From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Jul 20 12:56:39 2000 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 MAA16533 for ; Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:56:38 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id MAA03442 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:54:21 -0500 Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:54:21 -0500 Message-Id: <200007201754.MAA03442@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 #1723 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, July 20 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1723 In this digest: Re: IN> Dead Superiors IN> In your dreams ... Re: IN> Dead Superiors Re: IN> Dead Superiors IN> I know it's late, but! Trailer 1 - The Agony and the Ecstasy Re: IN> Questions about Servitors of Stone Re: IN> Dead Superiors Re: IN> Dead Superiors IN> Re: In> Dead Superiors Re: IN> Words in Celestial vs Demonic Re: IN> In your dreams ... Re: IN> GURPS-IN and material for IN IN> [Seed]...that taste great together? Re: IN> Adventures in In Nomine (was Re: Dead Superiors) Re: IN> Re: In> Dead Superiors Re: IN> Dead Superiors Re: IN> [Seed]...that taste great together? Re: IN> Adventures in In Nomine (was Re: Dead Superiors) Re: IN> Dead Superiors Re: IN> Adventures in In Nomine (was Re: Dead Superiors) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:42:49 -0400 From: "Galen G. Silversmith" Subject: Re: IN> Dead Superiors > Return-Path: milliken@io.com > And *that*'s the rub for adventures. SJGames' experience with adventure > books has been that they *don't* sell very well. (Compared to, say, > rules-oriented or background books.) The only lines I know of that have > heavy adventure support are Call of Cthulhu and D&D. FASA's Shadowrun has a large number of adventure support. It is, IIRC, much heavier than CoC's support. (there was also some support for earthdawn.) Shadowrun is a real anomialy here; it is not a first system for most people, but the modules seem to sell. The better ones are often very well written, and some are open needed of expanded seeds vs adventures. But the bad ones are horrid, and I have no idea about actual sale data. Additionally, anything involved in TSR/WOTC's RPGA system has a regular series of adventures being written for them; anything from AD&D to star wars, to shadowrun (Shadowrun even has a campaign setting in RPGA -- Virtual Seattle). Admittedly, these are aimed at gaming/sf cons instead of the mass market, but it is a cool idea. Speaking of which, I have no idea what the professional relationships are between SJG and TSR/WOTC, but has there been any consideration of attempting to get IN into RPGA sanaction/run status (if its not already)? It can't hurt the popularity. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 16:31:28 GMT From: "Janet Anderson" Subject: IN> In your dreams ... Moe, you've done it again. I can't decide which I liked better -- the picture of Michael and David suddenly sharing the same thought, looking at each other, and communicating clearly without words the realization of a Golden Opportunity -- or the look on Blandine's face when she realized what had happened ... although Michael's and David's Servitors had better be well out of there before *she* gets involved in it. An infuriated Cherub is not a good thing. I love it. Janet Anderson ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:29:23 -0400 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Dead Superiors At 11:04 AM -0500 7/20/00, David Edelstein wrote: >Jo Hart wrote: >> So I don't see that a successful game must have all those things. > > >Y'all should make a distinction between successful _games_ and >successful game _lines_. By many standards, Amber Diceless RPG could be >considered a highly successful game, since it still has a huge following >-- even though there were only two books ever published, and those years >and years ago. Well, agreed. Let me state specifically what I mean: "A game that makes its parent company enough money to allow its full time employees if any to eat on a regular basis for a significant period of time." There have been a lot of interesting and fun games that fail to have all the elements I've mentioned. There have also been a lot of failed games and game companies out there. The two lists are remarkably similar. Did Amber make enough money to feed the employees for a significant period of time? (Ignoring the fact that there was all these Zelazny books to take the place of sourcebook material and the like.) If so, I'll accept it as a point that a successful game doesn't *need* the elements I've mentioned. Though it seems to me there's a lot more "feed the employees" games that follow the latter than not.... (I still don't know how or why this is an argument, since we're using independent means of assessment to come to the same