Generali The more broader you set your parameters for acceptable outputs, the more likely it is for your magic to produce something. Finding a 'firearm' is way easier than finding a custom-painted magnum desert eagle 44 mag.
  Inductive Magic Context matters. While it's statistically possible to find a power tool in a child's backpack during recess, your magic is way more likely to work if you reach inside a stranger's backpack in front of a Home Depot.
  Strong RoI If that $20 scratch ticket is the first thing you grab on the top of a trash can, then you're still ignorant of the can's contents and can keep pulling from the same container over and over. As we don't want our Doubters to feel like Pedott, then we need to encourage sifting through containers while not forbidding the house keys from being the first thing you grasp when flailing your arm as you sprint out the front door.
  Your Eyes Only We don't want to encourage PCs digging through anything more than garbage cans and their own pockets when in public, because the spectre of public reprisal is both hard to deny and not actually an enjoyable thing to play out. Better to have the dowsing itself discourage witnesses.

An important design consideration with Dowsing is differentiating it from normal scrounging. Your players have characters in a cooperative narrative. Even were the setting to be wholly mundane, PCs are going to find things they look for with far greater success than is statistically realistic. By virtue of asking to find something, they have demonstrably & dramatically increased the chances of it both existing and being found. After Sundown may not describe it this way, but the rules for a Burglary Montage could legitimately be used as rules for Dowsing; simply having a higher skill makes things you want more likely to exist to be found. This means we want a separate mechanic above and beyond, because just changing the flavour to be more self-aware is unlikely enough for players to feel like they're authoring the actions of supernatural Doubters.

---

In case it isn't clear, this section is using the current After Sundown ruleset as a foundation, with changes as necessary to support the magic system. Panopticon It’s not uncommon for an Analyst to posit on philosophy of the cave, quantum cats, and the nature of consensual reality. None of that matters to the simple truth that magic cannot change what has been observed, and that the observations of a practitioner are no less of a prophylactic for their powers. Once a bag of chips has been observed to be empty or an Analyst (or their assailant) is able to track the trajectory of a machete, their magic can no longer influence their state or behavior. Observant players will notice that this makes their characters explicitly incapable of objectively confirming the efficacy or even existence of their magic, and only have the supernatural behavior of the Conspiracy to validate suspicions of their own talents.

Item/Event Is	Threshold	Examples
Obvious/Large/Loud	1	Neon sign, running crowd, yelling, gunfire
Normal	2	Street sign, pedestrian,conversation, silenced gunfire
Obscured/Small/Muffled	3	Item dropped under table, contact lens, whispering
Hidden/Micro/Silent	4	Secret door, needle in haystack, subvocal speech

Situation	Dice Pool Modifier
Perceiver is distracted	-2
Perceiver is actively looking/listening for it	+3
Object/sound not in immediate vicinity	-2
Object/sound far away	-3
Object/sound stands out in some way	+2
Interfering sight/odor/sound	-2
Full Darkness	-6
Partial Light	-2
Glare	-1
Light Fog/Mist/Rain/Smoke	-2
Heavy Fog/Mist/Rain/Smoke	-4

When an entire group of characters has a chance to notice something, the gamemaster can simplify matters by making a single Test for the entire team, using the largest dice pool available + 1 per extra character (maximum +5).

When looking for an item, make a Intuition + Search test. Your base time is based on the size of the area searched, and the base threshold is based on whether the item is obscured or in plain sight (refer to earlier in the Panopticon). If the area is cluttered or spartan, then raise/lower the threshold for the item depending on whether it is respectively obscured or obvious. Every net hit lowers the base time by a step on the timeframe chart.

Base Time	Seeker is looking for item in…
5 hours	The Library
1 hour	The House
20 minutes	The Basement
5 minute	The Bedroom
1 minute	The Closet
1 round	The Duffel Bag, The Trash Can

The search presumes you are looking for something larger than a cell phone, but smaller than a crowbar. For every step larger on the table below, lower the base time an entire category. For every step smaller, raise the base time by a step. For example, searching for a friend’s wallet in their bedroom is a Threshold 2 with a Base Time of 5 hours.

Timeframe Modifier	Sample Item
-3	Person
-2	Fireman’s axe, sign post
-1	Baseball bat, sword, crowbar
+0	Bottle, hammer, first aid kit
+1	Smartphone, binoculars
+2	Knife, pistol, socks
+3	Wallet, keychain
+4	Stamps, thumb drive

An important limitation of searching for an item is that you cannot find what is not there. Setting search parameters wide can lessen the chances of looking for something that isn’t there.

