The Campaign Builder's Guild

Love how the Farras is shaping up. Definitely among the better magic systems that I've seen.

Quote from: http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mysteries_Stunts_for_Adeptshere's a succulent morsel to whet your appetite[/url].

Quote from: GhostmanLove how the Farras is shaping up. Definitely among the better magic systems that I've seen.

:heart:  :heart:  :heart:

The Heartsilk one is pretty clever. Remember I wanted my Moshrayah to have something similar, where certain objects of art would solely serve to call up certain emotions. But very nice scaling of it, going from noticeable to aspect to escalated aspect. I hadn't quite thought of employing escalated aspects directly.
Do you imagine some om-beh-ral might fashion Wrath Heartsilk objects for their own use? Or objects of composure/serenity?
What would happen if om-beh-ral wore Heartsilk objects weaved with empathy? Is that possible?

I really like the way this system is shaping up. The Farras system is really well developed. I've looked over FATE, and I think I understand it well enough to work with it. I think that the the ability to basically possess someone, and thus extend your life indefinitely, is absolutely insane for a mid-level skill. Seriously, that's like a suped up version of reincarnate.

Still, that could be a really interesting way to create a hero. He had his body stolen by a Farras mystic, and then managed to take over the mystic's body instead, and he's on a FMA-esque quest to get his original body back. Could be interesting if the mystic had some sort of disease, or the mystic ended up dying in the hero's body.

I second the idea that Heartsilk is neat. hen-gan mysticism is pretty scary, but not on par with Farras yet.

What might be cool is to set up something similar to your schools of magic for the armed/unarmed combat schools, obviously not the same sort of feel, but to give people an edge that they could stand up to the mages without magic themselves. Also, I have to say that really dislike the inability to 'multiclass' with other Mysteries. I couldn't actually find a fluff reason in the Jade Stage Wiki, am I just missing something?

Quote from: Endless_HelixI really like the way this system is shaping up. The Farras system is really well developed.

Au contraire, Monsieur![/url]

Quote from: Mysteries pageLearning Multiple Traditions

While it's technically possible for one person to learn magic from multiple traditions, it's a difficult road. It can be difficult for a mage to find a teacher for a second tradition, due to the demographic disparity between many of them, and the metaphysical conflicts between these systems of magic. Most teachers are simply unwilling to teach a new discipline to a mage who has so much to unlearn.

Characters who do manage to learn a second tradition take a -1 penalty to their Mysteries skill when using it. (That is, a character with Good (+3) Mysteries who learns Farras and then Sorcery treats his Mysteries as only Fair (+2) for the purposes of his Sorcery powers, including determining when Mysteries complements his other skills.) Furthermore, mixing incompatible magic techniques is practically begging for uncomfortable and complicated compels against your mage aspect. You've been warned.

feels[/i] is very important to a world.

What I am trying to say is that I am trying to avoid a system where players can, with total freedom, cherrypick magic powers from any tradition they like, because that kind of precedent starts eroding the boundaries that make each tradition what it is. Enough people have asked me "well, what about learning multiple traditions??" that I feel like I have to include it, but I feel totally justified in making such "multiclassing" reasonably difficult, problematic, and not especially advantageous.

Quote from: Luminous Crayon

Quote from: Luminous CrayonIf you have any suggestions on how to tweak the power level of this ability a tad without throwing it out entirely, I'd love to pick your brain about that.

If I'm reading the ruleset right, the problem with the skill crunch-wise is how easy it is to pump up a Farras mage's mental abilities with the various servitors he can summon, coupled with the fact that I'm not entirely sure how common it is for your average fighter to have strong mental defenses. As it works right now, it's basically a save or die spell from half a world away. There is no limit to how many times you use this ability on someone either, maybe you get a shift for trying to use it on someone for you've targeted previously for each time you've targeted them? If I was in your game, I could think up a hundred ways to abuse this ability to the point you couldn't differentiate it from a red-headed stepchild (speaking of course, as a red-headed stepchild). I'd probably make it use the character's base mental stat and make it not work through the dream visitation (talk about instantaneous travel!). It might also be worth it to make it work only on someone you know.

Mechanically, the best target right now is small children, because they cannot fight back. I could see a Farras mage leading a tribal culture, and then with each generation, choosing a new vessel to be his body. It would allow him a lot of leeway, as long as he could convince the tribe that it's for the best (given how the Aztecs handled human sacrifice, one child every generation seems quite minimal by comparison). Or he could simply spend his unnaturally long life possessing children from neighboring tribes, and then setting them up to be conquered and subjugated by his tribe.

