The Gaming Den

@DrPraetor: Agent Scully, under the exploits vs. dispensations schema, would be a character that bought almost all exploits and then a dispensation called something like 'special non-spiritual observer status' which makes it so that any effect that the person with that dispensation points out as being scientifically impossible is forced to either stop working, justify itself scientifically or become undetectable to the Scully for as long as they stick around.

@Frank: I agree, the Mandate of Heaven and the Old Ones plot is a good one. Likewise, not calling the pro-magic faction or factions 'the Traditions' is probably a good plan. I'm not satisfied with having the main pro-magic factions be based on how far they want to go with reversing scientific paradigm. Dividing them up by what sorts of magic they want to exist would sit better with me.

If I were to write up the pro-magic factions, they would probably be something like this:

-A Secessionist movement, which wants to take control of various territories on earth and then break off of the rest of reality and take their claimed demenses with them to form a magical country outside of mundane space and time.
-A Religious movement, which wants to place the abrahamic God at the top of the Celestial Bureaucracy which answers prayers, judges the dead and generally acts in a manner consistant with the Jewish, Christian and Islamic holy books.
-An Environementalist movement, which wants to return the world to a pre-industrial state and make modern technology stop working in order to save the planet and prevent various nature spirits from dying out due to their forests and rivers getting killed/polluted.
-Something like Praetor's Murdak Society writeup, but called something different. These guys want magic to be widely available to the common folks, for spirits and humans to live in harmony with eachother and for magical overlords to rule over the world like in the days of old.

It has also recently occured to be that, rather than preventing spirits from entering the physical realm in spirit form, making it so that spirits look like normal humans to people that lack certain dispensations or a spirit form of their own would accomplish the same effect.

Coming up with names for splats is a lot of work. Since I supplied a bunch of the names for Frank's splats, I'm just going to recycle the whole damn list. It saves time.

Your four-way division of Traditionalist movements is useful, but I was going to divide them in the following way, which is game-mechanically relevant:
* Technocracy. Only the technocracy splats get this. You do not automatically get any non-covert magic, but you can use your celestial rank as counter-magic, both automatically and after conferring with members of the celestial hierarchy. Among other things, although you have magic you yourself count as a super-bonus non-magic observer whenever anyone tries to use magic where you can see it. You also get +1 to your celestial rank, since the Technocracy currently holds the mandate of heaven.
* Psuedo-scientific. These splats get full access to technology magic, but cannot use their celestial rank to "disprove" or otherwise counter other people's magic. These splats: including the Marduk Society, Rolnicy and the Network, have both magic and science but not particular advantage with either. The secret advantage of these splats is that they can infiltrate the technocracy - they don't have any powers to hunt down magic-users, but unless a magic-user shows up, how can you tell? These guys do not count quintuple when considering mundane advisers to the overt use of magic, but again, the Technocracy has a hard time noticing this since as a matter of policy they don't believe in magic at all.
* Hermetic. These splats, including the Storm Lords, Church of Set and Stellar Oracles, do not have a lot of science but do have a lot of formalization in their ritual magic. They probably have an agenda where they replace the natural sciences with their structure of ritual magic. They have better magic than
* Non-Hermetic. These splats, including the Chain of Coronis and False Face, do not have a formal system of magic, and want to replace

Different splats get slightly different powers, advantages, etc. but the category of your splat is crucial is determining what you do. Notably, you can change splats and, after a period of training, your effect on magic-wielding in your immediate vicinity will change.

The tension in general, and the specific issue with Scullies
The basic tension in this game is that the characters are scientists (of one kind or another) investigating a world in which magic, trolls and demons do in fact exist. So empiricists who believe in the evidence of their own senses will believe in magic, trolls and demons. However, the characters have two basic problems:
[*] magic, trolls and demons have the unusual property that they wither up, die, explode, etc. when subjected to careful and/or scientific scrutiny, especially by the characters.
[*] the characters are members of an organization, composed of empirical people who mostly know that magic exists, but which makes it a policy to deny it.

This raises the particular issue of the Scully. There will be an inevitable desire to play a character like Scully, on the X-Files, who never sees the aliens. I'm afraid this just doesn't work. Even on the TV Show, this required an incredible level of contrivance on the part of the writers. In a cooperative, narrative game, it's just going to be impossible to keep this up. What do you do if one of the other characters captures a Unicorn and brings it in front of Scully? It just doesn't hold together.

The Nature of the Veil
Ordinary people have little trouble believing in magic. Something like 50% of the population believe that aliens visit the earth on a regular basis; people are pretty credulous. So why don't people believe in real magic, which actually exists?
Because there is something called the Veil which causes people, even people who actually believe in magic, to remember magical events as being mundane. So you can go into a crystal store, have the new-age flake behind the counter go on for an hour about crystal power, pick up a crystal and use it to shoot a frickin' laser beam through the wall, and the flake behind the counter will react as if you'd shot a gun instead.
The Veil is not perfect, but when it does fail, it often has disastrous impact on the individuals affected by the failure.

Adjustments to In Media Res Character Generation
I will worry about other types of character generation later.
First, attributes and skills are scaled 1-4 rather than 1-6 (because the target number - to use ancient shadowrun parlance - is 4 instead of 5.) For attributes, a value of 1 is below average, a value of 2 is average, a value of 3 is exceptional, and a value of 4 is maximum-possible-human.
So your attributes begin at 1 each; you distribute 2 points to one pair, 3 points to another pair, and 4 points to the last pair. Then you get 2 additional points to place wherever you want. No attribute can be above 4. Note that, before you get bonuses from your various Splats, you get the equivalent of (6+11)*3/2 = 25.5 points, instead of 20 points, so your attributes here are quite a bit higher than in the grittier world of After Sundown.
For skills, you get 10 points in one category, 12 points in a second category, and 18 points in the third category, with 4 points to place wherever you want, and four specializations. You get 24 points of backgrounds.
Resources have not been re-scaled (since they aren't rolled, and values above 4 are super-human anyway).
Then you choose two splats - the type of spirit you secretly are, and the branch of the technoracy with which you are affiliated. Your Auspice is Skepticism, and you also choose a Guiding Passion from the following list: Courage, Compassion, Justice, Generosity, Hope or Honor. Note that being supernaturally good, hence good, does not make you actually good, although it helps. You can, instead, be supernaturally evil, if you want, meaning you are a cursed monster instead of a blessed faerie/spirit/whatever. Again, being evil makes it harder to be actually good but not impossible. There are some magical powers you can get if you're evil, but being evil is mostly downside. Likewise, you can be a member of a non-technocracy splat, with the permission of the MC, but they're purposefully, slightly inferior so this is directly discouraged.

