I do believe this is different enough to deserve a separate thread.

What is the point of Mark, the demonic ability? What (if anything) might tempt me to choose "Hey, I can rub this guy's with a sorcerous highligher that's hard to wash off, but EVERY sorcerer can see it!" instead of, well, any other ability. What am I missing? What's the attraction? It feels like a penny in a jar full of quarters.

Hi Alexander,

Check these out:

Taint and Mark?, and more generally, Customization
Charnel Gods - Fell Weapons (see Clinton's comments about his game)

Anyone else played with Mark?

Best,
Ron

Nifty Mark idea just came to me:

If you're into the big "conspiracy" thing, imagine what would happen if you took some powerful demon with all kinds of Perception and Mark, and all it does is simply make vital facts about you known, perhaps literally written across your face to Sorcerers?

DNA-wise?
Matrix style?
Other?

"Hello Kim. Don't ask why I know your name, your curiosity will be satisfied, and yet whetted for more shortly. You are 28, recently unemployed, prone to bouts of depression, mmm, developing a drinking problem, and you fool around with 3 of your exboyfriends. You've recently discovered that your debt problem is about to put you in bankruptcy, and that's why you're here..."

Imagine a whole society under the rule of one, or a few sorcerers who can just look at you and pull up vital statistics, personality traits, or whatever. Also imagine what a god-awful demon must be responsible, or the number of demons that must be going about doing this thing...

Yeesh.

Chris

Lxndr wrote: It feels like a penny in a jar full of quarters.

Nifty idea, Chris. :)

But that example just highlights my (personal) aversion to Mark (which might be all it is - my tastes and the Mark power diverging). One of the things written into Mark is "every person with Lore 1+ can see it." (a paraphrase, with the emphasis mine) When I think, "If I were a sorcerer..." (which may not be a good question), I find myself thinking, "why would I want a mark that ANYONE can see, even if it's just other sorcerers?" and my answer is almost invariably, "I wouldn't."

Now, if I ask a slightly different question, "would a mark that I could see and nobody else could be useful?" that could be answered "yes." But if that mark could also be seen by others, even if it's just a select few? Too much natural paranoia, maybe, but I'd turn it down.

I must be honest - in that Charnel Gods topic Ron pointed to, I'm utterly flabbergasted as to how Marking another individual suddenly meant his character gained power over that other individual. Clinton just sort of tossed that out as if it made perfect sense, and maybe if I read the supplement it would, but right now it just, well, flabbergasts me.

Hi there,

H'm, it didn't read to me as if the Mark established power over the NPC, but rather served as an underscore ... but then again, the people we're talking about are also Trollbabe players, so perhaps the Mark was serving as more of a formalized relationship-establisher than I thought.

Anyway, let's try something. Let's take this nascent identity-issue approach to Sorcerer that you've been shaping, sort of, and apply Mark. Let's say that demonic stuff threatens identity, and that sorcerers typically play free and easy - disturbingly free and easy - with the identities of others. Perhaps Mark is a sorcerer-indicator to all others, saying "Hands off, this one gets to be who they are," and a Lore roll permits the observing sorcerer or demon to identify the Marker. Of course, it's basically cashing a check with your mouth, and whether your ass can cash it is a different story. H'm, and now that I'm thinking about it, it makes most sense for the group (and setting) to permit only a person to be the User, not a demon.

I think it would make for a central and very atmospheric plot focus for the game ... using a penn'worth of ability.

Best,
Ron

Excellent example, and one that returns once again to the idea that there is no such thing as Mark.

There is only Mark as it applies to a particular group vision of Sorcerer. This version is pretty cool. Basically a way to warn other Sorcerer's...if you mind fuck with this person, you will have to answer to me.

I saw a biker couple the other day. The guy was wearing a motorcycle jacket for "The Outlaws". The girl was wearing one that said "Property of the Outlaws".

Aside from the interesting social commentary of that, Mark in this sense could provide a similar purpose. "This person is off limits...they belong to me"

Hey, that tips off another free-associative bit, Ralph.

Seems neat that the way a sorcerer designates a person's identity inviolate also tags them as property. So they're still considered a "thing," either way. Brrrr ...

Best,
Ron

So I guess it is just an aesthetic thing, at least on my part. Some people like the idea of "marking" folks for public consumption (whatever else Mark is in various Sorcerer games, it PROBABLY is still "something that other sorcerers can also see"). I'm not (generally) one of them.

Then again, whatever character I might wind up making could like it. There's that option too. And it's an interesting/neat plot device to use as a GM. Thank you, all who have posted, for opening my eyes.

Lxndr wrote:
I must be honest - in that Charnel Gods topic Ron pointed to, I'm utterly flabbergasted as to how Marking another individual suddenly meant his character gained power over that other individual. Clinton just sort of tossed that out as if it made perfect sense, and maybe if I read the supplement it would, but right now it just, well, flabbergasts me.

Thank you, Clinton. That's what I was looking for - a context in which to place the Mark. Your particular comment in that other thread makes a lot more sense now, and agrees with Ron's observation that it underscored the assumption/presumption of power, rather than being the vehicle for it (which is what I was imagining - your character walking up to someone, out of the blue, and marking them).

So, once again, just thanks :)

Wouldn't a combination of Mark and Cloak work well for the idea of Marking a person only for specific individuals to see (those with Lore greater than 1)?

