From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Feb 22 13:28:53 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 NAA02109 for ; Thu, 22 Feb 2001 13:28:53 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id NAA19478 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 22 Feb 2001 13:32:30 -0600 Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 13:32:30 -0600 Message-Id: <200102221932.NAA19478@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 #2073 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, February 22 2001 Volume 01 : Number 2073 In this digest: Re: IN> a possible David tether Re: IN> a possible David tether Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Re: IN> I have no excuse for this. None. It's my curse. Re: IN> February 20, 2001 (ML) Re: Roles (was Re: IN> Phone Cherubim) Re: IN> Meditations on the Divine Religions, and Minor Choir. Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Re: IN> Meditations on the Divine Religions, and Minor Choir. Re: IN> Okay, it *was* an exaggeration Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Re: IN> Phone Cherubim Re: IN> Meditations on the Divine Religions, and Minor Choir. Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition IN> Re: Second Edition Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition IN> Wordplay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 20:04:19 -0800 From: "Sean McCarthy" Subject: Re: IN> a possible David tether Bill said... > was just thinking David feels that Fraternal organizations fall under his > purview right? > well I was thinking of the largest one in the world the freemasons the > largest building of the masons (it's stone by the way) is in detroit. just a > thought sorry if it's been mentioned already. If the archive search was working right for me, I'd check. I think this topic has been raised, but it definitely warrants contemplation. After all, masons work in stone, so maybe Masons work for Stone? (The amusement value of David, of all people, manipulating the financial might of the Masons is interesting...maybe even likely in IN:NWO?) Sean ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 20:52:06 -0800 From: "Bevan Thomas" Subject: Re: IN> a possible David tether Well, I found it quite funny that according to Superiors 1, one of the names for David is Mason. And he is the leader of an organization that tries to keep most of its rituals secret and tends to be very clannish. However, according to From Hell (my only real source for Freemason lore), the Masons worship Jah-Bul-On, a tri-god of Jehovah, Baal, and Osirus. Since in In Nomine, one of those is a demon prince and one is an Ethereal, somehow I doubt that David would support it. - ----- Original Message ----- From: Sean McCarthy To: Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 8:04 PM Subject: Re: IN> a possible David tether > If the archive search was working right for me, I'd check. I think this > topic has been raised, but it definitely warrants contemplation. After all, > masons work in stone, so maybe Masons work for Stone? (The amusement value > of David, of all people, manipulating the financial might of the Masons is > interesting...maybe even likely in IN:NWO?) > > Sean > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 21:19:28 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 20:16:06 -0500 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition At 7:00 PM -0500 2/21/01, Slipold@aol.com wrote:> >>4) The setting. From day one, In Nomine suffered >>from "Gurpsitis" and tried to be too many things to >>too many people. >Anyway, I'd love to see a stronger, deeper sense of >style permeate the game. I disagree that it was true >from Day One (Derek Percey certainly had a strong >sense of the game and the background of it), but >there has been a lot of flavor that's slipped by the >wayside, and I've missed it. And there's the rub. Not to be hubristic or anything, but I'd have to say that Eric Burns and I are pretty representative of how far apart you can get in terms of style. For one thing, look at our respective takes on Eve. He produces high concept stuff; I produce ... well, even _I_ don't know what it is, and I _write_ it. But it doesn't matter, because there's room for both of us to work (which is a Good Thing, because I like - a LOT - what Eric writes). There's room for all of us to work. If that room gets curtailed - in whatever direction - then you'll lose some damn good writers, no matter what. Personally, I could care less about the original style of IN/MSV (the comedy's a little _too_ dark for my taste, at least as a steady diet), but I still enjoy reading material that draws on it. IOW, I see the deliberately open-ended style parameters as an artistic strength, not a weakness. Of course, it may very well be a _financial_ weakness, but that's a different story. :) Moe ===== Liber Licentiae Moeticae: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 02/19/00 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 00:49:21 -0500 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition At 9:19 PM -0800 2/21/01, Maurice Lane wrote: >Not to