Auspice
Auspice replaces potency, and determines both your maximum power points and your attribute maximums. The effects of Auspice depend on the nature of your Auspice, as does the name of the corresponding special characteristic. Player characters are assumed to be loyal members of the Technocracy, so they will have Skepticism. Skepticism is intended to be better than other auspices, which should partially serve to discourage people from wanting to play enemies, rivals or traitors.
Skepticism
I have a strongly held skepticism about any strongly held beliefs, especially my own. - Astronomer Margaret Geller
Members of the Technocracy should have this auspice. In many ways, the auspice of Skepticism is what defines the Technocracy. It is extremely rare outside of the technocracy, although spirits of high-tech or scientific things may also have it, even if they are not allied to the Technocracy. Generally speaking, Skepticism is deeply incompatible with membership in any magical organization other than the Technocracy: a follower of the Old Ones will generally not be driven by Skepticism or they would not trust the Old Ones motives, and deeply skeptical people seldom practice Kaballa, Hermetic Ritual Magic, etc. etc.
[*] Magic resistance: Skepticism automatically serves to counter any Overt magic which is used against you. Add you skepticism to the difficulty of any overt magic used against you.
[*] Mandate enforcement: When enforcing the mandate of heaven, add your Skepticism to any relevant dice pool.
[*] Increased attribute maximums: Add half your Skepticism, rounded UP, to your maximum value for all of your attributes.
[*] Anti-magic powers: For each point of Skepticism, you may select a power from the anti-magic list (note: "power selections" are generally equivalent to advanced powers from After Sundown.) You can use these powers either in Faerieland or in the material world.
[*] Increase your power pool maximum by your Skepticism x 3 (it starts at 10).

Ambition
Ambition fortifies the will of man to become ruler over other men: it operates with deception, cajolery, and violence... - T.S. Eliot
This auspice is for those who posess the will to power, or at least a consuming drive towards self-improvement. This isn't necesarilly a bad thing, and in fact, it can be a good thing in the absence of malevolent intentions. Nonetheless, while not all ambitious wizards are evil, almost all evil wizards are ambitious. Reality deviants and spies who attempt to infiltrate the Technocracy will almost always have this auspice, it is common among those traditions which emphasize ritual practices or magic as an end-in-itself.
[*] The will to power: Add your Ambition to the dice pool of any overt magic you may use.
[*] The gift. Your gift of magic arouses envy and hostility in mundanes. You gain an additional disadvantage for each point of point of Ambition, including the first. Choose from the following list: Blatantly Magical, Distinctive Appearance, Prideful, Temperamental, Diplomatic Incident, Doomed Romance, Eerie Presence, Feared by Children, Infectious Mood, Offensive to Animals, Red Taped or Unattractive.
[*] Increased attribute maximums: Add half your Ambition, rounded DOWN, to your maximum value for all of your attributes.
[*] Spirit powers: For each point of Ambition, select another faerie power (note: "power selections" are generally equivalent to advanced powers from After Sundown.) These abilities cannot be used in human form, though.
[*] Increase your power pool maximum by your Ambition x 3 (it starts at 10).

Conviction
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. - Friedrich Nietzche
The Auspice of Conviction is for those driven by some form of certitude. For whatever reason, this willingness to commit to a course of action whole-heartedly is very powerful in the spirit world, but wizards blessed with Conviction do not see the same benefits in the real world as those with other Auspices.
[*] Whoever stands against us, stands against the invisible pink unicorn: when you use magic on someone else, and they are a wizard of another tradition or a hostile spirit, add your Conviction to your dice pool. It is up to the MC what constitutes using magic on someone, but almost any resisted roll will count.
[*] The fool is a prince in the Other World, but not in This One: For each point of Conviction you gain, after the first, lose a point of resources. You can either give up a 1 pt resource, or lower the value of an existing resource by 1 point. Only mundane and worldly resources should be given up in this fashion - this is at the MC's discretion. If you have no worldly resource to lose, you do not suffer this penalty, and probably you are smug about it.
[*] Increased stats in fae form: Add half your Conviction, rounded DOWN, to your attributes (not your attribute maxima!) while in faerie form only.
[*] Spirit powers: For each point of Conviction, select another faerie power (note: "power selections" are generally equivalent to advanced powers from After Sundown.) These abilities cannot be used in human form, though.
[*] Increase your power pool maximum by your Conviction x 3 (it starts at 10).

Playable Splats - Spirit Type
Each wizard is also a spirit, and has a corresponding spirit form which they adopt in the Other World. Spirit form and faerie form will be used interchangeably throughout. Members of the technocracy deny that they are faeries, as a matter of policy, but the nature of their faerie form which they imagine that they may have (in a strictly literary sense, of course) still drives them. Player characters are generally assumed to be good faeries/spirits, and so they have a guiding passion, which helps them to do good. However, you may wish to be evil, in which case you have a master passion, instead, which goads you to acts of destruction. There is no game-mechanical advantage to doing this, but players may wish to do so as a roleplaying exercise.
Knight
In Fae Form you are humanoid, although with strange markings (pointed ears and candy-colored hair are typical), but you are a splendid warrior. By imagining yourself as a crusading knight, you perform superbly in combat or in feats of derring-do.
[*] Add +1 your Agility, gain an Edge of 1 and an Auspice of 1.
[*] Choose one inherent mandate at ***, another inherent mandate at **, and choose a speciality for one of the two mandates. At least one of the two mandates must be typical mandates for a Knight, including: War, Earth, Animals.
[*] Assuming you are good, select a driving passion. Courage is most typical. If you wish to be evil, select a master passion instead, Despair being most typical.
[*] Add +1 to your rating in the following skills (this can take them above 4): Combat, Athletics, Drive. When persuing or defending your guiding passion, add your Edge to any dice pool including these skills, without spending Edge.
[*] Your fae form begins with the following powers: Quickness, Indomitability. You may gain an additional fae powers from your point of Auspice (but player characters generally will not).
[*] You gain two bonus resources - Familiar ** and Magic Armaments **. The Familiar must take the form of a mount or other conveyance in the spirit world.

Troll
You imagine yourself to be a great, hulking beast. This does not mean that you are hostile or malevolent (though Trolls make fine villains in this role), but it means you are defined by your strength and physicality. Good trolls have a strong tendency to emphasize gentleness, which will be even more striking given their great physical power.
[*] Add +1 to your Strength, gain an Edge of 1 and an Auspice of 1.
[*] Choose one inherent mandate at ***, another inherent mandate at **, and choose a speciality for one of the two mandates. At least one of the two mandates must be typical mandates for a Troll, including: War, Fire, Death.
[*] Assuming you are good, select a guiding passion. Compassion is most typical. If you wish to be evil, select a master passion instead, Rage being most typical.
[*] Add +1 to your rating in the following skills (this can take them above 4): Perception, Survival, Intimidation. When persuing or defending your guiding passion, add your Edge to any dice pool including these skills, without spending Edge.
[*] Your fae form begins with the following powers: Giant Size, Devastation. You may gain an additional fae powers from your point of Auspice (but player characters generally will not).
[*] (should I give everyone ** and ** resources or should I give some people other powers instead?)

Gnome
You imagine yourself to be a slight, clever creature, using cunning and subterfuge to foil the powerful. You may or may not be goofy looking, in Faerie Land. In the real world, you simply imagine yourself to be
[*] Add +1 to your Logic, gain an Edge of 1 and an Auspice of 1.
[*] Choose one inherent mandate at ***, another inherent mandate at **, and choose a speciality for one of the two mandates. At least one of the two mandates must be typical mandates for a Gnome, including: Culture, Earth, Fire.
[*] Assuming you are good, select a guiding passion. Justice is most typical. If you wish to be evil, select a master passion instead, Greed being most typical.
[*] Add +1 to your rating in the following skills (this can take them above 4): Artisan, Operations, Research. When persuing or defending your guiding passion, add your Edge to any dice pool including these skills, without spending Edge.
[*] Your fae form begins with the following powers: Cloak of Shadow, Burrowing. You may gain an additional fae powers from your point of Auspice (but player characters generally will not).
[*] You gain two bonus resources, either Gadgets ** (Technomancers should take this) or Magic Implements ** (Technomancers should not take this!) and Secrets **.

