Rules Questions

I've got a question regarding a specific lore and thought I'd rather start a generic thread for us to check in on rules questions.

I feel like the system part of Forsee (the third level of the Lore of Patterns) doesn't really live up to the description.
Predict events and actions sound's very solid and also fitting to the two prior stages in my opinion, but the system part reduces it to combat situations... Does Demon allow to defer actions, if so, Foresee would basically be equivalent to always being the first - right?

I know this is not really a question yet, more a what do you think?

I run into the same problem with Lore of the Beast's Possess Animals. I can control the animals from miles away, but it only lasts Faith score turns. So it would be useless to try and use it as a means of, say, spying on someone. And in combat, how does that even work? "I am in my apartment and I possess the 5 animals closest to Billy Badguy, who I can't see and is 2 miles away"?

Demon the Fallen just has the disadvantage of being White Wolf's last system before they went under. They never got around to patching stuff like this up. And it's odd really. Lore of the Beast really comes close to Vampire's Animalism and they got it right there long before this version was even written.

Unfortunately, White Wolf had a habit of giving some of their powers very poetic or florid descriptions that didn’t always fit the mechanics. It’s something they improved upon but never really stopped doing.

Because this is pbp, I do initiative as a group (my experience with pbp is that individual initiative takes too long, and the Storyteller System already involves a lot of rolling). So during combat, either all the PCs go first or all the opponents. If you use this Lore, however, I’d let you act at any point during the opponent’s turn, whether they go before or after you. Yep, you could essentially use it to automatically give yourself the initiative every time.

And yes, you can delay your actions. It’s called a Yielding maneuver.

Actually, I feel like we should align and figure out use of many of the powers of the Lore of Patterns to get a nice story and not suffer too much from pbp restrictions.

Like, if I am not mistaken, while the system part seems to constrain to combat - in theory initiative is everywhere, isn't it? Sounds like I should, in theory, always be able to retrofit a post of my own to another... As in "Before the Tyrant says X, I do Y" as a response to X already being written down.
Do you agree? If you agree I would pledge to try hard not to misuse this and especially avoid making pbp any more difficult just because I can. I however believe, that we can indeed enrich the story while not over complicating things. It goes without saying that the storyteller can always decide otherwise in any given situation. What do you think?

I don't think a Fallen would keep any Lore power running constantly. Evoking a Lore is a serious act that channels Celestial energy, even if it does not expend temporary faith points. The act can also trigger Revelation in nearby mortals (at difficulty 10 if no faith points are spent, but if you do it constantly it's just a matter of time).

You are right, I'd need to have some idea something meaningful is about to happen within a matter of seconds - so that I activate it ahead of time (which is a must). This indeed is more likely to happen in combat, but the other powers of the Lore might just give me that kind of timing... As I said, I am not looking out for major misuse of powers, but rather on telling a story together. It just happens that he is an angel (a fallen one) that had insights and limited control over fate - that is going to be a part of the story.

The good (or bad) part of this - depending of how you see it - is that our storyteller should make sure that we need the power to see and control fate. ;)

But seeing that the power only works for a few seconds into the future it's hardly potent enough to steer a conversation. You can't even pronounce your last post in that time.

Casual Influence (Patterns 4) seems better suited for the purpose (also from a system perspective).

Yeah, might be, either way - the Lore of Patterns will lead to situations that need good handling on both my and the storyteller's side imho.

How do we determine the group initiative? Asking, because Ninsun, The Visage of Patterns has Improved Initiative, ...
Does that mean we do need to separate action announcements from any rolls being made? If I knew the result of actions (not only the intended results; i.e. I knew dice results before I decide where to hook into initiative) this would be well in the description of the power, but it does sound rather imbalancing for combat...

Is Linguistics only about speaking or does it cover reading and writing?

FWIW turn is more flexible than thought. In combat it's seconds, but can be minutes if not combat.

I have some house rules pertaining to combat, though I haven’t posted them yet.

The gist is that each person rolls initiative for combat. The PCs goes with whichever PC rolls the best initiative; that serves as the init for the entire PC group (so it’s still beneficial as an individual player to have Improved Initiative).

I also do the same thing for NPC opponents. An especially important NPC (such as an enemy boss) may get a separate initiative roll, as well.