Dowsing
Base Dice Pool Hyper Sensory Perception + [Skill]
Imitators call it Radiesthesia, but they simply traded one set of tools perpetuated by the Conspiracy for another. You, however, know the Truth. If you simply Look for it, you will find it. Using Dowsing is just like searching for any ordinary thing, but you use your magic instead of your easily-fooled senses. When you find something with Dowsing, your magic actually creates the item retroactively and is indistinguishable from having been placed there through the normal sequence of cause and effect.
Mechanically, the player declares the item they are looking for in a region of their choosing, much like a mundane Search check. They then make a simple Success Test, with changes to the Threshold depending on the table below. There are two significant differences however: the Base Time is independent of the region searched (1 minute) or even net hits, and the item will be found if the test is successful, going so far as to rewrite prior events. Limitations are equally powerful however; once a region has been searched mundanely or with Dowsing (successful or not), you cannot use Dowsing on that region for the rest of the scene. Any use of Dowsing cannot contradict their or another analyst’s own observations, and such attempts will automatically fail.

• Threshold Modifiers
  +2 - Reduce Base Time to Simple Action
  -2 - Personally observed item to have previously been in container
  -1 - Item is plausibly in region (seeking power tool in backpack in front of Home Depot)
  +1 - Item’s presence is implausible (power tool in picnicker's backpack in Central Park)
  +2 - Item’s presence is highly implausible (firearm in grade-schooler’s backpack)
  +1 - Per active observer
  +1 - Per handful of passive observers
  Active Observer: Situation modifier to observation tests is -2 or greater

[virgil]

Off the cuff, Evocation feels like it should work (roughly) like this.

Once per adventure, you can 'summon' a person of your choice. Circumstances will, from the DM's PoV, retroactively change to accommodate the plot necessary for that person to plausibly be present and nearby shortly in that scene. Antagonists such as Hollow Men, Metatron, or Registry do not count as people. Users of Evocation must be warned that using this power doesn't control the circumstances of their encounter with the person named, let alone the sequence of events necessary for the encounter to happen. Rumours persist of an Analyst attempting to obtain verifiable proof that their Evocation was real resulted in them finding their wife tied up in a cabin in the woods, while her estranged twin sister remained in the hospital bed. This major, per-adventure/session use of Evocation doesn't really need a check or similar chance of failure.

Once per scene, you can do name an event to coincidentally occur right after you call it out. Receive a phone call, cause a shift in the weather, create an accident or malfunction, etc. I'm not sure what kind of mechanical effects this should have, or if there should be any other constraints like a skill check similar in concept to that found in Dowsing.

[virgil]

Imperium, Intimacy, Equivocation, & Avoidance. These four magic skills collectively form the Diplomancer, able to manipulate people with frightening, yet technically plausible, efficiency. Every con-artist story essentially exhibits these powers, but such stories omit the innumerable failed cons, and it's sheer luck for the mark to be in the right frame of mind for a con's methods to even work. Using After Sundown as the foundation ruleset, Imperium is a clear case of improving one's skill at Impersonation for purposes of making an Appeal to Authority & Intimacy improves Appeal to Style. Equivocation is, in most cases, a 'legal' form of the Burgalry Montage by converting everything in your pants into fungible currency of equivalent value. Avoidance is, appropriately, a touch harder to pin down in terms of what it should do. If characters had a Memory stat as per Shadowrun, Avoidance could penalize others' retention. One could argue that it would also lower dice pools for perception so long as the Analyst refrains from any behavior/situation that would stand out.

[Zeybek]

Is Doubt still being discussed as a project? This inspired me so much it motivated me to finally make an account.

Here are the powers I've been brewing up for a tentative first game with my players. They veer off a bit from the "luck" theme and approach the "deniable plausibility" theme in that the effects are fairly small, but can be useful if wielded properly. I tried to keep the scope fairly small, so that no big rewritings of reality need to be done when a player uses their powers.

By the way, I've started calling the PCs "Witnesses", because it fits well with the idea of seeing more than the normal person, and has some interesting thematic associations (the witness protection programme, unreliable witnesses, Jehova's witnesses, etc.), but mostly because if I ever run this at my table I will have to translate it to French, and "Témoin" just rolls off the tongue better than "Douteur" or "Analyste". I've also taken to calling the powers "Symptoms" rather than Arcana, I hope it's not altogether disrespectful to people with mental illnesses.