Quote from: Luminous Crayon

Au contraire, Monsieur![/url]

I think this is my male refrigerator blindness coming to the fore. Or possibly a failure on my to read check. Maybe a combination of both, which might soothe my bruised ego. ;)

Quote from: Luminous Crayon

Quote from: Mysteries pageLearning Multiple Traditions
While it's technically possible for one person to learn magic from multiple traditions, it's a difficult road. It can be difficult for a mage to find a teacher for a second tradition, due to the demographic disparity between many of them, and the metaphysical conflicts between these systems of magic. Most teachers are simply unwilling to teach a new discipline to a mage who has so much to unlearn.

Characters who do manage to learn a second tradition take a -1 penalty to their Mysteries skill when using it. (That is, a character with Good (+3) Mysteries who learns Farras and then Sorcery treats his Mysteries as only Fair (+2) for the purposes of his Sorcery powers, including determining when Mysteries complements his other skills.) Furthermore, mixing incompatible magic techniques is practically begging for uncomfortable and complicated compels against your mage aspect. You've been warned.

Gotcha. It would kinda defeat the purpose having them called mysteries, I suppose. *Waves goodbye to idea of Farras/hen-gan mystic, that could convince people to want to be his vessel, with magic*

I was thinking, how easy is it for an om-beh-ral to use heartsilk against another om-beh-ral? Is it too commonly known and would be immediately discovered? Or can they use it for interracial intrigue? How do they identify it?

Quote from: E_HGotcha. It would kinda defeat the purpose having them called mysteries, I suppose. *Waves goodbye to idea of Farras/hen-gan mystic, that could convince people to want to be his vessel, with magic*

- make it clear that no Farras powers work while in a dream (being able to use your (presumably quite high) Mysteries skill to reshape the dream is already a powerful advantage for a Purified Vessel in someone else's dream)[/quote]- possibly some kind of limit to how many times you can do this, to prevent this stunt from being able to live indefinitely unless slain (by total lifespan? by number of transfers? by some other factor?)

- possibly some kind of further permanent disadvantage incurred when changing bodies (note that depending on implementation, this is probably a de facto limit on how many times you can switch)[/quote]no fate points[/i], which means that you cannot resist compels against your aspects and consequences by spending fate points to buy out of them. (In FATE, being out of fate points is severe bad news.) In addition, every transfer will potentially get you a brand new hostile personality haunting your brain, and serial bodystealers are certain to accrue quite a collection. (Also keep in mind, of course, that if you try to steal someone's body and fail, you'd better be ready for the pitchfork brigade. But that's one of the risks you sign up for, I guess.)

[spoiler=helpful irrelevancies]

QuoteIf I'm reading the ruleset right, the problem with the skill crunch-wise is how easy it is to pump up a Farras mage's mental abilities with the various servitors he can summon, coupled with the fact that I'm not entirely sure how common it is for your average fighter to have strong mental defenses.

everybody[/i] can do that, not just mages.

QuoteI'd probably make it use the character's base mental stat

Mechanically, the best target right now is small children, because they cannot fight back. I could see a Farras mage leading a tribal culture, and then with each generation, choosing a new vessel to be his body. It would allow him a lot of leeway, as long as he could convince the tribe that it's for the best (given how the Aztecs handled human sacrifice, one child every generation seems quite minimal by comparison). Or he could simply spend his unnaturally long life possessing children from neighboring tribes, and then setting them up to be conquered and subjugated by his tribe.[/quote]

Quote from: Luminous Crayon- possibly some kind of limit to how many times you can do this, to prevent this stunt from being able to live indefinitely unless slain (by total lifespan? by number of transfers? by some other factor?)

This seems kinda artificial, a tacked on limit. Unless there's a really good reason why, if you can do it once, you can't do it more often. Maybe 1/level of Mysteries (like, +1 will let you do it once, +2 will let you do it twice, etc). Even that seems somewhat tacked on.

Quote from: Llum

Quote from: Luminous Crayon- possibly some kind of limit to how many times you can do this, to prevent this stunt from being able to live indefinitely unless slain (by total lifespan? by number of transfers? by some other factor?)

