PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER....

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER....

Post by Prak »

itty bitty living space starting tier

"So I have a new idea for a gameImage"

I've been going through Demon the Fallen because vague planning to run a game is about all I have time for now and I'm in the mood for it.

Of course it also gave me another idea for a game, which I guess isn't so much a new one, as a different way to go with Divine Legacy. Though where as DL is "Scion, but well written," this is more "Demon, minus the christian bits"

It uses an idea that I really doubt is all that new that gods are actually basically generic spirits who answer to the divine identities that humans toss out there and put them on like masks. So a spirit is floating around in the either, decides it likes what this Thor guy is all about and so picks up the free floating faith humans toss out there in their worship of him, and while the spirit is using that faith, it is wearing a THOR!MASK and has lightning god powers. But if the spirit decides that it wants to play around with a RE!MASK that it found lying around, it can take off THOR and put on RE and have sun god powers.

I want there to be something about natures and personalities to enforce/encourage people to build a mask collection that is similar in dynamic, so you don't have one guy taking off the YAHWEH!MASK so he can put on a PAN!MASK, because that's a bit... odd.

But the point of all this rambling, whether for Zeus-Is-My-Daddy Divine Legacy or I'm-A-Faith-Munching-Spirit-Wearing-A-Zeus-Mask Divine Masquerade, there needs to be a system for acquiring dominion over a concept/element/etc, starting out small, like "wait, I'm supposed to rake the cooler ashes on top of the coal before I walk on it? Meh." and gradually growing to the point where, yes, you can make a volcano spontaneously erupt in the middle of Madison Square Garden, fault lines be damned, because you are The Son of Vulcan/A Guy Wearing Vulcan's Face.

So, how do you handle that system? What kind of granularity is desirable? In the Divine Masquerade version, I would imagine that different masks are really more about horizontal versatility, and either way your power level depends on how much Legend you've accumulate/Faith you've eaten.
Last edited by Prak on Tue Sep 23, 2014 7:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
Night Goat
Journeyman
Posts: 120
Joined: Tue May 13, 2014 7:53 pm

Post by Night Goat »

It's a cool idea. However it seems like it could be hard for players to come up with backstories, motivations and personalities if their characters aren't posthuman in some way.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Good point. Demon, of course, runs into this trouble as well, given that the characters are impossibly ancient spirits that created the world. Of course they had a life before the game, rebelling against God, living with and teaching humans, fighting in the war with the angels, and then the featureless torment of Hell, but then they also must take on human vessels to walk the earth, less they be consumed by other demons or slip back into the Abyss, and the minds of those vessels influence the demons.

The spirits of Divine Masquerade could be similar, impossibly ancient, though not the creators of the Earth. I would prefer they be, in a way, the humans of the ethereal plane. Which is to say, they aren't particularly special. They didn't make the world, they didn't (necessarily) make the things in it, they aren't gods, they're just immaterial people who can take into themselves a "substance" which is created and shaped by human worship.

So, to lean somewhat heavily on DtF but not be so grimderp and vague, the spirits could float about the ethereal landscape all they want, but to walk the Earth, they need a body, which they do by riding a person, either one who offers themselves up after preparation rituals, or one who is prepared by happenstance, a person near death, perhaps, whose soul can be pushed aside and the spirit can move right in for an indefinite amount of time. However, the person's memories and personality press on the spirit. Being an embodied spirit is a bit like having two backstories. You're actually playing the spirit, but you remember what the person whose skin you wear did. So while part of you remembers arguing with your parents when you were 17 about your 21 year old boyfriend, you also remember wrestling with your eons-old friend for the faith given to some forgotten pagan god back in the year dot four millenia after you coalesced from the void.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
fectin
Prince
Posts: 3760
Joined: Mon Feb 01, 2010 1:54 am

Post by fectin »

Rider: The possessioning is about spirits who possess humans. The spirit types are loa, demonic possession, changelings, vampires, and some fifth thing. Etc.
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
User avatar
Josh_Kablack
King
Posts: 5318
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Online. duh

Re: PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER....

Post by Josh_Kablack »

Prak_Anima wrote:So, how do you handle that system? What kind of granularity is desirable? In the Divine Masquerade version, I would imagine that different masks are really more about horizontal versatility, and either way your power level depends on how much Legend you've accumulate/Faith you've eaten.
Stating the obvious here, but you are going to need a system where a linear increase in Level / Dots / Character Points spent on an ability results in a Quadratic (or better) increase in abilities.

The big question is how much of that better-than-linear increase is fluffy flavor text and how much is "I have another dot, you lose".

Champions / HERO supposedly operates under a "5 more points is twice as good" system - and 5 more points does double things like lifting and carrying, but not generally things like to hit rolls, or number of actions, or soak values, or chances of passing a skill roll. This lets you do comic book things like have a dude who benches 300 pounds, practices hand to hand combat and has a medieval-style signature weapon fight against another dude who lifts buildings and laughs off bullets without it being a colossal mismatch.

