From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Wed Jan 13 06:59:41 1999 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id GAA21021 for ; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 06:59:40 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1a) id GAA23323 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 06:43:34 -0600 Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 06:43:34 -0600 Message-Id: <199901131243.GAA23323@lists.io.com> X-Authentication-Warning: lists.io.com: majordom set sender to owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com using -f From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #1093 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Wednesday, January 13 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1093 In this digest: Re: IN> Demon Princes and Words Re: IN> Fleurity and drugs Re: IN> Re: IN product quality and tethers IN> IN product quality and tethers Re: IN> Re: IN- Humanity (was Gabriel's attunements or something) Re: IN> Angels of the Lens Re: IN> product quality and tethers Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers Re: IN> Tattoos Re: IN> Angels of the Lens Re: IN> Re: IN- Humanity (was Gabriel's attunements or something) IN> IN product quality and tethers IN> Re: Gamesters and Dissonance Conditions Re: Is Lilith cruel (was Re: IN> Is the flavor text canon?) Re: IN> Angels of the Lens IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements IN> Re: Gamesters and Dissonance Conditions Re: IN> Discord and Rites Re: IN> Symphonic Language IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) Old-School IN [was Re: IN> product quality] Re: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers IN> IN - GURPS Re: Old-School IN [was Re: IN> product quality] Re: IN> IN - GURPS IN> Improving the squishies Re: IN> IN - GURPS Re: IN> Discord and Rites Re: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 16:11 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Demon Princes and Words >I was under the impression that Jean portioned out scientific advances at >a measured pace - basically giving us what we're ready for. I guess that, >in his and Yves' opinion, we're not ready for a better society. The way I understand and run Jean, he's not responsible for giving out *any* advances. Rather, he and his servitors are responsible for inspiring humans to think of things for themselves. (They are, by his view, exceedingly dense in this, which is where most of the slowness comes from. There's a quote from him in my campaign about how many millenia he spent striking nearby trees with lightning before some human *finally* caught on to the notion of *using* fire, rather than running away from it.) Rather than parceling out new technology, my view is that he encourages humans in certain directions -- Jean's angels may be behind scholarship programs, math and science education programs, and even venture capitalists. They also may sometimes provide "hints": the above example of fire, or something as simple as a minor researcher pointing out a particular paper to his team's leader. They do, indeed, encourage and discourage certain areas of research, in my campaign, by various subtle methods. But they don't give out information the humans don't already have. Think of it like a trade secret under a non-disclosure agreement -- if you can freely get it someplace else, you aren't obligated to treat the information as secret. Jean's servitors work on similar principles. That said, think about how Jean might view "social engineering" (if I may call it that). Right now, humans probably aren't mature enough to not abuse such capabilities *horribly*. So he's not likely to encourage such things, given the probability that they'd be used to engineer some truly evil, but highly effective, government system. The risk isn't worth it. And he can't disclose the *right* answer, or have his servitors set up such a system -- it's too interventionist. (Remember that his dissonance conditions put him pretty firmly in the "minimal intervention" camp, other than to counter demonic influences.) - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 16:25 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Fleurity and drugs >An Angel of Drugs would have the same Word as Fleurity, but he'd be a >Word-bound angel working for whoever is the Archangel of Healing since >Raphael died. Raphael was never Archangel of Healing in canon, that I know of -- she was the AA of Knowledge. It's possible that healing was under her Word, though, since medicine has been one of the more knowledge-intensive skills through human history. My best candidate for currently governing healing and especially healing drugs is Novalis -- not only does it suit her nature, but for most of history, plants have been a major component of medicine, and even today a lot of drugs have origins from the plant world (especially if you stretch things to include molds as plants). Another possibility is Zadkiel, but I think Novalis is the better fit. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 16:30 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN product quality and tethers >"For example, a place that became a Tether as a result of a famous >person or incident in the past doesn't necessarily cease being a Tether >after its fame has faded." > >That first point is something I would like to discuss; why doesn't it >fade away. Surely if the location of Oscar Wilde's arrest (to use an >earlier example), the Cadogan Hotel, is long forgotten to the mortal >masses, how can it maintain its power? It depends. A lot of such places still have *local* impact, even if they aren't widely known outside the local area. If the location were now a museum, for example, it might hang on. Generally such a Tether would probably have been weak in the first place (it only ever had local impact) or has weakened a lot from it's heyday. That's one of the ways to destroy a Tether -- bury it in the depths of forgotten history.... - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 15:57:23 -0600 (CST) From: Elizabeth Bartley Subject: IN> IN product quality and tethers To everyone on this and related threads: Can we *please* let this die down? Delete all messages in a queue to answer later, walk away, and talk about something else for a couple of weeks. Anything you don't still want to say sometime later probably isn't that important anyway. Elizabeth Bartley e-bartley@pobox.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 17:02 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- Humanity (was Gabriel's attunements or something) [Perry Lloyd:] >I may have to devise a Point Based system of 'gauging' my In Nomine >characters so that I can translate my GURPS characters into the game. >Or something. The two systems are very different. You're welcome to playtest the conversion rules for GURPS IN, which are currently proposed to include "back-conversion" from GURPS to IN, since that will let people use characters from GURPS supplements (primarily historical, I suspect) in IN. However, I haven't started on these yet. (Yes, for those who haven't seen the chat session with Dr. Kromm yet, Elizabeth and I are currently writing the GURPS conversion of In Nomine.) Currently we've got most of the Choirs and Bands done, and a lot of the other character-creation material in notes. I'm hoping some of this stuff will go up for early playtest fairly soon, since it's complicated, and there are definite tradeoffs in the accuracy of conversion versus complexity. I'll probably tackle the "back-conversion" problem after the Superiors are mostly done, which won't be for a while, I fear. I'm willing to discuss notions either on- or off-list, though. >Too true. I believe I'll have Black Ops *start* at 9 Forces as well as >having bonus points for skills. I'll also have to "condense" certain >skills so that the In Nomine Black Op does not have over 100 different >skills. :) I think that's probably the right idea. GURPS is more "fine-grained" than In Nomine. I'd guess "skill-compression" should reduce number of skills by a factor of somewhere around 4:1. >Probably, but I don't want to lose a lot of the In Nomine flavor by >trying to use the GURPS system. GURPS doesn't have the three realms >(Corporeal, Ethereal and Celestial), and In Nomine is "built" around >that triad. I feel that translating to GURPS would really take the >wind out of In Nomine's world. A problem I'm currently wrestling with.... The realms themselves are there in the conversion, of course, but they're somewhat less evident in impact on the characters. At the moment, it looks like they'll mostly affect Songs, and occasionally attunements. In a lot of places where IN mechanics use " Forces", I've been using constants. There is currently a set of advantages/disadvantages that is the residue of the three Forces in IN; these affect some of the converted mechanics, where it looked like there was enough justification to keep the added complexity. Right now, these are called Corporeal/Ethereal/Celestial Connection/Disconnection, but Songbook used the notion of " Connection" for something else, so I'm hoping to find a better word for it. I don't want to call them Forces, since they aren't, exactly -- they're really X Forces - 3, at the moment (i.e., average 9-Force celestial). Also, as this discussion has pointed out, counting Forces in humans and celestials doesn't really fit into the regular GURPS attribute system very well, so I'm trying to de-emphasize Forces a lot. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 17:15:00 -0500 (EST) From: jadasc@ma.ultranet.com (Jason Schneiderman) Subject: Re: IN> Angels of the Lens >What about the Arisians? Are they a whole race of Soldiers? Or of >Saints? Or are they angelic Roles on a planetary scale (as you imply >by casting Jean as Mentor)? Arisians? They just stand around waiting for elevators, mostly. yours, - -J ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 17:32 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> product quality and tethers >"It could, and it badly needs a revision." >Here's the 64,000$ question: will it get one? Will there be version two? There probably will be if the game is popular enough to need reprinting someday. Right now there's still a stock of copies that needs to be sold.... Lest you despair, SJGames *has* published revised editions of other major books (in the GURPS line). Most of those revisions have been organizational, rather than rules changes, I should note, though rules changes have been incorporated, and they always fix known errata, even when they simply "reprint". Recently, they seem to be revising books as needed when they go up for reprint. Most of the reprinted books haven't needed a full new revision, though. >I must confess, and you needn't answer this, just how IN got to take so >long? And while I'm here, why was this game released as opposed to a >straight translation of INS/MV; why so different? I don't know the answer to either question with any certainty -- I wasn't involved in the game in its early days. I *think* the time was a combination of things (at least that's usually the reason): probably slower-than-expected writing, plus problems during playtest, plus maybe SJ didn't like the early drafts (which sometimes happens). I know I've heard that the final version is fairly different from the last draft the playtesters saw, which may be the source of some of the problems. As a playtester, I've seen this happen, to a lesser degree, in some GURPS products -- eventually the thing *has* to ship, and if it's not improving much, but changing a lot, between playtest rounds, well, it's kind of hard to deal with. *sigh* As far as the straight translation goes, I suspect that was probably a combination of "straight satirical games don't have as much scope/sales" and "the concept is neat, but we can do something better with it". I suspect only SJ or Derek could answer this question with any detail.... >What are the plans regarding further release of extended superiors? One >sourcebook is out of the question, but how about putting more of them >into each single book - whatever books they may be. Possibly. I believe there's every intention of finishing the "extended Superior writeups" for the major Superiors; it's just not entirely clear *where* they'll go. There will probably be another Cycle of some form started sometime in the not-distant future, they may wind up there. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 17:52 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers > What is somewhat frustration is the fact that I put all this >effort into doing exactly what a GM should do (write a campaign) and >then find that the rules have changed. For instance I can remember an >earlier discussion on tethers that centres around how many tethers the >average city can handle. IIRC this was something on the order of 1 per >million people, or maybe per 100,000 (whatever). This was an important >contribution because it gave us GM's something to work with so as to >avoid flooding the game with the supernatural. It was also entirely a non-canon discussion, based to some extent on data on the "known" cities in canon (primarily Austin, TX, at the time). > (It's the same principle >I guess as the V;tM rule about how many Vampires exist in a city.) Now >it seems, if I infer correctly from what you guys are saying, that this >is changed. Nope, not really. There is a discussion of Tether placement (for the GM) in the book. I'm not going to go into the details here, but I will say that a lot of people didn't like any sort of fixed numerical relationship, so it's left up to the GM, with some suggestions about effects on the campaign of Tether frequency. > There are dozens of tethers it seems. I think that was a comment of mine about *potential* Tether locations, not actual ones. If not, it was a slight exaggeration. Still, London is a big (and old) city, and an influential world capital, so it's likely to have a lot of Tethers relative to other places. Certainly a dozen or so isn't unreasonable for a city that must be on the order of 10 million people. Personally, I'd probably have one from each major Superior in a city with the size and history of London, in my campaign. > Well this raises a >whole new set of questions. I don't think it is unreasonable to further >infer that the entire world - at least the western, urban world, is >covered with tethers. That everywhere you go you'll find a tether. Yes, it *is* unreasonable to infer that. Nothing that's been said suggests that -- even the notion that London has dozens of Tethers doesn't; 25-30 Tethers there would only be 1 per 200,000 people or so, which you didn't seem to mind in your quote above. That high a Tether frequency *does* suggest it's hard to be in an area without any *nearby* Tethers (say, within 100 miles), but that's different from saying they're "everywhere", or that the world is covered with them. >PS does the Liber Castellorum have a release date yet - for the UK? As far as I know, there aren't separate release dates for different countries -- I'd guess it depends on the distributors and game stores, plus shipping delays across the Atlantic. So the US release info on the SJGames web site should be roughly right, with maybe a week or two for additional shipping delays. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 18:04 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Tattoos > Hello ....Im back again...I was wondering if someone could possibly help me >out. Since the topic of tattos did come up.....when I first came onto the list >I had seen something about a Song Of Tattoo. ... > So if anyone could help me out here.....well, I'd really appreciate it >..thanks If you mean you're looking for it, it's in the IN list archive at: http://www.sjgames.com/ftp/sjgames/in-nomine/digests/1998/8/1-917.txt - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 99 18:12 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Angels of the Lens >>What about the Arisians? Are they a whole race of Soldiers? Or of >>Saints? Or are they angelic Roles on a planetary scale (as you imply >>by casting Jean as Mentor)? > >Arisians? They just stand around waiting for elevators, mostly. For the 99+% of the list that weren't at the Arisia SF convention in Boston this past weekend, this is a reference to certain odd behaviors of the hotel elevators during the con. They appear to have been designed by Vapulans.... - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 15:28:49 -0800 From: Sean McCarthy Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- Humanity (was Gabriel's attunements or something) Our agents report Walter Milliken wrote: >Right now, these are called Corporeal/Ethereal/Celestial >Connection/Disconnection, but Songbook used the notion of " >Connection" for something else, so I'm hoping to find a better word for >it. I don't want to call them Forces, since they aren't, exactly -- >they're really X Forces - 3, at the moment (i.e., average 9-Force >celestial). Also, as this discussion has pointed out, counting Forces >in humans and celestials doesn't really fit into the regular GURPS >attribute system very well, so I'm trying to de-emphasize Forces a lot. > Stretch the musical metaphor a bit more, perhaps? Some measure of volume, or perhaps have levels of Melody in various realms? Sean ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 18:53:55 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> IN product quality and tethers >>>What is somewhat frustration is the fact that I put all this effort into doing exactly what a GM should do (write a campaign) and then find that the rules have changed. For instance I can remember an earlier discussion on tethers that centres around how many tethers the average city can handle. IIRC this was something on the order of 1 per million people, or maybe per 100,000 (whatever).<<< Discussions on this list are just that -- discussions. If you assume everything you hear on this list, even from In Nomine writers, is going to become canon, you deserve whatever confusion you get. The In Nomine list is not the Canon Approval Board. At one point, there was speculation here about how many Tethers there are on Earth...that doesn't mean this speculation was guaranteed to translate into canon. If we (In Nomine writers) have to assume that anything we suggest, discuss or speculate about on this list had better appear in canon or else people are going to complain that we "changed the rules" on them, we'd probably stop participating. (In fact, complaints like that are probably why many writers _don't_ participate here.) The only exception would be if an In Nomine writer *stated* "This is canon" - -- and even then, remember that In Nomine writers are fallible, and the only people whose words are *official* are Elizabeth and John. I recently gave clarification about the rules for servants. I'm obviously very well-informed on canon, and on that subject what I said is *almost* certainly correct, since I wrote the section in question. But the editor, Line Editor or some other Higher Power could still change stuff before it goes to the printer. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:20:01 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: IN> Re: Gamesters and Dissonance Conditions >Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 13:04:55 -0500 >From: Elizabeth McCoy >If it's one long list of instructions, then it's just one order and one >note of dissonance for breaking the chain there. If it's one order >repeated exactly the same, within a second or two of each other, then it's >one order. >Separate it into something every few minutes, and it's definitely separate. You can tell long term servitors of the game by the way they go pale from the idea of the amount of discord they will accumulate from breaking Asmodeus's standard parting instruction "Don't even think about betraying me." Once a month for their entire career. Adam. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:19:51 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: Re: Is Lilith cruel (was Re: IN> Is the flavor text canon?) >Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:21:38 -0500 >From: Elizabeth McCoy >>Or do you think Gabriel's angels only target peopel whjo are knowingly >>cruel? >Well, they don't target cats . . . Isn't that just because they are afraid of the Archdean? Adam ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:19:54 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: Re: IN> Angels of the Lens >Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 11:17:06 -0500 >From: Earl Wajenberg >What is the scope of jurisdiction of the Superiors? I think simplest >and most satisfying is to simply scale them up to cosmic scope, so >that, for instance, Gabriel is AA of Fire on every planet in at >least the Local Group if not in the universe. Universal scope seems best and stays consistent with the APG. You do get the opportunities for a few new words however. Angel of Ignoring physical constants when you want to, Demon of Rotating things 90 degrees to reality. Angel of Corruscation Demon of Planetary destruction >What about all those alien races? [shrug] Probably they're just >various breeds of mortal, roughly equivalent to human, but things >like the multi-dimensional Pallanians might be exotic brands of >Ethereals. Corporeal mortals mostly. The Fourth Dimensional Z types, Palanians etc might well be etherials, or though the description of them seems to match Kyriotates in celestial form. Though Uriel crusading to destroy the Velantians for being dragons.. >What about the Arisians? Are they a whole race of Soldiers? Or of >Saints? Or are they angelic Roles on a planetary scale (as you imply >by casting Jean as Mentor)? (Ditto Edorre for the demons.) Just Celestials. Forms of Flesh are Vessels. I thought I cast Yves the inscrutable as Mentor both seem to have a tendancy to tell people only as much as is necessary to stave off defeat. Jean is just behind the way Civilisation's technology is better than Boskone's. Vapula is behind the lack of the Transistor, he likes huge Vacuum Tubes Gharlane with his, why should I trust you if you won't let me dryclean your mind attitude does quite well as a primer for Asmodeus. >Are Lenscritters super-charged Soliders, or Saints, or a mixture? >I'd vote mixture. Seems reasonable though Id tend towards Soldiers with the song upgrade attunements and burning feather songs. Seriously though the original post was just a joke. Adam "Trust Uriel, Uriel is your Friend, Keep your flaming sword handy." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:20:03 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) >>Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 02:21:12 -0500 >>From: David Edelstein > >>No Song reaches across planes, unless the description says it can. Is there a page reference for this limitation? I can't find it or anything like it. >>4) Correspondence needs to be sung for a destination for Celestial >>Motion >>to make the distance for jumps to that location be 0 [Libra Canticorum >>p66] i.e. Does not need to target the renegade. Wherever he is he is in >>range of that location for Celestial Motion.<<< >But you need to know where that location is that you're targeting, since >it's the location you're aiming at and not the Renegade. And as mentioned >previously, if you know the Renegade's location, this is all moot. But the destination for the song of motion is in front of me. I can see it. It's the origin point I don't know the location of and neither song makes any restriction on the origin points. Adam ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:19:49 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements Not all people with calabite Choir attunements are calabim. Some are other things, like Lilim. Dark Khalid has no Shedim because no Kyriotates fell with him. Ditto Lilim. Lilim are ruled out [too pragmatic] but Shedim are not. Adam >Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 11:15:48 -0600 >From: Uncle Wolf >Subject: Re: IN> Character point values > Things [and people] tend to break down >around Calabim, so Vapula doesn't use any. [IN, p183.] I haven't read the >write-up on Dark Khalid; does he have similar reservations against using >Shedim and Lilim, that would explain their resonances not being listed? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:20:00 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: IN> Re: Gamesters and Dissonance Conditions >Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 13:04:55 -0500 >From: Elizabeth McCoy >>Or can he reduce any of his minions to a puddle just by putting out an >>announcement across a montage of video screens? >Yup. Hell's Testcard : An archaically dressed gentleman sitting at a chess board saying "Never betray hell. Never lie to me. Never even consider giving an angel an even break. Always be selfish. Trust Asmodeus, Asmodeus is your Friend, Keep your will shackles handy. Etc. ad nauseam." Adam ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:19:56 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: Re: IN> Discord and Rites >Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 