These are some more mature thoughts on the concepts I riffed off in this previous thread about Stealing Heaven.

The basic rundown is in that thread, but to summarize- Stealing Heaven is a modern occult game about people initiated into occult realities and driven by their own flaws, sins, inadequacies, and egos to seek enlightenment without purging themselves of their weaknesses and flaws- to Steal Heaven.  Where mortal magicians work their rituals and seek subtle influence, Initiates are beyond this- they warp the sway in their favor with a thought where a magician might slave for hours over ritual paraphernalia in intense concentration to get a fraction of the benefit.  They cheat at life.  And they want more.  They want it all. 

It's a game about human limitations and overcoming them- without losing what it is to be human.  In a sense, it isn't so much about 'what would you do for power?' because that question's been answered from GO- you'll do just about anything.  The question is, "can you overcome your own hesitation, and tear the power from the cosmos regardless of the price and the pain?"

Right from the start, Initiates have some impressive innate abilities.  They are more or less immortal- time seems to pass them by, as do lethal gunshot wounds, car wrecks, and tainted chicken marsala.  They can get hurt, and really messed up, but coincidences conspire to keep them alive.  They are lucky- remarkably lucky.  Money comes easily to them, and as a result, has little power to sway them.  In a fight, they’re going to kick you ass (unless you’re also an Initiate… things get interesting then).  The know the score.  They get the chicks.  If they want it enough.

Initiates are defined by a few scores and traits.

Initiation- a description of how they became partial enlightened.  Initiation has a number as well, which starts at 1.  This puts them well beyond the mortal ken.  They walk like men, they talk like men, they eat, screw, and fight light men… but they’ve had a taste of what it is to be a God, and there’s no going back.  With an Initiation trait of 1, there isn’t much need for things like Strength or Dexterity of Firearms +4.  An initiate can be as good at mundane tasks as he can bring himself to be.

Malice- a measure of how quickly the initiate can take things hard and fast to a bad place, how much they can hurt others, how much they can make people bleed, and beg, and cry.  Malice is ranked from 2 to 9, and with a d10 you roll UNDER Malice to do violence, win through force, or break stuff.  But you roll OVER Malice to use your Empathy to deal with people socially and genuinely, to read emotions and intentions, and to understand people.

Roll UNDER malice to beat someone unconscious.
Roll OVER malice to figure out why he was attacking you.

Guile- a measure of how able the initiate is at manipulating people, lying to them, and taking away their power without them realizing it.  It is ranked the same as Malice.  Roll UNDER Guile to manipulate, lie, and deceive.  Roll OVER Guile to charm, persuade, and convince.  While Guile lets you force your will over someone, it limits your ability to form real relationships with people.

Roll UNDER Guile to break into an enemy’s house and plant evidence of child porn.
Roll OVER Guile to convince an enemy to become an alley. 

Madness a measure of how the terrible wonders the Initiate has seen and done have disrupted his perceptions and warped his ability to judge reality.  Roll UNDER madness to warp reality to your will.  Roll OVER madness to perceive and understand reality as it is. 

Roll UNDER Madness to use a Trick (a specific personal supernatural ability) to summon spiny dream horrors to stalk the man who broke into your apartment and left kiddy porn after the cops knock on your door.
Roll OVER Madness to detect signs of the break-in before the cops get there.

Traits- if you can bring one of your Traits into a scene, you get a free re-roll from it, but the Ripples will involve the Trait somehow.  Each Trait can be used at most once per story. 
Sin- what made you embrace the path of the Initiate?
Drive- what keeps you going, keeps you fighting?
Hope- what do you wish for, secretly, in your heart of hearts?
Fear- of all the horrors you’ve seen and done, what terrifies you?
Hate- what’s the one thing sure to trigger your anger and wrath?

Sway- a pool of points representing how plugged into the cosmic mojo you are at a given time.  You build up your Sway through working Designs, and burn it for rerolls, some Tricks, and to boost your level of Initiation in dramatic jumps of power.