Alternately you could want to go for more of a Dragonball Z type of vibe, where that sort of thing a huge mismatch, and characters will want to avoid strong suit vs strong suit fights, instead powering up over several episodes swapping out different masks to gain asymmetric advantage. And to do that, you'd want just a few more resources in an ability to matter quite a lot -- but you'd want a bunch of abilities that had massive rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock advantages over each other.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
User avatar
deaddmwalking
Prince
Posts: 3459
Joined: Mon May 21, 2012 11:33 am

Post by deaddmwalking »

My first thought is that you have 'dots' in different fields, at three different tiers.

In order to become a Tier 2 spirit, you need to fill two Tier 1 'dots'. Then you can trade one of those for the Tier 2 power.

This would mean that if you 'fill' two 'roles', you have to trade one in to gain Level 2 Tier Powers. Once you're in Tier 2, you could gain at least 2 sets of powers before trading one in for Tier 3 powers.

Spit-balling here, let's say you got a guy that does death/lightning at Tier 1 - maybe he can speak with dead, briefly animate corpses and fake his own death/resist damage (for instance). If he decides he wants to advance as a Lighting God, he'll have to sacrifice those abilities to gain the Tier 2 Lightning Powers. Likewise, he'd have to give up his Lightning Powers to gain 'Death Touch' - the first Tier 2 Power for a Death god (again, for instance).
TheFlatline
Prince
Posts: 2606
Joined: Fri Apr 30, 2010 11:43 pm

Re: PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER....

Post by TheFlatline »

Prak_Anima wrote:itty bitty living space starting tier

"So I have a new idea for a gameImage"

I've been going through Demon the Fallen because vague planning to run a game is about all I have time for now and I'm in the mood for it.

Of course it also gave me another idea for a game, which I guess isn't so much a new one, as a different way to go with Divine Legacy. Though where as DL is "Scion, but well written," this is more "Demon, minus the christian bits"

It uses an idea that I really doubt is all that new that gods are actually basically generic spirits who answer to the divine identities that humans toss out there and put them on like masks. So a spirit is floating around in the either, decides it likes what this Thor guy is all about and so picks up the free floating faith humans toss out there in their worship of him, and while the spirit is using that faith, it is wearing a THOR!MASK and has lightning god powers. But if the spirit decides that it wants to play around with a RE!MASK that it found lying around, it can take off THOR and put on RE and have sun god powers.

I want there to be something about natures and personalities to enforce/encourage people to build a mask collection that is similar in dynamic, so you don't have one guy taking off the YAHWEH!MASK so he can put on a PAN!MASK, because that's a bit... odd.

But the point of all this rambling, whether for Zeus-Is-My-Daddy Divine Legacy or I'm-A-Faith-Munching-Spirit-Wearing-A-Zeus-Mask Divine Masquerade, there needs to be a system for acquiring dominion over a concept/element/etc, starting out small, like "wait, I'm supposed to rake the cooler ashes on top of the coal before I walk on it? Meh." and gradually growing to the point where, yes, you can make a volcano spontaneously erupt in the middle of Madison Square Garden, fault lines be damned, because you are The Son of Vulcan/A Guy Wearing Vulcan's Face.

So, how do you handle that system? What kind of granularity is desirable? In the Divine Masquerade version, I would imagine that different masks are really more about horizontal versatility, and either way your power level depends on how much Legend you've accumulate/Faith you've eaten.
I did something similar in my Dark Heresy game. In my slightly twisted 40k cosmology, the whole of humanity is very gently psychic (how do we know this? Untouchables are shunned by society as a whole, so even your average joe has a little bit of power). All those billions of psychics believing in a very rigid religion and system of belief creates underlying patterns, both in the personality sense and in a larger jungian archetype collective unconsciousness sense. So in a real way the immortal emperor is partially the immortal emperor because he has a trillion or so psychics all putting their psychic oomph into the idea that this dead body on the throne is the emperor who is still alive and kicking inside this machine called the Golden Throne.

I made my own emperor's tarot using major arcanoi that were both iconographic for the illiterate to learn the Emepror's passion (RE: the horus heresy) and because billions of people basically worship this fucking deck of cards, eventually the major arcanoi became archetypes of the human subconscious. It's possible for a sufficiently talented and ambitious individual to "ride" that archetype and inhabit it. You lose most of your personality but you gain a fuck ton of power. To do it though you have to be able to swim in the deep, dark waters of the collective human subconscious.

I can see something like that linking into the idea of gods and mask-riders. I mean, Yahweh seems like a paternal archetype if ever I saw one. Most of the Greek & Roman pantheon seems to fit in well with those archetypes as well.