Here goes, feel free to comment:

Confabulation: The ability to perceive and interact with objects that only exist for the Witness. A Witness that displays symptoms of Confabulation will sometimes find helpful generic items, see clues and messages written on the wall and even, when alone, run into individuals. The problem for Confabulators is that they alone are allowed to perceive these phenomena. The moment they try to show the confabulated items to somebody else, particularly another Witness, they vanish as if - or rather, because - the items never existed in the first place. Confabulated information is, however, always true. The exception are the creatures of Doubt: confabulated items always work on Doubt critters and, indeed, are usually immune to any special powers the critter might otherwise possess. In Combat: Using Confabulation in combat allows the Witness to find extra items in their inventory. In general, the blur of action of combat means none of the other Witnesses can pay enough attention to dispell confabulated items. Playing a Confabulator: The player is supposed to become slightly paranoid of the things that the GM shows him when they make a Perception check or run into a person while alone. They should also be wary of sharing items with other Witnesses, in case they vanish, and be ready to be questioned as to why they can see messages that nobody else can.

Somatophrenia: The ability to perceive through and even briefly control parts of another person’s body, at the cost of a temporary loss of perception and control of the same parts of the Witness’ own body. A Witness that displays symptoms of Somatophrenia will at times experience bouts of debilitating numbness (immobility and lack of sensation) that are followed by eerie sensations of having a body part that just doesn’t belong. In truth, they are now perceiving through another person’s body and, if they concentrate, they can even cause a short muscular spasm in their target. The target of whoever they’re currently possessing remains completely unaware of what’s going on and writes the spasm off as a shiver. This can be useful in many ways, for example to listen in on a conversation or to read a computer screen across the room by possessing someone’s eyes (at the cost of the Witness’ own). In Combat: Using Somatophrenia in combat is a double-edged sword. It is very useful for disabling opponents, since the nervous spasms are good for making someone trip, drop their gun, forcibly shut their eyes at an inopportune moment or even stab themselves with their own knife, but it comes at the price of the Somatophrenic’s own actions. Playing a Somatophrenic: The bouts of numbness should make the Witness feel fragile and mistrust their own body. Other Witnesses are also likely to disbelief information gained through Somatophrenia symptoms.

Maloculation: The ability to direct events and attention towards a certain point or object by staring at it intently. A Witness that displays symptoms of Maloculation will sooner or later realize that calamity seems to follow them and that it can be dangerous for them to focus their attention too intently on something or someone. Also known as the evil eye, when a Maloculator concentrates all their attention on something by staring intently at it, others present will feel compelled to stare at it too, as if it had suddenly become really interesting. This can be a good way to distract a target. However, prolonged exposure to a Maloculator’s stare can be very dangerous, even fatal: the object of their attention starts attracting not only attention but also bad luck and may become very prone to accidents (one accidnet per target, though). These effects dissipate the moment the Maloculator looks away. In Combat: Using Maloculation in Combat requires intense concentration. The Witness forgoes their actions but can produce one of two effects: Focusing on an enemy will make attacks against that enemy much more likely to hit. Focusing for more than one turn in a row will cause their weapon to jam, cause them to trip or other minor accident, after which the turn count is reset. Playing a Maloculator: As a bringer of bad luck, the Witness is expected to feel either scared and burdened by their ability, paranoid that they won’t be able to control it, or on the flipside they might revel in the chaos. In any case, all they ever do is stare at things, and have little control over what actually happens to their targets, so other Witnesses are likely to view them as having delusions of grandeur.

Extropy: The ability to dampen the forces of change and entropy around them. A Witness that displays symptoms of Extropy will sometimes enter a state of sluggishness, accompanied by the sensation of a slight dimming of the light around them and a muffling of sounds, as well as the sense that time is passing more slowly than it should. During these phases, the Witness and any objects or structures within arm’s reach become more resilient than they should be: the monster will not knock down that door. Substances and resources can also last for longer than they should. For instance, the gas tank on their car and the batteries on their laptop will seem unable to run out. However, this effect will quickly correct itself once the Extropian willingly exits their state of torpor, leading to structures finally collapsing and batteries and fuel rapidly running out, as if the indicators had just been faulty. In Combat: At a cost to their initiative score and reflexes, Extropians can choose to increase their resistance to any damage they are targeted with. Should they pass out in this state, the Extropian is immune to bleeding to death. Playing an Extropian: Extropians can often vacillate between euphoria and feelings of invincibility and disappointment when entropy finally catches up to them.

[echoVanguard]

Yes, it is. You can watch the Doubt Megathread (pinned as a sticky at the top of the IMHO board) for updates.

echo

[Judging__Eagle]

[So, the cleaned up ideas I made from some notes I made last night got chewed up by TGDmb.com's log in page. This is a summary of how my thinking veers from what's currently going on with Doubt]

Essentially, the overly detailed styles of magic seem to be the opposite of fostering Doubt; and I could see Frank's initial proposal for use of playing cards to determine course of gameplay being one way to keep players in doubt as to their character's limitations and abilities.

Also, use of two decks; one for Encounters; and one for Players.

Finally; abstraction of the suits into encounters; and solutions.

