From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Wed Jun 2 05:22:50 1999 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id FAA19897 for ; Wed, 2 Jun 1999 05:22:50 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id FAA18787 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Wed, 2 Jun 1999 05:20:23 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 05:20:23 -0500 Message-Id: <199906021020.FAA18787@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 #1247 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 Wednesday, June 2 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1247 In this digest: Re: IN> Night Music and Celestial needs Re: IN> 2 Kyrio of Janus questions IN> Character Acting (Re: Shedim and Lilim) Re: Shedim Jumping Ship (was: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim) IN> Darkovan Compact gliding off topic (Re: Shedim and Lilim) Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Renegade Shedim Re: IN> Kyriotates and lifespans IN> Roleplaying & Acting Re: IN> Being Geased (was Shedim and Lilim) Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim IN> Non-Angel, Non-Demon Celestials (was: Shedim and Lilim) Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting IN> Lilim & Geases (WAS: RE Shedim and Lilim) Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Re: IN> Renegade Shedim Re: IN> Renegade Shedim Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting IN> Re: Shedim and Lillim Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting IN> Music IN> I came from the web page Re: IN> I came from the web page Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:00:03 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Night Music and Celestial needs At 11:54 PM -0500 5/30/99, Amo Nympham wrote: >problem: don't vessels need to breathe? is this simple errata, or is there >something I haven't noticed about vessels? Vessels need to breathe. However, the mud is a relic, so it can have funky abilities. (And/or it's errata left from an earlier draft when celestials didn't need air -- pick one. I like Funky Relic, myself.) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:02:06 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> 2 Kyrio of Janus questions At 4:14 PM +1000 5/31/99, Patrick O'Duffy wrote: >1. Is the Kyrio of Janus' gaseous form completely immune to physical >damage? Even from celestial sources (specifically, the Calabite >resonance)? If not, how many Body Hits would it have (I'm guessing Str >x Corp Forces). Well, it's a gas -- I'd rule you needed to be inventive to damage it. Maybe enough flame... >2. If a Kyrio of Janus Swipes an object from one Host's location, can >the object pop back into existence with one of it's other Hosts? What >if it changes Hosts in the interim? The Swipe is the Kyrio's, not the host's. I'd let the object pop back in with whichever host the Kyrio likes. (Though I have the flu, and this is kind of obnoxious.) > (I crunched some numbers earlier - the game includes a 615 point >Disturbance. Yoicks.) (Eee!) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:15:48 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> Character Acting (Re: Shedim and Lilim) At 7:26 PM -0400 5/31/99, David Edelstein wrote: >>>>Like I said, it's character acting, basically.<<< > >Not quite. In character acting, you're simply acting out lines and actions >that have been scripted by someone else. It's like putting on a mask. In >roleplaying, you are *creating* the character and his actions. Everything >the character says and does, you make him say and do. How... Shedite... (Augh. I'm sick. I'm thinking of my days as a munchkin D&D'er, when the group viciously turned on a former ally NPC when the GM gave that NPC to a player who we didn't like. We informed other NPCs that the quickly-slain PC/NPC had been possessed by an evil spirit.) emccoy@nh.ultranet.com, Uppity Wynch http://brie.bmsc.washington.edu/people/merritt/books/Eye_of_Argon.html "rumoured to contain hoards of plunder, and many young wenches" Mike [falsetto]: "We're tired of these degrading patriachical slurs! From now on we demand to be called 'wynchys.'" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:41:13 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: Shedim Jumping Ship (was: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim) At 3:38 PM +0100 5/29/99, Steve Jessop wrote: >Furthermore, Sam wouldn't cause disturbance by possessing JRII and the >shooting him(self) in the head - but he would get dissonance. He would -- he, the Shedite, was the one causing the shooting to happen. He'd cause disturbance, and get dissonance. If JR II is pushed off a cliff by another human and goes splat before Sam gets out (darnit, gotta learn Wings better!), then there's no disturbance from the splat, but Sam gets dissonant. