Pagoda

[Jeph]

Spooky, I was thinking that advancement would be handled mostly with shifting Chi. I.E., if you have 5 Chi points, you're going to perform more competantly and on a more regular basis than someone with the exact same stats, but only 2 Chi points. Although I guess letting players "rebalance" their characters at certain times, subject to GM discretion, would be appropriate to the genre, and I'm open to suggestions on systems for that.

[ThreeGee]

Hey Jeph,

I know nothing about Chinese, so I cannot help you there, but 'magus' comes from Old Persian and has nothing to do with wisdom. Magh- is related to modern words like may (to be able) or might (power). The Magi were the Zoroastrian priests of ancient Persia.

To myself, a Westerner, using magi to represent a singular Far Eastern person is horribly confused. Unless you are deliberately going for an exotic term in (to me, at least) an already exotic setting, I would suggest finding something else.

Later,
Grant

[Spooky Fanboy]

That makes sense, given the genre: You will always be who you are, but you get better at it as time passes and focus becomes clearer.

It should be noted in the character creation phase that players should find a mix they like early on, because they're going to have to work with it for the rest of that character's life.

[Jeph]

Good suggestion, Spooky. I'll add that to the 'About Pagoda' section.

When I wrote Path of the Magi, I was thinking along the lines not of DnD spell-chuckers, but more O Henry's short story, about . . . what was it, a comb and a watch? Anyway, the story is entitled The Gift of the Magi, and is because of the knowledge that was imparted upon the couple by the events that occured. But whatever, it's Path of the Sage now. =)

Development note: Ive merged the Path of the Shaman and Path of the Sorcerer into the Path of the Spirits, written up an overall magic section called Priests and Sorcerers with a bit of advice about using magic and the explanations behind it, and taken away some of the caster-centric flavor text behind the Spirit Magic and Elemental Magic sections.

[Zak Arntson]

I know advancement is a dirty word to some people, but it seems appropriate for this game, at least at the end of a scenario.

I'd go further and suggest advancement in the middle of a scenario, surrounding an important emotional event. When the hero is almost down, when he discovers the love of his life is still alive, when the evil priest is about to kill his mother. These are the times when a hero suddenly becomes even stronger.

As far as in-between scenarios, I'd push towards a non-linear approach. Scenarios don't necessarily follow right after each other, so that a group can play characters at different points in their lives.

[Spooky Fanboy]

I'd go further and suggest advancement in the middle of a scenario, surrounding an important emotional event. When the hero is almost down, when he discovers the love of his life is still alive, when the evil priest is about to kill his mother. These are the times when a hero suddenly becomes even stronger.

I second that. Good point, Zak! That certainly is more flavor-centered than my (half-considered) suggestion was.

[iago]

I know advancement is a dirty word to some people, but it seems appropriate for this game, at least at the end of a scenario.

I'd go further and suggest advancement in the middle of a scenario, surrounding an important emotional event. When the hero is almost down, when he discovers the love of his life is still alive, when the evil priest is about to kill his mother. These are the times when a hero suddenly becomes even stronger.

As far as in-between scenarios, I'd push towards a non-linear approach. Scenarios don't necessarily follow right after each other, so that a group can play characters at different points in their lives.

Is that advancement -- or a "powered up" sequence, of sorts?

If you had some way to rate -- per character -- how "dire" current circumstances are, and then have various abilities and bonuses available only at certain thresholds of "direness", you could have that moment of "okay, NOW you've made me MAD" without a lot of scrambling to figure out how to allocate your points (since that decision was made back when you made your character in the first place and chose your 'powered up' bits).

[iago]

If you had some way to rate -- per character -- how "dire" current circumstances are, and then have various abilities and bonuses available only at certain thresholds of "direness", you could have that moment of "okay, NOW you've made me MAD" without a lot of scrambling to figure out how to allocate your points (since that decision was made back when you made your character in the first place and chose your 'powered up' bits).

Yes, I'm replying to myself.

