From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Mar 12 08:20:03 1998 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA16311 for ; Thu, 12 Mar 1998 08:20:02 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id HAA20507 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 12 Mar 1998 07:49:54 -0600 Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 07:49:54 -0600 Message-Id: <199803121349.HAA20507@lists.io.com> From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #675 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Thursday, March 12 1998 Volume 01 : Number 675 In this digest: Re: IN> Re: IN- Herding clueless PCs Re: IN> Re: IN- Herding clueless PCs IN> In Nomine Over Zero IN> In Nomine Flavor IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor Re: IN> In pursuit of a Word Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor IN> Re: IN- Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor Re: IN> In pursuit of a Word Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor IN> Found an artifact in real life...:) Re: WoD Angst (Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor) Re: IN> Found an artifact in real life...:) Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor Re: IN> Lilith Re: IN> Herding clueless PCs Re: IN> Re: IN- Lilith Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor Death roles (was Re: IN> Re: IN- Lilith) Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor IN> Correct Plural of Geas Re: IN> Re: IN- Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor Re: IN> Found an artifact in real life...:) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 21:49:57 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- Herding clueless PCs On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Walter Plageman wrote: > fuck all of you, you dumb fucks Hmmm....Shedite of Malphas? Kobal, maybe? Nah, no style. No believability, either. Probably just a Shedite of Haagenti trying to be funny. So...who wants to go exorcise Walter? Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! And finally, a special message to \|/ ____ \|/ anyone who thinks I give a damn... ~@-/ oO \-@~ /_( \__/ )_\ \__U_/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 21:53:11 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- Herding clueless PCs On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Walter Plageman wrote: > Leath Sheales wrote: > > Walter wrote (edited): > > > > > f**k all of you, you dumb f**ks > > > > What's your problem? > > sorry, I'm trying to get kicked off. Kicked off the face of the planet? Sorry...even all of our collective feet couldn't quite pull that off. But if you keep this up, we'd be MORE than happy to try... Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! And finally, a special message to \|/ ____ \|/ anyone who thinks I give a damn... ~@-/ oO \-@~ /_( \__/ )_\ \__U_/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 21:59:09 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> In Nomine Over Zero >One interesting thing about a reliever/imp based campaign is that, as I understand it, these low-level celestials are not necessarily assigned to a specific Superior yet. I suppose it's unlikely they would be able to acquire vessels, or even get to Earth, without assistance from a Superior, but getting assistance from one is not necessarily the same as being enlisted by one. Also, there's the possibility of campaigning entirely in the celestial or ethereal realms, more or less outside the Superior power structure, as somewhat freelance celestials.< The IPG will have more information about young demons and infernal spirits, including tips for running a "low-level" campaign. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 22:26:56 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> In Nomine Flavor >>>Sorry. I may be a lone voice in the wilderness here, but what exactly is wrong with angst? I agree that in any game it can get very pretentious, in a Byronic-Toreador sort of a way, but it doesn't have to.<<< Angst is fine. Almost all character development requires a certain amount of angst. Hell, my long-running Champions campaign was probably the most angstful game I've ever run. (Got tons of mileage out of the Catholic teenager who happened to be the daughter of Morgan LeFay and the Devil, but I digress...) The problem with the WoD, besides trying to give mechanics for angst as you point out, is that it wallows in angst. It glories in it. The entire world is unrelenting angst so thick you can cut it with a knife. Personally, I find angst useful in a storyline, and fun to roleplay, when it punctuates dramatic moments, not when it is the PCs' constant state of being. Living and breathing angst in every single dialogue, every single scene, is not only depressing, it's tiresome. Characters that angstful just make me want to put them out of their misery. (Actually, _people_ that