Maybe you're someone who has "discovered" that the pantheon is just a shitload of spirits that have worn the masks created by human subconsciousness? And in finding this out, you learn that anyone with the balls can put those masks on. It's tricky to switch between aspects/masks that are too dissimilar because in wearing the mask the intensity of the whole of humanity pushing you into a conforming concept kind of overpowers your own personality, and so it's easier to find complimentary aspects instead of dissimilar ones.
User avatar
JigokuBosatsu
Prince
Posts: 2549
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Portlands, OR
Contact:

Post by JigokuBosatsu »

Would like to see this developed more, hinted at something like this in my story "Kruppstahl".
Omegonthesane wrote:a glass armonica which causes a target city to have horrific nightmares that prevent sleep
JigokuBosatsu wrote:so a regular glass armonica?
You can buy my books, yes you can. Out of print and retired, sorry.
Mask_De_H
Duke
Posts: 1995
Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:17 pm

Post by Mask_De_H »

If you're doing the Jungian Archetype thing, you should write up what archetypes you want in your game, then determine power sets based on those archetypes. They shouldn't tie into basic character power if they're supposed to be donned and discarded at will. They can be vertical power ups within the strata of the archetypes, but general character power should be archetype agnostic.
FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.
K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
Whipstitch wrote:You're on a mad quest, dude. I'd sooner bet on Zeus getting bored and letting Sisyphus put down the fucking rock.
TheFlatline
Prince
Posts: 2606
Joined: Fri Apr 30, 2010 11:43 pm

Post by TheFlatline »

I think you can take away from this thread that it's an interesting enough idea to run with, and you can run in a couple different ways.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Yeah, definitely.

I was thinking a bit on it in the shower, and thought of a way to encourage characters collecting masks similar in archetype/temperament.

Basically, since you're acting as the god people have created, you have to act like that god, and just having the mask still means you have to occasionally act like that god. So if you're wearing the JESUS!MASK you have to occasionally take the wheel, and if you're wearing the ZEUS!MASK you are expected to run around dark sex clubs in physical animal masks and have unprotected sex with strangers.

(Yes I know I mention sex too much in my game work. I think sex is inherently funny.)

So basically if you have the ZEUS!MASK, you're expected to screw things every now and then, as well as toss around lightning bolts, issue edicts of non-interference to your group and ignore them yourself, and attempt to kill family members. So it's easier for you to pick up LOKI!MASKs (sex with things, ignore edicts), THOR!MASKs (throw lightning bolts), and SET!MASKs (kill family members). If you have an APOLLO mask, then you're expected to heal people, curse them with sickness, and protect people from evil, particularly snakes; thus you would have an easy time picking up masks of other gods of healing, protection from evil, and sun gods, while also having a hard time picking up masks of evil gods and gods tied to snakes. So a character may have Apollo, Horus, and Iron-Crutch Li in their collection, but would have a very difficult time picking up Apep or Satan(Christian).

Performing associated tasks/actions would probably be something like a willpower recharge, a way to recover an expendable character resource. Given that AS's system would probably work well for this idea, it might be your Power recharge method. On the other hand, if associated acts recharges your power points, a part of me wants those points to be segregated, so that if you actually do have Apollo and Apep masks, you can't use points gained by healing people on powers from Apep and points gained by breaking lights and punching people who symbolize light in the face can't be used on Apollo powers. Unless you're using Set!Apep, and thus have disease powers as part of your Apep mask, then you can use either set of points on disease powers, because both Apollo and Set!Apep have disease powers.

That seems like too much book keeping, however. It could be made manageable with a properly set up sheet (something where you have a box for each mask, listing it's powers and associated actions, and then someway to track shared powers).
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Did a bit of writing for the idea while I was on my lunch and then while watching TV after work. Not really complete, and not much new, but figured I'd post what I had:

Divine Masquerade
The Faith of a Mustard Seed…
Imagine a resource, more precious than gold or diamonds, more powerful than any power source known to mankind, and more versatile than any technology we can yet craft.
Now imagine you find this resource just lying around, with no one there to take it.

Human faith is this resource. The mortal bible says that the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains, but that’s selling it far short. To someone who knows how to use it, it can call lightning from the heavens, part raging infernos, even blunt death’s sting.

The faith of humanity was born of the belief that mighty heroes and villains rendered creation from nothingness. Unbeknownst to most, it was that man that created those figures, rather than the other way around. Now the faith of those creators lies unclaimed in the realms ethereal, coloured by the persona it was offered up to. The faith in Thor allows one who knows how to use to hurl lightning and command storms. The faith in Osiris can send a creature to the lands of the dead or bring them back—albeit not unchanged.
There are those who know how to find this faith, like luminous orbs hanging in the void, claim it, and wear it like a mask. Some wear these masks that they may answer the prayers of those who offer it, wishing only to aid their fellows, others wear them purely for the promise of power, and still others might not want anything to do with them, but don the masks they find so that they may counter those who use their power for ill.

