Ok Question time from the new guy

[Abhoth]

Ok several questions:

So essentially I need to create my own mythos for the way sorcerery works (ie like the way's presented in the back, IE Classical vs Radical, and Classical demons are different to radical demons. Also you get a bonus equal to your lore (is that a bonus number of dice?) on all sorcerery rolls in which you know the demons true name, and if you dont know the true name then you get a significant penalty). One thing that concerns me is that I dont do somthing that is "out of feel", if I may ask a very naive question, How do I go about making little rules for my demon system like what you did Ron in Classical vs Radical? say for instance I Decide that socercers need a circle of binding to safely summon a demon (ie the circle keeps the demon from attacking/doing anything till the pact is made) or that sorcerers can also create "boundaires" around their houses that demons cant easily cross?

Second question is when does  player actually die? lets see some one gets shot a lot and goes down, how do I decide if his dead if my story doesnt call for a specific result?

Cheers everyone!

PS-Only got the main rules so far, still waiting on the other books (I bought a separate copy here in australia I saw at a second hand bookstore!)

[Abhoth]

Another question I just thought of, how do you work out how tough the begining demon a PC starts with is? is it up to the player or generally the GM?

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'm going to leave the mythos questions for other people, but a discussion about living and dying after massive damage can be found here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=8724.0

And a discussion about the power of starting Demons can be found here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=8771.0

Hope that helps.

[5niper9]

Hi Abhoth,

let's see if I can answer your questions.
What you mention in the first paragraph is just Ron's idea and serves as an example. Since the knowledge about the true name is bound to supernatural things it is connected with lore. When you give your player the choice to play one of the classical sorcerers, they can choose so and lead the play into a certain direction.  Another example would be a fraction who uses passer demons in forms of (big) animals. And you get a bonus if you can prove that you are superior in the physicallly sense. This would lead to a more "macho"-play.
Think about what style the game should have and play a bit with the rules.

say for instance I Decide that socercers need a circle of binding to safely summon a demon (ie the circle keeps the demon from attacking/doing anything till the pact is made) or that sorcerers can also create "boundaires" around their houses that demons cant easily cross?

Correct me if I'm wrong but what you describe seems nearly identical with the idea of a contain. Look at page 89.

Second question is when does  player actually die? lets see some one gets shot a lot and goes down, how do I decide if his dead if my story doesnt call for a specific result?

There are no rules in the system which would let the character die. He could be at the end of his power, down and out, but not dead (yet). If it isn't a climatical point I wouldn_t call for the death of a character.

Another question I just thought of, how do you work out how tough the begining demon a PC starts with is? is it up to the player or generally the GM?

Let the players decide. Be happy when (not if ) they give you stronger toys to play with.

Greetings,
René

[Abhoth]

Thanks for the answers mates!

Um I just run that introductury adventure in the main rules about that demonic possessed house, we ran it as a collective just to see how the game worked, now I have a question, we thought that it would be possible to banish or bind the house if the players grouped up but from what I understand a player makes a roll against the house if he was banishing/binding it and that acts as a bonus to the "lead" characters roll, that strikes me as a pointless mechanic, if the assit players win their roll then the house is essentially banished/binded if they werent assiting but trying to banish it themselves. Am I getting somthing wrong here? am I making a incorrect assumption? as the scenario played out all the characters and their demons were eaten by the house (despite the 1 dice penality the house got for each time it used a power, btw does this 1 dice penalty from power use apply to all rolls the demon makes? including resistance rolls to banish?, stamina rolls to resist damage?


Please help me understand this system more thougherly!

Thank you all

[5niper9]

OK one for one:

we thought that it would be possible to banish or bind the house if the players grouped up but from what I understand a player makes a roll against the house if he was banishing/binding it and that acts as a bonus to the "lead" characters roll, that strikes me as a pointless mechanic, if the assit players win their roll then the house is essentially banished/binded if they werent assiting but trying to banish it themselves.

Why should it be pointless? Let us look at the roll:
Banish is against Power + Will + Binding Strength. That are 26 dice in this case (11+11+4). That is a lot.
Let's assume four sorcerers (each with humanity 5) try to do it in a snapshot. So only one for the will but still the whole humanity. That are (1+5)*4 = 24 dice. Some nifty describtions and you are on the spot.

Ok, what if the lead sorcerer tries it alone? That would be 26 dice against 6 dice perhaps a bit more.
Now you say me: how is that not more efficient?

the 1 dice penality the house got for each time it used a power

I think I notice a mistake here. When a demon uses one of it's power you somewhere note it. If it should use more powers than it's Stamina that it get one penalty. These work quite similar to lasting damage penalties. If it should use it's power more than X times it can no longer use it's powers (where X is Stamina times 2).

Greetings,
René

[Abhoth]

OK one for one:

we thought that it would be possible to banish or bind the house if the players grouped up but from what I understand a player makes a roll against the house if he was banishing/binding it and that acts as a bonus to the "lead" characters roll, that strikes me as a pointless mechanic, if the assit players win their roll then the house is essentially banished/binded if they werent assiting but trying to banish it themselves.

Why should it be pointless? Let us look at the roll:
Banish is against Power + Will + Binding Strength. That are 26 dice in this case (11+11+4). That is a lot.
Let's assume four sorcerers (each with humanity 5) try to do it in a snapshot. So only one for the will but still the whole humanity. That are (1+5)*4 = 24 dice. Some nifty describtions and you are on the spot.