Scenes are framed, stakes are set, and actions are chosen.  1d10 is rolled, and if the degree of success (the # by which the die is lower or greater than the Trait number) meets the Difficulty, the winner gets his Stakes and gets to describe the outcome.  A reroll can be bought for 1 Sway and this allows the success from the second (or third or fourth) rolls to be added to the first.  Each reroll, however, creates Ripples- story hooks, consequences, etc.  If you don’t want to spend the Sway or bring in a Trait, then you have to eat the failure. 

Coming next… Designs 

Ye Gods, it's like the marriage of Kult and Trollbabe, with Sorcerer presiding and assiting in the nuptials.

Okay, since the core attributes are filled (with a trade-off between power vs. finesse), the only form of character advancement I can see is the possibility of improving Initiation (which I'd like to know more about), and the possibility of adjusting your core attributes up or down. (Most importantly , what does increased Initiation get you? Tricks? More powerful rituals?)

Either way, as you have it set up, the characters are inded bad-ass. Either they're empathetic enough to defuse most situations before they go out of control, or they're vicious enough to make those who cross them truly regret it.

Also, who opposes them? Simply other Initiates? Angels? Is it possible to be an Initiate and be a "good guy?"

If I may...

If you're looking for a slightly different setting than just "right here, right now", may I recommend the late 1960's until 1980? That covers the Manson-analogs, the screaming-nightmare underside of the 1960's/early 1970's drug culture, Hammer horror films and blaxploitation, The Omen and the devil in modern cinema, porn as respected art, the return of conservativism in America, the slasher/grindhouse films (which contributed to that classic piece of cinema, The Devil's Rejects), and so on. Not to mention, the horror that is 1970's art and fashion, and Three's Company. (Brrr!)

Spooky wrote:
Ye Gods, it's like the marriage of Kult and Trollbabe, with Sorcerer presiding and assiting in the nuptials.

Okay, since the core attributes are filled (with a trade-off between power vs. finesse), the only form of character advancement I can see is the possibility of improving Initiation (which I'd like to know more about), and the possibility of adjusting your core attributes up or down. (Most importantly , what does increased Initiation get you? Tricks? More powerful rituals?)

Either way, as you have it set up, the characters are inded bad-ass. Either they're empathetic enough to defuse most situations before they go out of control, or they're vicious enough to make those who cross them truly regret it.

Also, who opposes them? Simply other Initiates? Angels? Is it possible to be an Initiate and be a "good guy?"

Spooky wrote:
If I may...

If you're looking for a slightly different setting than just "right here, right now", may I recommend the late 1960's until 1980? That covers the Manson-analogs, the screaming-nightmare underside of the 1960's/early 1970's drug culture, Hammer horror films and blaxploitation, The Omen and the devil in modern cinema, porn as respected art, the return of conservativism in America, the slasher/grindhouse films (which contributed to that classic piece of cinema, The Devil's Rejects), and so on. Not to mention, the horror that is 1970's art and fashion, and Three's Company. (Brrr!)

Some more on the Opposition...

Initiates are opposed not only by other Initiates, but by two main categories of foes.  Mundane crazies and cultists and religious nuts and would-be heroes sometimes trouble and complicate Initiates’ lives, but generally don’t pose any kind of real threat.

The most actively opposed to the Initiates are the Angels (or Hands of Fate, or Messengers, or Voices of the Throne, or Fucking Meddling Assholes).  They are people imbued by something- Heaven, God, Nirvana- whatever.  They attempt to foil the machinations of Initiates to preserve Heaven.  They are generally fairly clueless, but get ‘guidance’ in whatever form they’ll accept it, and so end up in the wrong place (for initiates) at the wrong time, looking to pull a knight’s move on an Initiate’s King.  Sniffing them out, and putting a .45 slug in their brains works pretty well.  Suckering them into participating in a Design works even better, but it is hard and risky because they can sometimes figure it out, and hose the thing from inside.  If you pull it off though, you get to eat their soul, and you get a taste of Heaven- that little spark they were imbued with- that you can shape into a new Trick.  If they get the better of you though, it’ll cost you big time. 