This could also be done by some sort of "Pathos" counter that a character might have, which would accumulate over time.  Once a player decides to start spending Pathos (which would enhance any ability it is applied to), they wouldn't be accumulating it anymore until they spent it all out.

This would model the 'things are bad... things suck... things REALLY suck... this are AS BAD AS THEY CAN GET... and NOW I GO KUNG FU ON YOU WHAP Whap whap... denoument' plot model on a character-by-character basis, and would encourage people to hoard all their Pathos until the moment of cathartic butt-kicking arrives.

[Jeph]

Nich. A bit too complicated, Iago. How 'bout, whenever the GM sees that a character is in that kind of circumstance, and actually bases their actions off of the appropriate element instead of munchkinizing their Mastery, they give out a few free Chi that last until the end of the scene. A lot simpler, and the exact same end result: powers up the character for a short time.

[Jonathan Walton]

Or spent Chi could accumulate in a pot, so over the course of the game, the amount there would slowly build up, while the characters themselves would slowly run out.  Then, once the characters finally spent their very last point of Chi (and maybe fulfilled some other conditions), all that Chi would flow back to them, getting redistributed and readying them for the final fight.

You could even start the game with some Chi in the pot, so that the return flow would be even larger than the starting amount.

Later.
Jonathan

[iago]

Or spent Chi could accumulate in a pot, so over the course of the game, the amount there would slowly build up, while the characters themselves would slowly run out.  Then, once the characters finally spent their very last point of Chi (and maybe fulfilled some other conditions), all that Chi would flow back to them, getting redistributed and readying them for the final fight.

You could even start the game with some Chi in the pot, so that the return flow would be even larger than the starting amount.

Works.  The idea I was trying to get across was one where you get more powerful once your emotions have been taken to a breaking point, on a per-character basis.  I'm not sure a common "backflow" of Chi is exactly getting that effect, unless the amount that flows back to you is directly tied to that sense of dramatic emotional pitch, but it could, certainly, and it is simpler, so that's as good as anything. :)[/i]

[Zak Arntson]

Is that advancement -- or a "powered up" sequence, of sorts?

I was thinking along D&D-style advancement. Only mid-game instead of post-game. This reflects the scenes where the warrior suddenly realizes how to apply the fifth technique, or her she discovers a way to channel the strength she always had. The character will always retain this new ability, but it took a catalyst to reach the next "level."

[Jeph]

For review, NPCs:

Non-Player Characters

   If you are the Game Master, you will need to come up with Non-Player Characters (NPCs). These are the characters that you create for the players to interact with, and range from an evil Eunuch Warlock to the great grandfather of one of the player's characters to the master smith who created the Emperor's sword. There are two main types of Non-Player Characters: Major and Minor.

   Major NPCs are the personalities of the setting that really make a difference. It doesn't matter if they're a four thousand year old ghost or a six year old kid, the thing that makes a Major NPC major is their importance to the plot. Just like the characters controlled by the players, Major NPCs should have a comprehensible personality, and at least a bit of background.

   Major NPCs follow the same rules as the player's characters. They have the same five Elements, the same five Aspects, and may pick five Paths. The main difference is that, aside from being controlled by the Game Master, they have a bit more leeway. If the Game Master wishes, they may, for instance, have two Mastery elements, or start with five Chi points. Conversely, the Game Master may choose that they only have three paths, or are not Prodigious in any Aspect. However, if the Game Master wants a Major NPC to be about as powerful as the player's characters, then they should adhere strictly to the rules presented at the beginning of this book.

   Minor NPCs are there for the self esteem of the players. They are extras, inconsequential, target practice. The most common use for Minor NPCs is to throw a couple of them at the player's characters when the game is getting slow, or to slow the players down a bit and maybe deal a point of damage (not likely they'll ever deal more . . .) before they get to their real target. Minor NPCs are simply described by a single number. This is the number of dice they roll for any purpose, be it attacking, defending, or resisting a spell. Typical Minor NPCs are rated at four. When they have taken one point of damage, halve this number for all intents and purposes. When they have taken two points of damage, a Minor NPC is out of the fight.