conclusion. Then again, I have a degree in English and some critical theory background, so I may know the answer. I also resaw "Educating Rita" on a lark last night, and think it's a good example of a Mercurian of Destiny becoming increasingly dissonant before falling into discord which in turn restores a kind of equilibrium to him. So what do I know?) - -- Eric Alfred Burns - Habbalite of Belaboring the Point ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:22:32 -0400 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Dead Superiors At 3:57 PM +0000 7/20/00, Jo Hart wrote: >>From: Whistling in the Dark > >>> And that means no more libers. (The Canticorum was handy; the >>>others strictly optional.) Swelpmegod. >> >> >>So, that's a *lot* more YMMV than you're implying, so far. > >So we can disagree on which one is handy -- but they're all >optional. It's like having books of magic weapons for D&D, I don't >see them as critical, just easy to produce. Which is something I explicitly stated in the description. They are optional. *Not* having them is dangerous to a game line, because they *are* popular and easy to produce, and I don't think a line is well developed without having the ability to expand the ruleset from the basic or expand the depth of the basic rules. >This is what I don't see. I think your analysis is a bit divorced >from RL, and is all retrospective, based on what has been produced >so far. So naturally if you go with that, you will end up concluding >that the best thing to do is more of the same. I will admit it's retrospective. I think this is in part because it's impossible to project into the future and declare what would or would not be potentially successful without mining the past *without* 'divorcing yourself from RL,' as you say. In other words, I'm going with what's worked in the past, and therefore I'm divorcing myself from Real Life? Sorry, Jo -- I don't see it. >Now I'm going to quickly sweep through some of those other >successful games you mentioned earlier. > >1. Vampire. Has never had any decent books of scenarios, ever, >unless you count the X by Night books. They've really tried to do >scenarios -- but they weren't good. They've had a ton of them, though. An absolute ton of them. I know this because I see them in places like Borders even now. > On the other hand, it hasn't had many books of resources either >that I know of. (Book of Disciplines?) It's been mainly setting. >Many splatbooks that appealed to players, as opposed to GMs. It's had quite a few. A Storyteller's Guide. A Player's Guide. A Guide to the Sabbat (I think a whole load of new types of Vampire to play, new Disciplines to have, and new ways to replace Humanity counts as a resource). Does that mean that Setting isn't what sold Vampire? No. But Vampire developed every last one of the elements I mentioned. White Wolf did the same with every other Storyteller World of Darkness game, and is doing it now with Abarrent. >2. D&D. TONS of scenarios. Loads and loads of them. It's one of the >main reasons it was so popular -- it was easy for a GM to go off and >buy a scenario or a copy of Dungeon and just run something generic. >Also had some extraordinarily good setting material, but I think it >is better known from the scenarios. Had some books of monsters et al >also, but frankly they've got the resources to keep publishing >pretty much everything they can think of. They know that scenarios >get people into GMing though, so they'll keep doing them ad >infinitum. Yup. But they also did a ton of everything else. Remember the shelf full of brown, blue and green books, known affectionally as "The Complete Whatever Handbooks?" Splatbooks for players. Remember Oriental Adventures? Unearthed Arcana? Manual of the Planes? Tome of Magic? Monster Manual II? All designed to add depth or expand the rules. Remember Dragonlance? Ravenloft? Planescape? Fading Sun (if I remember the name correctly)? Spelljammer? All settings and flavor expansions. In fact, I daresay that except for the true classics that get reissued (like B1-4, the Giants Series and the Drow series), the scenarios don't sell nearly as many copies as a new hardback does. In recent years, it's just continued. (Multi-volume complete magic item books, multi-volume complete spell lists. Decks upon decks of cards that just have these things printed on them. And so on and so on and so on...) >3. Call of Cthulhu. Practically nothing _except_ city setting >sourcebooks and lots of very good scenarios. And stuff like Cthulhu Now, The 1920's Investigator's Companion, The Keeper's Companion, The Creature Companion, new fiction based on it and of course all that source fiction they took it from... so, "practically nothing" really doesn't apply here. >So I don't see that a successful game must have all those things. Whereas I still haven't seen a successful game that