From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Fri Jan 12 09:05:47 2001 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA02369 for ; Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:05:47 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id JAA29427 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:05:59 -0600 Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:05:59 -0600 Message-Id: <200101121505.JAA29427@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 #2017 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 Friday, January 12 2001 Volume 01 : Number 2017 In this digest: Re: IN> Demon of Boredom Re: IN> Another new skill Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) Re: IN> The Nature of Loa IN> Inquiry about "canon" locations Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) Re: IN> Inquiry about "canon" locations Re: IN> Inquiry about "canon" locations Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) IN> January 11, 2001 Re: IN> Nasty little thought.... Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback 2) Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) Re: IN> Inquiry about "canon" locations Re: IN> Nasty little thought.... IN> Song of Pregnancy IN> Can it really be that easy? Re: IN> Song of Pregnancy Re: IN> Song of Pregnancy Re: IN> Can it really be that easy? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 18:33:07 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Demon of Boredom - --- Jo Hart wrote: > -- > > Vila, Habbalite of Fate > Demon of Boredom This is (fidget) so incredibly good (stretch) that I couldn't sit still for the whole (yawn) thing. };;;> ===== Michael Walton, #9805-068 "If you want someone to take off their armor, you must first put down your sword." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 18:40:19 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Another new skill - --- TJ Howell wrote: > I've often found that characters rarely have good Perception > scores because > they're worried about demons having a field day with a low > Will score. > [snip] Hence, the Notice (default Perception) skill. Shoot, I wouldn't make a separate skill for this. Give 'em a reason to boost Perception. ===== Michael Walton, #9805-068 "If you want someone to take off their armor, you must first put down your sword." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 02:45:16 From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) > >> >[-5 to Songs] > >> >So why only in the Corp/Ethe Realms? > >> > >>Two reasons. > >> > >>1: To support the metaphysobabble of "Songs are penalized on other >realms > >>because they are supernatural, etc." > > > >aHHa! okay, that makes me feel /much/ better. > >Seriously, we came up with the realization that we needed to penalize >Songs _harshly_ to fit with the IN probabilities a bit better. Then we >needed metaphysobabble to explain it (so it wasn't a New Ultra-Hard Skill >thing), and then it seemed fairly logical to let it work fine in its >"native" plane. And I do /seriously/ feel better. :) It gives the players at least *some* motivation to wish to increases their Power Investitures (not a whole lot, but some.) > >>[Destiny] > >>>Um . . . okay. I've always assumed that direct (which I understand to > >>>mean volitional) action can only be undertaken knowingly. > >My understanding of Volitional, as it happens, is that you do it of your >own free will, without coercian or predestination. Well, SFAIK, to take an (direct) action (volitional) and be punished (incur Dissonance) due to lack of information certainly smacks of . . . something not being right. It's like punishing a servitor of Fire for failing to punish *every single cruel person they meet,* only in this case its for *failing to use Divine Destiny on every single person they meet and whose lives their direct actions affect* I know I'm taking it to an extreme, but . . . it feels extreme to me. I have to admit that it makes some sense. But why not have the mirror of it for Demons of Kronos? Mind-control the >angel so that it has no free will, and no dissonance. (E.g., someone >gets a form of Song of Possession that mimicks Shedite resonance on >celestials.) Well, probably no dissonance. The internal screaming >of the angel might be enough to generate some... Or Telepathy's Telecontrol. > >>Weeeeel, no one said you _have_ to follow canon, unless you're writing > >>something for the line... > > > >-sigh- I just like it when canon /makes sense/ to me. > >Ya can't please everyone all of the time. If you have it the other >way, where the Destiny Servitor has to _knowingly_ push someone >fate-wards, then none of them will take Divine Destiny, never use it >if they're given it, and their dissonance condition is about as >restrictive as Eli's. They're angels, they're _supposed_ to be >careful about what they do with the humans around them. They're >Destiny