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Messages - Nice_Mr_Caput

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AW:Dark Age / Re: Bloodless Xristos
« on: March 07, 2014, 07:08:32 PM »
When I said a rational sceptic I didn't exactly mean as an alternative to a Jew, since as you point out the two ideas are quite compatible. He's a rational and scholarly guy, he doesn't buy in to the religions of the lands in which the game is set, he probably doesn't get guidance directly from gods in the way other characters do and his race, culture, lifestyle or origin somehow prevent him from holding titles.

I think he should definitely be able to pray (as the move) in extremis, but that would constitute a crisis of faith and possibly carry mechanical consequences. I'd think he should get a move beginning "when you turn to your books for facts or wisdom..." or words to that effect. I don't know what other stuff he'd get.

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AW:Dark Age / Re: What happens when improvements change the story?
« on: March 07, 2014, 07:14:29 AM »
I never meant to suggest otherwise.  I don't see why that would make my position any weaker though.

It doesn't matter how much your rank changes; any change still requires an explanation for your new rights.
You can learn entitlement by living an interesting life, you can't get it through boring work unless you're pretty low on the scale and if you acquire it by a stroke of luck that probably means somebody has died or the balance of power has shifted, locally or nationally.

I don't meant to suggest that the system is unworkable, that everybody's high rank or that there will always be problems. I'm just hoping for clarification or guidelines, either here or in the eventual book.

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AW:Dark Age / Re: What happens when improvements change the story?
« on: March 07, 2014, 02:25:46 AM »
The trouble is that rank is supposed to be about right. Sure, there can be multiple people with the same right, but just crowning yourself out of nowhere when you aren't considered king material is a pretty crappy improvement. Anybody can do that. The trick is defending yourself from then on and getting taken seriously by the other power players (who don't automatically accept you because of your rank).
You need some appearance of legitimacy to your claim or you might as well just make it regardless.

Conquest has a similar problem. That sounds like something that should be earned through play, not experience. It is the game and if you win it you should not have to pay experience to claim your prize. Nor should you skip over it by ticking a bunch of boxes.

Anyway, my opinion aside, there doesn't seem to be much consensus here, so that probably shows it needs looking at. Mission accomplished, I guess?

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AW:Dark Age / Re: Praying
« on: March 07, 2014, 02:16:34 AM »
I'd be tempted to run it so on a 7-9 the gods demand some greater sacrifice or service. If you give it to them then treat your result as a 10+. If you don't, you miss.

It's basically the same because the capricious gods can demand whatever arbitrary and unreasonable thing they want, from "say please" to "your kingdom", but it involves the player more in the middle ground between those two extremes.

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AW:Dark Age / What happens when improvements change the story?
« on: March 06, 2014, 05:10:28 PM »
In apocalypse world, improving your character sometimes creates a car or a gang or something. It's important to know where these things come from, but mostly the answer is pretty obvious: Your friends or underlings or whoever can become your gang. You build the car or you find it and fix it up. Simple.

The same cannot be said of your new dragon. Those things aren't just lying around! Does the Herald need to know about some specific dragon? Can he awaken one under a major city when previously there's been no hint that it was there? Can he define anything about it, or is he stuck with what he's given?

Similarly, what happens when a character's rank goes up? The improvement would appear to contradict the established facts of the narrative. Does the sitting monarch have a cardiac arrest? Does new evidence of a higher birth come to light? Can this be used to automatically and successfully improve your standing through marriage?

Thanks.

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AW:Dark Age / Re: First Map
« on: March 06, 2014, 09:40:41 AM »
Yeah it would be cool to know if that means the right to put the player's holdings wherever I choose or the responsibility to represent what they have created on paper.

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AW:Dark Age / Re: Rank
« on: March 06, 2014, 09:36:42 AM »
I really like that players get to choose their rank freely and I don't think the lower ranks need equal benefits, but it would still be really interesting to see cases where low rank gives you stuff. Criminal contacts and ill-gotten gains, perhaps? Bounties on your head? Something brought with you from foreign lands?

So far it mostly just gives you less stuff, which is fine but might represent a missed opportunity.

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AW:Dark Age / Re: Bloodless Xristos
« on: March 06, 2014, 09:03:52 AM »
I for one did not read Bloodless Xristos as an idealised version. Sure the problems are missing, but so are a lot of other things. I came away seeing his followers as newcomers and troublemakers, upsetting an already strained situation, adding a third, even less woman-friendly system of inheritance and probably as often aggressive as they are accepting of others. It says "it's a matter of opinion" but it never says the worshippers always see it that way.

I would say the description invites you to take this extremely simplified vision of Christianity and fill in the history and flaws of it in various contradicting ways, even within the same campaign.

That out the way I really like these ideas. In a world defined by its limitations, somebody who breaks them in various mundane ways sounds fun. Sure, he's not as visually impressive as a dragon summoner, but in a sense he's doing the same thing, albeit in a radically different way. The same playbook could make an excellent all-purpose sceptic or natural philosopher too.

If this hypothetical guy doesn't follow any of the known and described religions, I wonder who he prays to? The father of Xristos is the obvious answer, but maybe he's Mr. Rational and gets some kind of Sharp or Cool equivalent, believing he's supposed to study and puzzle it out for himself? It seems to me that would fit the theme if his god just didn't work that way.

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