Signs and Portents
Humans have told stories of divine conflict for ages, and in a way, though those stories never happened, they also happen many times over. Those who claim humanity’s faith are subtly urged to take part in the shadow-plays which drive that faith. Every god of myth has acts, events, domains and even animals which are associated with them, and those who bend and incorporate these things into their interactions with the world find it easier to use the powers that faith can fuel. At the same time, those associations prevent these figures from collecting faith in gods too disparate. It is possible, but very difficult, to hold onto the faith of Apollo and Apep at the same time, as the pure concepts war within the owner’s mind.

Realms of the Divine
While the gods of human myth exist only in the minds of humans and the actions of those who find their faith, the realms of human myth are very real. No one is quite sure whether these realms existed prior to humanity and were filled with human belief, or were built by it, but the smart money is on the latter. Regardless, the realms exist, albeit not in any way ancient man conceived of. Hades, an open-air palace in the style of Ancient Egypt, and a graveyard arrayed with tombstones, epithets in French with a full bar in the center all comprise the same, singular realm of the dead, as do the realms of death and underworlds of every other faith. The towering mountain of Olympus, Asgard with its gleaming walls and immense dining hall and rainbow bridge, and Coyote’s den can all be found in the ethereal realm.

Faith and Works
Faith manifests as luminous, intangible orbs, which float in the near-void of the ethereal realm. However, arriving at these realms often requires one to have a store of Faith in the first place. Fortunately, it can also be found in the mortal realm, visible to those with eyes to see it. It is most easily found in places of worship, areas and animals associated with divine figures, and, to a lesser extent, places associated with acts. Charnel houses, for example, are a not-uncommon place to find faith in gods of death and fiery afterlives, while houses of prognostication and fortune telling are common places to find faith in gods of such.

Of course, while this specified, unclaimed Faith is useful, there is a more potent form, that which is directly given.

To the uninitiated, there is no difference between a god, and a person who merely wears the faith in him as a mask. The latter appears, for intents and purposes, to be the former, especially when they reveal themselves in all their glory.

In this way, a mask-wearer may harvest faith directly from it's human source, often in exchange for a small boon. An Apollo Mask-Wearer might give a mortal immunity to disease as proof of their might, and in so doing, win a direct feed of faith that isn't in some concept or other persona, but in themselves. Faith in the Mask-Wearer is much more versatile than faith in a mask they happen to have, and can be used to power the abilities of any of their masks.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Faith In All It's Myriad Forms
Virtually all Faith in the word is Faith in something specific. It is very rare for people to just generally believe in something, usually people believe in God, or Zeus, or Anubis. Even people who just believe they're watched over by ancestors believe in specific ancestors watching over them.

As such, almost all Faith one finds is Faith in a specific mythical figure. It is most readily used to invoke the powers of that figure, but can be used, with less efficiency, to invoke the powers of similar figures. Faith cannot be used to invoke the powers opposed to the figure whom inspired it. For example, Faith in Apollo is best used to invoke the powers of Apollo--powers of light, healing, disease and speed--by a Masquerader who possesses an Apollo Mask, but could also be used by a Masquerader who possess a Mask of Re to invoke Re's powers, albeit less efficiently. Faith in Apollo could not, however, be used to invoke the powers of Apep or Thanatos, as they are gods who are opposed to Apollo in their natures.

If a Masquerader can inspire Faith in themselves, however, that is much more versatile. Faith offered directly to a Masquerader may be used in any way the Masquerader needs or desires unless they inspired that Faith by mimicking a specific mythic figure, in which case, all Faith offered by that person is offered to the Masquerader as that figure, and thus is considered to be Faith in that Figure, just as if the Masquerader had found that Faith.

An individual instance of Faith is called a Mote. When Faith is found, it is called a Mote, typically appended with the name of the Figure it is Faith in. If you find Faith in Thor, you have found a Mote of Thor-Faith.

Associations and Oppositions
Every mythical Figure has certain deeds, concepts, actions and values associated with it. A Masquerader is subtly encouraged by the nature of reality to engage in those associations, which is mechanically represented by a recovery of Edge whenever they engage in an action associated with a Mask they hold (limited to once per session per two Masks they possess).

Figures also often have Opposed Associations, which further come in both Hard and Soft forms. Apollo is believed to be a protector against evil and has an association with fighting serpents, and as such, he has a Hard Opposition to "Evil" and Serpents, while Athena and Ares are merely rivals within the same pantheon, and as such each have Soft Oppositions to anything associated with the other but not themselves (Neither is opposed to combat, but Ares is not seen as much one for strategy, while Athena is not much one for senseless fighting).

The Divine Masquerade
Faith alone is nearly useless--it can be used to perform minor tricks, such as healing the possessor (but not another), or augmenting a character trait associated with the Faith's Figure--but for it to be of the most use, the Masquerader must have a matching Mask. A Mask is a purely thaumaturgical construct, as intangible as the Faith it is made from, which can only be seen by Masqueraders--unless it is joined to a physical object by the Masquerader who created it.