Servitors, they're supposed to know that the Symphony works >in the most effing ineffable ways... With little to reflect this except the "flashes of insight" to which I see is assigned NO point value GINpg106. I mean, why not the same cost as Danger Sense? > >Giving Fate's demons the upper hand in terms of Dissonance, since they do >no > >suffer from this /unknowing/ effect in the least. > >Yes -- and it's specifically spelled out in their case, which is another >thing that leads me to the conclusion that Destiny gets a stickier deal. A "stinkier deal" I believe you mean. :) > >>Direct -- has direct effect, and is done directly by the angel. > > > >Yeah yeah. Completely unvolitional and unintentional. > >No one made him do it, so it's perfectly volitional. It's unintentional, >but hey, we know where Good Intentions pave the way to... - -sigh- >This is another GM call -- I, for one, would be fine with letting someone >process the stuff into Discord "fast enough." Or whap them with all the >dissonance at once and only require 1 dissonance roll, or otherwise give >them a slight break so the game doesn't crash and burn. IN requires a >fair amount of GM judgement calls -- it has to, even in GURPS. Bleh. >And yeah, Servitors of Destiny should be careful when doing things >to large numbers of humans. Obviously. > >I especially like the speeding bus idea, since *stopping* a speeding bus > >that was started at its high velocity by a demon, would /certainly/ allow > >those people who would have otherwise died to continue to live and >therefore > >move closer towards their Fate > >That's not a _direct_ action in the same way, I'd say. Not unless "getting >out of the bus for the 359th time" was someone's fate. ???? No, but failing to die before one's time would /certainly/ help them to move on to their Fate. (Since a dead person won't meet their Fate and they would have died before their time.) Now, if the >angel whipped out the Great Whacking Flaming Sword and cut down the demon >driver in front of them all, causing Little Jimmy to renounce religion and >become a serial killer... But that couldn't happen, because Little Jimmy's Fate is tied to occurances that happen in the Symphony *w/o* Celestial interferance, no? Damn, I've painted myself into an intellectual corner. By this logic, it would *impossible* for a celestial to nudge someone towards thier Fate. Unless a "nudge" isn't enough of Disturbance to count as "celestial intervention" >Humans get Free Will; if they continue to live, the minor celestial bobble >in their lives swiftly contained, then they get to choose fate or destiny. >Basically, as a GM, I'd pretty much restrict it to _direct_ action. As in, >the angel is doing something, personally, which disrupts the normal course >of events. Which stopping a speeding bus would probably count as (unless the GM rules that the angel is merely returning reality to its previously stated course.) >It is, basically, a major judgment call, and how harsh it is depends >_utterly_ on the GM's impressions of Free Will, fates, and destinies. >E.g., I wouldn't dump dissonance on an angel for paying with $2 bills >_unless_ I had pre-determined that the teller's fate was directly >concerned with $2 bills and this could really be a turning point. Which, if I considered every human soul in the game world important (as Yves/Destiny does) I might do. >If the angel somehow _encouraged_ the "petty thief" to steal something >_bigger_, that's a real step. Well, consider it an "gateway" action. >Think Shedite here, actually -- is the action actually "corrupting" in >some way? If not, then the Destiny Servitor takes no dissonance. Woah woah woah, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish SFAIK. You'll have to convince me. >If the teller was a collector of rare monies, and pocketed the stuff >and got caught before he slipped extra money back, therefore pushing >him towards something like, "Die an obscure migrant worker and petty >thief"... Well, maybe the Destiny Servitor had better quickly review >what he did recently and work to fix it. So I imagine that, though its not stated, the Servitor of Destiny might be able to remove the Dissonance by "reversing" the effects of the direct action he took? > >>Now, if someone had not SWIPED my S3 and left it downstairs, I could >check > >>on that book and see if it is expounded upon... > > > >That would nice. If it's the same as in Yves' expanded write-up in H&H, > >then I have it already. > >There was stuff munged on some. No way can I manage that >without waking the babe, which I'd rather not do. (The ANNOYING thing >is that the second copy of S3 was _already_ down there.) ha ha ha :P - -Perry perrylloyd@hotmail.com pl312993@oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://www.geocities.com/llloyd.geo "And that's the hardest thing for a human being to do - be wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?" - --from A Matter For Men by David Gerrold _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 18:46:41 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> The Nature of Loa - --- MarkDEddy@aol.com wrote: > I'm confused - I thought 'Loa' was the generic In Nomine term > for an Ethereal spirit on Heaven's side No, Loa is the specific name of the class of spirits created by the Afro-Caribbean syncretic religions. The only generic terms for spirits in IN are "spirit" and "Ethereal." ===== Michael Walton, #9805-068 "If you want someone to take off their armor, you must first put down your sword." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 03:52:29 From: "Sarjenka Aeristan" Subject: IN> Inquiry about "canon" locations Does anyone know the best place to look up the "canonical" descriptions of major urban locations? In particular, at this point, I am looking for info on San Francisco. I know that Los Angeles is laid out in "Fall of the Malakim", but... _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 23:17:28 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) At 4:11 -0500 1/10/01, Perry Lloyd wrote: >>Probably no way around that -- GURPS has three physical characteristics >>(ST, DX, HT) and one mental/will/perception characteristic (IQ). > >A friend o mine says that reflects what the system placed importance upon. >The basic attributes depend on what's considered important. He's a WW fan >and sites the "equal" physical/mental/social spread as evidence that it >considers social interaction to be much more important than GURPS, >obviously. Yes and no. It's more of a system philosophy thing, I suspect, knowing SJ. GURPS attributes are supposed to be things *intrinsic* to the character, and social stuff like status is generally *extrinsic*, which is one of the things he wanted advantages for in the system. There *is* some combat-bias in the system, partly because SJ is a wargamer at heart, still, I believe. >>So it's a resonance rider, not an additional >>"with a touch" kind of thing. Check out Mercurians of Trade, who also >>get a rider of probably similiar utility -- they have a +100% enhancement >>to their resonance cost, which totals 30 points. > >Well, it may be a "rider" but if it's a +100% anyway, it may as well be a >seperate ability that's tied to another. I dunno. A sticky part of my way >of doing it that the base lilim resonance's point cost will be altered >because of the linking of the powers (which is kinda wacky because [lilim of >yves attunement] actually acts an overall limitation, when combinded with >Yves dissonance condition.) Limitation? No -- Yves' people get dissonance for sending someone toward their fate, intentionally or not. (Which means they need to be cautious, which suits Yves' style quite well, I think.) *Knowing* which will happen if the Need is fulfilled is a definite plus for the Lilim. - ---- At 4:57 -0500 1/10/01, Perry Lloyd wrote: >>There should be a mention in Ch8 under "Typical Rewards" (I don't have >>a hardcopy here, but do have the final draft text, so I don't have >>page numbers). However, I note that there's a typo in the draft >>there that eliminated the words "Essence Control" after "an additional >>attribute level and a level of ", so I'm not sure what the final >>version reads. > >Nope. Only the additional attribute level (which, to me, connects directly >to Essence Pool, since its limited by HT.) Argh. I need to file errata on that, then. > GURPS martial arts are fairly powerful >>in game-effect. (Though not as big an effect as high-tech, as one >>GURPS Space GM of my acquaintance found out -- ask me in private email >>if you want the war-story.) > >I'm currently hoping that I made the right decision in granting the >under-aggressive Cherub of Protection the Boxing skill. Boxing is an art >that requires a great deal of assertion, so maybe it'll help things. I wouldn't count on it, since character aggressiveness is usually a *player* trait. >>Actually, I was referring to the HT limit on Essence Control. "Native" >>characters don't have any limits on Power Investiture that I recall, other >>than the fact that it costs a fair number of points. > >Yes, yes it does. And it's in no way shape or form worth it unless you have >a LOT of songs in a particular realm. As a confirmed point-optimizer, I'll point out that Songs are M/VH, so a generic +1 for 10 points becomes a net win after you have only 2 Songs in the realm, if you intend to get them at a halfway-high level. > So far as I can tell, they're completely unnecessary for a >GURPS native celestial (if one were to lift the -5 penalty to Songs in the >Corporeal realm, which SFAIK exists only to justify Power Investiture. If you lifted the -5, yes, all the Songs would be at decent levels for a single point, and yes, then PI would be relatively worthless. However, the -5 was introduced to simulate the relatively high failure