be hubristic or anything, but I'd have to say >that Eric Burns and I are pretty representative of how >far apart you can get in terms of style. For one >thing, look at our respective takes on Eve. He >produces high concept stuff; I produce ... well, even >_I_ don't know what it is, and I _write_ it. You know, I was once lauded -- *lauded* -- for writing a series that included an anthropamorphic fish with the hellish powers of the Old Ones. And won an award for an involved series of stories where one of the characters used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter as a weapon.... Still, Moe's point's well made. I still bemoan the lack of flavor and lots of it, but as writ we're free to take our own takes on things and push the envelope where we will. - -- Eric Alfred Burns - Habbalite of Belaboring the Point ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 22:45:42 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: Re: IN> I have no excuse for this. None. It's my curse. Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:25:15 From: "Janet Anderson" Subject: Re: IN> I have no excuse for this. None. It's my curse. >Moe, you have done something remarkable. (So what >else is new, you all say, but seriously ...) You have >written up a demon I actually *enjoy* reading. >Maybe even one I could enjoy playing. Why, thank you. Your seduction to the Dark Side of the Force is moving right according to schedule. :) Moe ===== Liber Licentiae Moeticae: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 02/19/00 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 22:48:28 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: Re: IN> February 20, 2001 (ML) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:43:24 -0500 From: damienw@juno.com Subject: Re: IN> February 20, 2001 (ML) On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 18:05:02 -0000 "Fallen Seraph" writes:> >>Fish-head> >> for 1 extra essence, can the fish-head be made roly->>poly? :~) (i know, Baaaad joke) > Perhaps, but I move that for another extra essence, >you can go out to the movies and not pay to get in. Do either of you really think that I wouldn't dare incorporate this? That I'd think that there are limits to how punny something can be? That I have ANY shame at all? Bah. :) Moe ===== Liber Licentiae Moeticae: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 02/19/00 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 22:50:04 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: Re: Roles (was Re: IN> Phone Cherubim) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 14:46:10 -0600 (CST)From: EDG Subject: Roles (was Re: IN> Phone Cherubim) >Dancing around in my head for a while...- -EDG >Roles(for Artifacts) This is pretty cool. Is it additive with the semi-role you get for using corporeal artifacts, or does one supercede the other? Moe ===== Liber Licentiae Moeticae: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 02/19/00 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 23:04:16 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: Re: IN> Meditations on the Divine Religions, and Minor Choir. Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 23:12:14 +0000 From: Eric Hallstrom Subject: IN> Meditations on the Divine Religions, and Minor Choir. >Well, Moe said to work it up, so .... >And if that promise is a lie, then neither truthful >Dominic nor honorable Lawrence could possibly give >one of them their countenance. And this is why. I never considered that, myself. Sure, I can figure out why Uriel supported divine religions: it gave him an excuse to kill ethereals (I'm not too fond of Uriel, so I'm indulging my snideness). But for Dom and Larry - and Khalid, too - to support a particular religion... well, it does seem slightly odd that they'd do so if having true faith in said religion couldn't trump Fate, or make up for a lack of Destiny. Well, at least in a Bright campaign, that is. :) Well-reasoned and clever rebuttals cheerfully anticipated*... Moe *Hey, it seems to work on Eric H.: maybe I can get the _rest_ of you to obey my every literary whim. ;) ===== Liber Licentiae Moeticae: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 02/19/00 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 03:02:29 -0500 From: Mike Bruner Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition >>1) Revamp the character creation rules to make munchkinizing more >difficult. > >why? shouldn't an angel or demon be powerful? besides, a character can >generally only become very powerful in one area. the GM can always hit them >in their weak spots. Agree; I've always felt looking at new characters that they inevitably have SOME obvious weak points for a GM. Certainly any combat munchkin can be screwed over easily enough (especially since they probably skimped on Roles to mask disturbance). >>2) Clean up the mechanics. The d666 system is cute, but lends itself to >>abuse far too easily. > >as opposed to which system? How is it abusive, anyway? It's fast, simple, and seems workable enough. Plus I have to grant points for being cute :). >>Also, less math. I need a calculator to