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:41:12 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> Darkovan Compact gliding off topic (Re: Shedim and Lilim) At 1:44 AM +0200 5/30/99, Anders Gabrielsson wrote: >Is it better to murder someone with a knife than to do it with a gun? >That's basically what you're saying, it seems. It's less evil to murder >with a knife because it's more difficult - your victim has to cooperate by >getting close enough for you to stab him, while with a gun you can just >blast away. As the title suggests... The Darkover books by Marion Zimmer Bradley have exactly that as a premise. Although in their case, it's more like "killing with a knife is less evil than killing with psi-magical nukes." (Warning, warning, this topic is on a slipperly slope with the introduction of Darkover. Unless you want to deal with angels and laren and aliens and all sorts of things that seem like a good idea in my fevered flu state but I'm sure I'll regret later.) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:41:11 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim At 9:16 PM -0400 5/29/99, Hilary Hayes wrote: >The whole Lilim/Shedim argument seems to be going round in circles. (And if it's going around in circles when I get well enough to actually be able to tell this, I'll stomp it. Be warned...) >I also mislike the words 'good' and 'evil' - I rarely use >them myself outside of inverted commas. And the issue isn't "good" and "evil" anyway -- it's "selfless" and "selfish." (Or "compassion" and "calousness" or various other ways of expressing "group over the individual" vs. "individual over the group.") >important difference and, whilst I have bowed to canon and conceded that >Lilim are demons, I still don't think they're =quite= like other demons. >After all, they partake of their mother's nature. (Actually, in our own campaign, there are some hints that Lilim are celestial beings which aren't precisely "demons" or "angels" as others think of such things. But that's non-canon.) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:41:10 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Renegade Shedim At 2:16 AM -0700 5/30/99, Steel Angel wrote: >Anders Gabrielsson wrote: > >> A >> Shedite, on the other hand, -has- to do evil things, or he's on the fast >> track to Renegade-dom (which the (very, very rare) soft-hearted Shedite >> might find preferable to making people do nasty things against their will. > > Just out of curiosity, -how- does a Shedite stay renegade without >piling up Dissonance (or Discord) like crazy for not corrupting its >host? What if a Shedite doesn't want to Redeem? Are they stuck? Is it >Redemption or Dissonance for Shedim? Redemption, Dissonance, or corruption -- just because you're Renegade doesn't mean you _can't_ keep corrupting your hosts. It just means that you ticked off someone high enough up (your Prince, a powerful Word- bound, the local Gamester, etc.) that you'd better not get caught for a while -- if ever. At 7:18 PM +0100 5/30/99, Sam Kington wrote: >Steel Angel wrote: >So, if a Shedite is constantly jumping between hosts, and is constantly >concerned about whether they're good or evil, what harm he'll do them >and whether that will benefit or harm others, it's on the path to >Redemption. All that multiplicity -- serial, instead of concurrent, but still. Many hosts, many views, lots of jumping, hey, this is kinda fun, what would it be like to be a bird...? - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:41:09 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Kyriotates and lifespans At 9:08 PM -0400 5/30/99, EDG wrote: >Can a Kyriotate extend the lifespan of a creature it's inhabiting? Yes and no -- for the duration of the possession, the host-body will not age unless the Kyriotate deliberately allows it. It doesn't really _extend_ the lifespan -- it just... pauses it. >If so, >what happens when it leaves the creature? The host starts aging normally. >(Imagine how creepy a swarm of mayflies would be...) To quote Fiat, "it's like trying to imagine an overly-fatty fruit salad." O:> - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:56:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Robert Knop Subject: IN> Roleplaying & Acting On Mon, 31 May 1999, David Edelstein wrote: > >>>Like I said, it's character acting, basically.