Satyr or Nymph
You imagine yourself to be exceedingly beautiful, winsome, joyous and free. Many Faeries are actually very uptight, so your true nature can cause you much the same problems there as it does in the real world. Assuming you are good, you are deeply and sincerely motivated to share your joy with others. If you are evil, you view such freedom as an excuse to use others to gratify your own desires.
[*] Add +1 to your Charisma, gain an Edge of 1 and an Auspice of 1.
[*] Choose one inherent mandate at ***, another inherent mandate at **, and choose a speciality for one of the two mandates. At least one of the two mandates must be typical mandates for a Nymph, including: Animals, Mind, Body
[*] Assuming you are good, select a guiding passion. Generosity is most typical. If you wish to be evil, select a master passion instead, Hunger (that is, lust) being most typical.
[*] Add +1 to your rating in the following skills (this can take them above 4): Empathy, Expression, Sabotage. When persuing or defending your guiding passion, add your Edge to any dice pool including these skills, without spending Edge.
[*] Your fae form begins with the following powers: Desire Reflection, Contradiction. You may gain an additional fae powers from your point of Auspice (but player characters generally will not).
[*] (should I give everyone ** and ** resources or should I give some people other powers instead?)

Celestial
You imagine yourself to be a winged, radiant being, a source of hope, inspiration and leadership to those around you.
[*] Add +1 to your Willpower, gain an Edge of 1 and an Auspice of 1.
[*] Choose one inherent mandate at ***, another inherent mandate at **, and choose a speciality for one of the two mandates. At least one of the two mandates must be typical mandates for a Celestial, including: Culture, Air, Body
[*] Celestials are always good, so select a guiding passion. Hope is most typical. Any Celestial who is or becomes evil is a Shadow instead (typically they are dominated by master passion Fear), although Shadows often like to pretend to be Celestials.
[*] Add +1 to your rating in the following skills (this can take them above 4): Medicine, Persuasion, Tactics. When persuing or defending your guiding passion, add your Edge to any dice pool including these skills, without spending Edge.
[*] Your fae form begins with the following powers: Flight, Dismissal. You may gain an additional fae powers from your point of Auspice (but player characters generally will not).
[*] (should I give everyone ** and ** resources or should I give some people other powers instead?)

Stranger
You imagine yourself to be a figure of derring-do and mystery.
[*] Add +1 to your Intuition, gain an Edge of 1 and an Auspice of 1.
[*] Choose one inherent mandate at ***, another inherent mandate at **, and choose a speciality for one of the two mandates. At least one of the two mandates must be typical mandates for a Stranger, including: Death, Air or Mind.
[*] Assuming you are good, select a guiding passion. Honor is most typical. If you wish to be evil, select a master passion instead, Loneliness being most typical.
[*] Add +1 to your rating in the following skills (this can take them above 4): Stealth, Larceny, Bureaucracy. When persuing or defending your guiding passion, add your Edge to any dice pool including these skills, without spending Edge.
[*] Your fae form begins with the following powers: Phantasmagoria, Psychometry. You may gain an additional fae powers from your point of Auspice (but player characters generally will not).
[*] (should I give everyone ** and ** resources or should I give some people other powers instead?)

Nonplayable Splats - Spirit Type
Shadow
Sidh Lord


Spiritual Ranks

Edge + Skepticism	Rank
0-1	Commoner
2-3	Lord/Lady (starting rank for player members of the Technocracy)
4-5	Count/Countess
6-7	Duke/Duchess
8-9	Prince/Princess
10-11	King/Queen
12+	Emperor/Empress

Playable Splats - Technocracy Divisions
Directorate of Industry, Engineering and Process Optimization: IEPO
[*] The mandate of heaven. Add +1 to your Edge. Add your Skepticism to your Edge to determine your spiritual rank.
[*] Super science! Choose two academic background skills appropriate to IEPO, add +2 to both of them; this can (and probably should) raise them above 4. Examples of appropriate backgrounds include: Physics, Engineering, Chemistry, Mathematics, Architecture.
[*] Choose 6 points of occult sciences from the technical category, 3 points of occult sciences in each of the other two categories, and 6 points of occult sciences from any category desired. The 6 points of "any category" occult sciences can be traded for magical skills if desired, but this is not recommended. The maximum value in any occult science or magical skill is 2.
[*] Add +1 to each of the following occult sciences (possibly raising them to 3): Artisan, Electronics, Operations, Sabotage. Add +1 to any Occult science in the technical category (possibly raising it to 4.)
[*] Access to IEPO resources: Science ****, Finance ***, Contacts **, Assets **. Note that these resources are institutional so your ability to make clandestine use of them may be limited; if you want an "in" on resources that are loyal to you, you have to buy them normally.
[*] Take six points of super-science resources from the following list: Gadgets, Cyberware, Familiar, Devices. These resources are not institutional, but are things you made yourself with your own science, or which were gifted to you by a prominent mentor, or the like.

Directorate of Applied Social and Economic Sciences: DASE
[*] The mandate of heaven. Add +1 to your Edge. Add your Skepticism to your Edge to determine your spiritual rank.
[*] Super science! Choose two academic background skills appropriate to IEPO, add +2 to both of them; this can (and probably should) raise them above 4. Examples of appropriate backgrounds include: Sociology, Psychology, Economics, History, Political Science.
[*] Choose 6 points of occult sciences from the social category, 3 points of occult sciences in each of the other two categories, and 6 points of occult sciences from any category desired. The 6 points of "any category" occult sciences can be traded for magical skills if desired, but this is not recommended. The maximum value in any occult science or magical skill is 2.
[*] Add +1 to each of the following occult sciences (possibly raising them to 3): Bureaucracy, Intimidation, Tactics, Research. Add +1 to any one of those four Occult sciences (possibly raising it to 4.)
[*] Access to DASE resources: Finance ****, Contacts ***, Science **, Assets **. Note that these resources are institutional so your ability to make clandestine use of them may be limited; if you want an "in" on resources that are loyal to you, you have to buy them normally.
[*] Take six points of super-science resources from the following list: Finances, Secrets, Familiar, Destiny. These resources are not institutional, but are things you made yourself with your own science, or which were gifted to you by a prominent mentor, or the like.

Directorate of Communication, Media and Public Relations: CM&P
[*] The mandate of heaven. Add +1 to your Edge. Add your Skepticism to your Edge to determine your spiritual rank.
[*] Super science! Choose two academic background skills appropriate to CM&P, add +2 to both of them; this can (and probably should) raise them above 4. Examples of appropriate backgrounds include: Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Computer Science, Media Relations, Communications, Public Relations.
[*] Choose 6 points of occult sciences from the social category, 3 points of occult sciences in each of the other two categories, and 6 points of occult sciences from any category desired. The 6 points of "any category" occult sciences can be traded for magical skills if desired, but this is not recommended. The maximum value in any occult science or magical skill is 2.
[*] Add +1 to each of the following occult sciences (possibly raising them to 3): Empathy, Persuasion, Expression, Electronics. Add +1 to any one of those four Occult sciences (possibly raising it to 4.)
[*] Access to DASE resources: Contacts ****, Assets ***, Science **, Finance **. Note that these resources are institutional so your ability to make clandestine use of them may be limited; if you want an "in" on resources that are loyal to you, you have to buy them normally.
[*] Take six points of super-science resources from the following list: Assets, Contacts, Familiar, Destiny. These resources are not institutional, but are things you made yourself with your own science, or which were gifted to you by a prominent mentor, or the like.

