consequences of magic redux

[Valamir]

Jinx, that's exactly how I do it in Robots & Rapiers.

The GM is responsible for roleplaying your characters programming...which means taking over your character and running it accordingly.  But every time he does this he has to give you Inspiration which, among other things, is used to purchase resistance to the GM's attempts to do this in the form of increasing your robot's free will and decreasing its reliance on programming.

[madelf]

I think there's a few good points that have cropped up.

Consolation for loss of control:
It could probably be argued that Shadow (though a curse) is also a reward since it makes you more powerful. But I doubt that some other reward that was a little less two-edged would hurt anything. Perhaps a fortune (or whatever) point system could be included (I've always rather liked those anyway). That way, when you loose control of your character's nature you get something that you could use to alter the outcome of some other event.

Assigning control of Shadow to another player:
This is actually not a bad idea at all. Although I haven't gotten to how I might address it yet, I've been thinking that a means of sharing narration might be in order for this game anyway. I'm not sure it would lend itself entirely well to traditional "adventuring party" style play, but more to spotlighting a character for a time and then moving on to another, while having the actions of all the characters impact each others world. I was thinking that some sort of shared narration would help to keep all the players involved while only one character was in the spotlight.
Unfortunately I have zero experience with playing games using these sorts of "multiple GM" tricks, so I've got some studying to do there as well.

Voluntary application of penalty:
(From the Pendragon example of keeping your vice score low enough that you don't have to worry about losing control). This could be easily added in. Say (just for example) you have to roll 3d6 for resisting Shadow. If your target number is a 3, you automatically succeed. On the other hand, if your target number is twenty, you may be in trouble (even with modifiers or an exploding dice pool, high enough scores could be bad). I would expect that most characters would end up hovering around the lower end, hanging on to enough Shadow to power the magic they need, but keeping it low enough to still function normally most of the time. But, there's the power thing too. I think half the fun of this game, if I can pull it off, is going to be seeing how people decide to play it. Will they stay good, and stay in control, fighting the good fight the hard way... or will they take the dark road to redemption, selling out to the Shadow and hoping the power they gain will let them do great deeds and redeem themselves that way?

Breaking down the Shadow:
I've thought about this too. Letting each person pick their own "bad thing." Or maybe have multiple bad things. Each time you gain another point of Shadow, you either make an existing vice worse, or gain a new vice. Right now I'm leaning more toward simply "bad stuff" and letting it go at that. And then whoever does the choosing can pick what evil we'll be doing today (or maybe randomize it?).  It allows for more flexibility and the character doesn't have to stick to a single vice unless they want to.

Resist now for complications later:
This is interesting. It would give back some more player control. Maybe you could choose to succeed now, but you'll automatically fail the next time. Or maybe you can choose to be good against your nature whenever you wish, but if you override your failed resistance  it drives you to specifically do an evil act to "make up for it". Or holding off the madness makes the madness worse when it does come out, temporarily cranking up your Shadow so you do something worse the next time than you might have otherwise?
This one will take some thought, but I think there's good stuff there.

Vices grant powers:
Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm going for I think. I want the characters walking that tightrope between - bad enough to be effective - and  - good enough to not be worse than the bad guys.

Ron,

I saved you for last because you're vexing me.
Or perplexing me, something like that.
;)

I'll freely admit I'm not intimately familiar with Vampire, but I have played it a few times (and Werewolf a few more) .
In the games I played, there was nothing like what I'm going for here. Now I honestly don't know if that's the fault of the game or the GMs. But there was never more than a hand wave to the "lost humanity" concept in the Vampire games and it was too far in the background to really impact play. I don't recall even that much in Werewolf.

Actually the closest thing I can recall to what I'm trying to do from those systems was the Vampire "frenzy" and Werewolf "rage". Although those are not entirely unlike what I want to do (and honestly probably are similar),  they were far too one-sided. The stuff never came into play unless it was a combat situation, and then it was nothing but a huge bonus. There was never any concern over long term disadvantages. Sure going into a frenzy seemed to be mildly embarrassing to the more social Vampires, but in Werewolf rage seemed like something you couldn't get enough of. Particularly in Vampire I got a lot more "Evil and loving it" vibe than any worries over being an insane killing machine. At least the Werewolves were tree-huggers when they weren't killing things.

