Ordinary Blokes

[Ancient History]

Okay, here's an idea for a game...

...there's worlds of magic out there, cosmic beyond scope. For a thousand thousand lifetimes you conquered and quested, dueled and won and lost. You've seen the death of universes and the building of new ones. You were an archmage, a god, a terrible power and archetype that thousands envied and millions feared...

...and you got sick to the fucking gut with it. You got so powerful, so tied up in the cosmic power games, that you damn near forgot yourself and the simple pleasures of life. Going on a quiet date. Reading a book. Not having to battle armies of demons in your sleep. Actually being able to sleep. You were on the verge of becoming one of those almost mindless creatures of pure power and instinct, no longer an individual but just an avatar of the forces of creation. But you pulled back from it. Renounced all the cosmic bullshit, settled down to earth again, to mortal form.

Now comes the hard part.

You have a quiet life. Not the most exciting, but comfortable and with all the missing mundane joys you'd given up or forgotten about while fucking around in the higher spheres. You've given up ultraporn for the lingerie catalog, and found that the imagination really is superior than the soul-blighting STDs carried by the succubi of the third circle. Beer has flavor again, and you can get absolutely shitfaced and feel awful in the morning, and it's great. You have friends again, ordinary blokes like you, who you can go get pissed with and talk to.

But things aren't quite right. Maybe things have followed you back. Maybe what is left of your colossal cosmic senses have found a crack in reality where dark things are poring through. Maybe there are some jerks in the neighborhood trying to recruit the children for some angelic war. You don't need that kind of shit in your new, normal life. So you decide to deal with it. You could just snap your fingers and erase these problems from existence...except that's the exact opposite of what you're trying to do here. The more you use your powers, the harder it is to pass as a mortal, to live a mortal life. The more power you use, the more things notice you and try to drag you back in the Great Game.

So you do this the old fashioned way, by the strength of your hands and the keenness of your wits. Excalibur is at home in the closet, but when the Cthonic Spawn comes climbing through your window, you reach for your decidedly unmagical golf club to give it a good fucking kicking.

So, it's players that have the fallback of using magic - but the goal of the game is to use as little as possible.

[Neurosis]

This is pretty awesome, actually. And it reminds me of Neil Gaiman, very, very a lot. Which in my book is a good thing.

[fectin]

I read a M:TG story like that, from back before it was an official setting. It actually worked very well.

I'm not real familiar with WW's Demon, but wasn't that similar?

[K]

There is the overwhelming moral disconnect, unfortunately.

If you have great power and don't use it to help people you otherwise could help, you are a douche. The fact that you are doing it so your beer tastes better and because you don't feel like it makes you even more of a douche, and a coward to boot.

Now, if you had permanently been kicked out of the higher rungs of power, or you'd passed it on, or given it up somehow, then the fact that you are still fighting the good fight makes you a hero and that's a playable game. The opposite situation where you just don't feel like being powerful is an entire game about being an immature dick.

Now, White Wolf has made a living on making games where you are an immature dick, so maybe I'm being too harsh.

[DSMatticus]

If you have great power and don't use it to help people you otherwise could help, you are a douche.

I play neutral evil and I like it. That said, sometimes burning down imaginary orphanages does leave a nasty taste in my mouth (other than the charred orphan leg).

But there are lot of potential 'hero' archetypes that fit with this. Which brings up the next point; why not multiple character ideas, of which Ancient_History's is merely one?

First off, K's: you've got the power-stripped super. Except for maybe some tiny sliver of their previous power, they're completely mortal, and stuck doing mortal things in a boring, mortal way. But with their experience (or maybe some lingering supernatural insight), they know the world isn't as it seems and all those horrible things are still going on right beneath the surface, and they have to stop it because damnit they're heroes! And that's what heroes do! The 'limit' on his supernatural powers is that whereas before they drew on a raging inferno of magical energy, now they're supported by little more than a flickering candle.

Then you've got Ancient_History's escapist. He's seen it all, and gotten incredibly sick of it. He probably wasn't that good of a guy to begin with, always in it for the excitement and the thrill, and eventually that just ran dry. Somewhere along the way of collecting all this godly power things stopped being exciting. So he decided to get back in touch with his roots, and made himself a puny, mortal shell, took all his godly power and crammed it in there. The 'limit' on this character's powers is that they destroy his body. The mortal shell he's crafted was never meant to facilitate their use, so everytime he uses them that shell cracks. This guy wouldn't do anything but drink himself into a coma everynight, get in barfights, and try to get laid, except weird shit always seems to happen around him and if it's going on right under his nose... Plus, he's got this really weird friend who's always talking about how the [baddies] are planning to [something] and he keeps dragging him into it (see above character).

