We're now past the first bloc of posts. I am distracted by a new project, working title Dreaming Waters, so this will continue once I feel I can take time away from DW. ETA to continue one week, either with a few more pieces and another break notice or to pick things back up. Spoilers for Dreaming Waters when it's closer to done.
Best wishes,
Jenna
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Examples: Competitive Praxis and Invoke
A dread power has wakened beneath the dormitory at Georgetown University. It is spreading its tendrils through the power system and dorm phones. When the spark sprite Calandra Celestine catches on (it was the wobbly feeler coming out of the phone jack that gave it away), she makes a connection to it.
Her first few attempts at a connection fail; she's not very good at tracking down eldritch horrors. Days pass while she tries to figure out what's going on. But finally she makes a breakthrough—she finds its mobile brain in the steam tunnels beneath the dorm. It escapes into a vent, but it's too late: they're now in the same scene, and in three rounds she'll be able to do something about it.
The creature finishes up its dread action, whatever that may have been, and thinks about what to do about this interloper. It makes a simple Praxis declaration: "Before the day is out, I will trap you in a locked utility closet to dwell helplessly in darkness and my presence while my power spreads."
It also explains the first part of this: "I am going to try both herding and tricking her to get her there."
Calandra isn't having any of it. She uses her free action on Invoke, invoking her lightning spell. "I weave the spell into uncontainable devastation. Nothing's going to trap me without getting its tentacles burned." Sadly, she only rolls an 18: her control of the spell isn't adequate. At best she would have woven her spell into uncontainable devastation.
Calandra joins the scene and wins initiative. That means that she has a full two rounds in which to prevent the creature's action from coming to pass. She starts with a low-end Invoke action: "I'm not an idiot! I'm staying out of lockable rooms." She rolls a 15, which isn't enough. The GM observes dryly, "Oh, yeah, you're never that kind of idiot."
Calandra is in an awkward position going into round 5. She is about to be locked in a utility closet, in the dark, and she can't even argue that her character is making a sincere effort to avoid this fate. In fact, it seems likely that she's just come to the cunning realization, "I bet that if it's trying to take over the power system, I can do something about it—in the utility closet, with the circuit breakers!"
So she abandons the attempt to avoid this fate, and instead goes for a competing use of Praxis: "I'm going to run so much power through the system that it'll fry you!" Shortly afterwards, the creature rolls its Praxis, getting 3, 6, and 9—squeaking by with a success.
It is now part of the is that she is trapped in a utility closet to dwell helplessly in darkness and its presence while its power spreads. However, unfortunately for the creature, while everyone looking at the scene would agree that she is in fact trapped and for that very purpose, it does not mandate that she is in fact helpless.
(Part of this is Calandra's player trumpeting a phrasing "gotcha." But even had the creature left out the to in to dwell helplessly, it would have been difficult to mandate with Praxis that she would stay helpless for very long—its plan was to trap her in a utility closet with the terror of monstrous tendrils in the dark, and to let her own weakness keep her there, meaning that she would have been able to recover quickly at the player's option regardless.)
This all means that the creature now must begin to consider how to keep her from frying it. It weighs two options: one, to seize her limbs or knock her unconscious; two, withdrawing from that part of the power system and in fact cutting it off entirely. The first option strikes the GM as getting a bit hentai, so the creature opts for the second. It withdraws. The creature has an available free action, so it attempts this with Invoke, achieving a quite bad 14.
That's silly, thinks the creature, so it just tries again, rolling a 1 and 3 and getting a 13. It burns a point of fairy fortune, and rolls another 1—finally! 21! The GM can't be entirely objective on whether the creature is reasonable when it attempts to withdraw from this part of the power system, but even erring towards a strict evaluation, it seems like something the creature could do it if put its whole heart into the matter.
At the beginning of round 7, Calandra rolls her Praxis. She gets a pair of 3s, for a total of 23. Unfortunately the creature has withdrawn. She would have fried it—but that doesn't mean she did. Her lightning blasts into the power system underneath the dormitory, and everywhere in the building machines turn on and lights glow super bright. She could easily argue that it reaches the creature despite its withdrawal from and even cutting off of this part of the system—but it's still taken an action to interfere, so her frying it isn't part of the is. The GM decides that she would have fried it, but instead she just hurt it; and it begins a new action of its own . . .