12:56:49 -0500 >From: Elizabeth McCoy >IPG, p. 206: "...a demon who gains dissonance from [...] selfish reasons >is rarely on the pathway to Heaven..." But the servitors of the Game don't know that. They still believe that Selfless happens to demons at random and thus all dissonance should be avoided. >>How does Asmodeus know whether you've gone renegade or not if your heart >>hasn't broken? >He does visit all his Servitors every month... [Slap forehead] And orders them to report accurately. And watches to see if their dissonance increases. They do have a few days to fake their own destruction however. >If they have Hearts, at least. Presumably that's how he knows where to find them. Adam "Visit Limbo, No annoying German Tourists stealing the sun loungers, No Sunny Glare, No Japanese with Cameras, No sensations at all. Perfect for deep soul searching and faking ones death. 9 out of 10 Celestials would rather die than return to Limbo." Advert prepared by a very short lived servitor of Nybbas. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:19:58 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: Re: IN> Symphonic Language >Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:21:10 -0500 >From: Elizabeth McCoy >It does -- however, Lucifer is perfectly willing to give a demon a >Word in an Earthly language. It's not just that the Seraphim Council uses Celestial and Lucifer has been using Hell tongue for any new words since Hell tongue was invented then? Adam "The icon and the axe come from the same tree." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:20:05 -0500 From: Adam Canning Subject: IN> Renegades on the run (and the Song of Correspondence) >Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 13:23:05 -0500 >From: Elizabeth McCoy >Who would look for someone dead, after all? And Limbo is very nice >this time of year. Someone very paranoid. [Most demon princes] or very stupid [Most other demon princes] Adam "Limbo where God doesn't shine." Graffiti in Shal Mari ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:38:07 -0500 From: werther@hilander.com (...jason schneiderman...) Subject: Old-School IN [was Re: IN> product quality] >>And while I'm here, why was this game released as opposed to a >>straight translation of INS/MV; why so different? Croc's game, as I understand it, was not only heavily satirical - almost to a Paranoia-level - but very topical regarding French affairs. The jokes just wouldn't translate properly. Plus - and this is Unfounded Rumor From a Reliable Source - there was a desire to have the game follow a Wolfish model. >I know I've heard that the final version is fairly different from the >last draft the playtesters saw, which may be the source of some of the >problems. [reaches into a bag of old hats, dusts off one that hasn't been used in several years: Knight in service to Pearcy, the Demon Prince of IN. (Moriah having been the Archangel thereof).] Yup. I remember a playtest circa 1995 run by J.C. Connors (demo'er extraordinaire, and the guy behind GURPS Requiem and Deus Ex). Ethereals had a much stronger role - and a 333 intervention, iirc, and there was a statistic reflecting ones Divinity or Malevolence; the closer you were to humanity, the less of your celestial nature you could draw upon. I'm certain there are others on the list who can add more detail. (In fact, there's more Unfounded Rumor that playtest copies still exist and are occasionally traded.) yours, - -J ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 17:31:56 -0800 From: Sean McCarthy Subject: Re: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements Our agents report Adam Canning wrote: >Not all people with calabite Choir attunements are calabim. >Some are other things, like Lilim. > >Dark Khalid has no Shedim because no Kyriotates fell with him. Ditto Lilim. > >Lilim are ruled out [too pragmatic] but Shedim are not. > In...I think...Fleurity's writeup, he's said not have a Lilim attunement because he doesn't have that many working for him, so he just gives them his Knight distinction. Perhaps a Superior has to 'research' each attunement at some point? Having not gotten around to making one means you can't give it to anyone else. However, in Vapula's case, I can see him asserting, "No Calabim, no Calabim attunement, not even any PICTURES of Calabim anywhere near my work!" Sean ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:18:24 -0700 (MST) From: Jason Corley Subject: Re: IN> Re:IN product quality and tethers On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, Walter Milliken wrote: > > What is somewhat frustration is the fact that I put all this > >effort into doing exactly what a GM should do (write a campaign) and > >then find that the rules have changed. For instance I can remember an > >earlier discussion on tethers that centres around how many tethers the > >average city can handle. IIRC this was something on the order of 1 per > >million people, or maybe per 100,000 (whatever). This was an important > >contribution because it gave us GM's something to