determine the >>range of symphony disturbances, > >yeah, disturbance is a pain. i could never be bothered working it out. just >used it as a plot device. Pretty much sums it up; only bother with the rules if for some reason you need chance to decide things. >>and rules for many attunements remind me of >>algebra problems (ethereal forces times celestial, etc) > >all these are just scores you work out in character creation. one number >times another isn't algebra. it's a pretty easy sum you have to do once. Didn't exactly strike me as tough math either, and I despise math as a rule. >>3) Dissonance. Oy vey. First make dissonance rules more subjective and >>open to GM interpretation. Dissonance should accumulate over patterns of >>actions rather than in sharp spikes as results of specific actions. > >this makes the game a lot vaguer and a lot more likely to cause arguments >between players and GMs. Definitely keep dissonance rules the same. I think they tend to quite properly reflect the nature of a choir/band and Superiors, and handing GMs a license to be arbitrarily mean is asking for it sometimes. Although I would allow possible dissonance to be inflicted for other causes if appropriate enough, although even that can vary; framing an evil-doer for a crime might be dissonant for honorable Swordies (as well as Judgement, naturally), but a Servitor of War is just fighting by craftier means. But yeah, angels shouldn't be allowed to do every evil besides the ones specifically spelled out for them without consequences (unless you're in a really dark backwards game). Demons of course deserve more looseness on this; being fairly free to do what you want is one of their mission statements, as it were. >>4) Pick one >>theme--be it dark and brooding, cloak and dagger sneakery or what have you >>and run with it. Other settings or themes can be explored in different >>suppliments. > >if they do this they're going to instantly alienate people who would be >interested in the background but not that style of game Besides, I'm rather awed with how well they manage to integrate ALL the types of settings from dark angsty to downright silly. Leave a set "theme" for games to the White Wolf stuff where it fits more; I consider IN's flexibility on this point to be one of its strengths. - -- Mike Bruner-- bruner@delaware.infi.net "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is AHHH THE SUN!!!" *FOOM* --Vampire theatre ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 03:22:44 -0500 From: Mike Bruner Subject: Re: IN> Meditations on the Divine Religions, and Minor Choir. > >>And if that promise is a lie, then neither truthful >>Dominic nor honorable Lawrence could possibly give >>one of them their countenance. > >And this is why. I never considered that, myself. >Sure, I can figure out why Uriel supported divine >religions: it gave him an excuse to kill ethereals >(I'm not too fond of Uriel, so I'm indulging my >snideness). But for Dom and Larry - and Khalid, too - >to support a particular religion... well, it does seem >slightly odd that they'd do so if having true faith in >said religion couldn't trump Fate, or make up for a >lack of Destiny. > >Well, at least in a Bright campaign, that is. :) One could argue though that since Destiny/Fate is frequently as I understand it a culmination of your life choices up to then (i.e. the decision you make at the moment of truth usually fits with your regular pattern; someone who's lead a good life will tend to choose their Destiny action and not their Fate and vice versa). Those angels that favor certain religions could believe living your life according to those particular principles is more likely to make you the kind of person who chooses Destiny. I honestly don't see too many folks (if ANY) who could truly follow the principles of the divine religions and NOT wind up going to Heaven. So the Archangels might see "salvation" coming in that fashion and still support their chosen faith without some sort of deus ex machina system "saving sinners". After all, Yves apparently helped create religion merely as a way to spread the message about what God wanted humans to do; Lawrence/Khalid et. al. just think a certain kind of message is the best one (while Yves has moved on from religion to philosophy as a way to spread the right principles). >Well-reasoned and clever rebuttals cheerfully >anticipated*... > >Moe > >*Hey, it seems to work on Eric H.: maybe I can get the >_rest_ of you to obey my every literary whim. Hmm, did this qualify then? - -- Mike Bruner-- bruner@delaware.infi.net "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is AHHH THE SUN!!!" *FOOM* --Vampire theatre ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 00:18:20 -0800 From: Ryan Elias Subject: Re: IN> Okay, it *was* an exaggeration Janet Anderson wrote: > > My husband, who was there, says that the munchkins earlier cited did in fact > give themselves two celestial Forces, not one. But that's only because you get 9 forces, and only six can go into Corporeal ^_^ Or so I would assume... - -Ryan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 00:18:48 -0800 From: Ryan