hasn't. - -- Eric Alfred Burns - Habbalite of Belaboring the Point ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 09:56:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Jennifer Campbell Subject: IN> I know it's late, but! Trailer 1 - The Agony and the Ecstasy I know this is a long dead topic, I checked the archives before I joined, but when I read all the ones on the archives page I just had to submit mine. . .in the style of Kevin Williamson, of Dawson's Creek and Scream fame, I humbly submit this piece. It took me all Algebra class. TWO WHOLE HOURS. Jennifer ***** Narrator: They were two bright young stars ready for the front lines of a war going badly. Open with a pan of Gabriel's outpost in the Marches, Arah(Katie Holmes from Dawson's Creek, possibly?), a Mercurian, sits at the feet of her Superior. Her eyes are open and rapt, adoring. Her wings are outstretched in admiration and supplication as a volcano explodes brilliant ruby red and tangerine shards of lava in the background. Gabriel, in a whisper: Better to light a candle than curse the dark. Are you His candle, my candle, Arah-el?" Cut to a shot of Michael and an Elohite drill instructor (who else to stay objective and give the same abuse to everyone?), both in the gleaming armor of the Heavenly Host, shouting taunts at Phillip, an Ofanite as he skirmishes with a Malakite. Michael, to the D.I.: Ride him hard. Don't let up. He'll clear the field, come Armageddon, if we don't let him soften up. Narrator: Now they're on their first mission, as ordinary teens in a not so ordinary school Music: Breathe, by Prodigy. Cue up the first few riffs, then cut to "Come play my game. . ." Cut to a shot of the two in human vessels (Jason Behr, from Roswell as Phillip?), dressed from head to toe in Tommy Hilfiger, standing in front of a bank of red lockers Voiceover - Gabriel : You must cleanse this place with fire and prayer. . . Cut to a shot of a nymphette Lilim in a cheerleader's uniform (Britney Spears' film debut?) kneeling between the football coach's legs as he sits in his chair. Lilim: I can make it happen. Imagine it. More wins than anyone else in conference. The season starts next week. . .are you ready? Two bracelets snap around his wrists. Voiceover - Michael: Show the demons the true meaning of victory. . . A Balseraph (Scot Caan from Varsity Blues?) leads the football team onto the field, screaming and mocking the guest team as he pumps up the Sheddim-posessed first string of the team, almost visible tentacles rippling around their bodies. Cut to a shot of the locker room, where the players assault and maul a bound female classmate. Narrator: Two ordinary kids, with ordinary lives - Class Cut to shot of Arah screaming in debate with a gothed out, stringy haired guy wearing a pentagram and a t-shirt with the head of Anton LeVey. The sign behind her reads "Student Interfaith Organization." Narrator: Sports Phillip grapples with a young man, both in wrestling singlets and pads. He moves faster than humanly possible to break the hold and make the pin. He then helps the fellow up and they laugh and butt heads. Narrator: And taking out the garbage! Arah slaps Slut Lilim across the face. The Lilim pulls Arah's hair and they fall to the floor in a scratching, kicking, biting, catfight-o-rama. Clothes are ripped, flesh is exposed, then Arah lays her out by slamming her little green head against the side of the wall. Cut to the Balseraph swinging at Phillip and him returning the punches as Arah unties a cheerleader from a makeshift altar, wrapping her red jacket around the bare girl. Narrator: If you thought your high school was hell Arah stands on the fifty yard line of the football field, ringed by fire along the boundaries on all sides blazing with all the intensity of her Superior's Word. She shouts out Gabriel's name, and the fire around her begins to move and mutter. Narrator: Just wait until you attend Ridgemont Academy Cut to scene of Philip in a tuxedo and Arah in a tangerine floor length formal speeding away from Homecoming in a lime green Tempo, Arah dangling out the window, shooting at the car in front of them. Fade to black, cut the music. Total silence, then. . . Voiceovers -- Phillip: Arah? Arah: Yeah? Phillip: When this demon stuff is done, do you wanna go to the prom with me? Arah: You mean the green skank hasn't gotten her claws into you? Phillip: I dunno about all this acting human stuff yet, but I DO know I don't date girls with entire zip codes between their knees. . . The logo fades into view. In Nomine - The Agony and The Ecstasy ===== "The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them." - -William Clayton ICQ UIN: 14514495 AIM: Pepper2540 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:02:13 -0400 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Questions about Servitors of Stone At 16:44 +0000 