So this is why I'm a little confused when you say that I'm planting a well-claimed field. My experiences (though limited) say otherwise. Even if I ended up using the exact same mechanic (which I'll have to doubt until I can borrow a Vampire book), they would certainly have to be applied differently.

As to your list of issues:

1) Increasing Shadow is not necessarily inevitable, though certainly possible. Fluctuating Shadow certainly is inevitable, and going back to snowy-white goodness is going to be all but impossible.

2)It should be quite rapid. If they're not being careful, a character should notice significant changes over a session or two, if not over a single session. I'm not sure what you're getting at by "exponential increase"

3)rate of Shadow gain: It's not a matter of only being able to slow the gain in Shadow. The taint can't be completely clensed (maybe by a heroic death or something), but the accumulation of Shadow can definitely be reversed. Shadow can be reduced. It just gets harder the more you have.

4)severity of restrictions is something I'll probably have to work out in play testing. How far it could, or should, be pushed... I'm not sure yet. I also think a method where the player can choose to reduce the restriction within the mechanism of the game is important, and (I think) has been established in these noted already.
Really the whole thing is kind of about experimentation and finding the edges of the character's (and by extension the player's) comfort zone.

Your example is interesting though. And leads me into number

5)Maybe some sort of bidding system where a player can spend points to "force" another player's Shadow to come into play if they think the situation warrants it, or it would make things interesting? Might be fun.

As far as it falling into the category of an existing game, I'm certainly not worried about that.
I'm not all that interested in innovation just to be innovative. I've always thought "If  it ain't broke, don't fix it" to be excellent advice. I'm just trying to pull together something that works well with this idea that's coalescing from my head. If that means I end up using a mechanic that has come before, so be it. It wouldn't be the first time. (I got sick of counting coins in my games once and -with a little help- invented a wealth system, only to find almost the same thing in d20Modern. That annoyed me for all of about  a nanosecond) I'm not losing any sleep over that sort of thing. As long as it works the way I want it to, great.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Whoa - Calvin, I totally agree with your assessment that Vampire was lacking in the Humanity "teeth" department. I'm given to understand that this feature varied a lot among different editions, which is why I suggested looking over the whole range (1st, 2nd, Revised, and now Requiem, I think, unless I'm missing something).

Cyberpunk had two distinct phases: the original edition, in which Humanity loss was constantly present as a risk and nigh-crippling, and 2020, in which a kind of minor nod was thrown in that direction while people got down to the business of blowing things up.

Anyway, don't let me rain on the parade. Do check out Kult and Cyberpunk (especially 1st ed) if you haven't seen them, because they were hard-core Humanity loss games with all sorts of physical effects in the former, a lot like what you were talking about. And if you can come up with a better way of doing it, especially given all the great feedback so far, then count me as a cheerleader, not a gloomer.

Best,
Ron

[madelf]

Hey Ron,

I hope I wasn't sounding too defensive there (although looking back it's probably hopeless). I do appreciate the input, I think I just got the idea you were saying Vampire, etc was doing the exact same thing and that was confusing me a good bit.

I will take a look at it. Well, (to be honest) I'll probably twist the arms of some friends that are more heavily into WoD first to see what they can tell me. Maybe they can direct me to the most appropriate version(s).

Cyberpunk and Kult might be harder to track down (They are both out of print, right?), but I'll ask around and see if anyone has them tucked away somewhere.

BTW: Anyone know if the Cyberpunk humanity loss is anything like the essence loss & cyber-psychosis in Shadowrun? 'Cause I know some folks with boxes of Shadowrun books.

[clehrich]

Assigning control of Shadow to another player:
This is actually not a bad idea at all. Although I haven't gotten to how I might address it yet, I've been thinking that a means of sharing narration might be in order for this game anyway. I'm not sure it would lend itself entirely well to traditional "adventuring party" style play, but more to spotlighting a character for a time and then moving on to another, while having the actions of all the characters impact each others world. I was thinking that some sort of shared narration would help to keep all the players involved while only one character was in the spotlight.
Unfortunately I have zero experience with playing games using these sorts of "multiple GM" tricks, so I've got some studying to do there as well.