Then you've got the guy who's being watched. Who knows why? But everytime he uses his powers, it leaves a mark and something is looking very hard for those marks. Maybe he's the child of some deity, and something is looking to find and eat him because he is incredibly delicious, like a rare, succulent treat. Or it's some higherlander-esque shit and they can absorb him. Either way, using too much of his power will bring the attention of what he's trying to avoid, which results in its servants popping out of thin air to make things complicated and try to abduct him. (Do not give experience for defeating things in combat, and this will actually be a penalty instead of a "yay, more experience!")

[hyzmarca]

There is the overwhelming moral disconnect, unfortunately.

If you have great power and don't use it to help people you otherwise could help, you are a douche. The fact that you are doing it so your beer tastes better and because you don't feel like it makes you even more of a douche, and a coward to boot.

Now, if you had permanently been kicked out of the higher rungs of power, or you'd passed it on, or given it up somehow, then the fact that you are still fighting the good fight makes you a hero and that's a playable game. The opposite situation where you just don't feel like being powerful is an entire game about being an immature dick.

Now, White Wolf has made a living on making games where you are an immature dick, so maybe I'm being too harsh.

It depends on how you portray the higher beings.

Lets say that they're all petty assholes. We're talking about Greek God style turn into an animal and rape random mortals for the luz sorts of assholes. Without exception.

Then lets say that there is no great cosmic battle between good and evil There is only the stupid, petty, destructive soap-opera.

Then lets say that the powers that be cannot be killed or depowered. The closest anyone can come to victory is in meaningless chess games using mortals as pawns, and none of those games actually change anything.

So you just "no". "No, I'm not going to participate in this bullshit anymore." And that's a morally sound choice, because the Great Game is an utterly meaningless thing which will only stop when all of the Powers follow your example.

Now, you could use your powers to solve mortal problems. But that would just draw the attention of the other Powers, who are likely to break your toys for the lulz. And that's how they'd see the mortals you're helping, as your toys. They don't quite get that those short-lived monkeys are actual people. Stepping back into the Game just means that everyone you've tried to help is going to suffer horribly.

You're taking a courageous moral stand against treating mortals as toys and using your omnipotence to abuse those less than you.

[K]

You're taking a courageous moral stand against treating mortals as toys and using your omnipotence to abuse those less than you.

No, you are a pussy.

The courageous stand is to fight the gods, or use your power to help the mortals, or anyone else that helps the situation. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that you don't have power because that makes you feel better means you are a selfish coward.

"Not being actively evil" does not make you a good person.

[Midnight_v]

You're taking a courageous moral stand against treating mortals as toys and using your omnipotence to abuse those less than you.

No, you are a pussy.

The courageous stand is to fight the gods, or use your power to help the mortals, or anyone else that helps the situation. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that you don't have power because that makes you feel better means you are a selfish coward.

"Not being actively evil" does not make you a good person.

K's morality handbook.

Its awesome.

I agree though, thats not cool it the religious concpet the problem of evil. Total fuckin wakery for you to ignore you to ignore the elder evils once you know they're there and you have the power to stop them.
HOWEVER... this whole thing explains why the Gods are playing poulace with thier champions all the fucking time in fiction.

[hyzmarca]

You're taking a courageous moral stand against treating mortals as toys and using your omnipotence to abuse those less than you.

No, you are a pussy.

The courageous stand is to fight the gods, or use your power to help the mortals, or anyone else that helps the situation. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that you don't have power because that makes you feel better means you are a selfish coward.

"Not being actively evil" does not make you a good person.

You're assuming that fighting the gods is a valid solution to the problem. That isn't necessarily the case. Consider the possibility that absolutely nothing good can come from perpetuating an eternal unwinable universe-destroying feud.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Perhaps the character could be a demigod trying to lay low in a solipsistically spawned world where for whatever reason they're acting as if they're not surrounded by philosophical zombies. Assume sentients in the multiverse are not normally just mindless constructs of the other gods because otherwise an issue of doing evil to your cosmic masturbation aid/disguise kit is moot. So while some 'adventures' would be putting up a token resistance to the general dimensional scans of the other gods' agents (cosmic beings tend to respond similarly to an astral monkey horde, so one mustn't play to type) others would be exercises in self-delusion.