7/19/00, Janet Anderson wrote: >I may be designing a Servitor of Stone shortly (alliteration's artful aid!) and I would like the following matters clarified by a reliable rules person: I'm not "official", but I'll stick my oar in, anyway. >1. Does attacking the attuned of a Cherub of Stone count as attacking the Cherub? I would definitely say yes, though it's not attacking the Cherub, but his "group", which should be plenty good enough, considering how group-oriented Davidians are. >2. If a Malakite of Stone is ordered to work with a particular demon, and the demon does not attack him, then the Malakite is off the hook as far as his Oaths and his Servitor obligations are concerned (it's not his choice, and he doesn't attack). Right. Note, however, that a Stony Malakite isn't required (by a dissonance condition, anyway) that he obey orders.... > But what happens if the demon attacks someone else, or performs a visibly evil action? Would he then take dissonance if he didn't take action against the demon, since the demon had actually done something evil, even if the action wasn't against the Malakite directly? This is a tough call -- I think it's mostly in the "GM call" realm. I'd say that if the demon attacked (or did something evil that could be interpreted as a form of "attack") a member of the Stony's group -- i.e., someone he's strongly associated with -- then, sure, go ahead and beat on the demon. (Maybe not kill him, since there are orders to work with him, but he can *wish* he were dead....) If the attack or act is against some random person the Stony doesn't really have any affiliation with, then I'd say retaliating would be dissonant. (On the other hand, if the demon were doing it specifically to provoke the angel, then that's a sort of indirect attack... even if the angel got dissonant, there's a pretty good chance David would be happy to remove it under the circumstances.) > (Come to think of it, do demonic, or other, actions against innocent bystanders, noncombatants, attuneds, etc. count as attacks for the purpose of Stone dissonance conditions?) As above; I'd say the general rule is "it's OK to attack if the target is someone the Stone Servitor identifies with as part of his own group" (be it another angel, a street gang he's working with, or even someone he knows from his neighborhood). There are definite gray areas in here, and sometimes the Stony will get dissonant from getting too far into them. My interpretation of David is that he'll easily forgive such, as long as the angel didn't actually start the sequence of violence, and the angel was bonded to the actual target by some reasonable tie. (Obviously a Cherub attunement counts as such.) As an interesting sidelight on the above case, since the Malakite had been ordered to work with the demon, he'd probably consider it OK to attack someone who was attacking the demon! After all, they're a team, albeit a temporary and probably very uneasy one. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:57:50 -0400 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Dead Superiors At 12:42 PM -0400 7/20/00, Galen G. Silversmith wrote: > > Return-Path: milliken@io.com >> And *that*'s the rub for adventures. SJGames' experience with adventure >> books has been that they *don't* sell very well. (Compared to, say, >> rules-oriented or background books.) The only lines I know of that have >> heavy adventure support are Call of Cthulhu and D&D. > >FASA's Shadowrun has a large number of adventure support. It is, IIRC, >much heavier than CoC's support. (there was also some support for >earthdawn.) Shadowrun's adventures tended (though weren't always) to either advance the Settingplot (making them part of the setting as well as the adventure), add sourcebook material, or were so freakin' interesting beyond the adventure that you couldn't help picking them up. (For instance, the one about the cult, that had the "supplementary book" that was a file of all text based convo? The novella was worth the price of admission alone.) That being said, Shadowrun has tons of sourcebook info, from city and nationbooks to splatbooks for Riggers, Deckers, Mages (sic) and the like, to catalogs of stuff for Street Samurai and sorcerers alike. It's *very* balanced in its support. - -- Eric Alfred Burns - Habbalite of Belaboring the Point ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:07:28 -0500 From: "Prodigal" Subject: Re: IN> Dead Superiors From: "Whistling in the Dark" > > up. (For instance, the one about the cult, that had the > "supplementary book" that was a file of all text based convo? The > novella was worth the price of admission alone.) Agreed completely on that one! Even when I decided to sell all my Shadowrun stuff, I kept the one with the novella. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:06:49 EDT From: Samovar3@aol.com Subject: IN> Re: In> Dead Superiors Whistling in the Dark wrote: >>And there is a reason for this. What sort of playable adventure can be >>written for In Nomine? >On the Angelic Side of things: And, that leads to another problem that In Nomine has with published adventures. An angelic game has no use for a demonic adventure, while a demonic game has no use for an angelic one. Adventures would have to be left open enough for both types of games to play. And, having the Outcast/Renegade/Ethereal who pops up, pisses both sides off, and gets stomped on would get old real fast. (I'm not even touching mixed groups, which would need to be taken into account as well.) Probably the nicest thing you can say about the early Revelation Cycle adventures is that they acknowledged this. I don't feel that they handled it particularly well, but at least they recognized the problem. Now, I suppose that one solution is to make different books for each type of game, but I don't think that's going to happen. Sam Flanigan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:10:28 -0400 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Words in Celestial vs Demonic At 18:38 +0000 7/19/00, -=|horsefly|=- wrote: >On Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:03:02 -0400 Walter Milliken wrote: >>I believe canon states somewhere that demons all can understand and speak >>"angelic", so that isn't an issue. > i disagree. canon most definitely states that demons recognize angelic/ celestial, but the Vassal of War Distinction emphatically states angels can hear and understand the Vassal, but only other Vassals of War can respond in kind; demons "will recognize the tongue, but will not understand." But the Vassal stuff is a specialized variant, not the true celestial tongue, since it can be used in the corporeal realm. Also, it's more like an attunement, in that it probably doesn't work by mundane means. You can interpret this as a form of divergence of languages, too -- both Helltongue and the Vassal "language" derive from "pure celestial", but in different directions. A native speaker of "pure celestial" might be able to understand the Vassal variant, but the two variants are diverged too much to allow comprehension at two steps removed (Helltongue). - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:10:01 -0400 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> In your dreams ... At 4:31 PM +0000 7/20/00, Janet Anderson wrote: >An infuriated Cherub is not a good thing. > >I love it. Oo. Janet Janet Janet. You're brilliant. It never really hit me before (maybe I need to reread the Blandine description in Sup3 again). But Blandine *is* a Cherub. So... we're discussing someone attacking her attuned, since it seems likely her entire *side* of the Vale is her attuned... - -- Eric Alfred Burns - Habbalite of Belaboring the Point ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:25:05 -0400 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> GURPS-IN and material for IN At 16:36 -0400 7/19/00, Whistling in the Dark wrote: >At 1:15 PM -0700 7/19/00, sw@haven.eyrie.org wrote: >> >> >>But on another subject with changes in GURPS:IN, what about the rules for >>Geasae, where 4 Geasae of one level equal one of the next? In a way, it makes >>a lot more sense than the linear rule for Geasae in IN... and if you can >>down-convert them, it makes it really amusing... one Major Favor (Geas/6) is >>worth 4^5 Trivial Favors (Geas/1). Or 1,024... A Lilim could get *years* of >>fun and games out of that, instead of just one big whack! > >I was wondering about that too -- is that an Errata going back to IN as well? And if so, are there a lot of these "hidden Errata"? There are a number of places where we changed IN mechanics to better fit the GURPS mindset or mechanics. This particular case we chose to change since GURPS players, in my experience, are generally much more concerned about play balance and mathematical properties of rules. And this mechanic was both abusable and didn't make a lot of mathematical sense. So I chose to try to make the ratios of combined Geases track the time ratios, more or less. Whether this will ever become the IN rule is an open question. I certainly wouldn't consider it "errata" at the moment -- I put it in the category of "things we did to IN mechanics to fit GURPS better." There are a few of those -- the other major one that comes to mind is how we handled the Kyrio resonance, since "Forces" is not a GURPS attribute. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:42:04 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> [Seed]...that taste great together? Okay, Vapula will be out soon (for some value of soon), so this little madness crossed my mind. This is all so un-canon as to be out in the Far Marches and sideways. There _is_ an author's hat somewhere in all this LE dam. (The Djinn Princess of Line Editing/Nitpicking takes her form partly from a beaver, with all the dam building that implies.) This is an adventure for 2-3 players, _or_ the usual gaming group... You'll see why. Dr. Jeckyll, I Presume? - ----------------------- So you've got your Vapulans. And your average Vapulan tends to want to make something _special_ for the Genius Prince, right? Something that will unlock one of the Ineffable Secrets Of The Universe. Well, they've succeeded. Sort of. Through various deus ex machinas/GM fiats that are full of technobabble and lots of flashing lights, a group of Vapulans have done the unthinkable. They've captured a Malakite (Superior optional) and a Habbalite (probably of the War), and... glued them together into one being, with a whole new personality -- and resonance. The Habbikite is, naturally, a rather pathetic thing, with most of its Forces at least a little mangled. And it's really quite, quite mad. But no matter. The Vapulans have installed a remote-control collar on it. They're going to use it to take out some annoying Jeanites, and then, standing over the bodies of their archenemies, their creation by their side, they're going to call their Prince and reap rewards untold! Well, the untold part will do. During the battle, the remote-control collar is fried. (Mmm, Generator!) So when the Vapulans show up to claim their creation, their creation waxes _them_, too. Whee, now there's a rogue _thing_ stomping around. This would be a simple "round up and/or kill" operation for PCs, much akin to the FotM final adventure. (Beth pauses for people to spit; it's been known to happen.) However, the Habbakite isn't _just_ a stupid killing machine. It's three personalities in one body. Personality #1 is the "fused" one, which is a bit stupid, more than a little destructive (though not really more than the average Calabite), and possesses ample low cunning. Its resonance is, interestingly, more for strength than emotion-forcing. I.e., it uses the Malakite Resonance Table, substituting "strong" for "noble" and "weak" for "ignoble." It then desires to pound on anyone it finds who has a view of himself as "weak." At the GM's option, it may also have the ability to impose "strength" on someone already in a mode of standing his ground -- either like Malphan Habbalah, or simply driving any brave souls into a berserk state if they fail a Will roll against it. The Habbakite also has access to any Servitor Attunements and Songs of the original pair, as well as any skills the GM thinks would be amusing. No Choir/Band Attunements, though. At least, none that depend on any resonances. Have fun. Personality #2 is the Habbalite, who is naturally PO'ed. Personality #3 is the Malakite, who is also PO'ed. Now, while the Habbakite has been in control of the shared vessel, the Habbalite and the Malakite have been catfighting in the subconscious and finally came to a truce. (Not a surrender. We must be clear on such things.) They figure that it's going to take a Superior to get them untangled. They also figure that the group-entity is going to be hunted down like a miniLegion as soon as it's realized that a couple of celestial groups were iced. They would rather not get destroyed. (They share a celestial form, too -- think something sort of like a Hindu deity, with extra face(s), weird and fit to make your players uneasy.) So the pair of subsumed personalities have teamed up and can, sometimes, swamp out the Habbakite. This requires one to "drive" the body, and one to sit on the Habbakite personality and keep it from getting back into the driver's seat. Unfortunately for them, they can't decide which Superior to go to. Prince or Archangel? If Prince, _which_ Prince? Maybe they should just stall for time and see if they can gang up on the Habbakite personality and destroy it, and then let the best "angel"/angel win the resulting war of attrition. The Malakite holds out a faint hope that it can convince the Habbalite to seek redemption -- while the Habbalite is trying to figure out if it can sell the Malakite down the river to Baal. The Habbakite is just trying to get free -- which happens if the "sitting upon" personality gets distracted enough, such as in a bid for control of the vessel... So there you have the setup. If the Habbakite is an NPC, run according to taste with your usual gaming group. Or, if you only have a couple players, stick _them_ with the roles of Malakite and Habbalite! (We use Malakite here both for the Coolness Factor, and because it lets us handwave around the "but wouldn't the angel Fall?" question -- if you want to let a PC use something else, hey, have fun. The Habbalite was chosen for maximal annoyance to an angel; also season to taste.) If you have 3 players, give someone the Habbakite -- maybe it is more than the psychotic nutcase that the Vapulans were hoping to create, once it gets free and starts