Directorate of Agriculture and Environment: DA&E
[*] The mandate of heaven. Add +1 to your Edge. Add your Skepticism to your Edge to determine your spiritual rank.
[*] Super science! Choose two academic background skills appropriate to DA&E, add +2 to both of them; this can (and probably should) raise them above 4. Examples of appropriate backgrounds include: Biology, Botany, Ecology, Geology, Meteorology, Medicine, Genetics, Paleontology.
[*] Choose 6 points of occult sciences from the technical category, 3 points of occult sciences in each of the other two categories, and 6 points of occult sciences from any category desired. The 6 points of "any category" occult sciences can be traded for magical skills if desired, but this is not recommended. The maximum value in any occult science or magical skill is 2.
[*] Add +1 to each of the following occult sciences (possibly raising them to 3): Empathy, Medicine, Survival, Research. Add +1 to any one of those four Occult sciences (possibly raising it to 4.)
[*] Access to DASE resources: Science ****, Assets ***, Contacts **, Finance **. Note that these resources are institutional so your ability to make clandestine use of them may be limited; if you want an "in" on resources that are loyal to you, you have to buy them normally.
[*] Take six points of super-science resources from the following list: Cyberware, Familiar, Science, Destiny. These resources are not institutional, but are things you made yourself with your own science, or which were gifted to you by a prominent mentor, or the like.

Directorate of Military Operations: DMil
[*] The mandate of heaven. Add +1 to your Edge. Add your Skepticism to your Edge to determine your spiritual rank.
[*] Super science! Choose two academic background skills appropriate to DA&E, add +2 to both of them; this can (and probably should) raise them above 4. Examples of appropriate backgrounds include: Military Theory, Military Etiquette, Law, Logistics, Political Science, History, Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Navigation.
[*] Choose 6 points of occult sciences from the physical category, 3 points of occult sciences in each of the other two categories, and 6 points of occult sciences from any category desired. The 6 points of "any category" occult sciences can be traded for magical skills if desired, but this is not recommended. The maximum value in any occult science or magical skill is 2.
[*] Add +1 to each of the following occult sciences (possibly raising them to 3): Combat, Drive, Operations, Tactics. Add +1 to any one of those four Occult sciences (possibly raising it to 4.)
[*] Access to DMil resources: Assets ****, Finance ***, Contacts **, Science **. Note that these resources are institutional so your ability to make clandestine use of them may be limited; if you want an "in" on resources that are loyal to you, you have to buy them normally.
[*] Take six points of super-science resources from the following list: Cyberware, Gadgets, Assets, Destiny. These resources are not institutional, but are things you made yourself with your own science, or which were gifted to you by a prominent mentor, or the like.

Nonplayable Splats - Enemy Mages

Magic Skills and Mandates
So Frank went to a lot of trouble to make sure that, in After Sundown, you would always use your Persuasion skill to power a magical ability based off of changing someone's mind. Why am I changing that?
Well, I'm not changing it entirely - exploits still work more or less the same way. But overt displays of raw magic do not, because they are specifically derived from a skill set which is decreed, on some cosmic level, to be useless in the real world.
So a wizard, master of the eldritch arts, may know the secret names of the furies by which he can call lightning down from the sky; this same wizard specifically does not know how lightning works in the real world. A wizard with great powers of mind control may be completely ignorant of human motivations, even a complete social schleb, and so forth. The five magical skills are: Create, Destroy, Sense, Transform and Control. They are used in conjunction with a specific mandate to create overtly magical effects. They have no other use; mandates can be used to generate or power super-science devices and other exploits, but doing so requires real world skills, not the litany of five thousand secret names for the hidden gods of the storm.

DrPraetor wrote:Adjustments to In Media Res Character Generation
I will worry about other types of character generation later.
First, attributes and skills are scaled 1-4 rather than 1-6 (because the target number - to use ancient shadowrun parlance - is 4 instead of 5.) For attributes, a value of 1 is below average, a value of 2 is average, a value of 3 is exceptional, and a value of 4 is maximum-possible-human.

I'm sorry to ask, but why have such a change to the system? It seems like you could get a lot out of keeping the same basic system so that you can import a lot of the disciplines for the NPCs (or even PCs) to use and such.

Lokathor wrote: I'm sorry to ask, but why have such a change to the system? It seems like you could get a lot out of keeping the same basic system so that you can import a lot of the disciplines for the NPCs (or even PCs) to use and such.

Well, I think it works better; you get higher variance and roll fewer dice. I could always just argue with Frank....


Anyway, it's actually a very minor change when I cut-and-paste. The thresholds, dice pools etc. all stay the same (although I may convert some of the thresholds to difficulties.) The stats for the NPCs have to be rescaled but that's an easy find-and-replace.

The only things that change are the bonuses - and most of those are gone, since you don't get the passive bonuses from powers (+2 to Perception skill for Enhanced Senses, and so forth.)

Making it so that non-technocracy groups are shitier than normal splats a] breaks WSoD, since there's no fluff reason for the non-technocracy groups to actually be shittier and b] will not actually prevent people from playing them. If you don't want people to play them, just don't make a writeup that lets people play them.

---

I honestly don't like the spirit writeup, or the idea of everyone who is in any way important having a dual nature where they're simultaneously a spirit and a normal human. This leaves out the two character concepts that resonate with me the most, the "normal human that has just discovered magic is real" and the "magical being attempting to pass for human in the modern world" concepts.

I also don't like the fact that each spirit type gets a bunch of fiddly bonuses like +1 to a stat, +1 to a skill or some resources.

So, as such, here's a different writeup for spirit types:


In the Hidden World, both mundane humans and supernatural spirits exist. Though the Technocracy has a strict policy of never revealing or even admitting that any of their members are spirits, and the Celestial Bureaucracy only accepts humans who have been stolen from the mortal world as children and raised as spirits, each and every faction counts at least some spirits and some humans among their membership. All spirits have access to glamer as part of an ancient treaty signed between humans and spirits, allowing them to pass for human while travelling in the human world. Because the Technocracy disapproves of spirits revealing their true nature to humans, any spirit that fails to make use of glamer while in the mortal world fails to do so.

Each spirit receives six points of inherent mandates. Spirits are required to spend at least three these in the mandate natural for their spirit type and Half Spirits at least two. Humans only start with five points of inherent mandates, but are free to divide them up in whatever way they wish. No starting character may have more than four points in a single mandate inherently. Spirits receive +2 to their Auspice, Humans +2 to their Edge and Half-Spirits +1 to both. Spirits and Half-Spirits are naturally able to create and see through glamer without taking

Human
Humans are normal everyday people who have, through luck, merit or inheritence, been caught up in the affairs of the Hidden World. By default, humans do not have a spirit form and are unable to see through fae glamers that the spirits of the Other World cloak themselves in while traveling in the mortal realm. Humans without a spirit form appear to spirits normal humans, making them utterly inconspicuous when in the lands of humans and seem entirely out of place in the Other World. Humans do not have natural mandates, and may assign their inherent mandates in whatever way they wish. Due to their time spent in the mundane world, humans start out with an extra mundane 3 point resource of their choice.