[Chamomile]

A couple more ideas for moral gods-without-powers:

1) Magic damages the universe. Every time you save a life by snapping your fingers and wishing up some food, another life is spontaneously snuffed out to pay for it. If you want to actually increase the sum total of happiness in the world, you have to do it the hard way. Thus, magic is useful only when the price paid (i.e. a few random innocents) is really, honestly worth the effects granted (for example, if you are saving a continent with a population of millions from destruction, protecting your own life from imminent death would count).

2) Magic is uncontrollable. This one is pretty easy to reflect in game mechanics, too. The odds of successfully controlling any significantly powerful spell are pretty slim and always will be. If you're a god who doesn't particularly mind the collateral damage from leveling a building to kill the one guy you don't like, that's not a problem.

You're assuming that fighting the gods is a valid solution to the problem. That isn't necessarily the case. Consider the possibility that absolutely nothing good can come from perpetuating an eternal unwinable universe-destroying feud.

Somewhere, someday, a player will play this game and figure out a solution to whatever roadblock you put in their way to this effect. It might be some simple idea that circumvents your roadblock completely, or it might be an elaborate plot, but either way, it ultimately undoes the premise of your setting unless you're going to be a terrible DM and say "no, you can't be clever unless it's a cleverness I approve of."

[Neurosis]

There is the overwhelming moral disconnect, unfortunately.

If you have great power and don't use it to help people you otherwise could help, you are a douche. The fact that you are doing it so your beer tastes better and because you don't feel like it makes you even more of a douche, and a coward to boot.

But it's not like games are restricted to having characters whose moral alignment is on the 'good' end of the axis, right? I mean, as far as I know, in this game you could have been enormously EVIL and becoming an ordinary dude could be a tremendous step forward, morally.

No, you are a pussy.

The courageous stand is to fight the gods, or use your power to help the mortals, or anyone else that helps the situation. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that you don't have power because that makes you feel better means you are a selfish coward.

"Not being actively evil" does not make you a good person.

Again, K, I don't mean to harp obnoxiously on this one point, but why do RPG characters have to be actively good people?

The idea of playing a character who's simply selfish doesn't seem like such a turnoff to me. I mean, D&D characters, even the 'good' ones are plenty selfish right when you get down to it. And it's not like these apathetic immortals would even be without redeeming qualities, either--like wanting to protect their friends who are actually regular people.

1) Magic damages the universe. Every time you save a life by snapping your fingers and wishing up some food, another life is spontaneously snuffed out to pay for it. If you want to actually increase the sum total of happiness in the world, you have to do it the hard way. Thus, magic is useful only when the price paid (i.e. a few random innocents) is really, honestly worth the effects granted (for example, if you are saving a continent with a population of millions from destruction, protecting your own life from imminent death would count).

I love this.

[hyzmarca]

You're assuming that fighting the gods is a valid solution to the problem. That isn't necessarily the case. Consider the possibility that absolutely nothing good can come from perpetuating an eternal unwinable universe-destroying feud.

Somewhere, someday, a player will play this game and figure out a solution to whatever roadblock you put in their way to this effect. It might be some simple idea that circumvents your roadblock completely, or it might be an elaborate plot, but either way, it ultimately undoes the premise of your setting unless you're going to be a terrible DM and say "no, you can't be clever unless it's a cleverness I approve of."

There is a difference between a roadblock and a game mechanic. If you make the limitations fundamental to your game system then it is difficult for the players to circumvent. If they can think their way around it then that's great for them.

[K]

You're assuming that fighting the gods is a valid solution to the problem. That isn't necessarily the case. Consider the possibility that absolutely nothing good can come from perpetuating an eternal unwinable universe-destroying feud.

If you can't help the mortals as a god, becoming a beer-soaked slacker should not be an improvement.

The entire premise being presented here is that the PCs are supposed to be good people who still have a hand in the game because they can do something useful at all.

If the PCs are just douches, then why are they going on adventures at all? I mean, they supposedly had wealth, fame, power, and immortality.... if their only selfish desire is to work in a game store and be a functional alcoholic who hits on teen girls, what possible motivation would they have for doing anything at all?