rate of Songs in the IN mechanics, relative to normal attribute-based skills. Once there's a significant failure rate, there's a reason to either raise Song levels by buying up the skill level, or through the general Force/PI boost effect. >>If Elizabeth's description of the attunement in her message is accurate, >>I'd probably put the value in the 10-25 point range, and probably toward >>the higher end, since it allows the Lilim to more easily avoid Yves' >>dissonance condition. > >Huh? I come to the oppositive conclusion. But, as I read the new and >different GIN dissonance condition, I understand. > >Man, so this means that Yves' angels can be screwed over left and right if >they do *anything* to help/hinder/affect a human being's life. If the GM feels like being nasty about it, yes. It's not all that different, really, from the Kyrio dissonance condition in that respect. > Even healing >someone might be dissonant. Holy Cow!! Krono's dissonance condition is SO >MUCH KINDER (and only -6 rather than -11). Man, this is /really/ harsh. And this actually fits with the general "non-interventionist" stance that I see Yves as exhibiting. Essentially this rule boils down to "Don't meddle in human lives unless you're *really* sure you know what you're doing is ultimately for their good." > A 20 point value would be a +66% enhancement to >>the Symphonic Knowledge part of resonance, which sounds reasonable to me. >>I could also see going with a +50% (15 points total). +100% (30 points) >>seems too high to me. > >Where's the +50% versus +100% coming from? You guys just guessing here? Yes. All point values tend to be *someone's* guesses -- playtesters very rarely comment on point costs, I've noticed. I generally look both at the percent value and the absolute point value, and try to pick something that seems relatively sane for both. In this case, a +100% enhancement seems high to me since it's the equivalent of the cost of an entire new, general Symphonic Knowledge, and the effect here strikes me as less valuable than that. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 22:18:06 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Inquiry about "canon" locations Sarjenka Aeristan wrote: > > Does anyone know the best place to look up the "canonical" descriptions > of major urban locations? In particular, at this point, I am looking for > info on San Francisco. I know that Los Angeles is laid out in "Fall of the > Malakim", but... There is no "canonical" San Francisco yet. However, I've written up a detailed description of In Nomine SF which will (hopefully) be used as a basis for canon if and when there ever is an official writeup (don't hold your breath). http://www.amadan.org/Innomine/SF.htm - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 23:23:21 -0500 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Inquiry about "canon" locations At 3:52 AM -0500 1/12/01, Sarjenka Aeristan wrote: > Does anyone know the best place to look up the "canonical" >descriptions of major urban locations? In particular, at this point, >I am looking for info on San Francisco. I know that Los Angeles is >laid out in "Fall of the Malakim", but... I use David "Frightening Image" Edelstein's San Francisco writeup at http://www.amadan.org myself. - -- Eric Alfred Burns - Habbalite of Belaboring the Point ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 23:26:30 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) At 1:11 -0500 1/12/01, Perry Lloyd wrote: >> >> >Question: How can someone unknowingly take a direct action? >> >> >> >>Turn a presumed criminal over to the cops -- when the person was >> >>actually framed, perhaps. Lots of things, lots of things. >> > >> >??? That's action sounds like it was done pretty knowingly, obviously >>the >> >angel *knew* he was taking the person to the cops. >> >>Right -- but without knowing it was fateful. > >Giving Fate's demons the upper hand in terms of Dissonance, since they do no >suffer from this /unknowing/ effect in the least. To some extent, yes. As a rule, demons are *supposed* to be interventionist in human lives (generally for the worse), and what's really operating is here is mostly "Thou shalt not oppose thy Boss." - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 23:44:51 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) At 2:45 -0500 1/12/01, Perry Lloyd wrote: [Destiny/Fate dissonance] >Well, SFAIK, to take an (direct) action (volitional) and be punished (incur >Dissonance) due to lack of information certainly smacks of . . . something >not being right. It's like punishing a servitor of Fire for failing to >punish *every single cruel person they meet,* only in this case its for >*failing to use Divine Destiny on every single person they meet and whose >lives their direct actions affect* > >I know I'm taking it to an extreme, but . . . it feels extreme to me. I >have to admit that it makes