Sidhe
Sidhe are elfin spirits full of grace, beauty and magic. Sidhe, in their natural forms, appear similar to humans, yet with unnatural faces, overly long ears, limbs and fingers and strange colours for their hair, eyes and skin. Even while using glamer to appear as human, Sidhe often prefer to take on the apperance of beautiful humans with unusual appearances and eye-catching styles when they think they can get away with it. Sidhe have naturally powerful glamer, and may add their Edge to any check to pass themselve as off a human or interact with humans without spending an Edge. Sidhe have natural mandates in War, Earth, Animals.

Troll
Trolls, giants, ogres and other spirits are naturally powerful, difficult to kill and supernaturally strong. Trolls may add their edge to any check of pure physical strength (checks which do not involve a skill, only strength), such as when lifting heavy objects, breaking down doors and when soaking physical attacks. Though they are no more violent and no less intelligent than other spirits, trolls often have beastial features such as tusks, leathery or craggy skin, bristled hair or an unusual number of eyes, and are universally muscular and strong. For this reason, trolls are often thought of as being brutish and crude, a reputation that is embraced by the more evil members of the race. Trolls typically appear as powerfully muscled individuals even when hidden by glamer. Trolls have natural mandates in War, Fire, Death.

Gnome
Gnomes are industrious spirits of craft and industry who have a natural proficency towards artifice and construction. Gnomes are typically short (at times being as small as a foot tall) with curly hair in unusual places on their body and unusually large noses and eyes. When glamered into a human form, gnomes are still unusually short and often a bit comical or otherwise unintimidating. Gnomes are also naturally stealthy, with a tendency towards hiding and trickery. Gnomes may add their edge to any Stealth or Artisan check without spending an edge. Gnomes have natural mandates in Culture, Earth, Fire.

Cambions
Cambions are dual-natured beings born of the combination of spirit and human lines. Cambions have both a spiritual form that takes after their spirit parent, which they take on when in the spirit world, and a human form that takes after their human parent, which they take on in the human world. Neither is glamer; they change in form physically when travelling between the worlds. When in the human world, they appear to spirits as humans and are unable to peer through the glamer of other spirits, but appear as spirits and see spirits for what they are when in the spirit world. These children of both realms are rare, and have either the supernatural powers of their spirit parent or the mundane resources of their mortal parent, depending on which they favour or which they we raised with.

Grek wrote:Making it so that non-technocracy groups are shitier than normal splats a] breaks WSoD, since there's no fluff reason for the non-technocracy groups to actually be shittier and b] will not actually prevent people from playing them. If you don't want people to play them, just don't make a writeup that lets people play them.

Well, they're shittier only in the sense that they don't get the various mandate of heaven bonuses. Otherwise they're numerically identical. Perhaps that wasn't clear. I agree that this won't entirely discourage people from whining at the MC to let them play one. To be clear - the rules text will be copied from the Akuma writeup in After Sundown.

What does WSoD stand for?

I honestly don't like the spirit writeup, or the idea of everyone who is in any way important having a dual nature where they're simultaneously a spirit and a normal human. This leaves out the two character concepts that resonate with me the most, the "normal human that has just discovered magic is real" and the "magical being attempting to pass for human in the modern world" concepts.

The second one is entirely doable with this writeup - you just take anachronism and voila. Does it bother you that the magical beings all have the power actually be human in the modern world, rather than just looking human behind an illusion?
This setting really does not support playing normal humans, it's true. You can go ahead and give normal humans an edge stat if you want to do that, but... how many people do you know who would play a normal human in a game of mage or changeling? I regard it as a false choice, so not worth considering.

I also don't like the fact that each spirit type gets a bunch of fiddly bonuses like +1 to a stat, +1 to a skill or some resources.

I'm nixing the resources. As for the +1 to a stat - when stats are scaled 1-4, +1 is very big, yeah? It is intended to replace the similar-sized bonuses that you'd get in After Sundown for your various powers, i.e. advanced vigor gives you +2 strength, that sort of thing.

It's spelled glamour, by the way. Does your glamour work on video cameras?

Mostly, okay, you want to write a completely different game in which the root of the premise - that everyone in the Technocracy who has reality manipulation is a changeling who has to pretend they're not - doesn't hold. That's fine, but obviously not where I'm going. A few points of feedback on your writeup, though:

[*] Trading a point for being able to take whatever you want is not worth it. oWOD did this all the time - either Caitiff's get 2 disciplines of their choice (in which case they are strictly lame) or they get 3 disciplines of their choice (in which case they are strictly superior.)
[*] It's going to be very difficult to balance Edge and Auspice against one another; especially when all of your spirit types get a power which is add-Edge-to-Foo, they're always going to want Edge and not Auspice.
[*] The different powers you give the different Spirit splats are not remotely balanced. Trolls get a bonus which either applies to damage (in which case it's better than what Gnomes get) or only applies to tearing down doors (in which case it's way worse).
[*] Cambions don't get an Edge-derived bonus at all?

Anyway, I am making a few more revisions to my own splats.
[*] The super-science "resources" you get for being in the technocracy are now a special sub-category of mandates. "Approved" mandates give you things like super-gadgets and cyberware, and they have the advantage that they are not officially magical and thus cannot be dispelled by various applications of Skepticism. They also don't let you cast mighty rituals of vast power, or otherwise operate with the magical skills in any way.
[*] The bonus resource types for the various fae splats are gone. I'll have a note that Knights often take Familiars who serve as mounts, and then I'll give each splat an additional power; so Knights will have Fae Armaments which is rather like Invulnerability except it also comes with a sword.

WSoD is "Willing Suspension of Disbelief". Something violates WSoD when it makes the audience member go "WTF!?" within the context of the narrative. So in The Leprechaun, WSoD is not violated when Warwick Davis kills someone by bouncing on them with a pogo stick, but it is violated when the main characters get into the other car and drive away. Because it's a damn leprechaun movie and Warwick Davis killing people with unconvincing special effects and bad jokes is like the entire point. But the plot called for the characters being "stranded" when the first car didn't start, so the other car working later on is a major WTF moment.

I personally don't like the difficulty dice because it adds extra rolling and math steps to resolution. The extra difficulty of rolling and counting 12 dice instead of 8 is simply nowhere near as big of an impact at the table as adding an extra math step or tracking multiple numbers.

Also: I totally agree with Grek that people should be humans or spirits and have mixed parties like in Bleach. Because that's awesome.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:
Also: I totally agree with Grek that people should be humans or spirits and have mixed parties like in Bleach. Because that's awesome.

-Username17

Well, okay, but when the hero in bleach goes to Otherwhere, he shows up in a kimono with a magical sword because in addition to being a normal high school kid, he is also an avatar of death, or whatever.

Likewise, his magical girlfriend who has to give him her powers, she is clearly a spirit, but also she can show up in Tokyo and she can enroll in high school. Which means she can be fingerprinted, and she can strip down to her underwear for a health exam in a gratuitous fan service episode, and so forth.

There are also supporting characters in Bleach who can't do any of that jazz. But in a narrativist retro-future Babylon, everyone plays one of the heroes. What if someone wants to play a 50% hero who can do some of the cool stuff, but not all of it? Well, color me not-so-concerned.

