Yes.
Yes.
If you want a true TM story feel, you're going to need to let players get away with some egregious bullshit.Originally Posted by warellis
don't quote me on this
If you want magic to be truly narrative, but you also want it to be even moderately crunchy and gamey, that's always going to be a bit of a contradiction that needs to be reconciled. RuneQuest does this in a very simple way, Ars Magica does it in a very complicated way that's not going to literally translate into a different setting.
For a while, I've been considering adapting the framework we've been using for noir megucas (which has since been adapted into a pretty different and cool Girls' Frontline system) for use in TM stuff. The basic idea behind how it'd work is that all powers in the system would be taken apart into descriptors, and the descriptors would be reshuffled into different boxes of 'Mystery'. These are kinda similar to Cleric Spheres in AD&D, except they're rearranged to fit the existing major mysteries in the Nasuverse (I can come up with like 20, which is exactly how much the system needs), and access to one of them doesn't just give spells. Instead every Magus specializes in a bunch of Mysteries, and splats together custom spells from the descriptors they offer. Obviously, you trade your practical aptitude as a human being for more circuits, bigger crest that has more spells, and more mysteries that can come together to unlock more advanced mysteries.
For example, 'Puppetry' would come from the mysteries of "Body" and "Matter". Minimal access to Body gives a magus longer lifespan and minimal access to Matter gives him Reinforcement - these being both very basic Mysteries, most Magi would have at least minimal access to them.
Meanwhile, a psychic or a mixed-blood are born with these Mysteries as their fundamental component, and they do something else for them which scales with XP (since they won't be getting any more), plus some freaky spell-like ability which also scales - like SHIKI's immortality is clearly based on the mystery of the Body. So a Body-based Mixed-blood descends from a giant or an oni and gets extra bod, but a Matter-based one might descend from a dwarf or a tsukumogami, and gets extra damage reduction. A body-psychic on the other hand might have perfect sensory perception of other people's bodies, and a matter-based one can transmute materials with a touch.
I have a bunch of notes on this, tbh, and how to mechanically handle the discrepancies between various magi in particular. Just never really had a reason to actually run a TM-based game. Gotta hang with some more zoomers for that to happen, I guess.
For anyone interested in joining a 5e game, I have one recruiting right now. Due to scheduling, it will be handled as a Play-by-Post game in the RP section here. The game is set in a variant of the Primeval Thule Campaign Setting. The link for it is here.
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[16:43] <Twelveseal> Phallus in wonderland sounds like some bad loli-rape KC fanfic
[16:43] <@Sei> THAT'S what i wanna see
In Vampire the Masquerade, there are obviously disadvantages for low humanity, but I'm surprised that there aren't similar disadvantages for high humanity, given that the "wah, my eternal life/cursed blood sucks, wah" cliché. Yes, salt, pun intended, for Seraph of the End falling to that cliché.
It makes perfect sense though? Murderhobo'ing (or just murdering if you're not a Nozzie) your problems away is the easy way out, so you get mechanical penalties to curb those tendencies (until/unless you choose a different Path, in which case humanity no longer matters). Maintaining high Humanity is a constant struggle, one you're very much set up to fail in the long term, it would make no sense to penalize you mechanically. Do note that you're also not rewarded in any way (outside of RP) for struggling to pretend to be something you're not. In fact, you're probably penalized indirectly since without feeding your Blood Pool is going to be much more limited unless you have a very good in on a blood bank (and even then, supply is not infinite and could easily be disrupted).
shit BL says
Once and always and nevermore.
From a story perspective, it's a super common cliché, though. I'm just surprised that Masquerade has no mechanic touching upon it... Then again, there are characters, who do, like Ash Rivers. Although, I'm not sure how much of that is regular emo vampire and how much of that is drama king actor.
Feeding by itself doesn't risk lowering Humanity - it's only if you hurt the target or worse.
Also, off the top of my head, there is one benefit to having a high Humanity, at least in Revised (I think that rule only came about in Revised, at least - and just to be clear, I'm talking about Revised, not the V20 version or 5th Edition): during the day, all your Dice Pools are limited by your Humanity rating.
I wasn't sure about that bit since I haven't read the rulebook in ages (and I played V20 in any case) but either way feeding is always a risk if you want to maintain high Humanity.
Last edited by Deathhappens; August 14th, 2022 at 12:06 AM.
shit BL says
Once and always and nevermore.
Having been on a Savage Worlds reading binge for awhile, I've come to believe it's actually the best for Nasuverse stuff, due to how it handles magic. Like how you have a set of generic powers but the feel of them changes depending on how you "flavor" then.
Like to use an example, both Shirou & Rin would have as one of their Edges (their advantages) something like Arcane Background (Magecraft) and both would have access to the power known as "bolt."
But both would have a different flavor for that bolt, with Rin's possibly being a Gandr shot while Shirou's would be a launched sword.
The issue with Savage Worlds is that if you want to play an OP DAA or Servant, you're probably out of luck there.Isn't the problem with feeding being that it's really easy to accidentally kill someone?
Last edited by warellis; August 12th, 2022 at 10:03 PM.
Savage Worlds is good! I'd still rec a more super-hero focused game for TM RPGs, even those that only involve magi, but SW's pulp feel also works very well.
As for feeding, that's true. As I said, feeding *by itself* doesn't lower Humanity (it's not immoral to keep yourself alive, after all), but your specific hunting method and any potential loss of control can easily lead to a Humanity loss.
Would Mage the Ascension or Mage the Awakening be a bad system for Fate RPs?
I haven't played Awakening, only Ascension, but I'd say... Yes, actually. As much as some of the concepts seem to translate well from one setting to the next, Mage's magic is very different from TM's magecraft, both mechanically and thematically. Ars Magica's magic system feels like it would be a better fit for TM's magecraft, but even then not a perfect one - you'd have to still limit spontaneous spellcasting by a lot, for example.
Tell me more about Ars Magica's system either here or on Discord; I heard good things about it too.
Well, it actually has a bunch of different magical systems, but to describe Hermetic magic (the standard one, both in terms of the Order of Hermes being the most powerful organisation of sorcerers in Mythic Europe and in terms of the game assuming all PCs are Hermetic magicians by default) very succintly: all spells are based on a combination of Verbs and Nouns, such as Credo Ignem for "I create fire" or Rego Ignem for "I control fire"; based on that structure, Hermetic magicians research and develop magical formulas with specific effects - such as a fireball spell which combines Credo Ignem and Rego Ignem and can *only* be used to fire a flaming bolt, and not, say, to create sparks to light a pipe. Hermetic magicians specifically have an advantage over other sorcerous traditions with spontaneous spellcasting, that is, using their skills in various Verbs and Nouns to create a spell from out of nowhere - though one that is more difficult and taxing and less powerful than an equivalent magical formula.
That is hot (pardon the pun). I can see the customization options in that!
Fair warning, Ars Magica is less a game about playing a character who can cast magic and more about specifically roleplaying a fantasy wizard, with all the trappings that implies. Something like half your time in game will be spent on wizard political intrigue, most of your downtime will be spent on honest-to-Tri-Hermes magical research, and most of the time when you cast actual magic it's less "go into the forest and fireball a monster into submission" and more "craft an exotic ritual curse that will cause Count A to slowly wither and die of apparently natural causes at the behest of Duke B".
shit BL says
Once and always and nevermore.
I see. That does sound horrible, even though the system might be good.
Manually setting up a Rube Goldberg plan to destroy a kingdom/king/guy who called you a prick would be pretty fun for the first few times.
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But after that?
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