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Messages - benhimself

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1
AW:Dark Age / Re: Denied right
« on: September 06, 2014, 12:27:10 PM »
Yeah, as Golux says, that's kind of what I assume the move is for. It's not about protecting your rights. It's about highlighting them when they're broken.  "Your right has been denied: how do you respond?"

And of course, I assume something says "You have the right" that's not an abstract mechanical term. You've been given this right somehow: granted by someone with the authority to do so, or the right is one accepted by your underlings. The difference between a character who has the right to do X and a character who simply does X is that the second character doesn't have the right to do it. What happens when you do something you have no right to do? What happens when you stop someone from doing something they have a right to do? These are the questions the game, and that move in particular, raise, and they're definitely (IMHO) interesting ones.

2
AW:Dark Age / Re: Using the maps
« on: September 02, 2014, 10:56:04 PM »
I suspect one easy way to use it is that if your stronghold is in the center of one polygon, and another stronghold is in the center of another, you know the exact halfway points between the two, don't you?

3
AW:Dark Age / Re: Initial thoughts/questions from reading the documents
« on: September 02, 2014, 03:36:45 AM »
I noticed that about the Court Wizard, too. I mean, it might be fictionally appropriate, if your gods are foreign gods then you need the move to consult with them.... but mechanically it seems a rough choice.

I'd say to "weapon against throat", yeah you can just kill them outright, unless mitigating circumstances suggest otherwise. I mean, you're clearly not in a FIGHT with someone, right? Fights over, you've won (by achieving the better position).

Re: denied right. Maybe they're accepting the injustice with dignity, because they recognize it's not actually an injustice in this case? Maybe they're forgoing the right in exchange for... acknowledgement of their humility? Or even just self-respect? As an MC if a player did the latter I'd totally be like "Awesome, okay."

I think it's less "I go heal for the rest of the season" and more "Okay, the season passes, what are you all doing? Healing? Yeah, makes sense, probably don't want that wound to be permanent." I mean, if you deliberately want your character to rest and recover BEFORE the "season changes" move comes down from the MC... then say what your character does, and the MC says what happens following their principles and agenda, yeah?

4
Monsterhearts / Re: Infernal Darkest Self
« on: September 14, 2012, 10:24:15 AM »
Once you get five strings, you become your darkest self. You can also become your darkest self earlier than that! Say, the 7-9 lash out physically result, or the MC just makes a move because it's appropriate in the fiction, or you have sex with a Mortal, or whatever.

While you're your Darkest Self, your dark power can still gain strings on you... but you should probably try to limit yourself in using bargains, because the only way to escape your Darkest Self is to get rid of all of those by fulfilling your patron's commands. Well, that, or sign up with something worse.

So generally, yeah, you go up until you hit 5, or you become your Darkest Self through some other means, and then you go (mostly, hopefully) down until you hit 0, at which point you escape your Darkest Self.

Now, here's a fun twist: if somebody from another Skin picks up "Soul Debt", then they go into the Darkest Self for their Skin when the Dark Patron gets five skins. So a werewolf, say, wolfs out if they deal too much with their demon. Also, they don't get the "get rid of strings by fulfilling demands" clause that the Infernal gets in their Darkest Self, which means the only way those strings will go away is if their Darkest Patron uses them according to the normal rules for an NPC using strings on a PC. Which is a kind of interesting dynamic.

5
Dungeon World / Re: Treasure and Load
« on: September 13, 2012, 12:34:24 PM »
Alternative to tracking Load:

When you pick up something inconveniently heavy, roll +strength. On a 10+, you're good! On a 7-9, you're good, but take -2 ongoing to this move until you put something heavy down. On a miss, you hurt yourself trying to carry all that weight, and needless to say drop whatever it was you were trying to pick up, if not a few other things.

6
Dungeon World / Re: Spend XPs to turn miss into a 12
« on: September 10, 2012, 08:24:16 AM »
I'm... pretty wary of games that give you a resource that is both temporary success or permanent character advancement, you know? I remember disliking Karma in old-school shadowrun for that reason: that I could blow my karma right now to not fail an important roll, but it would hurt long-term growth potential?

Maybe whenever you earn xp, you earn a luck as well? And can spend luck to bump a failure up to a 7-9, or a 7-9 to a 10+?

7
Dungeon World / New Miniclass: The Chaos Mage
« on: September 09, 2012, 11:12:24 PM »
New miniclass idea I had, originally posted over at G+ but I figured I could share it here, too.

CHAOS MAGE

When you gain a level, if you have experimented with wild and uncontrolled magic, you may take the following move:

Wild Magic: Add " The spell manifests unusually, or has strange side effects, while still fulfilling its basic intent" to the 7-9 options on Cast A Spell. These side effects are not necessarily cosmetic.

Once you have taken Wild Magic, the following moves count as class moves for you.

Unstable Magic: When preparing spells, you may prepare any number of spells you wish as if they were one level lower. Level one spells prepared in this fashion are counted as half a level each. When you cast any spell prepared thusly, on a 10+, choose one from the 7-9 list, and on a 7-9, choose two options instead of one.

Greater Unstable Magic: When you cast a spell prepared with Unstable Magic, and roll a 6-, you succeed regardless, but choose three options from the 7-9 list, and choose one of the options, except "the spell is forgotten" to have a very pronounced effect. (The spell attracts a lot of unwelcome attention, the spell disturbs reality greatly for a -2 penalty instead of -1, the spell manifests extremely unusually with serious side effects, etc)

Warpwright: You are practiced at using the Ritual ability to give a willing or restrained subject a random mutation.  When doing so, you can ignore one of the conditions the DM selects for the Ritual's completion. (The Metamorphica, by Johnstone Metzger, is an excellent free resource with hundreds of mutations arranged on one convenient table, should the DM not wish to make their own.)