Once initiative is determined, each group goes in order. When it’s the players’ turn, PCs will go in whoever order they post; no set init within the group. That allows people to post when they can and not have to wait for someone ahead of them to post (which can really hold up combat). After everyone in a single group has posted, then the next group goes, etc.

The second house rule is that initiative does NOT need to be re-rolled each round. Only once at the beginning of combat. That’ saves on rolling.

The third house rule is that actions do not need to be declared at the beginning of combat. You simply do what you want when it’s your time to act. No Abort maneuvers needed. From past experience, having to deal with declared actions and Abort maneuversjust caused headaches and led to additional rolling. That’s fine in a face to face game, but something I’d like to avoid for pbp.

It applies to reading and writing, as well.

@eldarin,
I’ll get back to you about the Lore question. I’m at work right now so I can only respond on breaks.

Sure thing @Tequila_Mockingbird. It won't have much influence on my character creation anyway. Lore of Patterns is going to be at three unless I can find the freebies to make it four. I am sure we'll find a way to handle this lore for the best of the story.

I would just throw it out there that there are certain problems that tend to arise with any game that gives the players foreseeing abilities.

I've ran into it myself as a GM with the Star Wars RPG most recently.

And that problem is, ofc, the GM can't actually see the future, and railroading the story toward any single future is anathema to the whole experience anyway.

And so what you tend to arrive at with such powers is it requires 1. a high degree of collaboration between the player and the GM (and even the other players), 2. a high degree of understanding/accommodating these shortcomings on the players part (i.e. not expecting the GM to really actually be able to give them certainties), and 3. probably a lot of "flashbacks" to the foreseeing: "You remember from your visions that THIS THING comes into play here and now."

Such powers can be really difficult and annoying to have to try to play to, as a GM and even as other players, if the player using them doesn't understand and accept and willingly work within these limitations.

Mechanizing the implications for combat is the easy part.

It's the narrative patterns that make that Lore difficult to use.

From a cursory read of the book, it seems Lore of Longing and Lore of Transfiguration are redundant. Uhm.

I think that I am well aware of and able to work with limitations that arise.

On the flip side this is a Demon game where the power levels can edge on the absurd. So you are free to get creative with the implications of such powers. Meddling with fate and the future opens pandora's box on all the time travel tropes. Except you can't go back to fix it and you have to live with the implications of the changed future. This is also implied in the power of Casual Influence. It shows you the most likely fate of a person, place or event barring outside influence. But it doesn't show the wider picture of what meddling with said fate does. Now it doesn't have to be bad (far from it, it should be a useful power, not a punishment), but sometimes the best of intentions have the worst results. And this is a World of Darkness game, so we're not expected to win....

Longing is about manipulating the feelings and senses of mortals.

Transfiguration is about the demon manipulating their own appearance.

Not at all redundant, and indeed potentially extremely potent when used in tandem.

Looks like more limited applications of lore of Radiance and Lore of Flesh, to be honest.

Ah, I see what you're saying, well, Longing is far more subtle and Radiance is therefore far less effective for scheming. Great for commanding and brute force, not great for hatching plans that no one can ever know or detect until it's too late.

And while demons have no "Masquerade", if you're too overt at the wrong time, you can still make yourself a target for destruction - by many different parties.

Also, from that view, Radiance itself is a bit redundant to Humanity - a common Lore.

Is that true? Sure, to some degree. But there are important differences.

And Flesh and Transfiguration are just wildly different, so I don't get the comparison there really. The most that can be said is it takes 5 dots to create a visual doppelganger under Flesh, while Transfiguration can do it in 2 or 3. Does that make Transfiguration redundant? Not at all by my figuring.

Portals can take you to the Shadowlands with the 5th dot. Does that make Realms redundant (which can do it with it's 2nd)? No ofc not. Everything before and after is different. There's some over lap. But not at all a negation of value of any side of either Lore.

And what about Paths and Portals? Is there anything that Paths can do, that Portals can't do with it's 4th dot? Not a whole heck of a lot, but there are some, and they're subtle but important differences.

What about Portals 1 and Forge 2? Does that make Portals or Forge redundant? No, not even close.

...

Is that to say there are no "trap" Lores?

No.

I think the are some balance issues.

But it sounds like our ST is aware of the issues that come with using a largely un-errataed, 1st edition splat, and so if you have specific plans or concerns and want to know how they might play out, you should probably just talk to @Tequila_Mockingbird about them.