Elias Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition 'Ello. Reading this thread with great interest (not that what I find interesting matters in any way whatsoever, unlike certain others on the list), and finding that most things I might say in response to this post have been said by other people already. So just one thought, and a question, really; > Superiors that grant restrictive dissonance structures > should have correspondingly more powerful (or at least more useful) > attunements. Are you thinking of someone in particular here? Because from what I can see, this is mostly (_mostly_) the case already. Superiors in general have, IMHO, relatively equivalent restrictions, and attunements of more or less equal power yes? The most obvious exception (other than Eli, who I'll get to in a second) would be servitors of Blandine and Beleth, who get hammered with a b!tch of a dissonance condition and unexceptional attunements. Gabrielite also suffer a bit... except for the Ofanim ^_^ Eli, of course, has no dissonance condition and some of the more useful (or at least neater) attunements. However, Servitors of Eli are most certainly at a disadvantage in other ways, from their lack of a reliable superior, to their trials and tribulations with Judgement. I consider this a more or less fair trade, meself. I can't think, off the top of my head, of a Superior with weak attunements and non-restrictive dissonance, but Litheroy certainly strikes me as a fair example of one who goes the other way; can't lie, can't conceal anything from anybody ever (except that you're an Angel), but you get some pretty nifty powers in return. Done rambling. Sleepy. Bed now. -Ryan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 03:36:37 -0500 From: Mike Bruner Subject: Re: IN> Phone Cherubim >> >Hmm... Now we only need a small stick with the Etheral Song of Oblivion on >> >it, and some sunshades, and we can have the Angels in Black. ^^ >> >> >> --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com > >"Gods Messengers, Division 6. Please look into the light." I'm sure this sort of thing would give Litheroy an ulcer though :). >Actually, is there any reason not to assume that this is not done? aside from >the detail that Disturbance is bad... >Wait... Is disturbance that is caused by a mortal considered bad? I mean, >mortals blow essence on stuff they care about, all the time, right? >Unconsciously, unkowingly and unwillingly, but they still do it, and reasonably >frequently. So, does this cause a disturbance? >I would guess not, because if that were the case, then tethers would never form >around places of high stress for humans (I am guessing that when humans are >under stress, is when they are going to be blowing the most essence). IIRC, in canon unconcious expenditure of Essence is normal for the Symphony and does not cause disturbance; it's only when deliberately controlled that there is a disturbance. In point of fact, it might be unconcious expenditure of essence that creates tethers in the first place; that would explain why it takes normal humans to make them. The essence release is colored by their attitudes, hence why that type of essence can be harvested by someone with the appropriate Word. - -- Mike Bruner-- bruner@delaware.infi.net "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is AHHH THE SUN!!!" *FOOM* --Vampire theatre ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 09:29:33 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Meditations on the Divine Religions, and Minor Choir. I like the Yegarim. I also make a minor hobby out of names and terminology. So: Where did the name come from? Is it real Hebrew? Recommendation: "-im" is a plural ending, so one of the Yegarim would be a Yegar or a Yegarite or some such. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:15:21 -0500 From: "Jason F. McBrayer" Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 07:00:20PM -0500, Slipold@aol.com wrote: > In my opninion, the game is in dire need of a top-to-bottom > overhaul [...] I disagree. I think the core book is in dire need of a second edition, but not because there's anything fundamentally wrong with the game. It needs a new edition for the sake of 1) reorganization and 2) getting all the changed Canon and some of the new rules from various supplements in one place. It's been more or less said that that's not going to happen in the foreseeable future, though. > Revamp the character creation rules to make munchkinizing more > difficult. Rules increasesing the importance of Roles would go a > long way toward doing this. Munchkins are a group-dynamic problem, not primarily a rules problem (though some rules lend themselves to munchkinizing more than others). I don't really see the potential for abuse in the IN rules (except to the extent that they are a stat+skill, pointbuild system, and all pointbuild stat+skill systems are abusable). > 2) Clean up the mechanics. The d666 system is cute, but lends > itself to abuse far too easily. Same thing really. I don't really love the d666 mechanic -- stat+skill systems are evil, 2d6 doesn't give a very good bell curve, and