Any character who picks up a Mote of Faith may craft that Mote into a Mask. Doing so consumes an entire Mote of Faith. This is a Hard Charisma+Occult task, but any specializations the Masquerader possesses which are associated with the Figure they are making a Mask of benefit this roll. IE, a Masquerader making an Anubis Mask who has a Medicine specialty in Embalming would gain 2 extra dice in their roll as if Embalming were a specialization of Occult for them. A Masquerader may only apply two specializations to the roll to make a Mask, including a possible Mask Making specialization of Occult, and the second specialization would apply only one extra die.

All Masks have a Legend rating, which cannot exceed the amount of Faith used in their creation. This Legend rating dictates the magnitude of powers which can be invoked when using that Mask. A character may, if they choose, combine multiple Motes into the crafting of a single Mask, but doing so increases the difficulty of the task, adding 1 to the required Threshold for every two Motes beyond the first, and each additional mote only provides 1/n+1 points of Faith to the construction of the Mask, where n is the number of Motes it is being added to. So the second Mote used in creating a Mask only provides half it's rating, the third only one third, the fourth only a quarter, and so on. Always round up, and the highest point Mote is always the first Mote used and therefore not divided.

A character who succeeds in their roll to create a Mask creates a Mask of Legend 1. Each Net Hit rolled in the Creation adds 1 to the Legend rating of the Mask, up to a total equal to the total Faith used to create it.

For example, a character finds a 3 point Mote of Susanoo Faith, and decides to create a Mask of Susanoo. They would roll their Charisma+Occult, adding bonus dice from specializations such as Tsurugi (Combat) or Shinto (Occult). If they roll 3 Hits, they succeed in creating a Legend 1 Susanoo Mask, and can use it to invoke Magnitude 1 powers of Susanoo. If they roll 4 Hits, it would be Legend 2, and if they rolled 5 Hits, it would be Legend 3. If they rolled 6 or more Hits, it would still only be Legend 3. The character could instead, however, save the Susanoo Faith to join to other Motes later or already in their possession. They may choose to combine the 3 point Mote and a 4 point Mote, in which case they would use the highest point Mote as their base, 4. The 3 point Mote is then divided in half, and rounded up, for 2 points, creating a single 6 point Mote of Susanoo Faith. The character could then create a Susanoo Mask of up to Legend 6, which would allow the invocation of Magnitude 6 Susanoo powers.

Gathering and Harvesting Faith
Finding Faith may be tricky, taking possession of it is much more straightforward. As Faith is intangible, it cannot simply be picked up as one would a piece of fruit from the ground. It is much more a task of will than strength. It is a Hard Willpower+Occult task to simply grasp Faith, while actually gathering it requires a number of net hits equal to the strength of the Faith.

If a character holds any Masks, each Mask with opposed associations to the Faith they are attempting to gather increases the Threshold of gathering a Mote of Faith, Soft Oppositions increase it by 1, while Hard Oppositions increase it by 2. again, per Mask possessed. In the above example, if the character possessed an Amaterasu Mask, picking up the 3 point Mote of Susanoo Faith would require a roll with a total of 7 Hits (3 to grasp, +3 for the Faith Rating, +1 for Soft Opposition of Amaterasu). Meanwhile, if the character possessed a Mask of Set, an Egyptian god of the Desert, a domain notably not known for storms, the character would need a total of 8 Hits (3 to grasp, +3 for Faith Rating, +2 for Hard Opposition). If the character possessed both Amaterasu and Set Masks, the total required Hits would be 9.

As difficult as it is to Gather Faith, it is comparatively easy to Harvest it. Harvesting Faith is the act of simply taking Faith which is offered up by a Mortal directly to a Masquerader. This requires no roll, and is in fact automatic. At a thematically appropriate time of day, chosen by the player when the Harvesting arrangement is made, they simply gain Neutral Faith with no roll required. The difficulty is that a mortal can only offer Faith equal to their Edge+Willpower, and some of that potential Faith must be used in order to grant the Mortal the Boon which is typically used to make the Harvesting arrangement. Some Mortals will offer Faith and ask no boon in return, but it is very difficult to find a Mortal who does not need the convincing a Supernatural Gift provides. Mechanically, it is a Crazy Extreme Willpower task for a Mortal to believe that a Masquerader is a divine being worthy of their Faith, meaning that most Mortals will not believe it without something to aid their Earth-bound minds (as the average Mortal has only 2 Willpower or so, and even those with 5 will usually not roll all Hits). Further, while some will tell you that intelligence is not a hinderence to belief, it, and education, really are, as belief and faith all but require blind acceptance. As such, the Willpower roll to believe a Masquerader is a truly divine being is modified by subtracting half the Mortal's Logic rating, rounded down, from their Willpower dice (ie, a Willpower-[Logic/2] roll).