<<< > > Not quite. In character acting, you're simply acting out lines and actions > that have been scripted by someone else. It's like putting on a mask. In > roleplaying, you are *creating* the character and his actions. Everything > the character says and does, you make him say and do. Although I hate to sound nitpicky, as an amateur stage actor I have to comment.... For acting it's not quite so mechanistic as this sounds. A good actor brings a lot of creativity to his role. The same role, with the same lines, and even with the same director giving the same blocking, will come across very differently to an audience when played by two different people. It's not just how the two different people look; it's the interpretation of the actor. A good actor breathes life into his character, and at least implicitly collaborates on its creation with the writer and the director. Which, while an important component of acting, is nitpicky to the discussion at hand, because I don't think it really addresses the point David was making. I don't think it's as simple as David's post seems to say, and what a good actor does is more than putting on a mask... but David's right that the roleplayer running a character has a much greater hand in the creation of that character. You're the actor and director as well as (largely) the writer of the character in that case. You don't have a script to fall back to, and to build off of. You don't know ahead of time what lines the other players are going to speak. You are much more creating from base materials. - -Rob ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 14:04:25 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Being Geased (was Shedim and Lilim) At 11:29 AM -0400 6/1/99, Stacy Stroud wrote: >All this talk about the relative evil of Geasing vs. possession, and the >related wrangling on just how the Lilim resonance works, leads to a >question: > >What does it feel like to be under a Geas? Here was my take... http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/Theories/Geasa.html >Are active Geasa visible on the victim's celestial form? Any Geas is. (Geas-hooks are not.) >Does >a Geased celestial have more comprehension of what has happened than a >human? Probably, in that they've at least heard of this sort of thing. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 14:27:31 -0400 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting At 10:56 AM -0700 6/1/99, Robert Knop wrote: >On Mon, 31 May 1999, David Edelstein wrote: > > > >>>Like I said, it's character acting, basically.<<< > > > > Not quite. In character acting, you're simply acting out lines and actions > > that have been scripted by someone else. It's like putting on a mask. In > > roleplaying, you are *creating* the character and his actions. Everything > > the character says and does, you make him say and do. > >Although I hate to sound nitpicky, as an amateur stage actor I have to >comment.... > >For acting it's not quite so mechanistic as this sounds. A good actor >brings a lot of creativity to his role. The same role, with the same >lines, and even with the same director giving the same blocking, will >come across very differently to an audience when played by two different >people. It's not just how the two different people look; it's the >interpretation of the actor. A good actor breathes life into his >character, and at least implicitly collaborates on its creation with the >writer and the director. As a professional stage actor (retired) I concur with my collegue Robert, with the additional addition here -- scripted lines are really the tool of the art, not the art itself. A good, well trained actor can continue "off book" and work with a situation on-stage that's... *divergant* from expectations without missing a beat. Everything from picking up necessary lines for someone else because they're drunk (happened to me once when I was playing Bottom in Midsummer's Night Dream -- I did about two-thirds of Quince's lines and we dismissed Quince immediately afterward. Her understudy had the flu) to someone screwing up royally (I adlibbed for five minutes when the wrong person came in during the wrong scene with the wrong entrance lines once during "The Lady's Not for Burning." I don't recommend trying to ad lib in Iambic Pentameter free verse. It's really not fun.) The great thing is, it's so natural and you've worked on the character so much, you discover you've been compensating for problems about three minutes after you've begun. Which doesn't even *get* into the mind-twisting self-Shedite horror of Method Acting, where rather than putting on a mask you're peeling off yourself in a madcap effort to become the character in body, mind and soul. Once you've been trained in Method, you're never really sane again.... >Which, while an important component of acting, is nitpicky to the >discussion at hand, because I don't think it really addresses the point >David was making. I don't think it's as simple as David's post seems to >say, and what a good actor does is more than putting on a mask... but >David's right that the roleplayer running a character has a much greater >hand in the creation of that character. You're the actor and director >as well as (largely) the writer of the character in that case. You >don't have a script to fall back to, and to build off of. You don't >know ahead of time what lines the other players are going to speak. >You are much more creating from base materials. It is true interactive acting. You're playing the role. It's in effect Improv Acting, really. Which is why Roleplayer veterans make for good Improv actors. This is a truism of the Renn Festival circuit. - -- Eric Alfred Burns | | now with web site content! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 15:56:19 -0400 From: Hilary Hayes Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Hilary wrote: > Hydrax wrote: >Oh that's easy. you just scrunch up alll your hatred into an itty bitty ball and throw it at the world. After all, It's their fault. And besides, evil is so much more fun then good< Personally I would not find that easy. It depends, at least a bit, on what you, personally, hate. If I did that, I'd end up playing a Malakite - probably working for Gabriel. Selfishness is no problem - I can enjoy playing selfish. Hatred, for me, is a concept almost as difficult as 'evil'. Still, thanks for the insight - it's a good answer. Hilary ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 15:56:29 -0400 From: Hilary Hayes Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim >> she gives him 40K to get his company out of debt he can give it right > =back=. No hook. Just how naive does a human have to be to think someone > is going to give him 40K for =nothing= or for a truly =small= favour? < >Very few. Donations of a £1 for bus fare, on the other hand, won't be thought about twice.< Are those likely to generate a high level geas? >I don't think much has to be done to the standard political LARP to make all the characters demons. This could be just my cynicism, of course.< I agree. Of course, we could just be equally cynical. >Well, obviously the character doesn't think of itself as evil.< I've got the impression that some people on this list think that they do. > they just want to have the best life for themselves that they can get, and being the petty, spiteful beings they are, don't care who else gets hurt in the process (and often prefer it if someone else gets hurt).< This is selfishness (as I reckon In Nomine defines it), not 'evil'. > Not all that much different from a Paranoia character, really.< I trust you are happy, Citizen. I am a person who regularly =salutes= the ATM after the Computer generously gives me money. > In a low contrast game, you can quite easily say stuff like "Angels and > demons are all celestials. They just have a different 'take' on the > symphony." < >I'd tend to see that as a copout. It could be just me.< It's interesting to roleplay that way. The =characters= don't see things that way. It makes for interesting mixed parties - characters agree on a verbal level but the words they say =mean= different things. I don't see it as a copout. It's an interesting roleplaying challenge for people who think PC on PC interaction is the best bit of the game. The games I like best are the ones where the GM does =nothing= for the entire session. Maybe I'm just too LARP orientated... >That's a lot easier for me to handle than all this 'good' and > 'evil' and the out of game questions it raises about players' morality and > belief systems. >I happen to think of those as interesting.< So do I, but not on-list. > If celestials have free will, then every celestial makes a choice which > side to be on. < Most celestials won't get the opportunity to make a choice.< If they have free will, then they're making choices all the time. The =consequence= of a particular choice might be total personal destruction, but the choice remains. Hilary ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 16:42:05 -0400 (EDT) From: gantr@NKU.EDU Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Hilary Hayes wrote: > >Very few. Donations of a £1 for bus fare, on the other hand, won't be > thought about twice.< > > Are those likely to generate a high level geas? If the Lilim can do it six times, yes. ("Remember those times I loaned you bus money, and you said you'd do something to help me out in return? Well, I need some help. Go kill Pope John Paul II.") Richard Gant - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my web page: Richard Gant's Gaming Ghetto Currently dedicated to In Nomine, Planescape, and Waste World - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:47:08 -0700 From: "McCarthy, Douglas J" Subject: IN> Non-Angel, Non-Demon Celestials (was: Shedim and Lilim) > From: Steel Angel > This raises an interesting canon question. -Is- there > any such thing as a Celestial being that is -not- an angel, > demon, or variant thereof? Well, I couldn't tell you canonically, but I think one could incorporate Piers Anthony's _Incarnations of Immortality_ pretty easily into an IN campaign. (_I of I_ is a seven-book series that deals with the lives of the five beings known as Death, Time, Fate, War, and Nature. They are humans that have been granted Celestial-type power in one way or another. They are as Word-bound as any Archangel, but they're neutral in regards to the War. The setting isn't very IN-friendly but the mechanics behind the main characters are really well done, especially Time. The first book is _On a Pale Horse_ and deals with the guy who kills the old Death and becomes Death himself. Now, since three of the five Incarnation Words are also AA or DP Words, something would have to be tweaked a bit, but I've thought for a while that it'd be worth it.) - -- Doug McCarthy And this is artificial moonlight... douglas.j.mccarthy@intel.com and artificial sky. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 14:10:54 -0700 From: Sean McCarthy Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Our spies report that on 03:56 PM 6/1/99 -0400, Hilary Hayes said: > >>> she gives him 40K to get his company out of debt he can give it right >> =back=. No hook. Just how naive does a human have to be to think >someone >> is going to give him 40K for =nothing= or for a truly =small= favour? < > >>Very few. Donations of a £1 for bus fare, on the other hand, won't be >thought about twice.< > >Are those likely to generate a high level geas? > Geases add up. To quote from Clue, "1+2+1+1..." Enough free candy and eventually you do something Naughty. Sean ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:17:57 -0400 From: Hilary Hayes Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim >And the issue isn't "good" and "evil" anyway -- it's "selfless" and "selfish." (Or "compassion" and "calousness" or various other ways of expressing "group over the individual" vs. "individual over the group.")< That is just what I was trying to say. I do not have a problem with 'selfless' and 'selfish' and as for 'group over the individual' vs 'individual over the group' =that= provides the moral ambiguity I really enjoy. . I =do= have a problem with 'good' and 'evil'. If IN was 'good' vs. 'evil' I might well have a problem trying to play. H ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:17:48 -0400 From: Hilary Hayes Subject: Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting >It is true interactive acting. You're playing the role. It's in effect Improv Acting, really. Which is why Roleplayer veterans make for good Improv actors. This is a truism of the Renn Festival circuit.< Yes, and, in LARPs even more so. Also, conversely, people with drama training make brilliant role players. RPGs go even further than acting. =However= any good character acting training teaches you how to de-role. You ritually take off the make up and the costume. RPG books, on the whole, don't provide this information. Why not? Don't they realise how =seriously= some of us take our roleplaying? Hilary ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:04:12 -0500 From: Shadowstar Subject: IN> Lilim & Geases (WAS: RE Shedim and Lilim) At 3:56 PM -0400 6/1/99, Hilary Hayes wrote: <-less- worrysome than giving them 40K. . .> >Are those likely to generate a high level geas? Not at first. . . No. But Geas Hooks are cumulative (/In Nomine/ p. 149), all you need is Six Level 1 Geases. . . It's always the little things. . . Remember that. Be seeing you, - - Tafka J. = shadowstar@centuryinter.net # Balseraph of Fate, Marquis of Delusions of Grandeur * http://www.best.com/~lyceum/shdwstar/in-nomine ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 18:17:20 -0400 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting At 5:17 PM -0400 6/1/99, Hilary Hayes wrote: > >It is true interactive acting. You're playing the role. It's in >effect Improv Acting, really. Which is why Roleplayer veterans make >for good Improv actors. This is a truism of the Renn Festival >circuit.< > >Yes, and, in LARPs even more so. Also, conversely, people with drama >training make brilliant role players. RPGs go even further than acting. >=However= any good character acting training teaches you how to de-role. >You ritually take off the make up and the costume. RPG books, on the >whole, don't provide this information. Why not? Don't they realise how >=seriously= some of us take our roleplaying? Very true. Especially since many of the trappings/encouraged practices are similar to Method practices (evolution and development of backstory to develop realism, etc....) If I ever see an RPG that gets into sense memory association, I'll run screaming. But then, sense memory association scares me anyway. It works, but it scares me. Rather like nuclear fission or vinegar and baking soda volcanos. I am very sick, and I have had a long day of children yelling at me because I'm doing what we told them we would do all the way back to the first day of school. Can you tell? - -- Eric Alfred Burns | | now with web site content! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 18:44:39 -0400 From: Hilary Hayes Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim Message text written by INTERNET:in_nomine-l@lists.io.com >If the Lilim can do it six times, yes. < Someone who consistently takes their bus fare from the same person is asking for trouble. Six times is pretty consistent. One bus far does not a level 6 geas make. Sponging might. H ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 18:44:41 -0400 From: Hilary Hayes Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim >Geases add up. To quote from Clue, "1+2+1+1..." Enough free candy and eventually you do something Naughty.