Critique of Desires and/or Needs

[Judd]

Ron mentioned a problem with my Demon's Desires.

Any critique or ideas on how they might effect my game in a negative way would be appreciated.

Demon Hasan is a passer who can change shape into various predatory animals. He was a god worshipped out in the red wastes in ages past but his worshippers were all killed.

Paula talked about the possibility that Doggod is a descendant of the people who killed Hasan's worshippers and the Malteek family are descendants of those worshippers. Meaning that this child's birth is playing out an ages old dramatic vendetta of some kind. Interesting...

Desire - to be a god once again

Need - to be adored

Demon Agga

Ardash's Demon is the ghost of a family rival who his grandmother strangled to death decades ago. She is a cunning noble politicker and I see them having a rather bitchy relationship but the ghost also thriving on the drama of court LIFE.

Desire to live again...somehow

Need to be involved in court intrigue

[DannyK]

Well, all I can see is that both Demons have very structured, long-term goals which they will presumably try to accomplish by pushing the PC's to work on them.  

I can imagine two bad effects:
--it makes things complicated, since the sorcerers probably have complicated goals of their own and the GM now has to keep *four* complex goals in mind
--they're a little less immediate than typical Demon Desires such as "blood" or "suffering" or "voyeurism".  I get the impression from Actual Play reports that there's a nice tension that develops between the character's desire for his own goals, and the Demon's desire to go to the strip club or whatever.  

Still no actual play experience, damnit, but that's how it seems to me.

[greyorm]

If you could make

Desire - to be a god once again
Need - to be adored

I think the Need is ok. The Desire might be fixed to be something more emotional based, something it can cause or inspire in others. Perhaps "fanaticism."

Desire to live again...somehow
Need to be involved in court intrigue

As with above, regarding Desire, but I'm thinking that switching it around might work well. That is, her Need is to live (via Possession of others?), her Desire is for intrigue.

[sirogit]

I was always under the assumption that by the book, Desires should be one word concepts(Competetion, Corruption, Ruin, etc.), preferably from the list in the book or ones you've customized to the setting(Ala Descriptors), and NOT goals.

They're morever summations of 1) What the Demon is about and 2.) What direction the Demon would like to take events, if possible.

A big counterdiction to this is the Desire "Final Rest" from Sorcerer & Sword's undead rules, which is both A) Two words, B) A goal. I personally ignore it's effect on the issue even though it's a perfectly functional rule.

If you did this as sort of an-acknowledged add-on to the undead rules and made it so they had an additional desire "Rebirth", something of the oppisite of "Final Rest", I think the idea would be fantastic. If you've either purposefully ignored the book's recommendation for the structure of Desires or read it diffrently than I have and are fine with it, than the way you're doing it seems fine.

[Judd]

I was always under the assumption that by the book, Desires should be one word concepts(Competetion, Corruption, Ruin, etc.), preferably from the list in the book or ones you've customized to the setting(Ala Descriptors), and NOT goals.

It is interesting to me to consider a list of customized Desires as a way to further the setting.  

Thanks for hte posts, everyone, they have given me alot to think about.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Sirogit's nailed the basic concept of the Desire - think of it as the demon's ideology, the principle which it will bring to any situation if possible, either as a means of resolution or a desired condition.

But it's not a goal for the demon in the sense of "one day to rule the land." Nor is it related to the sorcerer's Binding, unlike Need.

As for the Final Rest issue, well, that's a good point. My thinking on the issue at the time was based on the primary ghost characters in the source literature: Parl Dro from Kill the Dead and (much lesser) Okio, who is essentially an Object demon, the haunt of Tomoe Gozen's sword. They seem to be about Final Rest, which should give you a little shudder when you recall Dro's profession, but they don't ... well, they never get it.

Best,
Ron

[kwill]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the source literature to get it in terms of making Final Rest a principle (Desire) rather than a goal or condition...

do you mean it's an unobtainable goal that drives the demon? shouldn't it then be replaced with a stand-in Desire? (e.g. "I want to die and make everyone wish they had too..." = Corruption, "I want to go out with a bang..." = Mayhem)

or a projected goal, ie, take as many people with them as possible?

I'm starting to think of this in human terms, which may be the problem - I'm just having trouble thinking of how a demon who is guided by the principle of it's own death will act - basically, if it's different on a demon-by-demon basis, it seems like a different Desire is required each time

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Could be, David.

Having played an exceptionally intense necromancy game recently, the concept of "a demon who is guided by the principle of it's own death" seems very clear to me. In fact, I define it largely by Corruption, which may even be inadvertent on the demon's part. In that game, every demon Desire was essentially Corruption modified by another Desire (unsurprisingly, the case of all three of the protagonists' demons, Vengeance).

But I think we're getting off-track. Judd, is the whole Desire issue making more sense to you, for purposes of the Mu game?

Best,
Ron

[Judd]

But I think we're getting off-track. Judd, is the whole Desire issue making more sense to you, for purposes of the Mu game?

Best,
Ron

It seems to me that I was thinking about it the right way but just wording incorrectly on the sheet.  My ideas were compatible with the Desire rules but what I wrote wasn't.

Am I far off?