The more subtle foe are the Agents of the Enemy.  The Enemy loathes humanity.  It wants to drag the universe down into shit and chaos and insanity and horror forever.  And by kicking down the Pearly Gates, Initiates offer a pretty good way to break things down, to fracture the world.  So the Enemy actively aids Initiates while at the same time complicating things for them.  It makes life harder, pushes them to the edge, and then offers help.  While the Angels threaten an Initiates plans, the Enemy threatens his precious identity- it wants to hollow him out, and use him to sneak into heaven.  Once you have the taint of the Enemy, you’re never really yourself anymore (unless you can somehow cut the infected stuff lose, gouge out the pulsing malevolence nesting in your soul).  If you openly defy the Enemy, sometimes you might get a person visit from an Agent, the dark counterparts to the Angles, and they’re more likely to try and kill you and eat your face off than to save you.  Still, if you’ve got some big old balls, and the moxie to beat the Devil at checkers, you can work an Agent into your Designs, and rip a chunk of the Enemy off and make it your own. 

-B

Okay, please explain what a Design is and how someone would go about it.

It appears to be a ritual that doesn't look like a traditional ritual, but making it fit together will cause some cosmic gears to shift, thus giving the Initiate what he wants. I recall you mentioning films getting made to trigger a nationwide or international incident. I'd really like to see a worked example, as most characters are going to be devoting their screen-time to doing these.

Also, would you roll over Madness to sense whether or not a Design was happening, or had been triggered? That seems appropriate to me.

Spooky wrote:
Okay, please explain what a Design is and how someone would go about it.

It appears to be a ritual that doesn't look like a traditional ritual, but making it fit together will cause some cosmic gears to shift, thus giving the Initiate what he wants. I recall you mentioning films getting made to trigger a nationwide or international incident. I'd really like to see a worked example, as most characters are going to be devoting their screen-time to doing these.

Okay, so we're still going with Wands, Swords, Cups, Circles, and Stars.

Will there be further explanations for how to determine which is which in play? Because I imagine that's going to get confusing.

Also, when you burn an Angel or Agent, is that when you level up in Initiation?

Spooky wrote:
Okay, so we're still going with Wands, Swords, Cups, Circles, and Stars.

Will there be further explanations for how to determine which is which in play? Because I imagine that's going to get confusing.

Also, when you burn an Angel or Agent, is that when you level up in Initiation?

Yes, and I think it needs to be clarified that (unless I'm misreading your intent) Design Follows Function. If you're trying to, say, put a particularly powerful business out of business, you need to make a Design tied to that business. If you're fucking with Wal-Mart, you need a Design that includes the local Wal-Mart in it, for example. If you're trying to get rid of AIDS, you need to find a Design that incorporates AIDS into it in some way. (And I imagine doing the latter would require a high-level Initiate with a lot of savvy, as I suspect both Angels and Agents will be coming out of the woodwork to stop that Design. Then again, a high-level Initiate would be hoping for that, to get the necesary power-ups to push the Design to completion and to come out on the other end with more power than before, to deal with the inevitalbe backlash.)

Out of curiosity: are there ways to do magic that don't require a Design? Simple "spells", so to speak? Are those handled by Tricks, or are they basically another open path to accomplish something that can't be done through Malice or Guile? 