< Most of us will take one candy. Most women know what it means when a man buys you a whole =box= of chocolates. Extrapolate! H ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 19:07:46 -0400 From: Kim Foster Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim At 06:44 PM 6/1/99 -0400, you wrote: >Message text written by INTERNET:in_nomine-l@lists.io.com >>If the Lilim can do it six times, yes. < > >Someone who consistently takes their bus fare from the same person is >asking for trouble. Six times is pretty consistent. One bus far does not >a level 6 geas make. Sponging might. > >H > > Well, I think the point was, any "little" favors will add up. Bus fare here, a ride there and...one day it call comes back to haunt you as a level six geas. Ceslestials are immortal, whats a couple of weeks? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 19:51:34 -0500 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim gantr@NKU.EDU wrote: > On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Hilary Hayes wrote: > > > >Very few. Donations of a £1 for bus fare, on the other hand, won't be > > thought about twice.< > > > > Are those likely to generate a high level geas? > > If the Lilim can do it six times, yes. ("Remember those times I loaned > you bus money, and you said you'd do something to help me out in return? > Well, I need some help. Go kill Pope John Paul II.") This is why the idea posted a while back about geases cascading (two level 1s to get a level 2, three level 2s to get a level 3, etc.) was a good one. But maybe I think that because I play Ars Magica so much... It also might require newly created Lilim to owe something other than nine level 3s, so that it is possible to really shackle them to some task. I'm not going to do that wok right now, though. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 20:55:41 -0400 From: "Kelly W. West" Subject: Re: IN> Renegade Shedim Warsinger wrote >There is a vast difference between not gaining power from your Demonic >Resonance and sundry abilities - and racking up Dissonance/Discord but the >bucketful. And doesn't have lots of D/D make it harder to Redeem too? As far as game mechanics go, not that I can see. If the celestial survives the full onslaught of the 'Light of Heaven' (tm) he looses any celestial dishord automatically. As for Corporeal and Ethereal discord, the Archangel usually removes them bit by bit as the new angel proves himself. (as per IPG) Redemption is not a series of mistakes on the demons part, it is a major effort and the only reward is redemption itself. Kelly West (Still angelically abusing the would-be redeemed) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 21:01:11 -0400 From: "Kelly W. West" Subject: Re: IN> Renegade Shedim >At 12:27 PM -0400 5/31/99, Kelly W. West wrote: >> This is why few renegades redeem, even those >>who have convinced themselves that hell is fated to lose. >> > > > Then again, seeking redemption merely because you feel that your on the >losing side is primarily a selfish motivation, something that's not going >to help keep your Forces together in the fires of Redemption. > Oh, agreed. Any attempt to promise rewards to renegade demons for redemption results in a vile smell of smoke in the archangel's arms after the attempt. Kelly W. West (Wondering how a former Demon's view on things differ from someone who was allways an angel?) Kelly W. West Shoot Straight, watch your back, conserve ammo and never cut a deal with a Dragon. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 22:22:29 -0400 From: Ron Carnegie Subject: Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting At 10:56 AM 6/1/99 -0700, you wrote: >On Mon, 31 May 1999, David Edelstein wrote: > >> >>>Like I said, it's character acting, basically.<<< >> >> Not quite. In character acting, you're simply acting out lines and actions >> that have been scripted by someone else. It's like putting on a mask. In >> roleplaying, you are *creating* the character and his actions. Everything >> the character says and does, you make him say and do. > >Although I hate to sound nitpicky, as an amateur stage actor I have to >comment.... > > (SNIP) >-Rob > > As a professional actor I really have to argue against the above comment. I suppose you have never heard of the term "Improvisational Acting"? Any trained actor has some experience with improv. in which they create their characters, lines and in fact scenes. I do it for a improvisational acting for a living! Good Role playing has quite a lot in common with Improv. acting. Cheers, Ron Carnegie rcarnegie@widomaker.com ************************************************* "The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once on this earth, on this familiar spot of ground walked other men and women as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions but now all gone, vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall be gone like ghosts at cockcrow." G.M. Trevelyan ************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 21:04:51 PDT From: "Hydrax 59" Subject: IN> Re: Shedim and Lillim > >>>But where do these internal mores come from? that's right, the society >you >got brought up in.