the check digit mechanic means that your degree of success has nothing to do with your skill (until you get into autosuccess land). If I were to use any other dice system with IN, it would be 4dF (and indeed, there are at least 2 FUDGE IN conversions out there). BUT, when I do _actually_ run IN, I use d666 anyway. Why? Because the mechanics are by far the least part of IN. d666 is good enough if you aren't rolling the dice all the time anyway, and a stat+skill system actually does work when the characters are supernatural beings whose intrinsic abilities are greater than humans in every way. > Also, less math. I need a calculator to determine the range of > symphony disturbances, and rules for many attunements remind me of > algebra problems (ethereal forces times celestial, etc) Trust me-- > once my players see me reach for the calculator, suspence is pretty > much ruined I threw out the Disturbance rules. Disturbance is heard if it's useful for the plot. I make my players roll anyway so I can see their check digits and decide how much information I'm going to give them. The math on attunements has never been a problem in my games. > 3) Dissonance. Oy vey. First make dissonance rules more subjective and > open to GM interpretation. Dissonance should accumulate over > patterns of actions rather than in sharp spikes as results of > specific actions. No -- that breaks the concept of Dissonance for me. Dissonance is a sudden screeching-fingernails-on-the-blackboard-of-your-soul experience, and it _should_ be a sudden hit. I might, were I to run a longer campaign, keep track of micro-Dissonance (kind of like Treason Points in Paranoia) and use that to weight my decisions about whether to hit a character with a note of Dissonance for a borderline action. > Furthermore, among superiors, there should be a better balance > between power and disadvantages. Superiors that grant restrictive > dissonance structures should have correspondingly more powerful (or > at least more useful) attunements. Again, I really disagree. One of the _nice_ things about IN (as opposed to GURPS:IN), is that it makes practically no attempt at game balance. I think this encourages players to play to their character concepts, and _discourages_ munchkinism. I also don't agree about the setting/tone. I like having options, and if you've read the GMG or any of the Superiors books, they do a _really_good_ job of telling you what the standard setting is, and how you can manipulate it to your own nefarious ends. Even my two games don't have the same setting and tone. My demons game is bright (sort of; maybe dark but flippant would better describe it), low contrast, and humorous. My angels game is dark, low contrast, serious, and Backward! SJG tried doing a "this is our setting, and you will do with it as we say" with the Revelations Cycle. No one liked it, which is one of the big reasons that IN isn't doing better than it is today. The later supplements (CPG, GMG, Superiors, some of the Libers) have been uniformly excellent, but no-one knows that because the early supplements were so bad that people were turned off of the game and never came back. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - -- +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Jason F. McBrayer jmcbray@carcosa.net | | The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill | | forever. R.W. Chambers _The King in Yellow_ | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 08:38:23 -0800 From: "Bevan Thomas" Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition I think that a 2nd-edition should include information on sorcerers, prophets, and saints, as they play such an important role in In Nomine. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:21:25 -0600 From: David Edelstein Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition Bigatto wrote: > In my opinion, the disturbance rules aren't complicated. All you have to> do is sum the notes to get the base distance, which is also the bonus to> perceive it, and for each base distance further from the place where the> disturbance came, reduce the bonus to perceive it by one. There are also alternate (simpler) disturbance rules in the GMG. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 17:47:14 -0000 From: "Fallen Seraph" Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition >I need a calculator to determine the range of symphony disturbances, I agree. Disturbance as is causes headaches, but I use a slightly altered method: multiply the disturbance by PC perception, this is the range of detection: ie. Dist 10, Per 5 - can automatically hear said disturbance 50 Yds away. Per 12 - can automatically hear the same disturbance 120 Yds away PC's aware of disturbance make a simple Per roll to get Info from the CD table (no bonuses - baring attunements or resonance) failure nets only "that was a disturbance that was" This gives me a simple Grigori resonance: A successful Resonance roll allows the Grigori to detect disturbance/echoes with an effective 2xPer (for purposes of range only) for CD minutes and will always get Info equal to Cel forces at minimum. I still tend