Magic Items

[Drew Stevens]

Mm.

Think of the SAs more as a Dramatically Appropriate Bonus, rather than something that is actually invoked.

In other words, it is Dramatically Appropriate for the Noble Paladin to fight evil.  It is likewise Dramatically Appropriate for the Holy Sword of Valis to fight evil.  A Drive: Fight Evil represents this Dramatic Appropriateness.

[tauman]

Durgil raises an interseting question, exactly how did the item gain its  Powers and SA(s)? That is where the history of the weapon plays a big role. I was all prepared to go on this ramble about the Mace of Sir Crunchum de Mangley and how its past was what gave it its special powers as well as placing the story behind it for the PCs to discover when they research the weapon. Imagine the party finds this article and they begin to percieve it is a magic item. Who would turn up an adventure based on trying to find out what else it can do and its origins?

I don't think the weapon needs to have a soul imprisoned in it, but the essence of a pivotal moment or a moment when greatness is achieved could be absorbed into the article. Or in short, the actions of the owner help define the item.

I think that some of the Swords in the Lord of the Rings illustrate this. Clearly, the sword that Aragorn had reforged must have SAs. So does the One Ring. In fact, the One Ring was so powerful that you could almost say that over time, it could change the SAs of its owner (which would explain why Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel were so afraid of possessing it). Come to think of it, many cursed items would do this (change the SAs of its owner), perhaps explaining why some magic items could bring ruin and doom upon their owners. If a moment of greatness could define an item, what would a moment of ultimate evil and vileness do?

Steve

[Mike Holmes]

Right, that pivotal moment is key. Whatever that pivotal moment was makes the object what it is. Further, you don't have to agree with the SAs of an object per se. But you'll not get the advantages if you don't. It's already in the game. Here's an example:

There is an axe called Treebreaker that was created when it was used by a legendarily large Hef warrior to fell a mighty Fey tree in a deep wood. Since that day the blade has been embued with a strength borne of stealing the life of the great tree, and it seeks ever more to do more damage to the Fey, to drink their essences. So, mechanically it's got this SA Drive: Kill Fey. Basically a character with the object just gets the SA while he's holding it. So, as long as he's killing Fey, hey, he get's bonus dice to do so.

Then you can get more twisted with it. A magic charm has a Passion: one who wears it. So as  long as the SA is used to protect the character wearing it, the charm gives it's dice. But the charm also has a Drive: Kill the person who killed it's original owner. Now when you put on the Charm, you get the SA. Will you use it to kill the person? Or ignore the extra dice.

And, yes, you can even do "ego" items if you want. Basically, these things are more aware of their environment, and act as entities in that they'll ownly bestow their SAs on people who do their will. Basically this becomes a bit like a Demon in Ron's Sorcerer RPG in that the character has a relationship (potentially dysfunctional), that the character has to maintain in order to get the advantages of having the item.

Also, Ron's quite right in mentioning Earthdawn. I'd impose the most basic Earthdawn rule which is that the character doesn't get an item's power until he knows and believes it's story. Which can be learned in parts if it's a powerful thing. Thus you might learn of how the magic sword was used to slay a tribe of Gol (and hence get it's Slay Gol Drive SA), but then later you also learn that it was further enchanted in a dark rite by some weird shaman in Odeon and now also has an urge to murder innocent people. OK, now you have a bunch of dice to commit bloody murder. Do you use them? What happens when others learn of this part of the legend.

What's cool about the legend thing is that, from one perspective there's something magical in-game that ocurs upon hearing the legend. From another persepctive, however, it's just the character being inspired by the fabulous artifact, and the aura that the legend gives it for him. So basically the character has the SA, and the object is not really magic, but just inspiring the character through his belief. And, lastly, is Ron's metagame attitude which says that it's just something cool for the player to play with.

All works very well together, I think.

Mike

P.S. As an aside, the One Ring was created in part by Sauron's deciet. He'd been living with the Elves under a fair guise, and got an Elf named Celebrimbor to make the ninteen rings with his assistance. It was this deception that allowed him to link all the rings to the one he forged in Mount Doom. So, symbolically, it's Sauron's centuries of deception that are the event that causes the ring to be created. But that wouldn't have been powerful enough, alone. So Sauron poured most of himself into that ring as well, hence why he could only be destroyed by the destruction of the One Ring. So the ring has all of his SAs. Yikes.