learning! Suggested Mechanics - ------------------- (Warning, warning, these have probably been inspired by a Wild Cards or GURPS Wild Cards writeup of some kind. I forget which, but I have this hint of flavor-memory.) There are three "levels" to the composite being: Driver, Squelcher, and Squelched. The Driver, obviously, is the one in control of the composite being. It can use all the Songs and attunements it brought into the mix, but no others. The Habbakite composite gets Servitor Attunements and Songs as above -- the Vapulans made sure that it would have access to those "hardwired." It can use its own resonance, but not that of the others. (It can _request_ that one of the others use its own resonance or attunements, and tell it the results (if Perception-based only!)!) The Squelcher is the one responsible for pinning down the Squelched. It can use Perception-based resonance & attunements, and make side comments. It can also try to assert control of the body. The Squelched can use Perception-based resonance & attunements and make snide comments. O:> It can try to reverse positions with the Squelcher, usually in a bid for control of the body. The Squelcher and Squelched _can_ team up, becoming roughly-equal! If all three personalities are making a bid for control, roll 1d3 to see who gets it. Any other Will roll mechanics are just too hairy. If any personality wants to swap places with another, who is unwilling that this should happen, roll a Contest of Wills. (Contests are on page 30- something of the main book, IIRC, next to the d666 mechanics page.) If the third personality isn't doing anything pressing, like combat or a Song, it can give a CelForces boost to the target number of one (not both!) of the others. (The above is how a Driver can be unseated with teamwork -- the would- be Driver does the Contest, while the would-be Squelcher adds his Cel Forces.) If Driver and Squelcher want to swap places for some reason, give the Sqelched a Per roll to see if it spots an opening! If it does, it can try to take the role of Squelcher instead of Squelched, and await an opportunity to try for full possession! [feel free to pick these suggested mechanics apart -- trying to remember them while a baby fusss isn't workintg well!] - --Beth, catching up as she can, typing with a baby (iolanthe) in her lap. Vapitalizatoin and spelling still difficult, typing w/ 1 hand (and often a wigglebaby in the other). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:42:02 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Adventures in In Nomine (was Re: Dead Superiors) At 11:17 AM -0400 7/20/00, MarkDEddy@aol.com wrote: [...] >Would it be appropriate to send a complete adventure to the list for >critique? (I have a few ideas, but it's getting kind of complex) Only if you can bring it in under 10K, or in 10K installments on the order of no more than one installment a week. (Anything bigger tends to flood the list and digest and cause _bounces_, due to over-full mailboxes, which land in _my_ incoming box, and which make me a very snitty List Admin. So don't do it.) A teaser, and a URL, and however much discussion that the list will tolerate without growing bored -- that's a different story. And it reminds me of something I'd been intending to do... - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:21:13 -0400 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Re: In> Dead Superiors At 1:06 PM -0400 7/20/00, Samovar3@aol.com wrote: >Whistling in the Dark wrote: >Now, I suppose that one solution is to make different books for each >type of game, but I don't think that's going to happen. Or divide an adventurebook into two. - -- Eric Alfred Burns - Habbalite of Belaboring the Point ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 11:40:01 -0600 From: "ben" Subject: Re: IN> Dead Superiors > It's fairly easy to see why adventures don't tend to sell well -- they're > nominally a "GM-only" item. And players typically outnumber GMs The other problem is that everyone has their own ideas on how to run the game. Some run their games comically, others run them with very low contrast. I know I don't consider my games a success unless lots of things blow up. :-) Put together a book of adventure seeds. This is done, sort of, in the Superiors line, but most of the seeds seem geared towards the laughline style of play. Either neutralize the seeds so anyone can use them or -- better yet -- provide seeds for varying styles of play, and run with it. > ---Walter Ben ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 10:42:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Jennifer Campbell Subject: Re: IN> [Seed]...that taste great together? You know, an Ofanite bound up in this poor, pitiful creation would be an Very Bad Thing indeed. Hee hee. Just a thought. Jenni - --- Elizabeth McCoy wrote: (We > use Malakite here both for