work with so as to > >avoid flooding the game with the supernatural. > > It was also entirely a non-canon discussion, based to some extent on > data on the "known" cities in canon (primarily Austin, TX, at the time). Completely ignoring every other part of this discussion, I think I should jump in here with my thought on Tethers. Tether-dom isn't a matter of black and white. There's no such thing as a comprehensive list of tethers. As someone said, "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am also." However, tethers that produce the game effects described (easier to call Superiors, bonusses to certain songs, etc.) are much much rarer. That's not to say there aren't 'little' Tethers that don't produce as much of an effect. Tiny bits of Resonance drifting across the Symphony, just waiting for the right Song to boost at the right time. If enough of this comes together in one mortal location across one mortal stretch of time, it becomes a capital-T Tether. This goes for both demonic and angelic Tethers. So it's quite possible for a smaller city (say, the size of Tucson) to have probably only one major angelic Tether (clearly El Tiradito, 'the little abandoned one', or 'the wishing shrine' depending on what you want to call it) but lots of smaller lesser-effect tethers. This means that angels assigned to Tucson's tethers may have a lesser impact on the War, but they can be correspondingly lower-powered, too. PCs could certainly be the chosen protectors of a large collection of smaller, or nascent Tethers - unlike the 'Big Tethers' which are supposed to have Badasses (capitalized, please ;-) to protect them. Jason onwards ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 02:36:11 -0000 From: "Ramesh Satkurunath" Subject: IN> IN - GURPS Walter Milliken wrote on 12 January 1999 >However, I haven't started on these yet. (Yes, for those who haven't >seen the chat session with Dr. Kromm yet, Elizabeth and I are currently >writing the GURPS conversion of In Nomine.) Currently we've got most of >the Choirs and Bands done, and a lot of the other character-creation >material in notes. Have you included advanced uses of Resonances? Ramesh ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 23:33:24 -0400 (EDT) From: gantr@NKU.EDU Subject: Re: Old-School IN [was Re: IN> product quality] On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, ...jason schneiderman... wrote: > Yup. I remember a playtest circa 1995 run by J.C. Connors (demo'er > extraordinaire, and the guy behind GURPS Requiem and Deus Ex). Ethereals > had a much stronger role - and a 333 intervention, iirc, and there was a > statistic reflecting ones Divinity or Malevolence; the closer you were to > humanity, the less of your celestial nature you could draw upon. I'm > certain there are others on the list who can add more detail. (In fact, > there's more Unfounded Rumor that playtest copies still exist and are > occasionally traded.) I believe I have the Divinity chart in my files somewhere. if there is interest (and if I have the permission of the SJ people), I can post it. If I don't get permission, however, don't even bother asking me to e-mail you one in private. Richard Gant - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my web page: Richard Gant's Gaming Ghetto Currently dedicated to In Nomine, Planescape, and Waste World - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 02:12:15 -0500 (EST) From: Eslin Subject: Re: IN> IN - GURPS On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Ramesh Satkurunath wrote: > Have you included advanced uses of Resonances? O, pardon him, for he is young and knoweth not what he saith... (Wait, that description fits me, too.) Ramesh, the advanced Resonance tables are in a few cases (Kyrio!) some of the most broken parts of IN; heck, even I noticed it, and most of the things other people think are bugs in IN mechanics I think are features. :) Though I am not in any way involved in the conversion, affiliated with IN staff, familiar with GURPS, or much of /anything/ except a mailing-list reader and an occasional punching bag for Maya's Inner Shedite, I somehow suspect that advanced Resonance uses aren't likely to be included in a conversion till they're fixed somehow for normal IN. Of course, in theory they might be fixed in the process of converting, but I fully expect vaguely threatening email from Walter even for mentioning the possibility... :) - Es, up way too late, thus way too silly ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 02:41:52 -0500 (EST) From: Casca Subject: IN> Improving the squishies Regarding the whole 'Black Ops in IN' thread.... It occurred to me that if you want to boost the humans in IN without blowing the power curve to hell *ahem*, you could figure their attributes by multiplying their Forces times -five- instead of four. This would mean that two Forces in a gives realm would produce truly average stats (5 instead of 4), and three Forces would be rather impressive for a human (average of 7.5 instead of 6). It would become unbalancing at higher levels, but