So, yes, some of the characters have no human parents and aren't really human. But game mechanically, this only matters because they take Anachronism and have to be comic relief every other episode because they don't know how to pay for bus fare and they think the cute bartender is a Succubus who wants to drain their life force. Otherwise, the spirits-passing-as-humans are just wandering around in human form being human.

Haven't watched much Bleach, have you?

Frank's likely talking about:

The archer-guy

http://images.wikia.com/bleach/en/image ... powers.jpg

And the Bruiser:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Hv-1mLTN7lI/S ... do_400.jpg

And this guy, who's from the Other Side.

http://www.bleachedichigo.com/wp-conten ... pakuto.jpg


Pretty much all of them draw their power from difference sources and do different things, even though they work for the same goals.

If you give people a variety of backgrounds, someone is going to want to play a non-standard character.

Like that party member in Dragon Age: Awakening. The spirit from the Fade possessing a dead body to move around and interact with the physical world.

Justice was pretty cool.

The distinction between spirits that merely appear to be human and spirits that physically are human is not important. The fact that some spirits look inhuman, however, means that the spirits need to either be non-playable, or have some method which allows them to pass for human. Like an illusionary form, for example.

My objection is the idea that being equal parts spirit and human and therefore being equally adept in both worlds is the default. The entire point of having a spirit world that is seperate and different from the human world is to allow there to be stuff that only exists in one version and for culture shock to occur when people from one place take a visit to the other.

Humans don't have to be "normal humans" in the sense that they're powerless muggles, but they do, according to my criterion, have to be people who could plausably be unaware of the existance of the magical world up until the point of their origin story wherein the magical world is revealed to them and they are drafted MIB style into a secretive organization devoted into protecting the world from the terrible secret of space magic. This in no way precludes them from gaining magic, mandates or access to supertech as soon as they've hit their origin story and the curtains open on the chronicle. I just want "I used to be a normal guy up until..." to be a valid opening line for a character biography, since having that possibility lets you ease new players into the game easily, as both the player and the character would be equally unfamiliar with the supernatural.

The Mage or Changeling equivilents would be a Mage who just awakened last week and is new to the whole, "I have magical powers." thing, or a Changeling who's fresh off the boat from Arcadia and still not 100% convinced that the changelings aren't going to come after them to drag them back to the realms of the fae.

Grek wrote:The distinction between spirits that merely appear to be human and spirits that physically are human is not important. The fact that some spirits look inhuman, however, means that the spirits need to either be non-playable, or have some method which allows them to pass for human. Like an illusionary form, for example.

Under my write-up, such spirits would be unplayable. If they go to the physical world, they become the closest available analog - so the giant white bison with lightning horns becomes a big bull.

My objection is the idea that being equal parts spirit and human and therefore being equally adept in both worlds is the default.

It does not. In the spirit world, just for starters, you can cast all the spells you want. So that's a big drawback for team science, right there.

Also, the technomancers will seldom have "Horse" among their pilot specialties, they won't have backgrounds like "Courtly Etiquette", and so on and so forth.

Finally, the opposition gets extra spirit powers for their Auspice, which you don't. You get anti-magic powers which are probably better, especially in that they work in the real world. But in faerie land you are at a severe disadvantage.

BUT, if you dream you are a troll, then you are a troll. And if you dream you are a crusading knight, you will get gleaming silver armaments, even if you are not particularly trained to use them.

Due to the very course-grain nature of the skill system, the fish-out-of-water penalties are necessarily limited. However, I view that as a bow to genre convention. When the heroes are transported to Magic Land, they invariably get up to speed with amazing speed, and they expected to be dueling the greatest swordsman in the land, and other derring do, within years (at most) of their arrival.

[*]

people who could plausably be unaware of the existance of the magical world up until the point of their origin story

- I can assure that this is the default assumption for the game, so no worries here.

[*]

The Mage or Changeling equivilents would be a Mage who just awakened last week and is new to the whole, "I have magical powers." thing, or a Changeling who's fresh off the boat from Arcadia and still not 100% convinced that the changelings aren't going to come after them to drag them back to the realms of the fae.

- I think a lot of this is coming from a misunderstanding of what I mean by "Changeling". That is not how the Changeling game actually worked at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling:_The_Dreaming

In the White Wolf game Changeling, the characters are normal humans who have only now realized they are secretly faeries. One of the big issues with the game is of course that oWOD Mages have exactly the same schtick, including having a second extra soul which gives them magic powers, so WTF is the point of this? Like many white wolf games, the premise is 75% awesome and the execution is 75% crap, but it was still a better execution than the original Mage.

But all of this raises a valid point - I certainly can't assume in writing text for the game audience-familiarity with failed products in the oWOD line. So I should avoid using the term "Changeling" since people will assume I'm referring to folklore and not to the game.

I like the origin story where people think they are normal humans and secretly find out that they are really river spirits. That has the potential to do the cool things we wanted Sion to do instead of what it actually did. But the story premise still wants available player characters who are in fact fairies from fairy land and straight up humans who are really humans.

Players should at the very least be allowed those three origins, and they should be mechanically important, because it's the kind of thing that people want to be mechanically important. A spirit born into the human world and incarnated into an apparently human body should be in some respect "different" from a fellow MIB agent who is a real human. Even if it ends up being a simple and obvious Min/Max tool like the birth origins in Werewolf, that would still be better than not having the distinction. Because if people can't have it be mechanically important that they are or are not a real boy the entire spirit world / mortal world distinction becomes less relevant and real to the players.

-Username17

I say again - the people who don't have secret bonus magic-souls, do they get magic/reality manipulation anyway? Within the setting, why? Certainly normal humans exist in the setting, and the distinction is very important from a game mechanical standpoint, because the normal humans do not have magic powers. So I regard this as a false choice. Yes, some of these people are cyborgs and have science police gadgets and get to show up in mirror shades and be MIB, but I'm just not concerned that very many people will want to be play a normal human so badly that they will give up all the reality manipulation powers.

Also, it breaks the consistency of the game premise. You can play paranoia and some of the players, maybe they don't want their characters to be mutants? But it violates the point, which is that the players are all secretly spirits and have to deny it to the authorities, possibly to themselves.

That said, if you want an origin story splat as well, I'm happy to add another splat. There can be four origin stories splats, and they can be game-mechanically different:
[*] A spirit, incarnated into a clone body (or human vegetable) using science. Within technocracy double-speak parlance, these are the risen, even though they seldom bother to do this with human vegetables or fresh corpses any more. IRB approval is a bitch for that.

[*] A spirit, who has wandered into the human world using magic, but who has now joined team science. Some of these people were born human, stolen as children, raised by faeries, and now want revenge on the magic-pansies who kidnapped them. Within technocracy double-speak parlance, these are the redeemed, which seems unfortunately to have a vaguely religious connotation, but of course it doesn't (they inherited the term from the Stellar Oracles it totally does).

[*] Someone born and raised in the human world, but who has had a secret, hidden spirit-nature at least roughly since birth. They develop the ability to do reality manipulation spontaneously, so within technocracy double-speak parlance, these are the gifted.

[*] Someone born and raised in the human world, but who has had a spirit nature grafted onto them using science, enabling them to do reality manipulation. You need to give someone all kinds of hypnotherapy, drugs and special agent training to make these work, so these individuals are the initiated.

Does this satisfy people's desire to play "normal humans", except with magic powers which, last I checked, "normal humans" do not have?