Fortunately, when a Masquerader does offer a Boon, a supernatural gift of their power, the Boon lowers the Threshold for belief by an amount equal to the Faith used to create it.

Example: Raphael has decided to try to arrange for a Harvest of Faith from a local med-student. It is very difficult for this learned man to believe the guy standing in front of him is really a being apart from humanity--even if the med-student is a practicing christian, the mind just expects a big flashy light show at the very least. The med-student has a Logic of 3 and a Willpower of 4, giving him a dicepool of 3 to believe Raphael's cock and bull story. Raphael could use a Mask to convince the guy, but doing so would create a harvest of Faith in that Mask, which isn't quite as useful to him. Instead he decides to offer the guy a deal--being a better diagnostician. It's a pretty minor thing, just an extra dot of Medicine, and possibly a specialization in Diagnosis. Improving a skill or imparting a specialization costs only 1 point of Faith Potential (Willpower+Edge), thus it lowers the Threshold for the med-student to believe in Raphael by 1, and only lowers his Faith Potential by 1 as well. It's a possible roll, but not great, and the med-student's Faith Potential is 5, so Raphael could instead make the roll a bit easier by offering the guy an encyclopedic knowledge of diagnosis, essentially meaning that he would auto-succeed all diagnoses, always knowing with certainty what a patient's problem was (unless it was divinely created). This is considerably more powerful, but still not story-altering in a huge way, costing 2 points of Faith Potential. The Belief Threshold would then be 3, and Harvesting the med-student would still give Raphael 3 Neutral Faith each day. Not bad. If Raphael wants to make it a lot easier, he could offer to give the med-student a healing touch. By expending a point of Edge, the med-student would be able to heal normal damage up to his Logic score with a single touch. A considerable Boon for a person who practices medicine. It would also cost 3 Faith Potential, which makes the Belief Roll Threshold 2, but only gives Raphael 2 Faith each day. Each of these Boons is also non-obvious, meaning that Raphael would need to content himself to wait until his mark realized that he had truly been granted supernatural power for the arrangement to be truly made.

A Harvest Arrangement can always be cancelled by either party. The Masquerader may revoke their Boon, if they gave one, or even refuse the Faith they would Harvest. If a Boon is revoked, the Mortal must make a new Belief roll which is now unmodified by the original Boon. Most people will stop believing when their blessing fails, but other people will continue to believe even when seemingly forsaken. The Mortal can willingly attempt a new Belief Roll, at the same Threshold as the Belief Roll which created the Arrangement, to attempt to disbelieve in the Masquerader. In this case, however, they are rolling Logic-(Willpower/2) at a Threshold of 5+Boon Faith Rating. If they fail, they cannot force themselves to disbelieve in their supernatural patron, if they succeed, they convince themselves that their patron is a charlatan, a liar, or otherwise unworthy of their belief. When an arrangement is revoked, all Boons are removed, and the Masquerader ceases to gain Faith from it, the compact has been completely broken, to the detriment of all parties involved.

Reaping and Ravaging
(Masqueraders taking Faith by force through revealing their natures, or sucking the Faith from their pacts at the cost of their mortals' health. To Come)
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Reaping Faith
Finding it laying on the ground and convincing someone to believe in you aren't the only ways for the divine beings known as Masqueraders to accumulate Faith. After all, if you show up in all your multi-faced blazing glory, even the most jaded person is pretty willing to suddenly reconsider their belief system.

All Masqueraders can take on a form that reflects their inherent nature and personality, and most favoured associations, known as a Revelatory Form. When this occurs, a Mortal must roll Logic+Perception or Willpower+Edge opposed by the Masquerader's Charisma+Expression or Willpower+Occult. If the Mortal wins, they manage to explain away the awe-inspiring sight before them or resist the pull on their potential to believe impossible things.

If the Masquerader wins, they force open the Mortal's mind to the truth of the Universe, imparting the knowledge of Faith and Masks in an instant. They gain an amount of Neutral Faith equal to the Mortal's Faith Potential (Edge+Willpower), but also reduce the Mortal's Faith Potential by their own Willpower rating. The Mortal's Willpower and Edge remain the same, their ability to produce Faith is just damaged because they know, and knowledge is the opposite of faith. Many Masqueraders were reaped in this way, leading them to a future of manipulating Faith just as their assaulter did.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
momothefiddler
Knight-Baron
Posts: 883
Joined: Sat Feb 22, 2014 10:55 am
Location: United States

Post by momothefiddler »

Prak_Anima wrote:their ability to produce Faith is just damaged because they know, and knowledge is the opposite of faith.
Doesn't this rather run counter to the whole consensual reality thing that defines the masks in the first place? For that matter, doesn't that contradict the thing where Raphael doesn't get his first Harvest until the med-student's Boon is proven to exist?
User avatar
Dean
Duke
Posts: 2059
Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 3:14 am

Post by Dean »