Her first few attempts at a connection fail; she's not very good at tracking down eldritch horrors. Days pass while she tries to figure out what's going on. But finally she makes a breakthrough—she finds its mobile brain in the steam tunnels beneath the dorm. It escapes into a vent, but it's too late: they're now in the same scene, and in three rounds she'll be able to do something about it.
Round 1
Calandra begins forging a connection to the creature.
The creature finishes up its dread action, whatever that may have been, and thinks about what to do about this interloper. It makes a simple Praxis declaration: "Before the day is out, I will trap you in a locked utility closet to dwell helplessly in darkness and my presence while my power spreads."
It also explains the first part of this: "I am going to try both herding and tricking her to get her there."
Calandra isn't having any of it. She uses her free action on Invoke, invoking her lightning spell. "I weave the spell into uncontainable devastation. Nothing's going to trap me without getting its tentacles burned." Sadly, she only rolls an 18: her control of the spell isn't adequate. At best she would have woven her spell into uncontainable devastation.
Round 2
The creature finishes up its dread action.
Round 3
Calandra's action is finishing.
She will be part of the scene in round 4.
The creature begins a Praxis action and spends its round on it.
Calandra makes an Invoke action and fails.
Calandra joins the scene and wins initiative. That means that she has a full two rounds in which to prevent the creature's action from coming to pass. She starts with a low-end Invoke action: "I'm not an idiot! I'm staying out of lockable rooms." She rolls a 15, which isn't enough. The GM observes dryly, "Oh, yeah, you're never that kind of idiot."
Round 4
Calandra is part of the scene.
The creature continues its Praxis action.
Calandra makes an Invoke action and fails.
Calandra is in an awkward position going into round 5. She is about to be locked in a utility closet, in the dark, and she can't even argue that her character is making a sincere effort to avoid this fate. In fact, it seems likely that she's just come to the cunning realization, "I bet that if it's trying to take over the power system, I can do something about it—in the utility closet, with the circuit breakers!"
So she abandons the attempt to avoid this fate, and instead goes for a competing use of Praxis: "I'm going to run so much power through the system that it'll fry you!" Shortly afterwards, the creature rolls its Praxis, getting 3, 6, and 9—squeaking by with a success.
Round 5
Calandra begins a Praxis action.
The creature locks her in a utility closet, in the dark.
It is now part of the is that she is trapped in a utility closet to dwell helplessly in darkness and its presence while its power spreads. However, unfortunately for the creature, while everyone looking at the scene would agree that she is in fact trapped and for that very purpose, it does not mandate that she is in fact helpless.
(Part of this is Calandra's player trumpeting a phrasing "gotcha." But even had the creature left out the to in to dwell helplessly, it would have been difficult to mandate with Praxis that she would stay helpless for very long—its plan was to trap her in a utility closet with the terror of monstrous tendrils in the dark, and to let her own weakness keep her there, meaning that she would have been able to recover quickly at the player's option regardless.)
This all means that the creature now must begin to consider how to keep her from frying it. It weighs two options: one, to seize her limbs or knock her unconscious; two, withdrawing from that part of the power system and in fact cutting it off entirely. The first option strikes the GM as getting a bit hentai, so the creature opts for the second. It withdraws. The creature has an available free action, so it attempts this with Invoke, achieving a quite bad 14.
That's silly, thinks the creature, so it just tries again, rolling a 1 and 3 and getting a 13. It burns a point of fairy fortune, and rolls another 1—finally! 21! The GM can't be entirely objective on whether the creature is reasonable when it attempts to withdraw from this part of the power system, but even erring towards a strict evaluation, it seems like something the creature could do it if put its whole heart into the matter.
Round 5 (continued)
Calandra begins a Praxis action.
The creature locks her in a utility closet, in the dark.
The creature fails its Invoke.
Round 6
Calandra continues her Praxis action.
The creature withdraws.
