Hello!

Yesterday, we played some IAWA and while the session was quite fast-paced and interesting, we had a few difficulties with the rules. So here they are:

1. How do you find out, which forms apply? Example: The spirit of a dead master proposes to the exorcist to help him with his big plan (binding the "spirit who inflames passion" to its will), if the exorcist kills the former slave (who killed the master). Now the exorcist tries to kill the slave. Is he doing it for others (the master wants it, for he seeks revenge) or for himself (the exorcist needs support)? Can it be both, for myself and for others?

2. Who is the target, if the spirit of the aforementioned master (NPC) takes control of the leader of a town (again NPC, so no conflict), and this leader attacks the slave? If the slave injures the leader (as the only way to stop him), he is not fighting against the aggressor, so even if he kills the leader, the spirit remains unhurt. Is this how it should work?

3. One player was kind of shocked when I told her, the conversation between her (spirit to inflame passion) and an NPC (secretary of the lawyer) was overheard by the town's leader and she could not do anything about it, for there are no perception-rolls. (at that time, she did not expect someone to overhear the conversation) Did I handle the situation correctly or are there means in IAWA to handle this?

That's it for the moment! It would be nice if someone could answer these questions. Thanks!

Hi steffen

This is how I and my group would have done it, probably other groups will chime in with other suggestions tough:

1) As a rule, using two of the same type of forms (directly/covertly, the Withs, the Fors) is something very rare. I usually ask my self this question, is the “Whom” I’m doing something for important to me or not, if not then I pick one from directly/covertly and another from the Withs. I think the same process can be applied for not picking another form.

In your case I think it would be very character defining the form the player choose, because if he went with for others that meant he was sympathetic with the spirits cause and grief, and wanted to help out despite the profit he would gain from it. If he went for himself, that meant he couldn’t care less about the spirit and is only killing the slave to get what he wanted. If the player didn’t want to make a statement each way or the other then I wouldn’t pick a form from the fors (wow, try saying that very fast three times in a row);

2) To strike at a spirit possessing a person you would need some kind of Particular Strength with far-reaching ability, without that you would just be striking the possessed. But remember this, you do not need to physically hurt someone else in a fight, you can just describe your actions has dodges or grabbing him or you can go for the broken teeth and bones kind of brawl, buuuut in the consequences you can do a lot of things, for instance hitting the spirit with exhaust (but not injury because you don’t have far-reaching), or claim the body is no longer suitable for the spirit to inhabit. The point is in the fiction your direct target is the possessed but in negotiation you can go for the spirit;

3) Actually there was something she could have done, she could have said “Uuuuh I spot him and inflame his love for passer by and he pays no notice to our conversation nor remembers it”. Remember kids this is IAWA, there is no try only do. And know you (GM) have to decide to accept that or say no, in the latter you go to dice and I could go a lot of different ways, for instance, you can accept that she saw you but not the effects of the spell. If you didn’t want to be seen in the first place, then you could go with manoeuvring and the player with covertly (assuming she didn’t want the conversation to be heard by anyone in the first place) and … something else, and you could go back and forth with the Leader trying to sneak up on them and they just moving more in a dark ally or go into a crowd that could muffle the sound of their conversation, all the while never noticing you (at least until the end of the conflict)

Hope this helped.

All the best,
D.

Okay, I'll chime in:

1. Totally up to the player. The other players might question a form if it's completely out of character. Like, you've established a selfish character, who suddenly is doing the selfsame moves, but now they are suddenly "for others" because he needs the dice. However, there's no checklist for deciding what form is appropriate. Yes you can act "for yourself" and "for others" at the same time.

2. Here I disagree with RPL. Far reaching acts at a distance, meaning you can affect far away places. You can totally narrate directly attacking the possessor if it makes sense that you could be attacking the possessor. If you attack the spirit, you could narrate it in such a way that both the spirit and the master have to answer. If you instead attack the possessed master, then yes, you can set it up so only the spirit has to answer, or you could make it something both have to answer (I burn you, body and soul, with the white hot flames of my faith!). So, depends on what you say your character does.

3. Yeah, I don't think "was overheard" is kosher. You can say "The secretary totally overhears you and you don't notice her!" and then the players can say "no way I'm going to allow that!" and you can go to dice.

1) What they said.

2) Actually, far-reaching is explicitly necessary to affect spirits directly - that's even the example in the book for a far-reaching strength (Tools of the Exorcist, or something along those lines).  Far-reaching is more general than 'acting at a distance' ... it's what you take to expand your capabilities beyond a person's normal grasp.  White-hot, spirit-burning flames of faith are definitely a far-reaching strength.

That said, there are still ways a normal person can interact with a spirit.  You might not be able to physically injure it, but you could still trick it into leaving the body of its host, or something like that.  Lack of an appropriate particular strength only constrains what you can narrate, it doesn't prevent you from acting altogether.

The order of operations for your situation probably would have been this:

- The spirit makes the leader attack the slave.  Spirit and leader are NPCs, so no conflict.
- The leader attacks the slave.  If the slave fights back, there is a conflict between the leader and the slave.

The slave could turn it into a 3-way conflict by trying to avoid the leader's attacks while coaxing the spirit into leaving the leader's body, or while exhorting the leader to resist the spirit's influence.

3) What they said.  If a PC can reasonably deal with the issue, then it's totally fine to go to dice.  In this case, all she has to do is notice the guy's within earshot and move the conversation elsewhere..  And that assumes that the leader was actively eavesdropping ... if not, it might not even have made sense to go to dice. (The leader overhears you! -> No he doesn't, we are speaking very quietly! -> Oh, ok. That's fine then.)

Michael wrote:
2) Actually, far-reaching is explicitly necessary to affect spirits directly - that's even the example in the book for a far-reaching strength (Tools of the Exorcist, or something along those lines).  Far-reaching is more general than 'acting at a distance' ... it's what you take to expand your capabilities beyond a person's normal grasp.  White-hot, spirit-burning flames of faith are definitely a far-reaching strength.