[Polaris] Experience for non-Heart protagonists in a scene

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello,

A rule question for those having encountered similar situations:

What happens when a protagonist is brought into a scene of which his player is not the Heart, and that this protagonist proceeds to undertake nefarious actions?

First an observation:

We had a scene in our last session where Orion, Centaurus and Heka where in the same boat and all striving for various goals. Orion ended up in conflict with Centaurus and Heka, while Centaurus' player was Heart. He revealed his demonic body to both of them at the climax of a dispute.
Centaurus launched an attack on Orion, his player ending his scene and Heka's player starting one of his own where he deals a fatal blow to Orion. Orion's player passed from Mistaken to Moon in this scene switch. He was perfectly happy to leave his character for dead (planning some demonic regeneration).

So, our question was, does Orion roll for experience even when his player is actually Mistaken in the scene? Same thing for when he is a Moon character (although my example doesn't illustrate that.)

We interpreted the rules as saying no, but we where stretching it. Our rationale was that this would remove the focus on the Heart's protagonist.
In our case, we had Orion's player check for experience as soon as he regenerated his character with his demonic powers, of course.

Now, the deeds blatantly screamed for an experience roll (sympathy for the demons, by literally becoming one), hinting that Orion should perhaps have been the Heart's protagonist.
Should this actually be dealt with subtle scene changes? Rapidly changing from one player to another as the actions of their characters demand it, or, for players not currently playing the Heart, withholding from such drastic actions? These would result in extremely short scenes of about four to five sentences and I'm not used at all to such scenes.


These considerations can of course easily be ignored if one rolls experience regardless of player-role. The negative-side to that is that it removes the need to use those scene-framing techniques, which could possibly make for a richer gaming experience.



What are your thoughts on the topic and what solution, if any, did you find to work best?


By the way, is it legit to describe demonic possession for one's own character?  As per the discussion I had with Ben on player domains, this is a case where one steps into the Mistaken domain of demons, and thus only accessible via conflict. But what if the protagonist's player is actually Mistaken?

[Ben Lehman]

This is all in the rulebook, actually, but I'm happy to clarify.

0) (you didn't ask this, but it's important background to the other questions.)  The Heart never loses control over his protagonist's actions.  There are two keys effects about this: First, that even in scenes where that protagonist is a secondary character (the focus of the scene is on a different protagonist), the same player controls that character.  This is regardless of the characters position in the Cosmos.  Second, if a knight is demonically possessed or controlled, the Heart describes what the demons make the character do, and how he does it.  (examples below.)

1) A protagonist can gain experience in any scene, even a scene where she is not the focus.

2) It is totally legit for a player (as Mistaken) to narrate his own character's demonic possession, although the Heart of the scene may oppose this via conflict as normal.

So, let's take an example.

Alan is Heart for Alshain
Betty is Heart for Bootes
Cecelia is Heart for Canopus
Dave is Heart for Dog Star

So let's imagine a scene for Alshain.  Canopus is in his new moon -- Alshain's secret lover.  Cecelia is playing the Mistaken for the scene, but also controls Canopus (because he is her character.)  "I don't love you, I hate you!" screams Canopus.  Canopus gets experience for this.

Later in the scene, Cecelia narrates Bootes' possession (Betty, the Full Moon, allows this -- because her Protagonist is in a scene not focused on him, she can veto any drastic effects).  However, Betty still controls Bootes, as he is her character.  While possessed, he slaughters Canopus's family.  He gets experience for this.

Is that clear?

yrs--
--Ben

[Christoph Boeckle]

Yep, point (0) is how we played it.

Regarding (1), for what it's worth, I misunderstood because on p. 82 (Up above the world edition) it says:
"Experience is checked whenever one of two things happens:
- The Heart loses a roll in conflict. (...)
- The protagonist acts in some way (...) "

I assumed that the use of the pronoun "the" indicated a unique protagonist, which would be the Heart's. I'd have understood it to include all protagonists if it said "a", for example.


All right for (2). Is that particularly because the player happens to be the Mistaken or could I introduce this any time (out of conflict) for my own protagonist?


Thanks for the clarifying Ben, this helps a lot.

[Ben Lehman]

Outside of a key phrase, the Mistaken normally has control over all demons, and thus the exclusive right to say who is or isn't demonically possessed.

By using a key phrase, the Heart may cause his own protagonist to become demonically possessed.  Wow.  That's extra-mean to your character.

Also, anyone can describe how their characters actions lead a demon to possess them.  Something like "I bind the demon to me with ancient rites, and draw it into me.  Now it possesses me."

yrs--
--Ben

[Christoph Boeckle]

Perfect, thanks a million!

Yeah, we had one player who was pretty intent on having his character (Orion) becoming a demon. Near the end, he was quadrupled so that he could attack all Remnants simultaneously. And that's how Orion met his ill fate.

On one hand I didn't do a good job of getting the game's colour across, and on the other hand, the other players weren't that hot on playing a "serious" tragedy after all. That's why we precipitated endgame at the fourth session.

But I'm straying out of topic. I'll see if I can make a sensible AP out of this 4-session Polaris, perhaps as a background to discuss the authority division we mentioned in the "Moons and Mistaken character control" thread.