<<< > >Partially. Everyone's morality is an alchemy of individual personality and >social conditioning. I don't believe in an absolute, external morality, and >yet I don't believe in absolute cultural relativity either. In some >societies, slavery, torture, and other forms of degradaton are >acceptable...yet there are people in those societies who find such behavior >objectionable. If they never received any external conditioning from >society to say that this was a bad thing, where did those objections come >from? Or are they immoral to object, since they're going against social >mores? Well, if society decides sanity, then couldn't it also decide immorality? I'd say it would have to depend on their reason for objecting. If in this case it was a care for other humans, then i'd say that yes it was a moral choice - by their morals. But as to your where do they come from, well, there are people in ouir society who carry out slavery, torture and other stuff. Even though this is stricly speaking unnaceptable. > >>>What you are is determined by where you are.<<< > >So in the "nature vs. nurture" argument, you're 100% on the side of >"nurture"? I tend to believe the evidence that it's a mix of both. No, What I am saying is that it takes a very special person to stand up against how they are brought up, and that even then, you are never unnafected by teh conditions you were brought up in > >>>Isn't that what I was saying Shedim removed? And didn't you just agree >with >me by saying that morals are human constructs?<<< > >You were saying they are *social* constructs. This would imply, for >example, that if you have a society where slavery is moral, but an >individual in that society who believes slavery is immoral, a Shedite >couldn't turn him into a slaver, because there are no moral constructs to >remove. Doesn't compute. No, I was saying that SOCIETY is a human construct. and you could remove the construct against slavery, in much the same way that people in todays world could have their construct against murder removed. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 00:35:51 -0400 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Roleplaying & Acting At 10:22 PM -0400 6/1/99, Ron Carnegie wrote: >At 10:56 AM 6/1/99 -0700, you wrote: > >On Mon, 31 May 1999, David Edelstein wrote: > > > >> >>>Like I said, it's character acting, basically.<<< > >> > >> Not quite. In character acting, you're simply acting out lines and actions > >> that have been scripted by someone else. It's like putting on a mask. In > >> roleplaying, you are *creating* the character and his actions. Everything > >> the character says and does, you make him say and do. > > > >Although I hate to sound nitpicky, as an amateur stage actor I have to > >comment.... > > > > > >(SNIP) > >-Rob > > > > > > As a professional actor I really have to argue against the above >comment. I suppose you have never heard of the term "Improvisational >Acting"? Any trained actor has some experience with improv. in which they >create their characters, lines and in fact scenes. I do it for a >improvisational acting for a living! Good Role playing has quite a lot in >common with Improv. acting. I wouldn't say "any." I know any number of professional actors who didn't even touch on Improv. I agree that well prepared ones generally have. But lots of the traditional arts (stagecraft, movement, stage combat, all the Playwright-centric coursework, etc.) and aspects of an actor's training has nothing to do with Improv, and it's certainly conceivable for an actor to specialize in those -- just as it's possible for an Improv actor to focus on his craft from Yes-and to Commedia del Arte and never study Shakespeare or Stanislavski. And Method is usually the antithesis of Improv, even though they often lead to simular skillsets. None of which has a *thing* to do with In Nomine, but I'm going for Nitpicking essence. Um... um... Eli probably has an Angel of Background Interaction, and Nybbas has a Demon of Endlessly Droning On About Method Acting.... - -- Eric Alfred Burns It was then I felt my heart break like a in-sabre@annotations.com fragile Scooby Snack upon the harsh teeth of http://www.annotations.com Reality -- and it's been broken ever since. http://www.annotations.com/~journal --Johnny Bravo ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 11:38:49 +0200 From: cd skogsberg Subject: IN> Music This is a set of recommendations, based on what music I happen to like at the moment. YMMV, MHO, etc, blah blah. First: "The 3rd And The Mortal" - melodic rock with a female vocalist, a rather haunted sound. http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/~thomasr/mortal/ Second: Hyperium Records, the "Heavenly Voices" collections. A rather (undeservedly) obscure German record company, releasing dark, slow music with the common denominator of female vocalists. Very nice. http://www.hyperium-rec.