Right now, if you aren't a good person then the angels take the local schoolchildren and you crack open another Pabs Blue Ribbon and when the Cthonic Horror climbs in the window you respond by getting into your Prius and going to Dennys. It could be a White Wolf game called Apathetic: The Justified Cynicism.

[fectin]

Okay. K points out why this is bad on it's face. Therefor, either you play a douche, or the fluff situation is more complex, or the mechanical situation introduces complexity.

That seems like a solvable problem.

Separately, K, you're at least partly right. Do we each have a duty to contribute to the utmost of our ability though, or is that just nice? And how does intent play into it? Is it sufficient to recklessly act with good intentions, or is it more correct to cautiously avoid causing harm?

Beside anything else, it seems really weird to cut off an entire heroic trope just because some lenses show that trope as dickish (Kenobi, Jack O'Neil, most Mifune characters, Every Kung Fu character ever, most Discworld characters, Mal, Switzerland, etc.)

[Ancient History]

K, I think you've fundamentally missed the point of the game as I presented. The players are all, essentially, retired badasses - and they like it. They've renounced their powers and positions - actually using them to any extant would destroy the new life they've built for themselves.

The basic situation this sets up is that each player character has the capacity to solve nearly any problem in the game - but using that power actively defeats their long-term goal and leads to NPC status. So they get by defeating the threats that present themselves or pursuing their goals using regular mundane skills and abilities - in essence, being bloody clever and (as necessary) charming or brutal. It encourages the sort of moral debate given here, and gives each character a sort of instant sacrifice magic.

It's not about going on adventures, or even doing good in the general sense. There is no straight definition of good or evil - just sweet and nasty. The player characters find themselves in situations based on who or what they are, or want to be, and need to deal with it accordingly.

Imagine, for example, that you have a nuclear weapon in you brain that cannot be removed and can be activated by a thought. How bad would the situation in your community have to be before you actually used that bomb, knowing that whatever constituted you in this physical world? Would you use it for a serial killer, or a zombie plague? Would you take out the big bad, or would you find some other way around it?

I guess the idea harkens back to the original Spawn mechanic in some ways: Spawn had an energy meter with 9,999 "points" - and he could use them up to do lots of cool stuff, but the meter could not be recharged and once he used it all up, he would go straight to hell. So he used his powers sparingly and actively worked to find solutions to problems that didn't rely on his personal powers all the time. Here, the PCs have the power to change, even destroy the world - but using that power destroys them. When do they use it? How hard do they work at a problem before they give up and use their power?

[Josh_Kablack]

This sounds like an interesting idea for a series of fantasy stories and a completely unplayable RPG. Unless I am misunderstanding, the fundamental conceit of this is that player characters have great powers that they are not supposed to use, because if they do then the fundamental game changes.

If we're gonna go all moral posturing, then allow me to point out that you have failed to realize that your players actually have free will.

[K]

K, I think you've fundamentally missed the point of the game as I presented. The players are all, essentially, retired badasses - and they like it. They've renounced their powers and positions - actually using them to any extant would destroy the new life they've built for themselves.

I think you've missed the point of the game you've presented.

There is a reason that Spawn dropped the 9,999 thing like the second year, and it's because the moral thing is to use your power even when there is a personal price. Spawn starts the series as a douche and becomes a decent person, and around that time they drop the 9,999 thing.

Second, the "you are powerful and can't use your power or your character dies" doesn't interact with playing a RPG at all. The whole thing is just an in-game eject button for your campaign. Anyone who has played Mage: the Ascension knows that.

Feeling powerful in an RPG is about being able to do powerful stuff, and you are specifically telling players they can't do stuff unless they want to lose their character. That makes them feel powerless.

Now, maybe you'll add some tolerances where you can use your power once in a while. At that point you are just playing yet another game where PCs are mildly magical and your whole backstory is pointless.... you could be descendants of Rainbow Bright and your game would play the same.

I mean, the whole thing is a recipe for players feeling powerless and abandoning the game because they can't do anything. I'm not actually sure that playing a burn-out fuckwit has a lot of role-playing potential.

Now, you could do a whole thing where the PCs have some of the trappings of power, but don't have the raw magical power. Maybe they still have a batcave in an alternate universe and the Lord of Death still plays chess with you on Thursdays and might be convinced to drop some hints once in a while or bring someone back.... that could be awesome, but Supernatural pretty much has a lock on that idea these days.