DrPraetor wrote:I say again - the people who don't have secret bonus magic-souls, do they get magic/reality manipulation anyway? Within the setting, why?

Yes, they do. Because the setting is based on belief (that's the whole point of the Technocracy), and so once they actually know and truly think that belief shapes reality then they can shape reality. They've passed beyond The Veil and aren't normal humans, but they were human, and that's not the same as being a Half-Spirit your entire life and then just waking up one day and going "oh shit, magic!".

Normal Humans don't have magic not because humans are incapable of magic, but because anyone under the influence of The Veil is prevented from actualizing their magic (and this also includes spirits who don't yet know they're spirits).
[*]In terms of Technocracy-speak, once you're free of The Veil, you qualify to be an Agent and do grunt-work level tasks. If you're free of the Veil and you also have an Edge score then you're quickly going to become a Special Agent and get assigned to do the things that need to get done.
[*]The Traditionalists view non-veiled extras as Initiates, and non-veiled luminaries learn to be Mages.
[*]The Spirits have people split into Taskers (who keep the world running) and Nobles (who keep the taskers in line).
[*]The Old Ones don't talk with the others much, but they still do have Cultists and Azarchs.

It's like in After Sundown: A vampire once was human, but now they're not, and that's different from being an Android who was never ever human and just thought they were until they smashed off their arm one day and saw circuits and wires inside and flipped out.

It does not. All of them involve a special magical souls. The whole "secondary magical soul" plot point was one of the most retarded aspects of oMage, and I would consider it a very good thing if that specific plot point was either dropped or limited to being one option among many options that do not involve multiple souls in any way.

The methods of gaining magical powers are as follows:

-You were born as a type of spirit that has magical powers relevant to the type of spirit that you are by virtue of your birth and can use this inherent magic to do magical things.
-You have obtained special authority that allows you to compell spirits to perform magic on your behalf in a manner mechanically similar to casting spells on your own.
-You have a spirit, a familar, perhaps, who is either personally very fond of you and is willing to bend or break the rules in order to help you out, or who has been instructed by its superiors to do as you command.
-You possess items, training, information or other factors which have had special exemptions attached to them in the laws of physics by current or previous holders of the Mandate of Heaven, thereby allowing them to do extraordinary effects.
-You have had a special magical soul put into you, thereby turning you into a spirit and allows you to do magic.

Note that there is no reason why you couldn't do more than one of these. While an origin story must have at least one of those it it if you want to be a playable character, it doesn't require that you do only one of them, nor does it require that you have any specific one. You could quite easily have a character that has numbers 2, 3 and 4 as the sources of their powers and not have them be a spirit in any way.

Lokathor wrote: the setting is based on belief (that's the whole point of the Technocracy), and so once they actually know and truly think that belief shapes reality then they can shape reality. They've passed beyond The Veil and aren't normal humans, but they were human, and that's not the same as being a Half-Spirit your entire life and then just waking up one day and going "oh shit, magic!".

A couple of points here:
[*] As I just said above (did you read my post?) you can be a normal human who gets magic, but when this happens to you, you show up as a Troll or whatever if you go to Faerie Land, and spirits react to you as a spirit even if you weren't born that way. This enables all of the players to engage on a roughly equal footing in the Werewolf-inspired animist subplots, when those occur.

[*] The setting is not based on the premise that belief shapes reality. That is one element that I've utterly nixed, because it doesn't hold together, to quote Frank, "like, at all". If the pro-magic guys just need to convince people that magic exists, well, they have magic powers so this is pretty easy. Furthermore, if belief in science shapes reality towards science, the existing human population has to be vastly different than it actually is, since a slight plurality of people do not believe that science works! So, instead, reality is shaped by whoever has the cosmic mandate to do so, likewise this is who gets to be magical. People can believe whatever they want.

Grek wrote:It does not. All of them involve a special magical souls. The whole "secondary magical soul" plot point was one of the most retarded aspects of oMage, and I would consider it a very good thing if that specific plot point was either dropped or limited to being one option among many options that do not involve multiple souls in any way.

Long story short: for the third time, Grek, No, I am not doing that.

I rather liked it, and so am keeping it. It suffered seriously in execution in both Mage and in Changeling, I will grant readily; it was, however, a pretty cool schtick for the Tecnocracy, since they all secretly wizards. Since I'm interested in making the Technocracy as cool as possible, it stays.

You can construct an alternative but nearly-identical game, quite easily, in which people who aren't also-spirits can be immune to the veil, and can have spirit allies, and can have the reality-manipulation super-luck that is really the best technomancer power which everyone wants.

Everything is open content, you are entirely free to write a game in which the characters are not all, secretly, faeries (whether they were born that way or not.)

Kindly keep it to another thread, however, since I want feedback on the game I am writing, which is going to work as I specified.

Dr. P wrote:As I just said above (did you read my post?) you can be a normal human who gets magic, but when this happens to you, you show up as a Troll or whatever if you go to Faerie Land, and spirits react to you as a spirit even if you weren't born that way.

I read that. As far as I'm concerned, it's a deal breaker. People are going to want to be spirits in the mortal world who have to hide their elf ears under floppy hats and people are going to want to be humans with laser guns running around in the spirit realm. Yes, the character who is apparently a human in the mortal world and apparently a fairy in the spirit world is a cool character, but that's one character, and if you want to insist that everyone has to play that character I do not want to play.

-Username17

I intend to finish the game anyway, but I also think your hissy fits are deeply misguided, and based, to paraphrase Frank, on what you think you want and not what you actually want.

People always said they wanted to carry laser cannons when they astral projected in Shadowrun; they said this a lot. But you couldn't do it originally, and if anything it was including this option later that broke the game. My intention was to let technomancers run around in faerieland with Steam Punk swag, which obviously means they have to leave their 22nd century swag (and, by extension, all other physical objects) behind in the real world. Furthermore, you are forced either to be a troll, a dwarf, or a super-model with pointed ears, which is pretty much the same as being a human, except that yes some people will throw fits, because if they are not allowed to show up at an elf castle as an overweight schmoe in a red tracksuit they die inside.

On the other hand, you are perfectly free to take Blatantly Magical, if you wish, and have to hide your pointed ears all the time when in the physical world, but this isn't a whole new character type. In fact, I think this is more fun for those characters born human since presumably they will be more weirded out and embarrassed about it. Also, because this is the Technocracy, you have an annoyingly persistent therapist who also has magic powers.

But, yeah, I intend to place significant restrictions on the player characters - that is, that white wolf Mages, white wolf Werewolves and white wolf Changelings are basically all the same but you have to be whatever those things are, because that is who gets to use magic. This doesn't let you be some mirror version of the monster squad where everyone is some different kind of thingy.

Neither, does it let you muddy up the setting by being an ordinary guy who acquires magic powers from some other source unrelated to everyone else. This is like psionic powers in D&D, because someone has a hissy fit that they want to have magic powers but not be a wizard - of course you can do it, but in spite of insistence from all corners that this is an improvement I do not think it is.

Although, this reminds me that I think I want a beastman rather than a "Stranger", who was a placeholder anyway.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Dr. P wrote:As I just said above (did you read my post?) you can be a normal human who gets magic, but when this happens to you, you show up as a Troll or whatever if you go to Faerie Land, and spirits react to you as a spirit even if you weren't born that way.