One suggestion: be extremely specific about writing guidance for players controlling others' Shadow.  In my somewhat limited experience of this sort of parcelled-out control, there is a significant difference in tone between "The GM rules" and "My co-player rules".

What I mean is that if the GM says, "Okay, you are now hosed," there is (as you know from Fred's concerns) the potential for the player response, "Hey, that sucks."  This obviously isn't a good thing.  But if you hand this over to another player, what can rapidly happen is, "Okay, Dave, you're hosed in this really hilarious way, ha ha," to which the natural response seems to be, "Oh, that's okay, it's funny."  InSpectres takes this to extremes with the Confessional (is that what it's called?), where one player blandly hoses another.  Nobody responds, I think, to this mechanic in InSpectres with, "Hey, you took away my autonomy, that sucks"; the assumption is that it's okay to do this so long as it's funny, and it's funnier if your friends do it.

My point is that your game doesn't sound like it's supposed to be a laugh riot.  I would worry that handing this authority to other players may produce that effect.  So, as I said at the beginning of this rambling post, be very specific about what players should and should not do to each other.

[madelf]

Chris,

Now you're worrying me.
:)

Seriously though, you're right. It could be cause for trouble. This is not a funny game, and anything your buddy is going to do to "hose you" is going to be evil and unpleasant. Keeping things friendly under those circumstances might well be asking a lot out of the average gaming group. I'm sure the folks I generally game with could handle it, but I've known a few that probably couldn't.

Something else to think about.

Thanks.

[madelf]

Here's the glimmering of an idea...

To get the other players involved when a single character is in the spotlight (but not have them directly narrate the outcome of the situation and get the other player annoyed at them), how about a system where the players could spend points on putting pressure on one another? Pressure to help resist the Shadow, pressure to make it harder to resist...

The other players could be like the little angels and devils sitting on the shoulders of the spot-lighted character. "Do this". "No, do this instead." They can use the points in their meddling pool (until I think of a better term) to "up the ante" and make life more difficult (or easier if they choose) for the current character.

The current character might also have a pool of points (maybe these are the points one gets as compensation for failing a prior resistence check) to use against the "meddlers" or reduce the severity of their influence.

If the character fails the resistance check (due to the meddling or otherwise), he has to act out an evil outcome of whatever severity is determined (or postpone for future consequences), but that player can still choose the specifics of the action himself.

Or... maybe any of the other players can come up with outcomes of their choosing, and the current player must bid against them somehow to determine which outcome he gets stuck with. Maybe he can outbid the highest bidder to choose his own action, or he can use his points to buy off the highest points from the top bid to choose a lower bid outcome he likes better. And if all the outcomes are intolerable, he can tough it out and postpone his evil act until a later time when he (maybe) has more points to bid with.

Just kind of thinking with the keyboard here.

I guess what I'm talking about is a way for the players to influence the outcome, without actually narrating it.

Does this half-assed outline of a method make any sense, or are there other methods of doing this sort of thing that I should be looking at?

[TonyLB]

They can use the points in their meddling pool (until I think of a better term) to "up the ante" and make life more difficult (or easier if they choose) for the current character.

I think this is the key to making this system powerful without impinging on the free will of the person being meddled with.

Don't say "If you fail this roll you must eviscerate the puppy".  Do say "Eviscerate the puppy and you'll get a knife-fighting bonus... don't and I'll reduce your driving skill, scratch your favorite CDs and burn lewd arcane figures into your forehead."

Then create a concrete way in which players benefit whenever they successfully meddle in the lives of another player (so that there's no sense that it's out of personal malice) and I think you're good to go.

Anyway, that's my two cents.  YMMV.

[madelf]

If you fail this roll you must eviscerate the puppy

Does this mean I need to take a look at "kill puppies for satan" too?
;)




Edit:
Crap. Y'know, I meant that as a joke. But thinking about it... Do something evil, get points of evil, spend points of evil to do supernatural evil things... I'm making a "serious" game that can be outlined with the same description as "kill puppies for satan".
I think I need more sleep.
:)