I was thinking more along the lines of either "you can't exceed your original natural lifespan, no matter which body you're in", or perhaps "every time you change bodies, your fate point refresh rate goes down by one" (which, again, is a de facto limit, and (I believe) is the way Dresden Files RPG (which also uses FATE) handles loss of humanity/free will/etc.) Then again, slowly accumulating a collection of hostile haunting personalities (the original owners of all your stolen bodies) is a similar soft limit.

Quote from: L CIt really looks like the problem is twofold: "Filling New Vessels" needs to get reined in significantly, but so does "Dream Presence", because of the (implicit and explicit) way it extends the reach of other Farras powers potentially limitlessly.

Quote from: definite changes to Filling New Vessels- can't be used through a dream (duh, what the heck was I thinking?)

- more thoroughly flesh out the conflict involved to gain control of a body (prolonged skin contact should be required, so that breaking free of a hostile Vessel's grasp will stop him from possessing you-- essentially, the subject should be either willing, or restrained, knocked out, or otherwise helpless)

You're heading in the right direction, I think. For the limitations, I'd make the range on the Filling of the Vessel touch and have it require an elaborate ritual that takes a few hours to set up. It's still very useful (A spell that lets you become anyone? Sign me up!), but it requires significant planning to use successfully. For instance, a corrupt nobleman has failed to pay your group with two Farras mystics, one of which has this trick. You kidnap him, have your Farra possessor-mage  possess the nobleman and your other mage drain the angry voice in the back of your head into a bottle, maybe feed it to one of your enemies to drive them insane. Profit abounds. There's another version of this where you possess his son, poison him, and then assume the throne all in one fell swoop.

Quote from: Luminous CrayonI was thinking more along the lines of either "you can't exceed your original natural lifespan, no matter which body you're in", or perhaps "every time you change bodies, your fate point refresh rate goes down by one"

I don't see anything overpowered about being able to extend lifespan indefinitely. All it really means is that you get some crazy old NPCs that have been around for a very long time. They'll probably possess a great deal of knowledge but also suffer from boredom - there ought to be a point when they feel that they've "seen it all".

If you're worried that there might be too many of these characters around, then you just need to make the body swapping a bit more dangerous. If there is a chance, even a small one, of dying every time you steal someone's body, then you could hardly expect to keep on doing it forever. To put it in geeky math terms: as the number of repetitions approaches infinity, the probability of a failure approaches 100%.

Here's some other stuff: hen-gan is pretty much done for now, and a couple of interesting new stunts have been added. I'm not sure whether I'm totally happy with how they've shaped up; they feel a little kludgy.

Furthermore, I've made a little bit of headway on sorcery stunts, which is apparently going to be what I tackle next. I have some more in my notes that should be added soon; this one is about 80% planned out, and should hopefully go pretty smoothly.

On the subject of Farras and stunt-balancing, I'm a little curious about whether or not we are all on the same page re: general game mechanics in FATE:
[spoiler]

Quote from: wiki stuffBy maintaining direct skin contact, you can engage another person in a brutal mental conflict, with the aim of forcing their spirit out of their body to make room for yours. With an appropriate taken out result or concession from your victim, you can permanently transfer your consciousness into a new body.

I really love the way hen-gan is set up, very balanced and very useful. Seriously, good work here. I love the whole idea of cloaking yourself in emotion to manipulate people. I don't have any other comments on this really.

The Sorcerer tricks are coming along nicely. If you keep most of those tricks, the  Sorcerers are going to be very versatile, even if they won't have the depth the other paths have. Thought Grasp is very utilitarian. Thought Whip is cool, and the redirection ability is very well handled. I think you could actually make Thought Whip require Thought Grasp, have an increasing defense bonus against it, have repeated use create mental stress, and remove the once per scene limitation against non-mages. To be entirely honest, it feels a little arbitrary, even if you provided a fluff reason for it.

It's easy to see why sorcerers are one of the dominant forces on the continent, though. With abilities like the ones provided...
--
On the FATE scene mechanic, yeah I understood that. Each scene is like a combat in DND, not a round. The high number of opposed rolls are good indicator of this. Frankly, it makes more sense than DnD's magic system ever did. What on earth every possessed them to print Shapechange the way they did, I'll never know.

What is the actual use of confluence as it is just an aspect with less uses? Is it the fact that it is flexible one should pay attention to?
Also, their magic doesn't seem all that useful yet for situations where they aren't involved in dealings with other sorcerers. And if thought whip only deals mental stress, is it useless in combat?

Oh, and i agree that the Presence stunts of Hen-Gan are pretty cool. Although I'm surprised that they have no connection to heartsilk weaving considering the similarities.