I read that. As far as I'm concerned, it's a deal breaker. People are going to want to be spirits in the mortal world who have to hide their elf ears under floppy hats and people are going to want to be humans with laser guns running around in the spirit realm. Yes, the character who is apparently a human in the mortal world and apparently a fairy in the spirit world is a cool character, but that's one character, and if you want to insist that everyone has to play that character I do not want to play.

-Username17

As a brief followup, the story inspiration for what-technomancers-look-like-in-Faerie-Land is this:

http://dresdencodak.com/2006/12/03/dung ... discourse/
http://dresdencodak.com/2009/01/27/adva ... discourse/
http://dresdencodak.com/images/dnd_mucha_preview.jpg

No. People actually want to play human characters running around in fairy land shooting fairies with guns. People actually want to play magical beings running around New York acting as law enforcement against rogue spirits. They really want these things, and if you don't want to give them those things, that is a deal breaker. Because there is no good god damn reason why you are being obstinate about this shit.

Mortals in Fairy Land is fun. Fairies in Mortal Land is fun. Period. You are telling people they can't have these things for no good reason, and that is a deal breaker.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:No. People actually want to play human characters running around in fairy land shooting fairies with guns. People actually want to play magical beings running around New York acting as law enforcement against rogue spirits. They really want these things, and if you don't want to give them those things, that is a deal breaker. Because there is no good god damn reason why you are being obstinate about this shit.

Mortals in Fairy Land is fun. Fairies in Mortal Land is fun. Period. You are telling people they can't have these things for no good reason, and that is a deal breaker.

-Username17

Bollocks, you may not like my reasons, but they are sound and sensible.

If you can bring material objects into Faerie Land, can you bring this tree? Because this tree has a spirit, which lives in Faerie Land. Can the spirit of this tree now pick up the tree which you picked up and brought? This is one respect in which it makes life easier not to be able to bring material objects into Faerie Land. If you can bring a gun, can you bring a factory? Can you arm all the tree spirits with AK-47s? This is an entertaining trope, but not part of the setting I want to have, so I'm banning it. Finally, I want to be steam punk in Faerie Land, which means you can't bring a gun. You can have a Flash Gordon-style ray gun, you can have a steam-powered nail cannon, but these are all spiritual stuff, which you are issued, dream-like, as part of your costume on arrival.

Now, if I wanted to make a Yu Yu Hakusho RPG, I would need to find some other, more complicated work around on this, because Yu Yu Hakusho is clearly dependent on people being able to bring physical stuff Otherwhere. But this game doesn't need that so it makes my life much easier to just say you can't.

Since I am not proposing a Yu Yu Hakusho RPG, I see no problem with requiring that the spirits be able to pretend to be human. So, if you are in the Technocracy, you have to be able to pass for human (or be a "mutant", at worst). You will get in a lot of trouble if you at any time turn your human-seeming off. I will note that up above someone else was arguing that, as a member of the Technocracy, you should be unable to turn your human-seeming off. Now, Frank, you are saying that I agreed to that person (which I didn't) and also that I had no reason to do so? Actually, I think they made a fairly good argument: in many ways, the setting hangs together better if it is impossible for people to turn their human-seeming off in the Real World. But on balance, people will want to have turning-back-into-a-Werewolf be an option, so I left it in.

Spiritual Disrespect (Social Disadvantage)
For whatever reason, Spirits do not regard you as "one of them". This means that your spirit-world alter-ego must look more or less like a mundane human. More importantly, residents of the spirit world will generally regard you as a defenseless chump or victim, summoned spirits will be reluctant to answer your questions, and so forth. This can legitimately be played to your advantage in some cases. Note, however, that you have the same full suite of powers as other Technocracy initiates, and spirits are not stupid, so you can intimidate them at no penalty. They may, however, assume that you are somehow "hiding" your powers in order to "trick" them.
This is different from the Technomancer power Suppress Cognizance, in that Suppress Cognizance prevents other spirits from knowing you are using your powers, but does not prevent other spirits from recognizing you for what you are. If you have both Spiritual Disrespect and Suppress Cognizance it can be very difficult to convince spirits that you aren't a mundane person.

So, let me get this straight:

You want the PCs to be converted into Fairy-land-esque forms when they cross the Veil or whatever you wish to call it. You also don't want tech to cross over because it gets problematic when you can arm a bunch of tree spirits with assault rifles.

I can see a couple of solutions to the technology side:

Technology doesn't work the same in areas held by the rebels, depending on which side is in control. If the "Golden Age was 50 years ago" people are in control of the locality, the steampunk stuff works there. If your "Golden Age was when we thought the sun was a chariot and you could sail off the end of the world" folks are in charge, you'd better know something about spears, axes, swords, and bows.)

So it makes a lot of sense to have something steampunkish and carrying a backup melee, because those things will work nigh-everywhere. After a while, a character benefit should be to carry your own field with you, so you can make your own favorite tech work--but only for you.

(Side note: The Nostalgia crowd is probably the second-most-dominant, after the Technocracy. People talk about the Good Old Days all the time, after all. This would make Retro-tech the most common on the Other Side)

For the characters, I agree with Frank. I'm admittedly a little biased by the Dresden Files, where the protagonists regularly cross over with their gear and everything. Although if you ARE in fairyland, don't leave iron laying around behind you when you leave, because that is like showing up with a cracked-open nuclear bomb and leaving it laying around.

But partially the idea of a spirit form is a little...well...fruity. It's easier all around to show up in the elf castle and say "I'm Zachary Jones with the Technocracy. I'm here on reports of a destabilization event originating from here. We would appreciate your cooperation."

Making everyone make two forms--real one and what they look like in the spirit world--is sort of "?"

Changeling (the WW game) + Technocracy is the basic premise.

Many people don't like that as a basic premise, which is fine, and if anything I come up with is useful for some other premise, great., repurpose it to your heart's content But that's the premise that I'm interested in, so I'm going with that.

I don't view it as a problem that people can't bring materiel with them into the spirit world. It provides for a number of effects which I consider to be highly desirable:
[*] The stuff in the spirit world is not even composed of matter. Thus, you can have gravity faeries who are in charge of gravity in the material world, and you don't need meta-gravity meta-faeries who are in charge of gravity in the spirit world. Because there isn't really any gravity.

[*] The spirit world becomes considerably scarier if you can't have your gun. Many people will doubtless want to bring the battle to the elves, with guns and tanks and tactical nuclear weapons. Frank, I happen to know, does not like settings in which team pixie has some structural advantage over team AK-47. In the material world, the Technocracy has all of these things and thus a serious leg up on any conceivable opposition. The spirit world is hostile terrain for the Technocracy where they go at their peril. This is intentional, I am not taking away Mulder's gun "for no reason", I am taking away Mulder's gun to be more frightening.

[*] If the spirit world is composed purely of dream-stuff, then the Technocracy can have plausible deniability that it really exists at all. Again, the Technocracy maintains that the laws of physics work because of superstrings or something, they do not believe in spirits, magic, etc. etc. There are reality deviants who are a threat to the basic laws of nature and need to be stopped. This position is intended to be incongruous to the player characters, who are on the front lines and may have to deal with all kinds of mysto-magical crap; but, I want it to be at least a plausible interpretation of what is going on in the world. If you can lead a column of tanks into Faerie Land, it isn't.

Does anyone have a convenient way to convert formatted text (e.g. an rtf file) to bbscript text?