Sorry everyone, I’m at work so it’s difficult to respond to posts at the moment. Some of these questions deserve in-depth answers, which are hard to type out on my phone. Once I get home to a proper computer, I’ll be answering questions. Also need my copy of Demon to double check some things.

No problem! We're just eager. :D

Once you get home could you take a look at what you think of Possess Animal as well? I'm off to bed now myself.

@eldarin

As far as the Lore of Patterns, I believe the fourth level evocation - Causal Influence - is far more appropriate to what you are envisioning. My fervent recommendation would be, if you can, to try and scrounge up whatever freebie points you need and get that fourth dot in the Lore. Then you'd be capable of the kind of prediction and fate manipulation that I think you're looking for.

In regard to the Foresee invocation, I'd prefer to keep that limited to combat. I want to avoid tweaking any of the existing material more than I need to. I usually only touch supernatural powers if some aspect of them doesn't make sense, or if a power ends up being very problematic and unbalancing. However, I grant that my house rules make the Foresee evocation less effective. Since no one declares actions anymore, it's more difficult to determine where to insert yourself in the initiative order. For that reason, upon a successful roll for the evocation, I'll give you a run down of the NPCs upcoming actions in that combat. Essentially, I'll be declaring their actions to you. You won't know the results of their rolls, but you'll know they're intended actions. You can then act accordingly based on that information.

I don't mind precognitive abilities too much in my games, so long as players don't overuse or abuse them. My personal approach is that you are typically seeing a possible future. Furthermore, just knowing the future will sometimes alter that future in some way. The act of seeing the future may serve to change it. So if I ever have to provide future knowledge in one of my games, and that knowledge doesn't quite work out (because I can't actually see the future), that's my in-game explanation for such inaccuracies.

Yeah, I suppose we would seldom, if at all, count turns if it wasn't in combat. I also think we shouldn't, it is far too likely to negatively interfere with narration of non-combat scenes. The one thing I see is that Foresee and Causal Influence - from a description point of view - are similar, the former for short-term and the latter for long term (and a clearer focus on actually changing the flow of events). For that point it is more costly to use with Faith points needing to be spent where I might not be looking for the extent of what this cost can enable.

I'd say though that we'll just try it out as it is written. I don't even know yet if I will want to use this for manipulating very short term events very often and maybe the attached cost is actually a great way to make sure I don't overuse this ;)

Given that I will really specialise in Patterns, I will tend to use things a lot anyway...

@tequila, your ideas on Possess Animal?

Sorry, I didn't have internet access most of the day yestrday.

I'm glad you understand. I appreciate that four dots in the Lore of Patterns is a major investment for you, but Causal Influence is a potent evocation. If you take it, I'd be sure to make it worth the points.

In the case of the Possess Animals evocation, the duration and range don't make sense with each other. I've searched online for clarifications but there doesn't seem to be any. I'll change the evocation's duration to a single scene (or one combat encounter, if used for combat). However, I'm adding the same stipulation as Command Animals, in that the animals must be in your presence when activating the Lore.

There does seem to be overlap between some of the Lore. I agree with many of emsquared's points, though I'd also add that each power has a different feel or tone to it. Radiance and Longing both serve to manipulate people, for instance, but one is about authority and the other is about desire.

Perfectly fair! Thankfully I have a power to summon them first.

Ok, minor rules questions/clarifications:

Regarding specialties:

A lot of my Lore activations use Stamina. Would something like "Preternatural Focus" as a Stamina Specialty qualify for rerolling 10s when activating Lores?

Also, if a character has 5 in a trait they would get two specialties, correct?

I'm fine with "Preternatural Focus as a Specialty.

I've checked through the book, however, all it says is that you get a Specialty at 4 dots. There's no indication that you get a second Specialty with additional dots. There is also no way to buy Specialties with freebie points, so it seems as though the intention is only one Specialty per Attribute or Ability. But if you find any official material that says otherwise, let me know.

Eh, it says "4 or more." Considering you can't get to 5 without first reaching 4, the phrasing is either wholly superfluous (which it admittedly could be)... or suggests additional specialties as the score climbs.

I'm good either way, as I've seen it handled both ways. Just wanted to check how we were doing it. 👍