Ok, what if the lead sorcerer tries it alone? That would be 26 dice against 6 dice perhaps a bit more.
Now you say me: how is that not more efficient?

Im confused sir, I thought if you tried to help some one in co-operative roll you each rolled individually against the house so each sorcerer rolls against 26 dice of the house and then teh total their successess (so if you have 4 of em, each makes a seperate roll and totals the result as a bonus to teh 4th persons roll). From what your saying co-operative banising is different,  the main sorcerer adds his will to teh combined total of the other socerers humanity? im confused, can some one tell me how co-operative rolls work in all situations? ie banishing, binding, lifting a heavy object etc

[Ron Edwards]

Hey everyone,

Let me pick it up from here. A lot of you have provided really good responses, but right now I think I should be the one to clarify this last issue.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Let's clarify the actual rule first, when several sorcerers are trying to cooperate on a task.

1. One person is pre-designated as the actual Banisher (or whatever ritual is involved); we'll call him the "primary" for now.

2. Everyone except the rolls separately against the threat. No rolls are combined in any way.

3. If anyone succeeds in his or her roll, the demon is not Banished (or whatever). The victorious dice are counted for each, and the same number of dice is now added to the primary's dice.

4. The primary rolls, using his or her standard scores for Banishing (or whatever), with bonus dice equal to those gained in #3.

The question is, why not just have everyone try Banishing separately? After all, a successful roll against the demon in step 2 would have Banished the demon, right? Why "waste" that by conferring a couple of extra dice onto someone else's roll?

The answer is, that Sorcerer mechanics do not encourage teamwork among equal sorcerers. If everyone has a single die against a demon, and each has a common goal, as in a desperate snapshot ritual to Banish it, then sure - don't team up, just have everyone take his or her shot separately.

However, there are many situations in which the helping rules for sorcery do make a difference. It's a trade-off between going for multiple tries at an unlikely outcome, or using multiple unlikely boosts to make a single outcome more likely.

A strong sorcerer with several weak disciples may benefit greatly from a lucky roll from one of them. I have playtested and (later) played these rules intensively and am content with their effects during play. I recommend not trying to anticipate how they'll turn out in your actual games later.

I also suggest that nothing about the scenario in the book forces a Banishing attempt on Yvor to be a snapshot ... I've seen groups decide, in this situation, to convince the demon that they are trying to Bind it, so that it enters into a full-length ritual with them, and then Banish it instead.

Best, Ron

[dikaiosunh (Daniel)]

Sorry to jump in, but I've been watching this thread because I'm also confused about this rule...

Maybe I'm just being dense, but I still don't see how combining in this case confers any advantage... let's assume (per very unlikely) that you could either opt to all try to banish separately, or combine your efforts but that the dice would fall the same way either way (this is, after all, sort of what you'd be imagining if you were trying to decide which to do).  I still don't see how, even with weak secondary sorcerers, you're not always better off having everyone try to banish separately.  Even if a secondary rolls luckily, that lucky roll has a better effect if it stands alone as a successful banish than if it adds to a primary's banish roll (which might still fail).  I wouldn't think you'd even get a speed advantage, since presumably those weak sorcerers'd have to act at their normal sequence in the round, and the primary wait for their banish attempts to "go off" to get any advantage.  I could see, of course, why you might want to do this for a binding roll, where the *number* of successes counts.

Also, since you can roll-over bonus dice from other, related actions, wouldn't it generally be a better strategy for one of the weaker sorcerers to, e.g., say, "I'm rolling Lore to determine whether I can draw the sigil of Ibn Ghazi and cow Yvor" (or something appropriate to the group's understanding of sorcery), which would presumably be easier than the banish, and then roll *those* dice into the primary's banish roll?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Daniel,

Yes to all of that, most of the time. I didn't write the helping rules in order to foster teamwork-tactics during play. I wrote them to permit one sorcerer to bully or convince another to serve his or her agenda, instead of whatever that guy might be doing on his own.

See the difference? These rules are not about tactically increasing the probability of success. They are about whether someone is doing what he or she wants, or what another person wants.

That doesn't mean that a numerical advantage is never available through the helping rules. Your point about Binding is spot-on. and there are some other contexts in which the same point applies.

Best, Ron

[dikaiosunh (Daniel)]

Bear with me, as this may just be re-stating the obvious, but I want to make sure that I understand...

1. Mechanically: if, for whatever reason, everyone has the same ultimate goal, their chance of achieving that goal is better if they all try to achieve it separately than if they all try to "combine" efforts by going after the same goal in unison (e.g., everyone just rolls to Banish themselves instead of everyone rolling to Banish and then pushing successes to the "primary").
2.  Mechanically: their chances are even *better* if "secondaries" prop up the primary not by doing the *same* thing but by doing some related, easier thing (e.g., "I help out by drawing a circle!"  "I punch the demon in the nose so it's distracted!").
3.  *Thematically*: the point is not to reward straightforward everyone-wins cooperation (e.g., "Let's all Banish together! 1... 2... 3... yay teamwork!").  Rather, if you're going to work together effectively, there needs to be some sort of explicit structure/hierarchy where one sorcerer does the thing and others are relegated to her helpers (and sorcerers don't like to be helpers...).

Is that right?

- Daniel

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Daniel,

That's right!

With the caveat that sometimes, for any number of reasons in the heat of play, people will want to boost the dice of one person's roll rather than do the "thing" themselves. I draw your attention to the Humanity rules of regarding Contact and Summon, for instance, and there are others.

So stay open to the idea that those mechanics do exist for emergent reasons during play.

Best, Ron