some sense. But why not have the mirror of it >for Demons of Kronos? Because the rules of the Game are different for angels and demons: angels are (in theory) non-interventionist except to counter the demonic influence; demons, however, think of humans as fun toys, to be played with until they break, and then are tossed away. >With little to reflect this except the "flashes of insight" to which I see >is assigned NO point value GINpg106. As far as I know, that's "fluff text" with no real mechanics intended in the original IN (except maybe that Divine Destiny is common?). > I mean, why not the same cost as >Danger Sense? Because there's no mechanics involved in the main IN version. >> Now, if the >>angel whipped out the Great Whacking Flaming Sword and cut down the demon >>driver in front of them all, causing Little Jimmy to renounce religion and >>become a serial killer... > >But that couldn't happen, because Little Jimmy's Fate is tied to occurances >that happen in the Symphony *w/o* Celestial interferance, no? > >Damn, I've painted myself into an intellectual corner. By this logic, it >would *impossible* for a celestial to nudge someone towards thier Fate. > >Unless a "nudge" isn't enough of Disturbance to count as "celestial >intervention" My take on this is that you can't *force* a human either way (even if you can apply force that ought to have that effect); the Symphony itself tends to apply a rebound effect. (I.e., think "karma"....) So pushing someone one way or the other tends to require more subtle influences, such as providing a good/bad example, or constantly putting temptation in the human's path (for a demon), or maybe just suggesting the right notion to the human at the right time. Get too blatant, and *whong*, the Symphony self-corrects, possibly by a fortuitous path-crossing by someone on the Other Side. (Generally this is more likely with Fate demons than Destiny angels, at least partly due to the dissonance conditions.) At least, that's how I'm handling it in my campaign. In one case, a Fate Habbalite pushed a Lilim under Geas to Fate too hard in what she asked of her (to help enslave an underage girl in a prostitution ring, to keep the girl from growing up to be an important biomedical researcher); said Lilim was then sort of pushed toward her Destiny as a result. (And eventually ratted on the Fate Habbalite to her angel friends, thus partially negating the Punisher's bad work there, too.) >>Humans get Free Will; if they continue to live, the minor celestial bobble >>in their lives swiftly contained, then they get to choose fate or destiny. >>Basically, as a GM, I'd pretty much restrict it to _direct_ action. As in, >>the angel is doing something, personally, which disrupts the normal course >>of events. > >Which stopping a speeding bus would probably count as (unless the GM rules >that the angel is merely returning reality to its previously stated course.) The whole Fate/Destiny thing is a very tricky problem for the GM to handle right. I'd generally just look at the actions involved, and the intent, and the probable logical consequences, and give the angel the benefit of the doubt in the outcome. In the above case, yes, I'd probably rule that any reasonable action that stopped the bus without too much psychological trauma to the passengers would be essentially just restoring the situation to the proper course. Generally, I wouldn't whap a Destiny/Fate servitor with dissonance unless I felt they were either being too sloppy, or had ignored hints that I'd dropped. (And I tend to drop hints on players pretty hard if they don't seem to be seeing them.) >>If the teller was a collector of rare monies, and pocketed the stuff >>and got caught before he slipped extra money back, therefore pushing >>him towards something like, "Die an obscure migrant worker and petty >>thief"... Well, maybe the Destiny Servitor had better quickly review >>what he did recently and work to fix it. > >So I imagine that, though its not stated, the Servitor of Destiny might be >able to remove the Dissonance by "reversing" the effects of the direct >action he took? In many cases, undoing an action that caused dissonance tends to make it go away. I'd be inclined to apply that unstated meta-rule here. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:51:41 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: IN> January 11, 2001 Maybe I should do these in advance. :) Moe Numinous Corpus (Pregnancy) Simply put, a celestial that uses this Song will temporarily seem to be pregnant, at whatever stage the singer wishes. Even a medical examination will not detect anything amiss (unless it's a very strict one, but at that point the celestial nature of a patient would be at risk of discovery anyway). While performing this Song, the user is at -1 to Agility for every apparent trimester of pregnancy. Unlike most Numinous Corpi, this Song will last for up to a day. For fairly obvious reasons, usually only those with female vessels use this Song (although those with a very rough sense of humor enjoy performing it on others). Servitors of War in particular prize this Song: nobody looks twice at a pregnant woman when assessing threats or looking for a spy - and using it _after_ an successful attack is an excellent method of thoroughly covering one's tracks. ===== In Nomine stuff: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 11/25/00 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 14:54:16 +1000 From: "Shane Curtis" Subject: Re: IN> Nasty little thought.... On 11 Jan 2001, 14:00, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/INChar/Demons/Lilim.Nadine.html From the webpage: > Besides, I just like the idea of an Ofanite of Judgement wandering into > town and saying, "Hm. That kid has a powerful Geas. And so does that > street vendor. And Him. And Her. And Him. And Him. And--What the Hell's > going on here?" (Ofanim of Judgement can hear Discord as a wailing scream, etc) *If* I've been following the mechanics correctly, the process is: Lilim fulfills Need, Lilim gets a Geas-Hook, then at some future point the Lilim can call in the Geas. Now, Geasa are Discordant, but if I'm reading this right, Geas-Hooks aren't? Which would mean so long as Nadine doesn't call in her favours, there could be thousands of people running around with geas-hooks in them, and Ofanim of Judgement would be none the wiser? Am I reading this right? Hrm. If true, would that would mean the only way - as far as the Core Rulebook goes - to infer (not even detect) the presence of a Geas-Hook would be via the Mercurian Resonance on a CD of 6 ("see a person's background as though it were written across his face - up to and including to what degree his relationships actually do control his life")? "Hey, this guy's fifty years old - so why's the nurse who made sure he was fed when he was a baby in hospital, and never seen him since, still got the power of life and death over him?" *twitch* Shane. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 00:30:38 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback 2) At 0:50 -0500 1/12/01, Perry Lloyd wrote: >Second Round of Feedback: > >First off, just about all of my group is converted now. Pt totals ranged >from 750 to about 1000. Attributes were a major wrench in that (both Corp 4 >Forces characters were those who soared about 1000), but you knew that >already. Yeah, I expected converted characters to tend to run to higher point totals than "natives"; this is partly compensated for by the wider flexibility of a native character design. >Secondly, I love the page lay-out of the book, seeing a layout using In >Nomine's boxes rather than GURPS's sidebars is just really, really nice. Credit SJ for that one. (I think it was also a response to the need to get more text on a page without making it too ugly -- the book ran *quite* long in wordcount.) The manuscript was originally written to "normal" GURPS page formats, more or less. There were some layout issues, primarily with the Superiors section, which going to the IN page layout fixed neatly. >Thirdly, I have the impression that the players are pleased to be making a >lot more of their rolls on a more regular basis. So, that's good (though, >it's a bit extreme in the case of our GURPS Perception 26 Bright Lilim, >who's regularly making critical successes with her Resonance.) Ouch. I knew that this was going to happen with some high-stat characters, but was hoping it wouldn't be common. All the fixes I looked at seemed too complex. Basically, it was a problem of the stat curves in the two systems clashing again. >My questions on artifacts would be: > >What modifer is used to give a normal item of "Super Equipment" the ability >to leave the Corporeal realm with the Celestial? If it's a celestial artifact (and normal IN "super equipment" would be, as far as I can think of cases), then there's no specific point cost -- that's just normal for the genre. If it were an item of "super equipment" only available in the corporeal realm (i.e., a corporeal artifact), I might be tempted to give it a small Accessibility limitation "Only usable by one vessel in the corporeal realm". > Or is there no effective >point difference in the object because of something else, such as perhaps >this ability is innate in Celestials/Ethereals or something akin to the fact >that there is no "cost" for a human to be exist in celestial form in the >afterlife (GINpg19). I don't entirely follow what you're asking here. >Why is it more expensive (pts-wise) for a relic to hold 2 points to Essence >to *only* power its Song than for a reliquary that holds /and generates/ 2 >points of Essence a day? Heck, a Reliquary/6 only costs 3pts apparently! >For 10pts (the equivalent of Ambidexterity or Night Vision) a Celstial may >own a jacket with 10 level/1 