These suggestions is based on the playtest [a href=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17517.0]here[/a]. One of the problems which arose on playtesting, was the lack of feeling with NPC's. NPC's were no more than a mere Power battery. One of the main reasons for this is that one gets more Power by killing a Victim and creating another (which was deadly easy, but see Victor's comment for that) than by sucking 1 power every turn.

One suggestion of mine (of which Victor approved) is that you should add a 'Love' stat. When you get more feeling with your person, the amount of Power you can get from them is higher, but you'll have more Resistance to kill that person.

In this fashion, you'll get more of a bond between the PC's and the NPC's: they want to get their trust, because it is then that they can get more power, but they'll have a harder time murdering for a full power gain.

Remko wrote:
One suggestion of mine (of which Victor approved) is that you should add a 'Love' stat. When you get more feeling with your person, the amount of Power you can get from them is higher, but you'll have more Resistance to kill that person.

I'm exceptionally hesitant of this suggestion. In part, because I think the formulas are already at the upper limit of the complexity I want for the game. Design-wise, they're balanced so a player has ways of using his character's particular effectivenesses to become more effective in areas where he's lacking. It's an elaborate upward spiral. An additional stat would make the upward path quite a bit more complex.

But also because I'm thinking this suggestion treads too deeply into what I want for the game's fruitful void. (Have you seen Vincent's blog thread about The Fruitful Void?) The player character occultists in Acts of Evil are people who think and behave like the most ruthless corporations. The extent to which they harbor Love or Dependence for those whose lives and energy they exploit is reflected in their Resistance to the whole endeavor.

Anyway, you're not asking for this Love or Dependence stat because you're feeling it's conceptual lack in the architecture of formulas. You're asking for it because you're keen to the fact that the player characters are actually the antagonists, and you're frustrated at your inability to establish the humanity and protagonism of the Nobodies and Victims. (This humanity/protagonism is the Fruitful Void.) You're wanting something that helps keep the Nobodies and Victims alive.

And I'm entirely sympathetic to that.

My design relies on the assigning of Traits for keeping the Nobodies and Victims interesting enough to the players that they don't actually choose to kill them. But apparently that's not enough.

Perhaps a simple solution is in order. What if Resolution against Victims only pays 3 points of Power if it's a Victim not of your own creation? If it's one of your Victims, it pays 1 point of Power for hurting, injuring, or killing.

And consider this in light of a general repair of the dice mechanics that introduces more adversity, so there's a meaningful difference in chance of success between rolling Ambition plus Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory for Resolution against Nobodies and Rage plus Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory for Resolution against Victims, if you're a Misanthrope rather than a Scourge, or vice versa, or have a couple of more dice in one or the other of Rage or Ambition.

Whaddya think?

Paul

The fruitful void.

Of course. I hadn't seen that topic, and I'm not sure I'm interpreting it the same way as other people do. But one interpretation immediately struck me, and it seems powerful and brilliant.

The fruitful void is the reason you read fiction instead of an essay. It is that which essentially defies description. It is that which cannot be made transparent without losing its depth and becoming something else. It is why attempts to extract the message from a work can destroy the work - because the attempt fills the void.

Good. Do not make a Dependence stat.

I'll have an opinion about your suggestion when I see it worked out in conjunction with a new dice mechanic, and a reaction ot my problem of the disconnected players.

Hey Victor,

I'll have an opinion about your suggestion when I see it worked out in conjunction with a new dice mechanic, and a reaction ot my problem of the disconnected players.

In light of the proposed new dice mechanics, the rule would be:

If the player rolls more primes than the GM in an effort to cause the death of an NPC who was originally Status Changed to a Victim by some other player, the Victim is killed and his occultist's power is increased by three points. If the player rolls more primes than the GM, and the life of the NPC is not at stake, or the NPC being killed is one his occultist character made into a Victim, his occultist's Power is increased by one point.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, increase his character's Rage by one point.

What do you think?

Paul

Well, it still very much depends on what your decision will be concerning what I called the 'problem of disconnected players'. If you keep the idea that in the first stages of the game the players begin in different times or places, your proposal may well work. (Although it means that the last player who hasn't chosen the Temporal path will be at a severe disadvantage, which he may not be able to recover from. He can't get to the victims of the others; his own victims are consistently killed by the others; and since they gain Power faster, he'll never be able to take them on.) If you decide to have the players start at the same place and time, the proposal probably won't work.

Hey Victor,

I think starting in different times and places is important to the scale and exoticism of the game, so I'm inclined to keep it if possible. I'm hoping that the combination of new dice mechanics that deliver adversity to rolls, and disincentivizing a player killing his own Victims, will make a Misanthrope's scenes interesting despite direct inter-player rivalry.

(I'm also thinking of lowering the threshold for advancement to Scourge to an average Aspect of 3, and for advancement to Anathema to an average Aspect of 5.)

(Although it means that the last player who hasn't chosen the Temporal path will be at a severe disadvantage, which he may not be able to recover from. He can't get to the victims of the others; his own victims are consistently killed by the others; and since they gain Power faster, he'll never be able to take them on.)

One option available to the player who chooses the Cosmic Path is to create Victims in dream space, and extraterrestrial locations. Or...consider the horrific Scourge on the Cosmic Path who uses Resolution Against Nobodies and Against Victims to force them into other dimensions, or imprison them on other planets.

Paul

(I'm also thinking of lowering the threshold for advancement to Scourge to an average Aspect of 3, and for advancement to Anathema to an average Aspect of 5.)

One option available to the player who chooses the Cosmic Path is to create Victims in dream space, and extraterrestrial locations. Or...consider the horrific Scourge on the Cosmic Path who uses Resolution Against Nobodies and Against Victims to force them into other dimensions, or imprison them on other planets.

You may want to put some restrictions on point allocation between Aspects and Motivations, by the way.

If I change the text to:

To create a new occultist, divide 12 points across your Aspects and Dispositions (Flesh, Voice, Imagination, Memory, Ambition, Rage, Clarity). You can have 0's wherever you wish. No single Aspect or Disposition can be greater than 5. Put 1 point in Resistance, and 0's in Power, Capacity, and Used Capacity.

Is there then a single point allocation strategy that makes so much more tactical sense than others that no one will do anything else? Will everyone put 5 points in Ambition, for instance?

Paul

Paul wrote:
If I change the text to:

To create a new occultist, divide 12 points across your Aspects and Dispositions (Flesh, Voice, Imagination, Memory, Ambition, Rage, Clarity). You can have 0's wherever you wish. No single Aspect or Disposition can be greater than 5. Put 1 point in Resistance, and 0's in Power, Capacity, and Used Capacity.

Is there then a single point allocation strategy that makes so much more tactical sense than others that no one will do anything else? Will everyone put 5 points in Ambition, for instance?

Paul

Paul wrote:
Is there then a single point allocation strategy that makes so much more tactical sense than others that no one will do anything else? Will everyone put 5 points in Ambition, for instance?

Hey Victor,

Putting 5 points in one Aspect, and the other seven in the Motivations makes much more sense than anything else. Since a player can always choose which Aspect he wants to use, he'll always use the one he has 5 points in. And it's the only one he'll increase, until he has it at 12 and can advance.

I mis-paraphrased my own rules when I wrote "average of" earlier in this thread. The text of the playtest rules actually says a character advances to Scourge when "the lowest of your character's Aspects equals 4" and to Anathema when "the lowest of your Aspects equals 7." That's not the same as "average of."

Paul