angstful make me want to put them out of their misery.) In Nomine can be that angstful, but it does not have to be. Personally, I like the general tone of the canonical universe, in which it is clear that the forces of Evil seem to have the upper hand, but where it is also clear that the War is far from over and the good guys very well may win yet. I like having some hope. This is why I enjoy the occasional one-shot Call of Cthulhu adventure, but would not enjoy a campaign; what's the point? We know that the inevitable fate of every PC is death or insanity, and we know that the inevitable fate of the world is to get eaten by the Elder Gods. Kind of hard to get into the idea that you're fighting the good fight when you know you're ultimately doomed to failure no matter what you do. I see the World of Darkness the same way -- unless the GM wants to radically change their canon world, the WoD seems pretty hopeless to me. Does anyone really think a few scruffy PCs can overcome the Technocracy, the Wyrm, the Jyhad, and whatever other elder ultra-powerful menaces are destroying the world? In In Nomine, the demons may be strong, but they're not in control of the world, and they _lose_ major battles now and then. And this also makes it more fun to play demons than it would be (IMO) to play Technocracy mages or Sabbat vampires or Wyrm minions (sorry if my terminology is wrong, I haven't kept up with the WoD lately). Because unlike the latter, demons aren't confident in the oucome either. They may _think_ they're going to win, and they may be confident in individual encounters, but they KNOW that Heaven is an awfully tough opponent too, and that when the final reckoning comes, no matter how much numerical superiority they have and no matter how successful they have been in corrupting the Earth, they can't be sure that God won't just say "OK, Game Over! Hell loses." This is where the angst comes in for them. It's not fun playing characters who have no hope. It's also not fun playing characters who are totally certain they're on the winning side. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 20:08:22 PST From: "David Streeter" Subject: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor >A half-decent GM makes sure that isn't even remotely true. Good players >make sure that the GM doesn't even have to work at it. That doesn't mean >that characters should all be dissonant, or that they should all wear lace >and wail 'woe is me'. > >They *should* have to make difficult choices at times, and they should >know that they are going to live with the consequences. Yeah, the obvious, expedient solution to problems should be dissonant to at least one character. That way the players always have an out if they can't think up elegant solutions (or they Just Don't Get It) - at a cost. I think V:tM was a renaissance in roleplaying, rather than a revolution. It brought back the character class/race concept which Champions and GURPS had done away with. Without Vampire, I wonder if In Nomine would have Choirs (Race) & Superiors (Class). Race/Class is handled better in IN than in AD&D, where certain Race/Class combinations are encouraged - IN combinations are roughly equal. Although I think Kobal's attunements are a bit weak - but then again, EVERYONE wants to be an Impudite of Dark Humour (read: Crowley). SurturZ Dissonant Elohite of Stone ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 00:32:48 +0000 (GMT) From: Rhodri James Subject: Re: IN> In pursuit of a Word On 10 Mar, wrote: [snip] > I have at least one plot running for each character and a large > plot involving the whole group. I don't have time to focus on the one > Word-seeking angel. Augh! You need to be careful with this. When I did it running some Amber, I had a serious problem holding the party together any time the large plot went off the boil. All of a sudden, everyone wanted to go chase their own problem, rather than cooperate to actually solve something. Or worse, they would decide to cooperate on one person's plotline when it needs to be left alone for a while (when a very patient and powerful Logrus master goes into hiding and does nothing else, you *aren't* going to find him. Especially when one of you is his son.) Basically, I had too many plots on the go, and it continually threatened to fracture the group. - -- Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste herder to the masses If you don't know who I work for, you can't misattribute my words to them ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 23:47:01 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor > Without Vampire, I wonder if In Nomine would have Choirs (Race) & > Superiors (Class). Race/Class is handled better in IN than in AD&D, > where certain Race/Class combinations are encouraged - IN combinations > are roughly equal. Although I think Kobal's attunements are a bit weak - > but then again, EVERYONE wants to be an Impudite