[CCarter]

A fluff explanation to reconcile the moral dilemma here could be something like "there are only a limited number of beings with Power Rank N", and the PCs rather than just dropping all their powers, handed 99% of them on to a worthy (they hope) successor. Sort of like the Incarnations in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, say.

[K]

A fluff explanation to reconcile the moral dilemma here could be something like "there are only a limited number of beings with Power Rank N", and the PCs rather than just dropping all their powers, handed 99% of them on to a worthy (they hope) successor. Sort of like the Incarnations in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, say.

Any number of fluff considerations that actually strip you of power will work. I mean, maybe you just lost a cosmic battle or burned through your power to defeat some unbeatable foe or had some compelling reason to revert to humanity like a war among the gods or for something lame like love.

But that's not the idea being presented. The idea is specifically that you have vast powers and every time you try to use them the DM Gygax-fucks you in your character-holes, so instead you spend a lot of time trying to kill extra-dimensional horrors with golf-clubs.

Having played a lot of Mage: the Ascension, I can tell you that the basic idea doesn't attract or retain a lot of players and most people either houserule away the consequences or just get discouraged and stop playing.

It'd make a better novel than a RPG.

[Lago PARANOIA]

It'd make a better novel than a RPG.

Damn, K off of the top rope with a knee to the throat.

[Neurosis]

I think you've missed the point of the game you've presented.

There is a reason that Spawn dropped the 9,999 thing like the second year, and it's because the moral thing is to use your power even when there is a personal price. Spawn starts the series as a douche and becomes a decent person, and around that time they drop the 9,999 thing.

Second, the "you are powerful and can't use your power or your character dies" doesn't interact with playing a RPG at all. The whole thing is just an in-game eject button for your campaign. Anyone who has played Mage: the Ascension knows that.

Feeling powerful in an RPG is about being able to do powerful stuff, and you are specifically telling players they can't do stuff unless they want to lose their character. That makes them feel powerless.

Now, maybe you'll add some tolerances where you can use your power once in a while. At that point you are just playing yet another game where PCs are mildly magical and your whole backstory is pointless.... you could be descendants of Rainbow Bright and your game would play the same.

I mean, the whole thing is a recipe for players feeling powerless and abandoning the game because they can't do anything. I'm not actually sure that playing a burn-out fuckwit has a lot of role-playing potential.

With all due respect, K, I think your definition of what an RPG is is a bit too narrow.

Then again I don't know how tgd feels about the Forge and their shenanigans in general, so I'm not sure how much further I'm willing to go with this line of thinking. I don't want to get gangraped here.

[Ganbare Gincun]

I concur with K in this matter. To have the power to drastically change the world for the better while choosing not to wield it so you can indulge in your own personal gratification is morally repugnant. With great power comes great responsibility and all that. There's also not much of a challenge in a game where you can simply tap into your powers at any time to resolve any issue with the only negative consequence being that you'll eventually have to re-stage your retirement at some undefined point in the future. These characters need to be stripped of their power and forced into the mortal world somehow, or else you'll be playing a game where everyone is a douchebag and nothing is really at stake at all.

[echoVanguard]

I also concur with K that it would make a better novel than an RPG. That said, if you were dead-set on making an RPG of this, there are a lot of creative mechanics ideas you could use, like Dread's resolution mechanic - you set up a Jenga tower, and every time a player uses magic, have them pull out a brick. If the tower collapses, the character's action is noticed by an unfriendly intelligence, and hijinks ensue. However, it's almost certainly not a typical advancement-based RPG - it would probably be something more focused on characterization, like Call of Cthulhu.

echo

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'm just riffing here, but I immediately thought of Sonoda's Exaxxion. When the main character is using his powered armor, his action is personal scale, very precise, very satisfying, and he can even heal people by laying hands on them; but he has great difficulty affecting the grand scope of the conflict. When he's piloting the giant robot he's isolated, frustrated, and even walking around causes property damage and kills people, let alone actually fighting; the muzzle flare of the main gun wreaks havoc for miles around. So being a major player in the global conflict comes with an unavoidable body count, and for a long time it's very unclear if he saves more people than he kills.

So if powering up was similar to climbing into the giant robot and the utilitarian ratio of using that power tended to remain unresolved, that could mitigate the moral issue.