reliquaries and 5 level/2, more than enough to >seriously imbalance a game. Am I missing something here? I'd have to go look at the rules in detail, which I can't right now. There may indeed be a bug there somewhere -- the artifacts costing section wasn't looked at in a lot of detail, generally. They *shouldn't* be that cheap, almost certainly. >Fifthly, Soul Damage: "make an aging roll (as per B83), substituting Will >for HT. Thus, his attributes may be reduced! . . . They also roll for >'aging' of their levels of Power Investiture, seperately for each realm" >Some of my PCs have Will 18. They're going to fail hardly any of their Will >rolls. In IN proper, celestials were guarenteed to lose Forces, and >therefore attribute levels, in Celestial combat; so I see this as being a >/significant/ change. >Comments? Yes, this is probably a significant change. However, there was no easy mechanic for this, and I didn't want to create a new one from whole cloth. The aging mechanics were actually pretty similar, though not totally identical. Don't forget that a 17 or 18 is *always* a failure, so there's always a 2% chance of an attribute loss *for each of the four attributes and three Power Investitures*. Multiply .98^7, and find there's a pretty good chance *something* will get lost. Add to that that a GURPS IN character's Soul Hits are generally going to be a lot lower than those of an IN character with a similarly-maxed-out Will, and it evens out a bit. I don't claim there results are generally the same, though. The decoupling of Forces from the system strikes again.... >Seventhly, a note about converting Ethereal Artifacts. The conversion notes >on GINpg213 basically just say to use the item generation rules on page 169, >without mentioning the fact that characters who already possess 8 or more >points in a physical skill are NOT going to get the large bonus for their >Ethereal Artifact/6 if they're only putting an additional 16pts into the >skills, as the Skills conversion table on GINpg206 directly suggests. >(knowingly or not :) Yeah, well, the skills are also higher to start with. Win some, lose some.... There are lots of detailed holes in the conversions, when the systems collide. Generally the GM needs to be lenient in the conversion if the character is losing something due to one of these synergistic reactions between different parts of the conversion rules. It's too late at night for me to look at the specifics of this case and try to decide if it's really broken or not. As a general rule, the conversion process tends to work best with "average" characters, and produces progressively worse results with severely one-sided or high-power characters. Again, I didn't see any good way around this -- fix the extreme cases and the "typical" cases break, or at least look very wimpy. Also, GURPS tends to start producing screwy results if you push the mechanics too far past the high end of human norm, so I tended to weaken the more powerful end of the scale deliberately, relative to what happened to the more middle-of-the-road points. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 23:49:37 -0800 From: "Kish" Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) From: "Perry Lloyd" >Right -- but without knowing it was fateful. <> Well, they do suffer from it--the just don't suffer /dissonance/ from it. "...but Kronos will be severely displeased." I think, all things considered, I'd rather be a Servitor of Destiny and have the dissonance. --Kish ICQ# 28085879 AIM Kish K M ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 10:05:02 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Inquiry about "canon" locations At 3:52 AM -0500 1/12/01, Sarjenka Aeristan wrote: > Does anyone know the best place to look up the "canonical" descriptions >of major urban locations? In particular, at this point, I am looking for >info on San Francisco. I know that Los Angeles is laid out in "Fall of the >Malakim", but... SF is currently nothing but the occasional reference, in canon. You could look through Liber Castellorum (look in the index under California to find all CA Tethers), and You Are Here (though those are mostly "drop in anywhere"). Looks like SF is web-only... - --Beth, typing w/a uncoopertive baby (iolanthe) causing typos. "I'm nursing a TROUT! With legs!" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 10:05:00 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Nasty little thought.... At 2:54 PM +1000 1/12/01, Shane Curtis wrote: >On 11 Jan 2001, 14:00, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: >> http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/INChar/Demons/Lilim.Nadine.html > >>From the webpage: >> Besides, I just like the idea of an Ofanite of Judgement wandering into >> town and saying, "Hm. That kid has a powerful Geas. And so does that >> street vendor. And Him. And Her. And Him. And Him. And--What the Hell's >> going on here?" > >(Ofanim of Judgement can hear Discord as a wailing scream, etc) [...] >Now, Geasa are Discordant, but if I'm reading this right, Geas-Hooks >aren't? Which would mean so long as Nadine doesn't call in her favours, >there could be thousands of people running around with geas-hooks in >them, and Ofanim of Judgement would be none the wiser? Am I reading this >right? Yes, correct, and yes. I Believe that Nadine was crbeae CREATED before the Geas/Geas-hook stuff was clarified. (Kid on keyboard. *sigh*) >Hrm. If true, would that would mean the only way - as far as the Core >Rulebook goes - to infer (not even detect) the presence of a Geas-Hook >would be via the Mercurian Resonance on a CD of 6 ("see a person's >background as though it were written across his face - up to and >including to what degree his relationships actually do control his >life")? Oooo, cool one! I hadn't thought of that, but it's quite logical! A Superior who's looking can see Geas-hooks, too. If you think it's important enough to ask your Boss to look. O:> - --Beth, typing w/a uncoopertive baby (iolanthe) causing typos. "I'm nursing a TROUT! With legs!" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 14:48:47 From: "Janet Anderson" Subject: IN> Song of Pregnancy If you're a Seraph in a female vessel, can you use this Song? Or does it count as a lie? Janet Anderson _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 14:57:05 From: "Janet Anderson" Subject: IN> Can it really be that easy? This infant Geas thing is a good idea and well written, but it seems to me that if it were as simple as that to get Geases on children, demons would a) do it all the time and b) have been doing it for millennia. So there must be some reason why they don't. I thought of guardian angels, but the numbers required to protect every single child until he or she attained some degree of spiritual maturity would be prohibitive. (To say nothing, of course, of the fact that some people never *do* achieve a level of spiritual maturity greater than a child's. But I digress.) Or maybe the acceptance of a Geas requires a level of sentience greater than a child's. Janet Anderson _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:58:16 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Song of Pregnancy Janet Anderson wrote: > If you're a Seraph in a female vessel, can you use this Song? > Or does it count as a lie? No more, I should think, than does wearing a vessel at all, and having a Role, and otherwise giving the overwhelming impression you are human, when you most emphatically are not. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 10:17:15 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Song of Pregnancy At 2:48 PM -0500 1/12/01, Janet Anderson wrote: >If you're a Seraph in a female vessel, can you use this Song? Or does it >count as a lie? Only if you say you _are_ pregnant when asked. On the other hand, giving someone the "Well, duh" look isn't _really_ a lie. And you can always hint about your "condition." Telling you, though, you need a Kyrio of War with a Baby vessel for the real one -- finish the attack, Kyrio manifests vessel, and continue on your way with baby in arms. Looking tired, haggard, and messy only adds to the effect. (And whenever the baby is removed from "Mom's" arms, it shrieks earsplittingly; clearly you couldn't have set it down to Do The Deed.) - --Beth, typing w/a uncoopertive baby (iolanthe) causing typos. "I'm nursing a TROUT! With legs!" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 10:22:31 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Can it really be that easy? At 2:57 PM -0500 1/12/01, Janet Anderson wrote: >This infant Geas thing is a good idea and well written, but it seems to me >that if it were as simple as that to get Geases on children, demons would a) >do it all the time and b) have been doing it for millennia. > >So there must be some reason why they don't. [...] >Or maybe the acceptance of a Geas requires a level of sentience greater than >a child's. Maybe the target has to _remember_ that someone did that favor? That, and be able to comprehend the request when the Lilim is trying to invoke the Geas. (So a Lilim can't geas someone to "go get the paper from outside" in Helltongue and laugh as the person takes damage, going nuts trying to figure out what he's supposed to do.) So trying to geas someone who has a mental problem -- brain damage, Alzheimer's, etc. -- might also fail, if the person didn't remember that the favor had been done? I'm not setting canon on that one, at least not yet, but that seems the most elegant solution to me at this time. O:> - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor RPG links; Random name list, Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #2017 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2001 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.