What about the use of Mark "runes"...a combination of Mark and Daze, frex: the Mark, when seen, causes the effects of the Daze...or how about Command, Confuse, Link (ie: "Someone has invaded my lair!"), Protection, etc.

It seems to me that just because someone is Marked, doesn't mean that all Sorcerers can tell what the Mark means. I mean, someone could have "Kick Me" tattooed on their forehead in Sanskrit, but I'd never get the joke 'cause I can't read Sanskrit. Requiring Lore rolls to decipher a Mark could aid in limiting the spread of the information.

Or is that in there already .... ?

That's an interesting spin.
Mark as a way of embedding other powers at remote locations.

Mark Perception, to see through anothers eye's

Mark Cloak, to make a mundane invisible to other sorcerers.

Marks Special Damage.....mmmmmmm

Requiring Lore rolls to decipher a Mark could aid in limiting the spread of the information.

Hi Mike,

Ralph is talking about using Mark as a making something either a "transmitter" for powers, such as Marking a person combined with Perception so that you can see through their eyes, wherever they go, or else "loading them" or objects with potential powers.

Example #1-
Human time bomb-
Mark + Special damage, maybe Perception too, to know when to set it off. Boom!

Example #2
Curse upon thee-
Mark + Taint + Boost Stamina + Perception...whenever you are around someone who you truly love, you transform into a werewolf and kill them.

Nasty stuff there.

Chris

Must be some part of the Mark ability that I'm not remembering that it allows that. I'll check it out when I have a book handy.

Mike

Nothing specifically about Mark allows it, but there's nothing AGAINST it, as long as you and your players are all on the same page.

Or at least, that's what I've gathered.

Correct, I was riffing off of Raven's idea above. It isn't explicitly stated...but then we already know that about the Demon powers as currently written...

I was originally drawn to Mark as part of the Puppetman ensemble, or what I was imagining as the puppetman ensemble. I imagined he'd Mark the people he later wanted to puppet from a distance, and then the Mark would somehow help cement his powers (I was imagining something that Raven was actually able to express).

But Puppetman is an incredibly secretive bastard, and a Mark others would instantly recognize (or even see) seems counterintuitive. Which led me down the "When would I ever want a Mark that I wanted other people to see?" which led me, eventually, to post this thread.

I absolutely love the idea of using Mark as a vehicle for other abilities, like they were runes. And Marking as a vehicle for such things as seeing-through-others-eyes, or as curses... now that's something I can sink my teeth into. Yum.

Sorcerer and Sigil?

Lxndr wrote:
But Puppetman is an incredibly secretive bastard, and a Mark others would instantly recognize (or even see) seems counterintuitive. Which led me down the "When would I ever want a Mark that I wanted other people to see?" which led me, eventually, to post this thread.

However, something like a Perception (Marks) or Perception (Around where Marks are) would be one way to build at least some of these powers, though Range might be needed again. Because Perception specifically has to be defined as associated with something, it interacts well with Mark.

Yes, I was imagining Mark, and then Perception-Through-Marks, as a way to see through the eyeballs you painted on your ceiling, for instance, or the friendship bracelet you marked before putting it around your best friend's wrist. Or in Puppetman's case, Mark so he could perceive his pupets even when out of LOS (or more specifically, perceive the emotions of his puppets).

As to the others, they are a bit stretchier. In general, it's a time-released power connected to a Mark. "This is now Marked. If a sorcerer sees the Mark, he will be affected with <X>." Now, how do you set up that time-release power? The Mark is just sort of the seal, the epoxy that says "Here is where said time-released power will go off!"

Or that's how I'm seeing it, anyway.

Mike> Yes, if my Puppetman character was the only Sorcerer in the entire world, then it'd work. I was simply planning on the seemingly standard setup "other PCs are sorcerers at the very least; it's not impossible that NPC sorcerers exist also".

Of course, Puppetman could believe he's the only guy who sees his Marks, and then gets a rude awakening. That could be quite the Kicker.

Ah, I get the perception thing now. It's not the Mark that does it but a very creative definition of what the Perception power percieves. "Stuff around Marks". Hmmm. I'll have to try that trick in Hero System as see how it goes.

Mike

Wouldn't that be, in the hero system, some sort of clairvoyance with a limitation on location, "only what/who you have marked."

Grrr. I don't have my book with me. Can you mark a non-living entity? I seem to remember Mark having something to do with Humanity, in terms of a resolution method, but I don't remember for sure.

Hi Alexander,

yep... that's the demon's Power vs. the target's Humanity. So it seems that, by the book, you can actually only mark people. You may be able to stretch that definition to say that marking an object is an automatic act. But then, what about marking other demons ? ... it seems to open another can full of worms.

Extanding the mark definition to affect non human thing fails to me to convey the relationship that is instored by marking an individual. But that is only IMHO.


Take care,

Fabrice.

Hm. That's an interesting question. Given that you can target a door, with Claw, however, and use the door's difficulty to have it resist being busted down, I think that you can roll against an inanimate object. Give the object one die and add one to the Demon's power (assuming Zero Humanity, and applying the rule of currency).

Target seems to be anything, potentially. And anything can be rated using the rules. So by that broad interperetation I think it works. Local descriptions of Sorcery will be telling, however, and marks that only work on Humans should be a common limitation (vampire bite marks, for example).

Mike