of Dark Humour (read: > Crowley). Bah. Some of us like playing his Lilim. I agree, btw, that Kobal's attunements are weak. So save your points and buy Prank. To an overactive imagination, Prank, frankly, kicks ass. - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 23:51:11 -0500 (EST) From: Kevin Mowery Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Emily Dresner wrote: > > > Without Vampire, I wonder if In Nomine would have Choirs (Race) & > > Superiors (Class). Race/Class is handled better in IN than in AD&D, > > where certain Race/Class combinations are encouraged - IN combinations > > are roughly equal. Although I think Kobal's attunements are a bit weak - > > but then again, EVERYONE wants to be an Impudite of Dark Humour (read: > > Crowley). I prefer Balseraphs of Kobal, myself. If I'm not going to play a Calabim of Haagenti (read: Vyvyan from "The Young Ones"). Kevin "Professor Bobo" Mowery_________________________www.io.com/~profbobo "The small one is too small, the large one too large, and the other just right . . . but I can't reach it." --Russian proverb **See _The Seven Stars_ MSTing at www.io.com/~profbobo** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 21:44:25 PST From: "David Streeter" Subject: IN> Re: IN- Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor >I agree, btw, that Kobal's attunements are weak. So save your points and >buy Prank. To an overactive imagination, Prank, frankly, kicks ass. Isn't it expensive compared to the Ethereal Song of Light, though? I guess Prank always works. Can you buy songs over level 6? SurturZ Dissonant Elohite of Stone ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 00:59:25 -0400 (EDT) From: gantr@NKU.EDU Subject: Re: IN> In pursuit of a Word On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Rhodri James wrote: > On 10 Mar, wrote: > [snip] > > I have at least one plot running for each character and a large > > plot involving the whole group. I don't have time to focus on the one > > Word-seeking angel. > > Augh! You need to be careful with this. > Basically, I had too many plots on the go, and it continually threatened > to fracture the group. Yeah, I know. What I did is not make any of the plots too character-specific. Plus, nobody really knows what is going on yet. As a result, they think all of the disparate elements tie together somehow. I have a lot of fun with it (as do they, but for different reasons). Rich Gant ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 02:17:52 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, David Streeter wrote: > Without Vampire, I wonder if In Nomine would have Choirs (Race) & > Superiors (Class). Race/Class is handled better in IN than in AD&D, The whole Race/Class dichotomy can be very interesting and useful and even fun...as long as it's something that makes SENSE. The reason AD&D's whole 'race/class' thing was stupid was that 'character classes', at least as that game does them, are not natural. People aren't limited like that in reality. The races were a little silly as well. In a game like Vampire or In Nomine, you're starting a brand new world with brand new creations...as long as there's a good, solid basis for the Clans or the Choirs/Bands, according to myths and legends, it's much easier to swallow the divisions. One of the things I really like about IN is that each character is a unique character built on universal rules (I mean each character has access to the same skills, songs, and resources; no bulltish like "Only Servitors of Michael, Laurence, or Baal can have Tactics higher than 4"), but they also have the ability of their race, and the ability that their Superior gives to their race...it's such a great compromise between pigeonholing and genericness. It's also making it loads of fun doing that INWO In Nomine crossover; we're doing 11 Archangels and 11 Demon Princes...so that means 143 different combinations, all to interpret into INWO rule. I love it. :) (Why 143? Well, Vapula doesn't have Calabim, ya know. I'm planning on including a 144th card, though..."Vaputech Industries", a Demonic Corporate group that can create unreliable Resources...). > where certain Race/Class combinations are encouraged - IN combinations > are roughly equal. Although I think Kobal's attunements are a bit weak - > but then again, EVERYONE wants to be an Impudite of Dark Humour (read: > Crowley). The reason people play Servitors of Kobal is the same reason people play Discordia in INWO...because they'd rather have fun than powergame. If you want to kick ass, serve Belial or Saminga (or play Cuthulu or Zurich); Kobal is for roleplaying and having some real fun...at the expense of others whenever possible. :) Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! And finally, a special message to \|/ ____ \|/ anyone who thinks I give a damn... ~@-/ oO \-@~ /_( \__/ )_\ \__U_/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 02:26:14 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Kevin Mowery wrote: > I prefer Balseraphs of Kobal, myself. If I'm not going to play a > Calabim of Haagenti (read: Vyvyan from "The Young Ones"). Okay...now you've done it. Now I have to label the rest of 'em... Mike: Balseraph of Kobal Rick: Habbalite of Furfur Neil: Djinn of Malphas[1] Any of the Boloski family: Lilim of Belial [1] Why he always chooses himself as the hated subject, I'll never know. Whaddaya think? Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! And finally, a special message to \|/ ____ \|/ anyone who thinks I give a damn... ~@-/ oO \-@~ /_( \__/ )_\ \__U_/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 23:37:28 -0800 From: Armand Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor >>>screwed up. And, If nothing else, it s nowhere nearly so pretentiously >>>angst ridden. >> >>Yes, THANK GOD it's less angst ridden. > >I disagree. While the Vampire and Ghost games are full of angst >I think that the Werewolf game is great. Personally I enjoy the >Werewolf game more than anyother game, including In Nomine. The >emotions always seem to run high but at least they do something about it. >Maybe it just me, or maybe I've had great storytellers. > >Unfornutly no one I know agrees that Werewolf is worth playing. > I just ran a Werewolf/IN/Cthulu/Gotham City game. I used Gotham Vity (Victorian era) as the setting, Werewolf as the rules, Cthulu for the carrot, and IN for the stick. The terror came from these unknown entities (angels/demons) with no known weaknesses. Clive Barker lines were being thrown all over the place, but all in all, I thought is was worth playing. Armand, Ofanim of Hodgepodge ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 02:35:31 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: IN> Found an artifact in real life...:) I was in Ybor City tonight (the local nightclub/hang-out place) and was talking to some guy we met. He had a standard cross, about 3-4cm long, with a Jesus on it that he wore around his neck. When I mentioned it, he showed me the most amazing thing...it was a knife. A small (1-2cm) blade flicked out of the side. On the back was the inscription "GOD PROTECTS". Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! And finally, a special message to \|/ ____ \|/ anyone who thinks I give a damn... ~@-/ oO \-@~ /_( \__/ )_\ \__U_/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 23:47:16 -0800 From: Armand Subject: Re: WoD Angst (Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor) >>You're right, Werewolf is depressing, because unlike nthe others it's >based upon real fuck ups in todays society, on the other hand it is my >favorite W0d game, because in my game with the help of an unbelievably >powerful Shadowlord Ahroun, the Garou are egtting some back, they've >already blown up Pentex HQ, and are moving on to the Sabbat, in Werewolf >you have clear cut enemies, and you can use all menas necessary to kill them. >In Nomine is my present favorite however because it allows for subtle >supernatural intrigue as well as full on Celestial combat, in one game >you're convincing a Balseraph you're a Balseraph too to infiltate an >Infernal Tether, in the next you're a mummy with a minigun wasting saints >and soldiers at a Mardi Gras, and oh yeah, Lucifer is one cool dude, how >can you not play a game with him in it? I'm sorry, this is the second reference that I've seen saying that the werewolves in the WoD have it easy (Garou good, Wyrm bad). While a lot of the enemies are clearly painted black, my games have a lot more grey. The Shadow Lord you mention in my game would be working for one of the urge wyrms in my campaign. Members of the group will find their kinfolk have gone over to the Wyrm through Bane intervention. How this differs (ideally) from a well run IN game, I know not Armand ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 23:56:48 -0800 From: Armand Subject: Re: IN> Found an artifact in real life...:) >I was in Ybor City tonight (the local nightclub/hang-out place) and was >talking to some guy we met. He had a standard cross, about 3-4cm long, >with a Jesus on it that he wore around his neck. When I mentioned it, he >showed me the most amazing thing...it was a knife. A small (1-2cm) blade >flicked out of the side. On the back was the inscription "GOD PROTECTS". > > >Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian This one goes back to the idea of whether or not artifacts can be mass produced, if the afforementioned is an artifact, then I can get as many as I might need for $17 at the mall. There is also an Ankh with a slightly larger blade. Armand ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 00:03:45 +0500 From: daiv@cruzio.com (David M. Barr) Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor >>>>Sorry. I may be a lone voice in the wilderness here, but what exactly is >wrong with angst? I agree that in any game it can get very pretentious, in >a Byronic-Toreador sort of a way, but it doesn't have to.