given that humans rarely go past 5 Forces, and Saints (who are so rare as to practically be endangered) start at 7, I don't see this to be a problem. - -- Casca, Seraph of Archives (bertishg@db.erau.edu) "...I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying...At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke." -- Isaiah 6:2,4 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 03:51:57 -0800 From: Steel Angel Subject: Re: IN> IN - GURPS Eslin wrote: > Ramesh, the advanced Resonance tables are in a few cases > (Kyrio!) > some of the most broken parts of IN; heck, even I noticed it, and most > of the things other people think are bugs in IN mechanics I think are > features. :) Just what do you believe is wrong with the Kyrio advanced resonance? It seemed to follow pretty well to me. The kyriotate can find out how to keep its host in good shape and maybe access some of the memories and skills. They obviously have this potential, since shedim can do it naturally. - - Abracax, Shedite of Riots ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:24:32 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Discord and Rites On Tue, Jan 12, 1999 at 07:19:56PM -0500, Adam Canning wrote: > But the servitors of the Game don't know that. > They still believe that Selfless happens to demons at random and > thus all dissonance should be avoided. > I imagine that a number of demons have been experimented upon by demons of the Game in order to see how they react to dissonance. There is such a thing as psychological profiling. > >>How does Asmodeus know whether you've gone renegade or not if your heart > >>hasn't broken? > > >He does visit all his Servitors every month... > [Slap forehead] And orders them to report accurately. > And watches to see if their dissonance increases. And orders Servitors of the Game to watch each other. And few Servitors of the Game are averse to inventing Renegades where none exist. If I were running In Nomine, I'd take pains to make it evident that most Renegades never set foot on Earth. > Presumably that's how he knows where to find them. > For rebellious Servitors of the Game, the key to a long life as a Renegade is to find out which Djinn are attuned to hem and get them to go Renegade/concoct charges against them. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "In our revolutionary court we are guided not by articles of the law and not by the degree of extenuating circumstances; in the tribunal we must proceed on the basis of considerations of expediency." the Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:37:56 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Missing Choir/Band Attunements On Tue, Jan 12, 1999 at 05:31:56PM -0800, Sean McCarthy wrote: > >Dark Khalid has no Shedim because no Kyriotates fell with him. I imagine the fundamental truth is nearer to "no Kyriotates fell with Khalid because the writers didn't want Shedim of Fanaticism". >Ditto Lilim. > > > >Lilim are ruled out [too pragmatic] but Shedim are not. > > > > In...I think...Fleurity's writeup, he's said not have a Lilim attunement > because he doesn't have that many working for him, so he just gives them > his Knight distinction. > Speaking of which, I was amused by the description of him as the "freedom restricting Prince of Drugs". In what way does he restrict freedom more than Lilim themselves do? Especially Lilim of Lust. But the point I was going to make before I got sidetracked was that if you look at the Knight of Drugs attunement, it bears a startling resemblance to what any Lilim of Drugs attunement should be. It would really be more accurate to say that he gives Knights his Lilim attunement. As to Khalid, I don't think it's in the nature of Shedim to be Fanatically religious anyway. Look at the description of Shedim in the main rulebook. The most deeply evil and anti-angelic Band of all? I really don't see Dark Khalid making Shedim. (I have partly written up a story where Baal is messing with demons' heads to see if he can get them to believe in God, as opposed to just knowing he exists. And there are no Lilim or Shedim in his experiment either.) > Perhaps a Superior has to 'research' each attunement at some point? > Having not gotten around to making one means you can't give it to anyone else. > That seems plausible. > However, in Vapula's case, I can see him asserting, "No Calabim, no > Calabim attunement, not even any PICTURES of Calabim anywhere near my work!" > And again, the plausible Calabite attunements are in the Balseraph attunement (the ridiculously over-powered and contra-Band nature Balseraph attunement) and the Baron attunement. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "In our revolutionary court we are guided not by articles of the law and not by the degree of extenuating circumstances; in the tribunal we must proceed on the basis of considerations of expediency." the Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1093 ******************************** The material here is (C) 1999 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.