Versatile Caster: You may attempt to cast a prepared spell as any lower level spell, including one not in your spellbook. To do so, roll +int, modified by any -1 ongoing to Cast A Spell you may have. On a 10+, you succeed in shifting the pattern, and may cast it normally. On a 7-9 you succeed, but cast the new spell as Unstable even if the original wasn't (and if the original was, choose an additional 7-9 result from Cast A Spell on top of the extra Unstable Magic normally gives you).

Discharge Flux: You may discharge all accrued -1 ongoings to Cast A Spell caused by 7-9s from that move. The DM will tell you what the flux appears to be about to do, some harmful (or at least unusual) effect: you may opt to "ground" the flux and take 1d6 armor-ignoring damage per -1 ongoing you had rather than let this effect come to pass.

8
Monsterhearts / Re: Skin: the (alternative) Mortal
« on: September 02, 2012, 11:18:47 PM »
Well, keep in mind Comic Relief is only once per scene, like all experience moves... But you may be right. I felt a little bad about the number of experience-gathering moves until I reminded myself how many the original mortal had. Also, it really depends on the group how easy it is to trigger. Like, in mine we make each other laugh quite a bit, but it's usually OOC comments that do it, which is why I kind of liked it for being an incentive to be funny IC.

I was toying with an idea, stealing a page from Apocalypse World's Maestro D, and making it so whenever you made somebody laugh you triggered their sex move as if you had slept together, which has some amusing consequences. (The best of which is that the Vampire gets strings on you for refusing to find you funny.) Unfortunately, this hypothetical alternative move would be a disadvantage for you about half the time. Maybe "If this would be disadvantageous for you, mark experience."

Also, I dig Renee's suggestion for darkest self! "Canon"!

An alternative idea for backstory:

You tend to find yourself at the center of things. Whenever a character's backstory requires them to choose another character, and you're chosen, they mark experience. (Limit one experience per character, even if they can somehow select you multiple times)

9
Monsterhearts / Skin: the (alternative) Mortal
« on: August 29, 2012, 02:26:04 PM »
So, I've had to tell multiple people that the Mortal is "The Bella, not the Xander". You know what I mean? So it got me thinking. A skin for Mortals who aren't in love. A skin for somebody wrapped up in all this weird shit over their head, who succeeds despite being human, who succeeds BECAUSE of being human. It's not finished yet but here's a few thoughts:

Backstory: You tend to find yourself at the center of things. Get a string on everybody, everybody gets a string on you.

Somebody finds you kind of annoying, if they don't actively detest you. Get a string on them, that attitude is so easy to exploit.

Somebody's revealed their secret nature to you, or maybe you found it out by accident. Get an extra string on them, they get an extra string on you.

(Maybe allow you to pick more than one player for that last one?)

Stats: Add up everybody else's scores in each stat. The stats with the lowest two sums, you have +1 in. The highest two, -1. In the event of a tie, you decide. (And then add a +1 to any stat like normal.)

MOVES

Only Human: You can turn a 10+ result into a 7-9, or a 7-9 into a failure, after rolling. Mark experience if you do so.

Need A Hand?: If somebody's supernatural weakness would (or is) causing problems for them, and you help out with your lack of absurd vulnerabilities to things like cold iron bars or crosses or pineapples or whatever, they mark experience and you get a string on them.

Comic relief: If something you say IC causes another character (or player) to laugh out loud, mark experience.

Underdog: You reveal your true spirit by pushing the hardest against impossible odds. When making any basic move except gazing into the abyss, give your target a string against you to get +1 to the roll.

Down The Rabbit Hole: From the original mortal playbook, totally appropriate still.

Some more moves of some sort, maybe?

Sex Move: When you have sex with someone, they escape their darkest self. (Maybe? I was just amused at the inversion of the 'default' mortal sex move.)

Darkest Self: I dunno, something about feeling kind of useless or bland or ordinary? Or maybe having to escape all this craziness?

10
Dungeon World / Re: Share Your One Line Game Starters
« on: August 20, 2012, 01:55:57 PM »
"You're walking up the aisle, your beloved waiting for you in front of the cleric, when suddenly the wedding music is interrupted by the sound of shattering glass as black-robed figures leap through the windows, brandishing weapons! What do you do?"

11
Monsterhearts / Conditions: Second or First Person?
« on: July 26, 2012, 10:28:00 PM »
So I'm working on a Skin called The Shadow, and one of the moves potentially gives other players (or NPCS) a condition that represents them struggling to contain their Darkest Self.

What I'm wrestling with is whether to call it "Struggling To Contain Your Darkest Self" or "Struggling To Contain My Darkest Self". Opinions on which of these seems more naturally? My instinct was the first one but I'm hella second-guessing myself and curious what other people think.

12
Monsterhearts / Re: Blank Skin Template?
« on: July 21, 2012, 12:48:36 PM »
Dang, Adobe doesn't kid around with the price tags of their programs, do they?

13
Monsterhearts / Blank Skin Template?
« on: July 20, 2012, 12:13:31 PM »
Is there a blank template out there somewhere for making one's own skins? Ideally one that doesn't take paid software to use?

14
Monsterhearts / Re: Unashamed: Fae clarification
« on: July 16, 2012, 05:03:24 PM »
Plus, don't forget, one of the most effective uses of a string on a PC is to offer them XP for doing what you want.

So, giving them a string means giving them an opportunity to give you XP. If your cold is highlighted, then even if they pull the hold-steady option on you it'll even give you XP if they go for the stick instead of the carrot.

15
Monsterhearts / Re: Skins Ideas
« on: July 12, 2012, 09:53:59 AM »
Just had the idea of The Minion, when I realized that you could just use The Mortal pretty well for it.

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