to make disturbance more of a plot McGuffin than a mechanic however. - -FallenSeraph ^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^ And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon; and the Dragon and his angels fought, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. Rev 12:7-8 _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:48:24 -0500 From: Jonathan Walton Subject: IN> Re: Second Edition Okay, here's my take: > 1) Revamp the character creation rules to make munchkinizing more > difficult. Rules increasesing the importance of Roles would go a long > way toward doing this. Look, In Nomine clearly states that it is a "mature" game. If people playing it aren't mature enough to create realistic characters and not "munchkinize" them, I don't think that's a problem with the game itself. More rules bad. Less rules good. > 2) Clean up the mechanics. The d666 system is cute, but lends itself to > abuse far too easily. Totally agree on Disturbance, but the rest? No. The d666 is one of the simplest and easiest game mechanics to understand. The balance created in the mechanics between angels and humans is almost perfect. Angels and demons are able to make their rolls most of the time (I mean, come on, they're _angels_ and _demons_), but humanity has to struggle a bit more. Also, having interventions was a stroke of mechanics genius. > 3) Dissonance. Oy vey. First make dissonance rules more subjective and > open to GM interpretation. All these are IMC-style issues. It's a matter of taste. Yes, there definately could be some thougths on the different ways to run Dissonance (smack-down or kinda lax) and maybe the idea that some Superiors are more forgiving, but the rules themselves don't need cleaning up as a whole. > Superiors that grant restrictive dissonance > structures should have correspondingly more powerful (or at least more > useful) attunements. No way. This is GURPS thinking again. In Nomine isn't about balance. And "useful" attunements are completely subjective. Creative servitors who are in tune with their Word will find amazing uses for attunements that don't seem especially flexible. And "more powerful" is a phrase that I flinch away from automatically. It reaks of munchkins and "power-gaming." > 4) The setting. From day one, In Nomine suffered from "Gurpsitis" and > tried to be too many things to too many people. Really? I totally disagree here. Maybe it's just because I'm really partial to Fudge, but I was hoping that Second Edition would include a bunch of the stuff from the GMG about how to customize the feel and setting for your campaign. Well, I guess it could just stay in the GMG, but most recent In Nomine supplements have stayed in this vein, offering alternate takes on Superiors and thoughts on different options. In my mind, as a GM, this is exactly what I want in a game. Things I would like to see in 2nd Edition? 1) Ramon Perez. The guy is amazing and his style perfectly suits In Nomine. I hope they get him to do the whole book, like Smith did the original. Hey, you can just collect all of his art from previous books and you're already half-way there. 2) Put all the Superiors and Choirs/Bands together. GURPS: IN got this right, with the added bonus of putting the Choir/Band in the Superior's title (ala "Lilith, Human Princess of Freedom"). 3) The Grigori. 'nuff said. 'bout time. 4) Flavor text and interesting prose. No offense to Elizabeth and Walter, but GURPS: IN was pretty dry reading. I know that's because you had an amazing amount of material to cover, but the prose didn't hold my attention like the original. Derek Percy's smirky writing style and tendency-to-the-dramatic really helped give it some kick. 5) Get Derek Percy, Emily Dresner, Jo Hart, S. John Ross, David Edelstein, Eric Alfred Burns and Moe Lane to rewrite the whole thing from the bottom up. Those guys really know what the IN setting is supposed to look and feel like. The first five are just amazingly solid writers who know what they're doing. Eric and Moe both add an enormous amount of energy, mood, and fun into their prose and ideas. After reading their work, I just want to start a new IN campaign that very minute. I think this combination would be extremely dynamic and beneficial. Okay, so that's my short list :) Later. Jonathan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 10:10:20 -0800 From: "Bevan Thomas" Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition I'm definetly in the camp of the people who like the more open game, not tied down to a particular feel. A large part of the fun for me is seeing all the different things that people try for In Nomine and all the different ways of playing it. It's openess is one of its best features. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:20:58 -0700 From: "Ben Glickler" Subject: Re: IN> Improvements for a second edition > I should mention I agree with this, too. Disturbance is unnecessarily > complex. Fortunately, it's easy to guesstimate (or at least fake) > which is what I do. I never bothered to explain the rules to the players, and they never bothered to read them. They know that a point of disturbance will bong a small room, a couple points will alert a small building, a few more will probably be heard around the entire block, and more than that will be heard throughout half the neighborhood. It works for us. We just sorta fake the rules based on a general idea of what is heard where and when, rather than use the formula in the book. > Eric Alfred Burns - > > Habbalite of Belaboring the Point Ben ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 14:27:25 -0500 From: Jonathan Walton Subject: IN> Wordplay Hey Moe? The reason I haven't finished my Tattered Archangels yet is because I keep getting ideas like these: Ruhiel Seraph of Dreams Angel of Angels Unfortunately, despite the seeming importance and interest of Ruhiel's Word, there's not much to say about this particular Seraph. As the Angel of Angels, Ruhiel is charged with making sure that Angels are always a force for the betterment of the Symphony as a whole and that the image of angels in human society is never corrupted, both tasks which she takes _very_ seriously. To tell the truth, it isn't all that hard. As much as the Diabolicals would like to make angels out to be a "mysterious alien menace" or some such thing, humanity isn't buying it. The most difficult of Ruhiel's tasks is to make sure that the names of angels aren't used in occult or cultic practices that harm humanity. For instance, if a Sorcerer believes that he can call on the power of Michael or Gabriel to proform dark deeds, or if the worship of angels is used to bring people away from the worship of God, Ruhiel and her servitors step in to reassert the Truth, that angels should always been seen as a symbol of hope for humanity and a sign of God's favor looking down on them. In a more tongue-in-cheek game, one of Ruhiel's servitors could be the Angel of Archangels, who's job is to uphold the names of the Corporeally known Archangels (Raphael, Uriel, Michael, Gabriel) and make sure they are not slandered. - ----------------------------- Nakael Malakite of Revelation Angel of Demons (This guy should make you think about breaking out David Edelstein's "Dark Malakim" rules.) Originally, it seemed like a great idea to the Seraphim council. Litheroy had just been made an Archangel and one of his most ancient supporters, Nakael, was in line for a fairly significant Word. Meanwhile, in the Corporeal world, the Diabolicals had finally gotten around to developing the idea of "spin" and were trying to make demons out to be "cool, anti-establishment rebels" instead of the more traditional "evil minions of darkness." Who better to reveal the Truth to the world but a servitor of Litheroy? And who better than a Malakite, since his job would doubtlessly mean encountering a good many demons? So, Nakael was made Angel of Demons, something that has come to cause a good many problems. First of all, as a Malakite, Nakael has started to feel that it is almost Dissonant for him to have the Word of Demons, since his Oaths mean that he would kill them all if he could, which in turn would destroy himself (as his Word died). This seeming contradiction is not actually enough to cause Nakael dissonance in and of itself, but the Malakite is starting to descend more and more into feelings of confusion and angst, not good things for a Malakite. Also, in his struggle to reveal the Truth behind demons to the world, Nakael has been faced with a great many discouraging facts. For one, demons _are_ kind of cool. Sure, "cool" doesn't have much meaning in the War or in the balance between good and evil, but Nakael can't deny that there are just some pretty appealing things about being a demon. Instead of being righteous, you can just be self-righteous. And diabolicals have a sense of style that, try as they may, most angels just can't beat. So, basically, Nakael is stuck in a kind of vicious cycle. He both admires some things about demons and is Oath-sworn to destroy them (and then, if he destroys too may of them, he's actually damaging his Word). Just what this ends up doing to him is up to individual GM's, but one thing's for sure: it ain't going to be pretty. - ------------------------------- Hazzareth Balseraph of Dark Humor ISO the Media Demon of Angels Hazzareth was Kobal's first joke after the Fall. When the original Demon Princes were asked by Lucifer to submit canidates for the first non-Superior Word-binding, the Prince of Dark Humor didn't hesitate a second. It is rumored that even Lucifer laughed during the binding of the former Seraph. Hazzy (as he is affectionantely called) is the Demon of Angels. If you ever wondered who invented spin, know that it wasn't Nybbas. It was Hazzareth all the way. In his line of duty, Hazzareth is charged to use angels themselves, the purest beings in God's creation, as a way of dragging humanity towards the pit. How does he do this? Spin, baby. Angels are something only superstitious people believe in, after all. Y'know, all those people who enjoyed "Touched By An Angel" and "Micheal." Ugh. Makes me want to throw up. Also, talking about angels isn't PC. I mean, you may offend some athiest somewhere, so it's better just to flinch or run