I'd play it as simply a temptation to use SAs like Drive: Conquer 10, and worse, Drive: "Do anything as long as one convinces oneself that it's OK to do it." 15 (this was Sauron's first failing; he was a good guy who turned to the dark lord Morgoth for power). Eventually most people, especially elves like Elrond who's closely related to Celebrimbor, would be decieved by the power and become corrupt. It's gotta be worse than crack; pick it up and never put it down again. And worse, who's gonna stop ya?

[Brian Leybourne]

It's gotta be worse than crack; pick it up and never put it down again.

Heh, unless you're so ambitionless that it can't take hold of ya, thus Sam and Bilbo being the only people to ever hold the ring and voluntarily give it up.

I'm liking this thread, by the way. Some excellent ideas are coming forth. Just a few things I would liike to put forward for discussion:

1) Can characters "spend" dice in an item-granted SA? Can the item itself spend dice? Can items earn extra dice? Or are items fixed to a specific number of dice in their SA(s) always and can never spend down or earn up? Maybe they slowly earn up over time (so you have the mildly evil sword of Passion: Fey Slaying 1 that over time becomes the terribly powerful sword of Passion: Fey slaying 5). I tend to swing to the last idea there, but am keen for discussion.

2) Do we envision any kind of compulsion by evil items here? I.E does the sword of Drive: slay innocents 5 try to make characters slay innocents at all, or is it just there, tempting characters (well, lets face it, tempting PLAYERS) with those extra 5 dice? I favor option 2, but then of course it makes the nastiness of certain objects too easy to avoid. 5 bonus dice to kill innocents are pretty useless to me unless I want to kill innocents (and I probably don't need 5 extra dice anyway, if I'm a good fighter).

So, maybe there's a kind of carrot-and-stick thing going on. Link it back to point 1 above - the player learns that as he kills innocents (using the extra dice the sword gives him) he starts to earn his own "kill innocents" SA, the points from which he CAN spend for experience. Or you make it that he can spend the swords SA dice down, and the sword earns them back as he uses them, but only up to the maximum the sword can handle (so the "fey slaying: 1" sword can only give you one experience point at a time, and only after you have used it to slay a fey (then you have to slay another one so its SA can refresh to 1) but the "fey slaying: 5" sword is much more powerful, letting you spend up to 5 points at a time, which you then earn back up for it by killing more fey with it. And of course the 1 can eventually become the 5 because if you kill LOTS of fey, it'll slowly grow to a maximum of 2, then a maximum of 3, and so on.

Thoughts?

Brian.

[Mike Holmes]

Thoughts?

Um...you're evil?  ;-)

Mike

[Spartan]

1) Can characters "spend" dice in an item-granted SA?

1) No, unless the character is somehow corrupted by the item.  Then he could rewrite one of his SA's to match that of the item as a result of spending the item's SAs.  From that point forward, the character has his own SA to use in tandem with the item, but can only spend the new "implanted" SA.

2) Do we envision any kind of compulsion by evil items here? I.E does the sword of Drive: slay innocents 5 try to make characters slay innocents at all

Oh yeah.  Think about it... suppose one has the item with the Slay Innocents Drive has his own Conscience SA.  Whichever SA is the highest would become dominant... leading to a battle of wills (a contest of WP, in game terms)  A character has to be careful about spending his conscience SA now, because it gives the item a chance to enforce its will on him during his "moment of weakness".

I like the idea of items gaining points in their SAs... for some items, they would be limited to a mere 2 or 3 dice, and the most powerful of artifacts could gain maybe up to 10 dice or more, resulting in a truly legendary item, coveted by all.  Add to that an item (like Brian mentioned) that could spend SAs to say, improve it's damage and the like, and you've got something that kingdoms would go to war for.

Just some thoughts,

-Mark

[Mike Holmes]

While I can see the idea of Will contests working, that seems to me to be against the idea of SAs leaving control in the hands of the player. I'd like to create a situation where I could get the player to decide to have the character do the evil thing. Make it his nasty choice.

That's why I like Brian's ideas. They tempt the player. Bwahhahah!.

