[DitV] GM determined Sin
lachek:
Quote from: lumpley on March 11, 2008, 06:46:25 AM
What makes a sorcerer a sorcerer is the fact that he's promoting his own agenda against the survival of his community. What gives him sorcerous powers is that he's a villain, not that he's an agent of the demons. The demons follow him, remember; he doesn't adopt their agenda, they adopt his.
That nearly almost clears up all my confusion, Vincent. Only one tiny nagging hint of a question remains.
DitV has a Progression of Sin which starts with pride and culminates in murder. A sorcerer appears somewhere towards the end and incites the progression onwards. Are you saying that the demons ally themselves with the sorcerer regardless of some nebulous idea of "sin", simply because the sorcerer is a bad guy? In that case, what prevents Joe Random Outlaw from walking into town and shooting the place up with demonic support? What actually empowers the demons to affect the state of the town? I was under the impression there was a trigger in the Progression that allowed this to happen. If so, couldn't you argue that the event which caused that trigger to flip is created under a GM-imposed judgment of morality, and if the players choose to ignore and support the action causing the flip they are judged by proxy?
It seems to me that the reality of demonic powers and their connection to the moral code pre-determines what an optimal choice would be. I know I'm wrong, but I don't know exactly where I'm wrong. Please bear with me; I'm just trying to get all the little dominoes perfectly lined up in my head.
Slow Dog:
Not much to do with the actual question.
Quote from: lachek on March 11, 2008, 06:11:20 AM
<background>
he uses an example of a town preacher declaring the Apocalypse is coming and the sign will be the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Adversary. Naturally, the four Dogs ride in shortly thereafter.
That's a great plot point. The preacher's follower's will believe that that the Dog's are the Horsemen.
Real Life version (some details possibly misremembered): The Aztecs believed the God Quetzalcoatl would return from the East at the end of their current year cycle, and end the world. So, close to the end the year cycle Cortez and the Spaniards arrive in the East in floating "Palaces", with six-legged, four armed metal-clad demons (men on horseback) employing fire-breathing weapons. The confusion over their status was part of the reason for inadequate military response until it was too late.
I'm not sure how such a confusion could be represented. It feels exactly the opposite of Demonic Influence, removing effectiveness rather than aiding it. Maybe somehow giving the Dogs dice for "The people of [town] know I'm an Agent of the Apocalypse". Could that be acquired while it's still useful?
I guess a later, more always useful version would be "I am an agent of the Apocalypse"...
lumpley:
lachek, you should know that I'm having a hard time figuring out what you're asking!
The GM is the sole and absolute judge of the town, right up until the moment the Dogs arrive. The GM's like, "this is a pride, this is a bad sin, this is a worse sin, and then oh crap the worst possible thing happens, and then this ASSHOLE jumps in to exploit the town because of it, and the demons are all like woohoo! And now they're murdering each other and I have a stomach ache." But then the moment the Dogs arrive, there is no longer any judge of what's sin and what isn't. That's why sin and false doctrine appear only in the town creation rules, not anywhere else in the game rules. Once the Dogs show up, there's no more sin, no more false doctrine, only people in conflict. In play, you'll notice, the demons are a mechanical benefit to people in conflict, or an extension of people in conflict, they aren't people themselves.
If the Dogs side with the sorcerer, well, I guess the Dogs side with the sorcerer. This doesn't mean that the Dogs are now wrong or that the sorcerer is made right retroactively - ALL IT MEANS is that the Dogs side with him. Once play starts, all bets are off.
Make sense? The GM judges the town, harshly and absolutely, during town creation, until the Dogs show up. When the Dogs show up the GM plays the town. There is no underlying God, demons, theology or truth, no absolutes of right or wrong. What's sin in town creation is just a fact of history in play.
-Vincent
Moreno R.:
Hi Lachek!
I think I have understood what is causing your confusion (please correct me if I am wrong): you see the demon helping the Sorcerer as a concrete, real, measurable "proof" that he is "bad", so it's like he is already judged in God's eyes (or in the GM's eyes), so how can the dogs judge him (and all his demons) like the wronged party, even allying with him?
Because "play like God doesn't exist" is rather easy because Gods don't have a mechanical "weight" in the game, isn't like there are "god's dice" given by the GM to good people. But the game has "demonic influence" used to help the sorcerer, so even if God doesn't exist, the Devil is there and he is helping sin, right?
Well, not: if God doesn't exist, how can exist something that is a "sin" every time, everywhere, as if written in a tablet of cosmic law? If there is no God, how can exist the Devil?
The key to understanding the game from this point of view, in my opinion, is simply in applying the "what is right and wrong, right now, here and with these people, for we people?" in every aspect of the game. Even demons. So, don't think about them like cosmic demons that follow a rigid definition of sin attracted by everyone who sin. They are personal demons, they are here, right now, with these people, only. They are THEIR personal demons, born from them and will stay only with them forever. The Sorcerer didn't attract demons from hell, he has simply found the way to give power to his own personal demons, that were always with him for years, now fueled and strengthened by his own sins against the community.
If you play with the supernatural dial set very low, they don't even exist, they are only misfortune, consequences of acts, mistrust, etc. But even if you play a game full of demonic special effects, they still are something created by the sorcerer. Everything they do, is really done by the sorcerer.
And if the Dogs say to the Sorcerer "you did the right thing, now forgive yourself"... I would count that as a full exorcism. With the demon forced to flee NOT to hell, but to the place where they always were hidden and imprisoned until something went wrong that freed them: inside the sorcerer's soul.
Alan:
Aren't the Dogs the mechanical manifestation of God in the game?
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