Spooky wrote:
Yes, and I think it needs to be clarified that (unless I'm misreading your intent) Design Follows Function. If you're trying to, say, put a particularly powerful business out of business, you need to make a Design tied to that business. If you're fucking with Wal-Mart, you need a Design that includes the local Wal-Mart in it, for example. If you're trying to get rid of AIDS, you need to find a Design that incorporates AIDS into it in some way. (And I imagine doing the latter would require a high-level Initiate with a lot of savvy, as I suspect both Angels and Agents will be coming out of the woodwork to stop that Design. Then again, a high-level Initiate would be hoping for that, to get the necesary power-ups to push the Design to completion and to come out on the other end with more power than before, to deal with the inevitalbe backlash.)

Spooky wrote:
Out of curiosity: are there ways to do magic that don't require a Design? Simple "spells", so to speak? Are those handled by Tricks, or are they basically another open path to accomplish something that can't be done through Malice or Guile? 

Okay, so: an Initiate can do minor magician's tricks, and they can bend shit with Tricks. Also, a "real" Initiate is a person who can do Designs that can be Stars, Wands Cups, etc. for Grand Designs, and really reshape the world. *This* is the kind of thing players should be striving for. Got it.

Two quick things:

1) Is it possible to "save" a failed roll (specifically where you meant to roll over but rolled under instead), and have that be declared a win as long as you negotiate the fallout? Ie. You wanted to negotiate peacefully with someone, but rolled under Malice. Can yougo with Malice to temporarily get your way, but in the long term, you know you've fucke dup and it's only a matter of time before revenge is sought?

2) The only thing that bothers me so far is "Madness." I see what you're going for, but I think it's important to distinguish it from normal insanity. (Cuts out the "fishMalk" stupidity, and it doesn't make sense to me that an Initiate would get his luck jacked up without getting his body or brains unscrambled by Initiation also.) I'd almost prefer it to be called "Maddening Vision", because it indicates that the reason the Initiate acts so fucked-up in comparison to normal people is that he/she can see things that other people cannot. Those things exist, even though humans aren't supposed to see them. And while 'madness' might be a side-effect, it's crippling effects are limited to a point. I see it acting as the most effective hybrid between paranoid schizophrenia (you see shit that others can't, and you see the patterns behind everything) and sociopathy (it dulls your connection to humanity, making people seem less real to you.) What it does not do is make you lose control: you do that to yourself. Like the Freaks in your game, these Initiates seem to be processing other, inhuman senses that their bodies and brains weren't designed for, but it's not making them go off the deep end. For Initiates, full-blown lunacy should be a choice, or a risk from a backfired Design.

This looks even more interesting than it did the first time 'round.  I find it rather hard to keep the whole thing in my head at this point, though -- there are 4 stats (plus Sway), 5 traits, and five elements that must be put together for each Design, and it seems like there may be many Designs and partial Designs around.  I'm imagining having several character sheets in front of me at once. 

So here's my question: does all this complexity resolve into some higher level of symmetry in actual play?  Polaris, for example,  has lots of tricky bits to get right in chargen, but once you've figured out how to do conflicts, everything on the character sheet works pretty much the same way.

Dogs, the same thing -- lots of different places that the stuff on the character sheet comes from, but it all turns into different kinds of dice for Sees and Raises when you're playing. 

Do you expect the SH mechanics to do anything similar? 

Additional setting notes: I like the Agents and the Enemy, and I like their assymmetry (individual antagonistic clueless agents versus a unified, sophisticated and seductive Enemy.  I'd like them even better if they were really divorced from Heaven and Hell -- they could just as easily emanate from the two poles of the Jungian oversoul, or whatever. 

Finally, a question that's probably coming from my excessive exposure to WoD games: The higher you get your Initiation stat, the more Sway you can handle without getting burned and the bigger Designs you can build, and that gives you a crack at even more power.  So what about all the Perfect Masters out there in the setting?  Is there an uneasy hierarchy of Initiates trying to move up the ladder, or one big Guru every so often running a spiritual protection racket on the little guys and getting paid in Sway, or what?  Are there burned-out areas where a certain Master has turned cannibal and "eaten" all the less powerful Initiates? 