With the other way, all the player has to do is not use the item and he's safe. Hmmm.

Mike

[Drew Stevens]

Also, consider your choice in SAs closely.

Not 'Kill Innocents: 3' but 'Avenge Honor: 3'.  Someone insults me?  They die.

Not 'Cause War: 4' but 'Bring Peace: 4'.  The ultimate goal of war is peace, and until peace is achieved, then war will continue.

Not even 'Kill Fey (or Sorcerers): 5' but 'Defend Humans: 5'.  They are a rival people, after all... and Sorcerers are the servants of the Betrayer...

Make SAs that will tempt players with good intentions, but that, by their nature, must almost inevitibly corrupt and twist the original purpose.  Then laugh.  Hard.  And manically. :)

[TAROT]

Then you can get more twisted with it. A magic charm has a Passion: one who wears it. So as  long as the SA is used to protect the character wearing it, the charm gives it's dice. But the charm also has a Drive: Kill the person who killed it's original owner. Now when you put on the Charm, you get the SA. Will you use it to kill the person? Or ignore the extra dice.

I think that what I would do would be to link the two SA, such that they are numerically equivalent. If the character were to avoid an opportunity  to seek vengeance (or kill innocents, whatever) then that Drive: Vengeance would be reduced, simultaneously reducing the beneficial Passion: Bearer of Item.

Chris

[Bob McNamee]

you could link a larger SA(Destiny) to a smaller SA(Drive), requiring the player to 'satisfy' the Drive in order to gain access to the Larger Destiny SA.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

what I did was treat corrupted characters who wielded bloodthirsty cursed items as if they had rage major and bloodlust major which was fun,.
in  the sa carrot stick thing you could have the number of bonus dice go down if they aren't used and if they hit zero then the pc loses his own SA points and so on until the item is either used or ditched,. To make it really tempting to use I treat thm like uber masterwork and change 3 stats not 2.

[Salamander]

what I did was treat corrupted characters who wielded bloodthirsty cursed items as if they had rage major and bloodlust major which was fun,.
in  the sa carrot stick thing you could have the number of bonus dice go down if they aren't used and if they hit zero then the pc loses his own SA points and so on until the item is either used or ditched,. To make it really tempting to use I treat thm like uber masterwork and change 3 stats not 2.

Wouldn't work with my guys, they would look at it and say, "nah... this is too perfect" and drag it to a church or find a sucker... which would just cause them problems from a different angle!!! I would just change two stats and have the SAs kick in when the time was right... kinda like a certain ring which lay dormant for a few thousand years...

[Judd]

Or the Seneschal could keep the item's SA's a secret, only informing the players when extra dice are available to them, "You feel the sword at your hip, eager," -or- "The sword begins to sing as it clashes with your enemy's blade and you can tell that the mysterious and ancient weapon you took out of the tomb is aiding you with unnatural forces."

Love the magic item idea, think it is fabulous.

Could a player begin game with a sword, maybe a Major would be a blade with a 5 in an SA and a Minor would be 2 and the players could mayhaps feed XP into it?

Nice stuff.

[Brian Leybourne]

Thoughts?

Um...you're evil?  ;-)

Mike

Why, thank you :-)

I've always been of the opinion that to get players to hang themselves, all you have to do is hint that there may be a rope somewhere nearby. :-)

Seriously though, it's always far more interesting giving PC's the means by which they can get power (but clearly corruptive power) and seeing those who gradually slide down into the darkness, those who leap down screaming for more, and those who manage to resist, than it is to just corrupt them via GM's fiat and say "your alignment has just changed" or force changes in their SA's, or whatever.

Far more fun, and it makes for really interesting stories. In fact, this is pretty similar to the choice behind TROS sorcery, and is actually very much what Ron Edward's excellent Sorcerer is all about.

Brian.

[Bob Richter]

It's a Sorceror who Imprisoned his immortal soul inside of a magically crafted blade.

It's a magically crafted blade, so it has a better ATN and DTN than the best sword-smiths could give it (not that much better, just -1 to all of its TNs, not just one or two.)

But it's also this GUY with SAs and motivations and freaky magical powers.

It's an NPC all by itself. :)

But I really like this idea of magic items that grant SAs. Very cool.