<<< > [snip] > It's not fun playing characters who have no hope. It's >also not fun playing characters who are totally certain they're on the >winning side. > >-David Enthusiastic agreeement with the above post (which I snipped). And for the record, I never objected to Angst in the first place, per se. I objected to Pretentious angst, shich is what I think the WOD specializes in; The "we all know what's really going one, and were all going to die, but look really cool, so much coller than the reat of you, shile doing it." In the WOD, It is not about winning or losing, t is about looking cool shile you are losing. persoanlly, I have serious problems with any game, wherein the players even think they know whats going on. (Why, yes, I do like illuminati, why do you ask?) Let me quantify thisfr you. I'm running a Feng Shui game. All well and good. But Its Feng shui set ijn IN. Basicaly, they are just soldiers. I have/will not bothered to _tell_ the players this. I am planning on allowing them to adventure and do missions and action scenes with no forknowledge of the larger war. And everytime I let them get a clue, it will only serve to distract them from a much larger picture. (with that in mind, I am limiting the player character options a little. Nothing too supernatural, for now). As with all games, its flavor, its subjective, and quite frankly, I rarely expect anyone to like what I like (hey, do you know wnyone else who likes blue chese on crackers, washed down with orange juice?) this is no to say that supplemnts in IN should be without falvor. rather. If anything, they should have a variety of flavors. And, as has been the caveat before, repeat the golden mantra, "Use these supplements as thou will. Change them as you like. Have a nice day. Amen." - -Daiv ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 10:39:47 +0100 (MET) From: David Skogsberg Subject: Re: IN> Lilith On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > At 7:33 AM +0100 3/11/98, David Skogsberg wrote: > >On Tue, 10 Mar 1998, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: [Lilith has *lots* of kids.] > >> Frog eggs. Gotta be. > >> > >> No, I am *not* following that mental image to the logical conclusion, > >> I am NOT. > > > >Little green tadpoles? > > Your mind is ever so much cleaner than mine. Well, I was going to add something about squirming and slime and... But then my mind > >Now I'm getting images from what'sit'sname, _The Legacy of Heorot_ (Niven, > >Pournelle & Barnes) where all the little fishies sprout legs and grow and > >grow and _GROW_. And eat people. > > Um. Yum. Really. Actually, tadpoles -> fishies (who are then eaten by adult forms, but the human colonists exterminate all the adults, resuling in huge amounts of little fishies going through the grendel (adult form name) equivalent of puberty, and thus) -> grendel. Rather cool hard SF, actually. cd - -- d97skog@dtek.chalmers.se | cd skogsberg ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 10:49:46 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Herding clueless PCs On Wed, Mar 11, 1998 at 09:06:56PM +0000, Jo Hart wrote: > > I also completely agree with whoever mentioned talking to players during > character generation. Some people are really good at coming to you with > pretty much detailed characters, complete with 40K history (to which I say > 'great!' and hope they don't expect me to memorise it all at once), I fall midway between these extremes. My characters tend to be accrued over long periods of time, from lots of little ideas that I stick together. Usually it starts by picking a stereotype, either because it's weird or because an attunement comes with it that I think has possibilities. (I know that's munchie, but I appease my guilt by making what I think are good characters.) Often I give them a Role, because it helps to give me a handle on characters. In a number of cases the Role is part of the stereotype. Usually what I do then is to twist the stereotype in some way, like making my Malakite of Judgement a _defence_ lawyer (and also an ineffective combat character). Then I start adding further motivations, and after that I make up bits of character history. The extent to which I develop in play or develop before play is largely dependent on when I get a good chance to play the character. Also, because I'm lazy, there's often a lot of background that's in my head which I never actually put down on paper and hence doesn't reach the GM. Mithredath is possibly the most convoluted of my character creation attempts because when I started I didn't intend to make an angel at all. (I'll go through it in her case if anyone's interested. It's long.) In terms of stats, I usually start by making them specialists, and then siphon off points to cover other areas I think they should be reasonable in dealing with. By