Heart: social: insight/magnetism
Diamond: navigation: resources/contacts
Club: arete: panoply/techniques
Spade: labour: equipment/training

Multi-encounters: Climactic and Final encounters are Multi-encounters with multiple elements involved in overcoming them. Cards drawn must be resolved in order drawn.

A standard adventure consists of three acts:

1st: Initial Encounters drawn, one per player; confronted separately
2nd: One climactic multi-encounter using a number of cards equal to 1/2 (round up) the players; confronted as a whole
3rd: One final multi-encounter. Use one card per player; confronted as a whole

The idea being that the initial and climactic encounters lead to the PCs ramping up their Arete and Labour pools; in order to be able to survive the climactic and final encounters.

However, at the end of it all; those current changes get dispersed. The flamethrower gets hocked for whiskey; the power tools for the latest DDT; you lose the mental focus to perform a Sai Dragon Chakra-shatter; can't keep up the payments on the workshop/house; etc..

Note:Distinguishing characters and their classes matters more; but they can remain fairly superficial mechanically.

[other; aimless notes]

Doubt Card-Based Mechanics
Re: Earlier mentions of "card" mechanics

I could see the following elements in such a system to better foster Doubt

-The four Suits have specific purpose (Heart/Social; Club/Arete; Spade/Effort; Diamond/Value);
-The rating of a challenge marks the minimum "value" that needs to have expended to overcome it
-Certain resources count as Trumps (x2 value); Disvalued (x1/2 value), wor Worthless (x0 value); to certain obstables (e.g. an employed tinker can't repair faster if you bully them; a glacier doesn't care about your drachmas)

Card represent some ephemeral knowledge that the Player Character has intercepted with their minds from the aether.

Playing Materials: Ideally 2 decks of cards; one for Encounter scaling; one for Players to draw from

How to Start Play: Players are dealt [Level] amount of Cards from the Player Deck. While cards are drawn from the Encounter deck equal to the number of players involved; then the group resolves each drawn Encounter by playing or having in play sufficient Value to match the drawn Encounters.

Overall Play: After the first round of encounters; the group fights a "boss"; which has its value calculated by an initial card value of 1, in addition to one half of the Players. [this could be "mini bosses")

Encounter Types: Example

Diplomacy (heart): Mountain Guide, Concierge, Priest, Colonel
Navigation (dialmond): Mountaineering, Metropolitan Transit, Parisian Catacombs, Abandoned Sub-Levels of Area-51
Arete (club): Mountain Monsters, Shadow Beasts, Zombi horde, rogue cloned Walamingos
Effort (spade): Mountain Climbing, Parkour, Running, Stealth

Players will attempt to use Heart Cards for Diplomacy; Diamonds for Navigation; and will be able to reuse revealed/played Spades and Clubs as often as necessary.

Card Types

Heart Cards aren't just metrics for how much friendlieness or good mood is leftin the Diplomancer fueltank; but could range from knowing a mind-breaking detail about a security guard's closet skeletons, to a saying a catchphrase an in-crowd uses inadvertently. Anything that could be described as improved social advantage is 'Heart' magic.

Diamond Cards aren't specifically cash or jewels (but certainly could be such); but rather varying scales of tradeable commodities from muffins and Transit Day Passes to RPG-launchers and Siege Mecha. Anything that convinces others you are valued where you are could be a Diamond card effect; although they often look like incredible luck.

Club Cards aren't specifically actions or equipment; but also techniques, or spells, that relate to Arete; physical athletics; combat ability, and the like. The exception to Club Cards is that when placed, they remain in front of the Player who played them, are used in total for the remaining sessions Arete encounters. They may transfered to an other character willingly.

Spade: Doing it yourself. Effort. The limits at which you break. If you can't get it for love or gold; then you need to earn it by tears & sweat. Spade is unique in that it can be added to any of the three types of encounter types (Social; Navigation; Combat); and the card remains in play as a Club. However, once spent the card is only able to provide a bonus the same as used in the Encounter it was initially used for.

Face Cards: I'm debating making all Face cards actual NPCs under PC direction; with the ability to make any card count as their Suite at a reduction of -2 (Jack) -1 (Queen) -0 (King) of the cards original value. If not NPCs, then perhaps a pantheon of 12 different deity-concepts or hallucinated 'familiars'.

Mad with Doubt

One final consideration is to have more built-in forms of Doubt; having the value of cards hidden if powers are used repeatedly. Doubtful magic isn't consistent; and it certainly isn't used like a machine. Those few Doubtfuls who

if you've used the same "suit" of powers twice in a row might be one thing. Something like hubris creating literal in-mechanic blindness. The Referee should inform them of the true value of the encounter, and the

Of course; a powerful enough wizard can go crazy when they step into a sudden rush of sheer power, and amp their already high capacity to ludicrous levels.