At the beginning of round 7, Calandra rolls her Praxis. She gets a pair of 3s, for a total of 23. Unfortunately the creature has withdrawn. She would have fried it—but that doesn't mean she did. Her lightning blasts into the power system underneath the dormitory, and everywhere in the building machines turn on and lights glow super bright. She could easily argue that it reaches the creature despite its withdrawal from and even cutting off of this part of the system—but it's still taken an action to interfere, so her frying it isn't part of the is. The GM decides that she would have fried it, but instead she just hurt it; and it begins a new action of its own . . .
Friday, August 28, 2009
Mist: Rank 0
Rank 0 Mist
(Difficulty 15)
"The Dissolution of Doubt"
Effects at this rank of Mist unmake what is already unreal—causes a thing that is not to remain not, an illusion to unravel, a lie to demonstrate it false and not part of the is.
To use this rank of Mist you must name an apparent thing that you believe unreal. It need not be formally an illusion or a lie: it suffices that it be a thing which presents itself as existing, or longs towards existing, but is currently inclined towards falsehood and certainly no closer to reality than the would have been.
Success returns the MP or available free action; failure (whether because the thing you targeted was real or because your roll did not suffice) consumes them. If you have targeted a "hesitant" or "legendary form" that sought to become real, then you may opt to roll damage instead of recovering your MP or action; if your target was either illusory or never there at all, then the GM eliminates it from play. In this fashion, much as you may use Praxis to confirm the existence of a thing you believe so, you may use Mist to falsify an idea you believe to be untrue.
The fairy term for this effects is to see the mist; the fairy, wondering if a thing is real, catches sight of the shrouding of mist around it, and knows it is not so. Darkness sprites have a facility and intimacy with the Mist, and receive a +1 on this roll.
Elemental spirits of rank 0 Mist include the reason catchers, the city wells, and some argue the darkness sprites themselves. These are creatures that specialize either in the dissolution and containment of illusion, or the simplification and reduction of the forms of the world.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Game Rules: Prompt Actions
Prompt actions are like standard actions, in that occupy the character's attention for 3-7 rounds, but like free actions in that they take effect immediately. They're front-loaded—the character acts, and then spends time recovering or adjusting details or preventing backlash.
You can use a prompt action whenever you have an available free action. That means you can use any prompt action while already executing a standard action. If the prompt action would normally take X rounds to complete, in this case, it adds X-1 rounds to the time remaining on that standard action instead. MP reduces this as normal. For instance, if you are engaged in a standard action, and use a 3-round prompt action, that standard action will take 2 extra rounds to complete. As a degenerate example, imagine that you are on round 1 of a combat and start a ritual that will complete on round 7. On round 2, you use a 5-round prompt action: this pushes the ritual's end back to round 11. On round 5, you get another available free action, so you do it again; the ritual will now end on round 15. You can keep doing this forever, and the ritual never completes.
You can also use prompt actions while not executing a standard action. In this case treat the prompt action as a standard action that happens to yield immediate results; you get an available free action. Thus, if you're just sitting around, and then you use a 7-round prompt action, you can use a free action too, and then another three rounds later, and so forth and so on.
P.S.
Anyone know how to cut and paste from Word into blogger in a fashion that preserves italics and basic formatting but doesn't create Word's horrific beastTML?
You can use a prompt action whenever you have an available free action. That means you can use any prompt action while already executing a standard action. If the prompt action would normally take X rounds to complete, in this case, it adds X-1 rounds to the time remaining on that standard action instead. MP reduces this as normal. For instance, if you are engaged in a standard action, and use a 3-round prompt action, that standard action will take 2 extra rounds to complete. As a degenerate example, imagine that you are on round 1 of a combat and start a ritual that will complete on round 7. On round 2, you use a 5-round prompt action: this pushes the ritual's end back to round 11. On round 5, you get another available free action, so you do it again; the ritual will now end on round 15. You can keep doing this forever, and the ritual never completes.
You can also use prompt actions while not executing a standard action. In this case treat the prompt action as a standard action that happens to yield immediate results; you get an available free action. Thus, if you're just sitting around, and then you use a 7-round prompt action, you can use a free action too, and then another three rounds later, and so forth and so on.
P.S.
Anyone know how to cut and paste from Word into blogger in a fashion that preserves italics and basic formatting but doesn't create Word's horrific beastTML?