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 04:43:12 -0500 (CDT) From: lxndr@avalon.net Subject: IN> I came from the web page Hi! Just curious: I know Remnants can't start with Celestial forces, but is there any way for them to acquire them later, through experience and the like? Or are remnants destined to be always completely without Will and Perception? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 02:57:18 -0700 From: Sean McCarthy Subject: Re: IN> I came from the web page Our spies report that on 04:43 AM 6/2/99 -0500, lxndr@avalon.net said: >Hi! Just curious: I know Remnants can't start with Celestial forces, but is there any way for them to acquire them later, through experience and the like? Or are remnants destined to be always completely without Will and Perception? > > Per the Corporeal Player's Guide (which I just won at this last convention!) only Superior intervention can add Celestial forces to a Remnant. I don't recall if they can buy up 3 points worth Will+Perception, but I do know they cannot get 4 since that would bring an extra Force...even if 3 is allowed, 4 is not. Sean ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 11:17:10 +0100 From: hjalkar@redbrick.dcu.ie (Kevin Walsh) Subject: Re: IN> Shedim and Lilim On Tue, Jun 01, 1999 at 03:56:29PM -0400, Hilary Hayes wrote: > >Very few. Donations of a £1 for bus fare, on the other hand, won't be > thought about twice.< > > Are those likely to generate a high level geas? > Well, no, but a perceptive Lilim can probably geta fair bit of mileage out of a five minute conversation. Probably not a Geas/4, but 3 Geas/1s shouldn't be too hard. > >Well, obviously the character doesn't think of itself as evil.< > > I've got the impression that some people on this list think that they do. > Hmm...I would have a difficult time seeing demons who believed in the cause of Hell as being truly evil. > > they just want to have the best life for themselves that they can get, > and being the > petty, spiteful beings they are, don't care who else gets hurt in the > process (and often prefer it if someone else gets hurt).< > > This is selfishness (as I reckon In Nomine defines it), not 'evil'. > The line is rather thin. Most of the great atrocities in history have been caused by the petty ambitions and petty hatreds of ordinary people (the Holocaust, the Gulags, etc.). Placed in an ideal world, the average demon would probably be little more than a jerk, but en masse, I think the word evil is quite appropriate. (And having read the Gulag Archipelago, I want Hades to be at least as evil as Stalin's Russia, which is quite a high standard.) > It's interesting to roleplay that way. The =characters= don't see things > that way. It makes for interesting mixed parties - characters agree on a > verbal level but the words they say =mean= different things. I don't see > it as a copout. It's an interesting roleplaying challenge for people who > think PC on PC interaction is the best bit of the game. Well...interesting PC on PC interaction is hardly limited to mixed parties. A random selection of angels from different Choirs and Superiors will have quite different beliefs and motivations. The games I like > best are the ones where the GM does =nothing= for the entire session. > Maybe I'm just too LARP orientated... > They are cool. I have fond memories of an out-of-book Fading Suns scenario where the players spent an hour and a half working out contract details. > If they have free will, then they're making choices all the time. Ah. I was interpreting what you said too narrowly, as being about the possibility of redemption, which for most demons is equivalent to the possibility of me climbing Mount Everest. (The same could probably be said about Falling for angels, though not in quite the same way.) The > =consequence= of a particular choice might be total personal destruction, > but the choice remains. > Certain choices are, however, infeasible. Most demons simply can't get to Earth, for instance. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "It is an impressive thing to hear a helpless woman damned in every item of her life, every corner of her soul. For good reason, no one accused by the Temple has ever been found innocent." Ser Visal's Tale, by Stephen Donaldson. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1247 ******************************** The material here is (C) 1999 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.