this stage, Songs are usually a bonus to a character rather than part of their usual strategy, and the same goes for additional attunements, though there are individual exceptions. Also, they tend to have a lot of skills at level 2 and 3 because I have a compulsive need to give them every skill that they might want. And then I play the character (clearing it with GM so it fits the scenario, obviously), and make notes, and invent new pieces of background to fit the actions of the character, assuming there were strange things about them. Because playing certainly gives insight into the character. Sometimes they work well, and sometimes they don't. I'm also compulsive at sticking characters I like into several different timelines, and thus getting several perspectives on them. but > others are better at picking out character concepts when they can discuss > things and bounce ideas around. A sneaky GM will do this over lunch or > something, and be keeping an eye out for when characters come up in > discussion and one or more of the players seems to brighten and get a bit > more enthusiastic when talking about it ;) I almost never discuss character ideas in front of other players. I don't want my dark secrets to come out, after all. I can't think of any occasions in which I modified a character because of what a GM said either. I'm rather absolutist about my characters. Either they're right for a scenario or they're not. Either they work or they get cast into the outer darkness, or at least get their Forces ripped apart and added to another failed character's. IMO it isn't that important that > a character is totally fleshed out at game start if the player is > enthusiastic and has a good grasp of at least one good angle on it. There > is plenty of time for that as you progress. > It isn't needed, but I'm not happy if I don't know just how long my character spent in law school, or wherever. > (I suppose this is on topic?) > It is now. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "as for their relations with others, that is a long story, but it can be expressed shortly and clearly by saying that of all people we know the Spartans are most conspicuous for believing that what they like doing is honourable and what suits their interests is just." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:05:14 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- Lilith On Wed, Mar 11, 1998 at 01:22:18PM -0500, Emily Dresner wrote: > > I don't know about much better. Servitors of Death don't necessarily have > > to have such high body counts that they get arrested/hacked to bits by > > angels within a couple of months. Although certainly they're viable career > > choices. > > Oh, certainly. Serial Killer is probably a popular Role among the > Servitors of Death. > That's usually quite short-lived though. Professional serial killers are usually better. > > > > > That's Saminga's fault. If a Balseraph were put in charge things would be > > different. Even a Habbalite would do a lot better. > > Yes, but you have to get rid of Saminga and replace him with someone new. > Hey, Look! An Adventure! > Possibly just as short-lived as the above career. > > > > > The Irish language doesn't capitalise common nouns, so I feel quite sure > > of myself when I spell it geasa. > > I looked it up, it turns out to be guidhe, or 'geta'. That wacky web, > always finding proper plurals. > What? That's not the Irish language I remember learning every subject I ever studied (apart from English) through for fourteen years of my existence. I can't recall a single instance of an 's' mutating to a 't' at the end of a word. Plurals in Irish are almost always an extension or the insertion of an 'i' before the last consonant, indicating a shortening of the vowel sound. crann -> crainn ispi/n -> ispi/ni/ bla/th -> bla/thanna cloch -> clocha 'Guidhe', incidentally, looks very much like the Irish for 'prayer', and 'geta' looks like an alternate spelling of 'geata', meaning gate. I don't recall ever seeing 'geas' pluralised in Irish (it's not the sort of thing you find except in the legends), but the original of being geased is 'faoi gheasa', so I assumed that 'geasa' was the plural. (Declension in Irish is confusing, damned confusing in fact, and gives us the delightful concept of irregular nouns.) Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "as for their relations with others, that is a long story, but it can be expressed shortly and clearly by saying that of all people we know the Spartans are most conspicuous for believing that what they like doing is honourable and what suits their interests is just." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:09:17 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor On Wed, Mar 11, 1998 at 06:04:45PM -0500, Jesse wrote: > >>screwed up. And, If nothing else, it s nowhere nearly so pretentiously > >>angst ridden. > > > >Yes, THANK GOD it's less angst ridden. > > I disagree. While the Vampire and Ghost games are full of angst From my experience, Vampire could hardly be less angst-ridden. Vampire tends to be about intrigue and backstabbing in my immediate vicinity. The local LARP averages a character death per week. > I think that the Werewolf game is great. Personally I enjoy the > Werewolf game more than anyother game, including In Nomine. The > emotions always seem to run high but at least they do something about it. > Maybe it just me, or maybe I've had great storytellers. > > Unfornutly no one I know agrees that Werewolf is worth playing. I've had unfortunate experiences with it. It's a game that's very easy to make pure hack-and-slash, although the potential is certainly there to make it interesting. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "as for their relations with others, that is a long story, but it can be expressed shortly and clearly by saying that of all people we know the Spartans are most conspicuous for believing that what they like doing is honourable and what suits their interests is just." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:22:28 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor On Wed, Mar 11, 1998 at 11:51:11PM -0500, Kevin Mowery wrote: > > I prefer Balseraphs of Kobal, myself. If I'm not going to play a > Calabim of Haagenti (read: Vyvyan from "The Young Ones"). > Habbalah! Habbalah of any Superior at all are cool. They're so wonderfully warped, especially when your character has previously undergone the Change. Calabim serving the more intellectual Princes are also damn interesting. Or maybe I'm confusing the opportunity to exercise sadism with interestingness. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "as for their relations with others, that is a long story, but it can be expressed shortly and clearly by saying that of all people we know the Spartans are most conspicuous for believing that what they like doing is honourable and what suits their interests is just." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:36:08 -0000 From: "Hart, Joanna" Subject: Death roles (was Re: IN> Re: IN- Lilith) - ---Kevin Walsh wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 11, 1998 at 01:22:18PM -0500, Emily Dresner wrote: > > Oh, certainly. Serial Killer is probably a popular Role among the > > Servitors of Death. > > > That's usually quite short-lived though. Professional serial killers are > usually better. I think I'd have picked 'triage nurse' or 'care-worker in an old age home' (Or better still, RUN an old age home -- not only could you kill off scads of people but you earn lots of money too!) You know that you are not doing well in the armies of hell when your unit nurse is a servitor of Saminga who is 'on permanent loan' and your regimental major general is the word-bound demon of friendly fire. Nuff said. jo ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:44:11 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> In Nomine Flavor > Kind of hard to get into the idea that you're fighting the good fight when > you know you're ultimately doomed to failure no matter what you do. I see > the World of Darkness the same way -- unless the GM wants to radically > change their canon world, the WoD seems pretty hopeless to me. It depends to an extent on which game you're playing. Does anyone > really think a few scruffy PCs can overcome the Technocracy, the Wyrm, the > Jyhad, and whatever other elder ultra-powerful menaces are destroying the > world? No, but given that many of those ultra-powerful menaces are opposed to each other, it is certainly not inevitable that the world will end. And possibly, just possibly, not all of those elder beings are menaces. In any event, the chances of one of the scruffy PCs in a WOD game becoming one of the powers is approximately equal to that in In Nomine. Damned unlikely. But it can happen in theory, if you're willing to play long enough. Can a starting angel in In Nomine attack a Demon Prince and survive? No. In In Nomine, the demons may be strong, but they're not in control > of the world, and they _lose_ major battles now and then. And this also > makes it more fun to play demons than it would be (IMO) to play Technocracy > mages or Sabbat vampires or Wyrm minions (sorry if my terminology is wrong, > I haven't kept up with the WoD lately). Because unlike the latter, demons > aren't confident in the oucome either. The Technocracy is overstretched on all sides. They're faced with Horrors and Marauders from the Deep Umbra, and their only viable defence is the Gauntlet. And that is busily being undermined as we speak. The Consensus is fragmenting, there are more Orphan Mages than ever before, and an entire race of aliens has succeeded in getting back to Earth somehow. Small problems in themselves, and far down the list of priorities, but they're a sign that control is slipping. The Sabbat is fragmented