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Game Rules: Standard Actions and MP
Standard Actions
A standard action will, therefore, take 3-7 rounds of effort to complete. That's most of a day, at the low end, and 2-3 days at the high end—but the time cost in hours isn't really important. Sometimes things will move faster than the 4-6 hour rounds we've discussed, sometimes slower, and if you really need to do something quickly in real time it'll either be possible or impossible with a relatively small relationship to the number of rounds you take.Instead, the cost of taking many rounds to perform an action is that, first, you're using up more of whatever time you happen to have to accomplish things—burning up more of the scene, if there's any limit at all to how long it will last. And second, you're offering people who might wish to oppose your action more time in which to finish up whatever else they might wish to do and enact some action that opposes you.
It doesn't take much to make your what is into a would have been. All someone has to do is get in your way. It's always better, in the sense of working out what actually does happen, if they don't put up much in the way of opposition, if they just glancingly deflect your intent—but even the lightest interference is enough to disrupt the absolute isness of your actions.
You may normally start a standard (or prompt) action on any round in which you are:
- not executing a standard or prompt action;
- have not used a free action.
Each character, however, has a supply of Magic Points or MP which can be spent to reduce the time that they must invest in a given action. These MP save you one round each. If you spend sufficient MP to reduce an action to one round, it becomes a free action; if you spend enough to reduce its time to 0 rounds, it becomes an "interrupt" (able to preempt even other free actions, and usable even when you don't have a free action available.)
So imagine that you are engaged in a complex Ritual action, occupying 7 rounds. On the second round you use a free action. On the fifth round, you want to use a 5-round Social action, but you can't—you're busy! You spend 4 MP and it's a free action. The very next round you want to do it again, but you don't have a free action available. You spend 5 MP, and use the new action as an interrupt. The very next round, you need to use an ordinary free action; you have to spend one last MP to squeeze it in.
You may spend MP on the action you're currently taking.
Thus another way to do this set of actions, above, is to carry out five rounds of the Ritual action. Then spend 4 MP to complete the Social action as a free action and 2 MP to finish the ritual. The next round, you may start a new Social action, and the round after that you use a free action. This saves you 4 MP, but the savings are somewhat illusory: you are, after all, tied up for the next four rounds.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Game Rules: Rounds and Actions
Time is measured in rounds. Rounds are abstract but typically represent 4-6 hours in the game world. A typical conflict plays out over several days.
Actions break down into the following categories:
You can take one free action at some point during the execution of a standard action. This is called your "available free action." Three rounds after you use that available free action, it comes back. That means that during a 7-round action, you could use your free action on the first round, then the fourth, then the seventh—or, if that timing doesn't work out for you, on the second and the sixth. If you start another 7-roudn action afterwards, you could take a new free action immediately—the new standard action comes with its own available free action, effectively resetting the three round counter.
If you aren't executing a standard or prompt action, you have a free action available every round.
Actions
Actions break down into the following categories:
- Standard Actions take 3-7 rounds to complete, including:
- Praxis actions, which usually take 3 rounds;
- Social actions, which usually take 5 rounds;
- Magic actions, which usually take 6 rounds; and
- Ritual actions, which usually take 7 rounds.
- Free Actions take effect instantly; including:
- Invoke actions, which are typically instant; and
- Mist actions, which are able to interrupt other actions. And finally
- Prompt Actions have characteristics of both—they take effect at the same speed as Invoke or Mist actions, but then leave the character committed for some number of rounds.
You can take one free action at some point during the execution of a standard action. This is called your "available free action." Three rounds after you use that available free action, it comes back. That means that during a 7-round action, you could use your free action on the first round, then the fourth, then the seventh—or, if that timing doesn't work out for you, on the second and the sixth. If you start another 7-roudn action afterwards, you could take a new free action immediately—the new standard action comes with its own available free action, effectively resetting the three round counter.
If you aren't executing a standard or prompt action, you have a free action available every round.
Monday, August 24, 2009
RFC: Points of Most Interest
This ought to be a Saturday topic, but I wanted to pin the connection and flows bits together. What do people most need to see at this point to make this start to pull together for the readership into a coherent whole? There's a lot more written past the next couple of days of posts, but it's in rougher form, so if there's something that stands out for many people, there's a chance I can polish it up first. Or not, of course, as the whim takes me. ^_^
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