away from any mention of angels. Also, angelology is all that New Age voodoo stuff anyway. Praying to angels? Hah. Heresy and idolatry. Along with crystals and the Tarot, no one wants to hear about angels these days. And one more thing, only super-conservatives still believe in angels. Bible-thumpers are always talking about the apocalypse and how the Archangel Michael is going to kill the dragon and such. B.S., if you ask me. But, of course, Hazzareth isn't content with just spreading those ideas about angels. He wants a distaste for angels balanced by the image of angels everywhere you can see, so that they are unescapable, leading to more distate, outright disgust, and a total loss of the symbol's true meaning. Like the Demon of Easter has done with bunnies and eggs, Hazzy would totally leach every spiritual connotation from angels if he could. And, hey ... he isn't doing a bad job. Of course, as soon as Nybbas started his meteoric rise to power, Hazzy knew where he truely belonged. He's basically on permanent loan now, since Kobal agrees that he's hundreds of times more effective in the Media's services than he had been for the previous millenia under Dark Humor. Whether he ever officially joins Nybbas' ranks is still up in the air, but Hazzareth has learned to keep his options open. - ------------------------------- Ellabis Habbalah of Dark Humor Demon of Demons Ah, finally, the most fun of all. Hazzareth being the Demon of Angels kept Kobal smiling for a long time, especially since Hazzy did such good work of keeping angels from being a direct influence in mortal lives. However, there was an even bigger joke that Kobal was yet to play. It all involved proper timing. He waited for a long time. John Milton's "Paradise Lost" raised something of a contraversy in his time. Critics argued that Milton made Satan too much of an attractive character and gave him all the best lines and speeches. Milton went a long way into making demons into noble creatures, righteous in their own right, and both pious mortals and angels didn't think this was the best idea. In the middle of this, Kobal supported Ellibis, a relatively young Habbalah, for the Word of Demons. Lucifer was hesitant at first, but then, for reasons altogether unclear, Kobal's servitor recieved vocal support from Kronos, of all people. Trusting a bit in his two most powerful Princes, Lucifer finally agreed. Now, Ellibis has the unique position of being the Demon of Demons, though, as a Habbalite, she firmly believes herself to be an angel. As you can probably imagine, her resoning is pretty warped. Humanity, the Punisher believes, is mostly made up of sheep and lemmings, those without a backbone who simply do good because everyone else is doing it. These people are hypocrites and not worthy of the joys of Heaven. Instead, those who are only good by default must be seperated from those who are truely good (who, of course, are very, very few). Therefore, in a pseudo-Miltonic style, Ellibis tries to make Demons as attractive as possible. Being evil is cool, hip, trendy, rebellious, and sexy. You get to hang out with Lilim all the time and indulge in sex, drugs, and rock & roll (or, as the saying in Hell goes, "Lust, Drugs, and Hardcore"). Demons are the ultimate badasses, who don't take no lip from anyone and do as they please. John Wayne, Harrison Ford, and Clint Eastwood would make great demons. Little kids dress up as devils on Halloween and secretly believe that it's fun to be naughty. Lucifer, of course, is the epitome of all this and is the swingin'-est cat you ever could meet. Ellibis is a firm believer that God created demons in order to seperate the good of humanity from the bad. In her own special way, Ellibis thinks scarily close to Uriel, except her job is exactly the opposite. Instead of destroying evil wherever she finds it, Ellibis encourages the image of demons to grow so that it can root out those who would betray their own souls. In this way, in the end, the Demon of Demons is doing the work of God. - ------------------------------- As a side note, it might be important to show why Hazzareth is a good successful supporter of his Word while Nakael is not. First of all, Nakael is only focused on the "real" meaning of "Demons," as he is Oath-bound to reveal the true horrors of demonkind to the mortal world. This has limited him to the point that he finds it impossible to effectively accomplish his job. Maybe another Choir would have been more effective, but the Seraphim council was too afraid of having a servitor Fall, so it _had_ to be a Malakite. As a contrast, Hazzy doesn't care at all what angels are "really like." It doesn't matter to his work. He knows what he wants "Angels" to mean and works to impose that view on the world. He's also a great deal older than Nakael, and, as a Balseraph, is much more ingenious and flexable about the way he implements his Word. Okay, that's enough mindbending for now. Back to Tattered. Later, Jonathan ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #2073 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2001 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.