by internal feuds and the lack of a truly cohesive ideology. IIRC, they recently suffered reverses in America, and they haven't been strong in Europe almost since they started. As for the Wyrm...it fragments more with every hour. On every front there are individual victories, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. It's possible to win every battle and still lose the war. They may _think_ they're going to > win, and they may be confident in individual encounters, but they KNOW that > Heaven is an awfully tough opponent too, and that when the final reckoning > comes, no matter how much numerical superiority they have and no matter how > successful they have been in corrupting the Earth, they can't be sure that > God won't just say "OK, Game Over! Hell loses." And Pentex can't be sure that Gaia won't suddenly wake up and eradicate it either. That it hasn't doesn't mean it can't. This is where the angst > comes in for them. It's not fun playing characters who have no hope. It's > also not fun playing characters who are totally certain they're on the > winning side. > There are indications in the WOD that there's a lot still to play for on all sides, and that nothing is decided yet. Like the prophecies of a number of Werewolf tribes and the Sluagh, the existence of rogue Antediluvians who aren't going to sit still while others take over the world, and the entire Mage rulebook, which states fairly clearly that _all_ sides have made gains since WWII. Hopelessness isn't inevitable in the WOD, unless the GM puts it there. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "as for their relations with others, that is a long story, but it can be expressed shortly and clearly by saying that of all people we know the Spartans are most conspicuous for believing that what they like doing is honourable and what suits their interests is just." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 08:30:18 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: IN> Correct Plural of Geas > What? That's not the Irish language I remember learning every subject I > ever studied (apart from English) through for fourteen years of my > existence. I can't recall a single instance of an 's' mutating to a 't' > at the end of a word. Plurals in Irish are almost always an extension or > the insertion of an 'i' before the last consonant, indicating a shortening > of the vowel sound. > > crann -> crainn > ispi/n -> ispi/ni/ > bla/th -> bla/thanna > cloch -> clocha > > 'Guidhe', incidentally, looks very much like the Irish for 'prayer', and > 'geta' looks like an alternate spelling of 'geata', meaning gate. > I don't recall ever seeing 'geas' pluralised in Irish (it's not the sort > of thing you find except in the legends), but the original of being geased > is 'faoi gheasa', so I assumed that 'geasa' was the plural. (Declension in > Irish is confusing, damned confusing in fact, and gives us the delightful > concept of irregular nouns.) I defer to your obvious superior knowledge, since I know little Irish Gaelic. Geasa it is, which is what I _thought_. The dictionary online did say that geas was a derivative of guidhe, although I certainly could have read it incorrectly. If someone wants to second this, that'll be great and awesome. Either way, I prefer correct plurals on words. Therefore, I say we deluge someone Important with emails to 'Change the Word from Geases (wrong) to Geasa (correct) in Publications'. Having it incorrect just looks silly, especially with bending over backwards to determine the difference between say, 'Balseraphs' and 'Balseraphim' and other non-English words. Either that, or I'll just use it correctly in gametime and in writing. - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 08:38:17 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- Re: IN- In Nomine Flavor > >I agree, btw, that Kobal's attunements are weak. So save your points > and > >buy Prank. To an overactive imagination, Prank, frankly, kicks ass. > > Isn't it expensive compared to the Ethereal Song of Light, though? > > I guess Prank always works. It's not the same thing. Prank isn't just a servitor attunement. It's a state of mind. WHAT state of mind I'm not entirely sure. Maybe Ohio. > > Can you buy songs over level 6? > No. - - Em, Marathoning the GM thang. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 08:39:36 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Found an artifact in real life...:) > > This one goes back to the idea of whether or not artifacts can be mass > produced, if the afforementioned is an artifact, then I can get as many as > I might need for $17 at the mall. There is also an Ankh with a slightly > larger blade. > Both of those artifacts are just twisted and wrong. I mean, really. Think about it for a moment. Then go run screaming. - - Em ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #675 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.