I don't actually expect canonical answers or a well-developed world, but how do you want it to work in the game?  Obviously, there's got to be rival Initiates, because the clash of Designs seems like a big part of the fun. 

Danny_K wrote:
Finally, a question that's probably coming from my excessive exposure to WoD games: The higher you get your Initiation stat, the more Sway you can handle without getting burned and the bigger Designs you can build, and that gives you a crack at even more power.  So what about all the Perfect Masters out there in the setting?  Is there an uneasy hierarchy of Initiates trying to move up the ladder, or one big Guru every so often running a spiritual protection racket on the little guys and getting paid in Sway, or what?  Are there burned-out areas where a certain Master has turned cannibal and "eaten" all the less powerful Initiates? 

I don't actually expect canonical answers or a well-developed world, but how do you want it to work in the game?  Obviously, there's got to be rival Initiates, because the clash of Designs seems like a big part of the fun. 

Danny_K wrote:
Additional setting notes: I like the Agents and the Enemy, and I like their assymmetry (individual antagonistic clueless agents versus a unified, sophisticated and seductive Enemy.  I'd like them even better if they were really divorced from Heaven and Hell -- they could just as easily emanate from the two poles of the Jungian oversoul, or whatever. 

Spooky wrote:
Okay, so: an Initiate can do minor magician's tricks, and they can bend shit with Tricks. Also, a "real" Initiate is a person who can do Designs that can be Stars, Wands Cups, etc. for Grand Designs, and really reshape the world. *This* is the kind of thing players should be striving for. Got it.

Two quick things:

1) Is it possible to "save" a failed roll (specifically where you meant to roll over but rolled under instead), and have that be declared a win as long as you negotiate the fallout? Ie. You wanted to negotiate peacefully with someone, but rolled under Malice. Can yougo with Malice to temporarily get your way, but in the long term, you know you've fucke dup and it's only a matter of time before revenge is sought?

2) The only thing that bothers me so far is "Madness." I see what you're going for, but I think it's important to distinguish it from normal insanity. (Cuts out the "fishMalk" stupidity, and it doesn't make sense to me that an Initiate would get his luck jacked up without getting his body or brains unscrambled by Initiation also.) I'd almost prefer it to be called "Maddening Vision", because it indicates that the reason the Initiate acts so fucked-up in comparison to normal people is that he/she can see things that other people cannot. Those things exist, even though humans aren't supposed to see them. And while 'madness' might be a side-effect, it's crippling effects are limited to a point. I see it acting as the most effective hybrid between paranoid schizophrenia (you see shit that others can't, and you see the patterns behind everything) and sociopathy (it dulls your connection to humanity, making people seem less real to you.) What it does not do is make you lose control: you do that to yourself. Like the Freaks in your game, these Initiates seem to be processing other, inhuman senses that their bodies and brains weren't designed for, but it's not making them go off the deep end. For Initiates, full-blown lunacy should be a choice, or a risk from a backfired Design.

Danny_K wrote:
This looks even more interesting than it did the first time 'round.  I find it rather hard to keep the whole thing in my head at this point, though -- there are 4 stats (plus Sway), 5 traits, and five elements that must be put together for each Design, and it seems like there may be many Designs and partial Designs around.  I'm imagining having several character sheets in front of me at once. 

So here's my question: does all this complexity resolve into some higher level of symmetry in actual play?  Polaris, for example,  has lots of tricky bits to get right in chargen, but once you've figured out how to do conflicts, everything on the character sheet works pretty much the same way.
[/qoutes]

I certainly hope so... but I don' tknow if I'll know for sure until I can playtest it. 

Additional setting notes: I like the Agents and the Enemy, and I like their assymmetry (individual antagonistic clueless agents versus a unified, sophisticated and seductive Enemy.  I'd like them even better if they were really divorced from Heaven and Hell -- they could just as easily emanate from the two poles of the Jungian oversoul, or whatever. 