Your premise is interesting and your worldbuilding is too. The huge problem you have which I see no way of solving is that your world will look nothing like Earth and I think you're trying to put it on Earth. WoD's Masquerade has a lot of cracks in it as it is. Making a game where every character's objective is to make as many people as possible believe they are magic runs 180 degrees counter to a masquerade, and with Supernaturals advertising themselves instead of hiding the world you are making will look or operate entirely different than our world. It won't even be similar. So I don't know what your goals are regarding that.
DSMatticus wrote:Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I am filled with an unfathomable hatred.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

momothefiddler wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:their ability to produce Faith is just damaged because they know, and knowledge is the opposite of faith.
Doesn't this rather run counter to the whole consensual reality thing that defines the masks in the first place? For that matter, doesn't that contradict the thing where Raphael doesn't get his first Harvest until the med-student's Boon is proven to exist?
The problem is that if there is no downside to Reaping, then everyone does it. Masqueraders walk into giant crowds, pop their Revelatory, and grab everyone's Faith. Of course, as it is, there's nothing actually discouraging that, it occurs to me, in fact, the diminished return of Reaping encourages one to Reap as large a group as possible. So I need to go back to the drawing board on that. It may end up as purely fluff-discouraged, but there should be a mechanical discouragement too.

On the boon part... also a good point.
Dean wrote:Making a game where every character's objective is to make as many people as possible believe they are magic runs 180 degrees counter to a masquerade, and with Supernaturals advertising themselves instead of hiding the world you are making will look or operate entirely different than our world. It won't even be similar. So I don't know what your goals are regarding that.
At the moment, I'm basically stealing mechanics from Demon the Fallen and translating them into AS-engine. I definitely need to do some worldbuilding to justify a masquerade. Off the top of my head, there will be some form of enemy, and it behooves you to not attract that enemy's attention through being too obvious. Beyond that. I need to figure out other reasons why Masqueraders aren't showy. Possibly Jesus.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

The Yeshua Incident
"So... wait a minute, if our power is directly proportionate to the number of people who believe in our god like power... why the hell do we hide? We should all be fucking rockstars..."

Masqueraders used to play up their divine facades for all they were worth. Some of the contradictions in mythology exist because two different masqueraders were doing contradictory things in the same guise and their followers saw that and wrote it down, or told the story. There was a time when gods walked the earth through Masqueraders fucking about for groupies and wealth.

Then a Nazarene by the name of Yeshua told some yokels and impressionable tax collectors he was the son of the one true god and born of a virgin--virgin birth was always a good opening, all the greats claimed it--and things... got out of hand.

You see, consensual reality is a two way street. Before, most masqueraders were content to just be one of many gods that people believed in, and even if people believed they were a god from an enemy pantheon, they still believed the masquerader in question was a god. Yeshua had big brass ones to claim that he was the son of an established monotheistic god and then completely flip the table on the people he was trying to gather faith from. The fact that he claimed that the "chosen" had missed their chance, and now he would be the god of everyone just pushed things completely over the edge.

Most modern Masqueraders get along fine with only a handful of followers and the general background belief in their masks, but in the era between the Common one and the era Before it, twelve believers were no match for an entire city-state that was either completely ambivalent to your existence or dead set against it. And so Yeshua was the first Masquerader to discover the Unmasking--the phenomenon of disbelief.

In the face of the withering disbelief of the very people he was trying to reap, Yeshua found he was only able to work fairly minor miracles, such as simple transmutation and healing of the sick. Impressive though these were to his faithful, it was nothing next to the literal wall-shattering powers his purported father bestowed on on his followers, let alone the powers held by the Patriarch himself. If Yeshua had not poisoned his own well, he may well have not been slain when the peasants called for his blood.

A Masquerader who attempts to use his powers in the presence of people who actively disbelieve in them find it very difficult to do so. For every fifty disbelievers, or portion thereof, who would witness a Masquerader's use of power, the threshold to activate said power is increased by 1. For example, a Masquerader who has the extremely poorly conceived idea to attempt to use their storm summoning power to claim the Randi Foundation prize finds themselves besieged by the collective disbelief of the audience of skeptics, roughly 2000 people. While the Masquerader is genuinely able to conjure storms, they find the threshold to do so increased by 40 points. Very much not a simple task.

However, if the Masquerader can make it seem as if the effect they wish to achieve is happening by some non-direct means, they can avoid this penalty. The same Masquerader who wishes to conjure a storm to extinguish the flames of a raging warehouse fire does not face this penalty if they quietly manipulate weather patterns such that a freak storm simply rolls in, and they aren't throwing up their arms and shouting "BLOW WINDS!" at the sky. The force of disbelief only affects Masquerader's efforts when they are obviously the one attempting an action. Yes, this means that a Masquerader very much could have the power to "turn invisible, but only when people aren't looking."

So that should at least explain why Masqueraders aren't running around like rockstars with twenty disciple-groupies taking a turn in the sack with them.