the Coolness Factor, and > because it lets > us handwave around the "but wouldn't the angel > Fall?" question -- if > you want to let a PC use something else, hey, have > fun. The Habbalite > was chosen for maximal annoyance to an angel; also > season to taste.) ===== "The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them." - -William Clayton ICQ UIN: 14514495 AIM: Pepper2540 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 13:46:34 -0400 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Adventures in In Nomine (was Re: Dead Superiors) At 11:17 -0400 7/20/00, MarkDEddy@aol.com wrote: >What sort of playable adventure can be >written for In Nomine? Dungeon crawl works poorly with the setting. >Mystery/suspense blows up with the application of appropriate resonances >(unless you are very careful-I'm hoping to address this later). It can be done, but yes, it's tricky. > In Nomine is >practically designed for situational comedy, but who writes sitcom >adventures? Me, for one. (I'm afraid it's about the only kind I *can* write. "Sahudese Fire Drill" in GURPS Fantasy Adventures, and a bunch of seeds in GURPS IOU.) John M. Ford (who did some truly excellent Paranoia stuff), for another. But comedy doesn't seem to be the main thrust of what people want to do with In Nomine, so comic adventures need to be relatively rare. > What other styles are out there? My campaign (now that it's going >again) is essentially turning into a soap opera, but that's mostly >character-driven. Not a bad model, actually. >Hmmm.... now that I'm thinking about it, it looks like an In Nomine >ready-to-run adventure would almost have to include preprinted PC's. Does >anyone have any way around this problem? No easy ones, no. I've had the same thought. Trying to deal with things that will involve all Choirs or Bands from all Words is difficult. And trying to do a plot that works for both angels and demons is even harder. Generally, it has to revolve around a McGuffin chase or a world-shattering event, I think, to fit everyone. >Would it be appropriate to send a complete adventure to the list for >critique? (I have a few ideas, but it's getting kind of complex) Probably not unless it's relatively short (1000 words or so). >On the topic of mysteries, there are only two ways to prevent an angelic >group from resonating their way to the end of the adventure. The first is to >limit the witnesses. The second is to force them into the legal system, where >evidence is necessary. Actually, the worst offenders for mystery plots are Seraphim, and there are three ways I deal with them: - no one they talk to has *direct* knowledge of the events in question (this keeps them out of CD 6 territory, at least in my games) - a Superior is involved (cloaking some part of the Truth from non-Superior resonances, I think this is discussed in the GMG) - knowing the truth doesn't actually help, once you find the right person to talk to, because there are other factors complicating the situation such that just knowing whodunnit doesn't help actually resolve things - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 11:46:49 -0600 From: "ben" Subject: Re: IN> Dead Superiors > full of brown, blue and green books, known affectionally as "The > Complete Whatever Handbooks?" Splatbooks for players. Remember Hmmm. Would "The Complete Calabite" sell? A book dedicated to a single choir/band? I know I'd buy all fourteen of 'em, but I'm hardly a market sample. But it'd be way cool for a player to start playing his Seraph of Michael and then find, in his local gaming store, a book all about Seraphim. I know, as a player, I'd be tickled. See, Superiors I, I prolly would not buy if I were merely a player. It's kind of a GM book, since the GM plays the Superiors. But "Liber Seraphim", "The Complete Impudite", or "Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Djinn" would get snatched up in a heartbeat. (Stick With Libers...) Maybe we could even include songs and artifacts and stuff in 'em. Extra songs the choir/band tends to take. Optional resonance charts (or ways to replace them entirely). Adventure seeds for that choir. Yes! Yes! Yes! Ben ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:54:16 -0500 From: "Prodigal" Subject: Re: IN> Adventures in In Nomine (was Re: Dead Superiors) From: "Walter Milliken" > > Me, for one. (I'm afraid it's about the only kind I *can* write. "Sahudese > Fire Drill" in GURPS Fantasy Adventures, and a bunch of seeds in GURPS IOU.) > John M. Ford (who did some truly excellent Paranoia stuff), for another. Oh great, now I have a truly disturbing mental image of a Sahudese gardener running around whacking people with shovels, screaming "Only you! Only you!" ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1723 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2000 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.