Indeed- they arn't really intended to be matched oposites... the Enemy isn't the Yin to the Throne's Yang- it's something hideous and horrible that wants to make the world into a cesspole and humanity into dancing pain monkeys.

Finally, a question that's probably coming from my excessive exposure to WoD games: The higher you get your Initiation stat, the more Sway you can handle without getting burned and the bigger Designs you can build, and that gives you a crack at even more power.  So what about all the Perfect Masters out there in the setting?  Is there an uneasy hierarchy of Initiates trying to move up the ladder, or one big Guru every so often running a spiritual protection racket on the little guys and getting paid in Sway, or what?  Are there burned-out areas where a certain Master has turned cannibal and "eaten" all the less powerful Initiates? 

Love it- and yeah.  Initiates tend to crap on each other when they get the chance... that's why young ones get together into mutual protection societies. 

I don't actually expect canonical answers or a well-developed world, but how do you want it to work in the game?  Obviously, there's got to be rival Initiates, because the clash of Designs seems like a big part of the fun. 

I'm playing with ideas on overlapping Designs where you're trying to bascially assimilate the other guy's Design, and make it part of your own, doubling down.  It's a great way to score Sway, but a great way to piss someone off really really bad.  In other words- something PC's will be all about.

Spooky wrote:

I was worried about this as well. How do we, as GMs, keep the players from being smothered by the NPCs, but suitably threatened? Do the Ripple rules help there? The only other thing I can think of is: you need to stat out the Perfect Masters and the Grand Design they're working on right now. Diagram it out, and if the players intersect in any way with that Grand design, only then will the players risk running afoul of them. Beyond that, the Perfect Masters do not give a shit about your character. The lower-echelon gimps, the ones your characters can beat if they get crafty...they're a differnt story.

Higher order Initiation expands your occult perceptions... to someone playing with US national politics, your local struggles over the new hardware store don't even register.  The 'middle manager' types are the ones you really have to worry about.

Initiates are pretty rare- it takes a rare mix of insight, madness, ambition, and luck to become one.  An exact number?  Enough... a town or city might have a handful (the PC's plus a couple of NPC's) tops... likely much less.  They tend to gather at places of subtle occult significance.  You might have none anywhere else in the whole state of Georgia, but five in Athens if it was such a spot. 

Spooky wrote:

I can see it almost like Yin and Yang. One part of the universe creates and sustains, one part culls. It's just how it works. Humans, for all our vaunted intellect, are supposed to be part of that. Initiates, however they do it, break themselves out of the normal flow of things, and become a cancer: dependent on the universe, but having a goal that threatens the fabric of the universe itself. Sometimes the Creative side will assault first, in the hope that the Initiate will come to his/her senses and back down. Other times, the Destructive side will emerge, and move to put the Initiate down quickly. Both support the other, because ther's a danger that the Initiate will become first an island, then a nation, then a world unto himself, and may even begin to reshape the universe. Other times, the Destructive side will hitch a ride, in an attempt to do what it does: bring the end of everything, so that it can reboot.

Something that occured to me: this would make a kickass vampire game. Think about it: In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the titular character got to be where he is by "dark magics." In short, he chose his undead state, similar to how Initiates choose their position. It would be easy to emulate with Tricks: get a Trick that allows you to siphon a tiny bit of Sway off of normal people (too much at once will kill them, and it doesn't matter what you "eat"; it could be luck, blood, youth, libido, etc.), and then supplement that with a Trick that lets you donate some Tricks to your infected ones (as well as allowing them to collect Sway in the same manner that you do), but in return gives you their undying (literally!) loyalty, and lets you siphon off a bit of whatever Sway they harvest, like celestial network marketing. Problem is: they're loyal to you, but they still jockey for power, may not be stable or bright, and will most assuredly draw unwanted attention as they try to top each other to court your attention. You can cut them off at any time (which will kill them), but do you want to endanger your Sway pipeline? As an added bonus, this can explain via Color how come Initiates are so damned hard to kill. Van Helsing and crew would be Angels (or Agents?) trying to get rid of the vampire threat. Of course, since you achieved your position through dark, foul sorcery, you still get to perform that, at levels that flesh & blood magicians cannot hope to compete against. All you have to do is suffer with the knowledge that, should you die, you'll end up somewhere worse than either Heaven or Hell, and you're stuck in your skin for all eternity. You might still be able to eat, drink, screw, etc., but your true diet is Sway, so you have to hoard it very carefully, or The Abyss awaits.