...of course nothing prevents a Masquerader from using their divine power to have the stamina to bed twenty groupies in a night. It's damned impressive, but as a non-obvious use of divine endurance, Disbelief would actually not affect it (plus the power is affecting the stat, not calling for it's own roll).
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
momothefiddler
Knight-Baron
Posts: 883
Joined: Sat Feb 22, 2014 10:55 am
Location: United States

Post by momothefiddler »

Nice! I'm really enjoying this thread.
Prak_Anima wrote:For every fifty disbelievers, or portion thereof, who would witness a Masquerader's use of power, the threshold to activate said power is increased by 1.
  • Is this intended to give an increase of 1 for even one (disbelieving) onlooker?
  • What exactly constitutes disbelief? Does someone who knows nothing about the Masquerader or what they're trying to do count?
  • "twelve believers were no match for" - Do believers offset the penalty for disbelief?
  • Maybe this is just me, but a linear increase seems... inelegant. I mean if "you can make a volcano spontaneously erupt in the middle of Madison Square Garden, fault lines be damned, because you are The Son of Vulcan/A Guy Wearing Vulcan's Face" (from your original post) at a threshold increase of 400, should the penalty really be four times that to do it in the Beijing National Stadium instead? (To be fair, I don't actually know what your base die mechanic is - I looked through the thread and couldn't find it - so maybe is't something such that that's not a big deal, but it seems unlikely).
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

The idea is for this to work on the same dice mechanic as After Sundown, so (Ability+Attribute)d6, TN 5, threshold is the number of hits you need for the minimum success, and extras make you succeed better.

I think one disbeliever should raise the threshold. It actually makes it so that novice Masqueraders may actually have the ability to conjure flame from their fingers when they're alone, but then when they run to show their atheist friend find themselves unable to do it, which I consider to be a bit of a feature.

This is supposed to be urban fantasy that at least passingly resembles our world, and more than 30% of Americans polled by Gallup in 2005 believed in ghosts or haunted houses, while only 10% of Americans polled on their religious preference indicated "no religion." When I talk about disbelief, I don't mean people who don't really think about whether Zeus exists, I mean people who actively believe that Zeus either does not exist, or is a demon pretending to be a god. Basically, only people who are actually skeptical about a Masquerader's claims generate Disbelief.

Followers generate the power points that Masqueraders use to fuel their powers. In essence, to put it in AS terms, all Masqueraders are on Ritual power schedules, and their ritual is "have people believe in you, personally." That said, clearly I did mean for believers to counteract disbelievers, thinking about it, so, yeah, your personal stable of faithful should probably figure into how much disbelievers affect your magic.

The linear threshold increase is probably bad. I suppose I need to do a chart where it takes more and more disbelievers to raise your threshold penalty.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Somewhat relevant:
Image
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
momothefiddler
Knight-Baron
Posts: 883
Joined: Sat Feb 22, 2014 10:55 am
Location: United States

Post by momothefiddler »

Ah, alright. I think I'd confused TN with Threshold and was considering +40 madness. I mean, it's still madness, but...

Anyway, I don't know what your pools are looking like, but at one success per three dice, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to be like the threshold increase is the number of digits in the disbeliever pool.

Of course, maybe that's not as simple an expression of roundup(log(disbelievers)) as I originally thought it was, so a chart might be required even if you go with something that simple.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Even so, that's a much easier chart to write:
1-9 disbelievers: +1 threshold
10-99 disbelievers: +2 threshold
100-999 disbelievers: +3
1000-9999 etc.


It also makes small numbers of followers more important if they reduce threshold at the same rate, because even one follower counteracts 9 disbelievers, and can reduce the penalty of up to 99 by half.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
nockermensch
Duke
Posts: 1898
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:11 pm
Location: Rio: the Janeiro

Post by nockermensch »

Prak_Anima wrote:Somewhat relevant:
Image
LOL at the unstated assumption that a real God would conform to the judeo-christian pop view. This cartoon could be much better by adding a bare mannequin head to the top shelf, showing that the bearded white guy is also a cosplay. The way the girl is completely over-sexualized is also a problem (specially when contrasted with the three guys shown), but I know a bunch of professional artists and they (even the gay one) can't stop drawing girls like this.
@ @ Nockermensch
Koumei wrote:After all, in Firefox you keep tabs in your browser, but in SovietPutin's Russia, browser keeps tabs on you.
Mord wrote:Chromatic Wolves are massively under-CRed. Its "Dood to stone" spell-like is a TPK waiting to happen if you run into it before anyone in the party has Dance of Sack or Shield of Farts.
Zaranthan
Knight-Baron
Posts: 628
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 3:08 pm

Post by Zaranthan »

nockermensch wrote:The way the girl is completely over-sexualized is also a problem (specially when contrasted with the three guys shown), but I know a bunch of professional artists and they (even the gay one) can't stop drawing girls like this.
There are exceptions.
Post Reply