I like this game as-is, don't get me wrong, but I think that would be a kickass alternative for those willing to try it. And as the rules currently stand, it wouldn't even be that much of a change. From how I see it, Initiates are glorified cancers/parasites anyway, regardless of what power they have at their disposal. 

Oh yes- I sort of intended to provide example Tricks which would let you create good impressions of the classic monsters.  You can look at the whole of the Dracula novel as a gross misinterpretation of the Count's real motives- to establish a symbolic connection between his home and English soil allowing him to move his Designs into the territory of an English enemy Initiate.  Helsing and crew... they were his Elements, with Van Helsing as the Sword sweeping the Circle clean of all traces of Dracula, hiding him in occult obscurity.

I'm toying with a mechanical tweak- keeping the OVER/UNDER system, but keeping rolls yes/no rather than by degree with rerolls for escalation or to demonstrate competence or motivation. 

Ripples are disturbances in the occult fabric of corespondences and circumstances which confound your Designs- basically, they give the GM 'ins' into your Design to complicate your efforts to align the Elements... you create your own Trouble, confounding your long-term goals for short-term power.

-B

Ah crap!

I got all the quote formatting buggered up.

I wish we had Edit.

-B

S'okay, I understood you.

Perhaps now is the time for me to quit interrupting you so that you can post some ideas you have for Tricks. Also, how they'd be gained, how they could be countered, etc.

One last thing! See if this answers the Madness problem:

Fixation: It's impossible to go back once Initiated, and you wouldn't want to, anyway. Connecting your consciousness to the Metaverse is a life-changing experience, and once you see the patterns connecting everything, you can't really unsee them. The more you delve into the mysteries, the better your use of Designs and the gifts you stole from Heaven (Tricks). However, there is a problem: the more you see the Higher Mysteries, the more difficult it is for you to pay attention to mundane realities like, say, your apartment has been entered, your friends are acting strange, etc. Fixation, for those under it's grip, combines the worst elements of paranoid schizophrenia (you see the patterns behind everything), ADD (it distracts you from reality), and bipolar disorder (it affects your moods in contrast to your actual situation.) You can see yourself as a God-Empress of Earth, even though in mundane reality, you're sitting in your own filth with a used heroin needle sticking in your arm, you haven't changed or bathed in days, your apartment's overrun with roaches, and that knocking at your door is your landlord with an eviction notice and some cops to enforce it.

Roll UNDER to perform Tricks and Designs. Roll OVER (an Awareness roll) to notice the events going on in plain, boring, everyday reality.

TRICK: The Fixation companion to Charlie Manson Crazy Eyes, Methods of Madness uses your skills with the Metaverse to notice the omens and threads of reality to warn yourself of an impending disaster. While to others you seem "otherworldly" (or just bugnuts loony!), you have a combination of diabolical luck and a scary intuition that keeps you out of harm's way and dodging the slings and snares of outrageous fortune that might otherwise keep you down. With this Trick, you can roll UNDER your Fixation score to be aware of things in the mortal world, and analyze situations accurately in breathtaking displays of lateral thinking.

Also, one more thing.

Should it be assumed that the incredible luck that Initiates have pretty much occludes them from standing out in history? Such that, if they commit a crime, it'll be difficult to track them? Or can that be covered by purchasing the right Tricks?