[In A Wicked Age ...] Particular strengths accumulating through the stories
Ron Edwards:
Oh yes, and to keep the portrait of our play current - our prep session for our fourth story yielded these new particular strengths:
Handsome Devil 1: Maneuver (potent)
Our Mothers 1: Self-Protection & Maneuver (broad)
Chaos 1: Action (consequential: With Love/Action)
Not Easy to Deceive 1: With Love & With Violence (broad)
Pretty 2: Directly & For Myself / Self-Protection (potent, broad)
Cast Out Demons 2: For Others (potent consequential: Covertly)
This story also features the return of the Noble Blood particular strength (used for an NPC for the first time) and of course the original particular strength of the returning player-character, which happens to be Organizing.
Best, Ron
lumpley:
The answer is yes. Consider your ardor fulfilled!
-Vincent
Shawn I.:
I had not thought of having a list of the old particular strengths at the game. I just compiled a list of our strengths from the last two games. Since Ron asked to see such things, here it is:
First Story:
You Underestimate Me: Covertly & Directly (Broad) 1
Deflection: Covertly (Potent) 1
Intimidation: With Violence (Potent?) 1
The Severed Head of High Captain Natan: Directly (Unique) 1
Schemes: Maneuvering (Far-Reaching) 1
Infernal Allies: Action (Potent) 1
Intimidation might be off, because my only notes are after it was improved in the second story.
Second Story:
Intimidation: With Violence, For Myself (Potent, Broad) 2
Loyal Countrymen: For Others (Far Reaching) 1
You Can't Focus on Me: With Violence (Potent) 1
Infernal Shadows: Covertly/Maneuvering (Consequential: For Others/Action) 1
Network of Favors: Action (Potent) 1
We haven't been assigning NPC forms for PC particular strengths, or PC forms for NPC strengths. I think I'll just say those are decided when needed. The only case where we did was Infernal Shadows, because that particular strength was stolen by a PC from the NPC. (That poor demon. He was stolen from, kicked out a window, had his power bound into an amulet, got thrown down the stairs, and then had his heart cut out and eaten. If he had been a PC, he would have been on the we owe list half a dozen times.)
Actually, one other question: I thought that Broad only applied to PC forms - that you couldn't have a Broad power have two NPC forms. Is that right, or am I handicapping my NPCs?
Ron Edwards:
See, that's what I'm talking about! It seems to me as if, merely looking over the list, that I have a sudden and intensely colorful (or in your case, charcoal and shadowy) window into your game, or rather, into your series of short stories. I hope others post their lists too.
Random thoughts:
- I quite like the fact that Infernal Allies and Infernal Shadows are two different things. Let's hope that they get utilized at the same time in a later story.
- Kind of a bummer about the Severed Head being unique; then again, Vincent's instructions about making a unique particular strength "unowned" seem like a golden opportunity as well.
- I've been treating Broad and Consequential the same for NPC forms as well as PC ones, although I even think there's some text saying not to for Consequential.
Best, Ron
Michael Loy:
My main group has just started a game - we're two sessions in. Note that we're doing a thing where we pull from one of the four basic oracles, then reapply the results to do urban fantasy set in modern Chicago.
Session 1:
• Curses (s1; For Myself; potent)
- trigger: loudly pronounce curses
• Brother to Lions (s1; Directly; far-reaching)
- trigger: ask something of another member of the Lions
• Corrupt, and Filthy Rich (s1; Self-Protection; far-reaching)
- trigger: talk to your people
• Eyes of the Oracle (s1; Maneuvering; either far-reaching or consequential to Covertly/Maneuvering)
- trigger: speak truths
• Death-Eater (s1; Action; potent)
- trigger: kill someone
As the GM for the session, 'Corrupt, and Filthy Rich' was ridiculously fun to use ... far-reaching and self-protection meant that the NPC who had it was very difficult to force into a direct confrontation. He ended up shaking out as the villain of the session, so that worked out very neatly, making him an off-screen threat until the final scenes.
There were two NPCs with 'Eyes of the Oracle', each with a slightly different version. Technically, they probably should be different particular strengths, but it made sense in context for them to be basically the same thing, and I think it'll be natural to combine them into far-reaching+consequential, should we see a Significance 2 version crop up.
Session 2:
• (repeat) Curses (s1; For Myself/Action; potent)
- trigger: loudly pronounce curses
• Shape-Shifting (s1; Directly and Covertly; broad)
- trigger: adopt a different form
• (repeat) Eyes of the Oracle (s1; For Others/Maneuvering; far-reaching)
- trigger: speak truths
• All the Venoms of the Earth (s1; Action; potent)
- trigger: inject, inhale, or imbibe
• Vast Psychic Powers (s1; Maneuvering; far-reaching)
- trigger: ?
That the last one never appeared in play ... we ended up just not using that NPC in the session, except as someone to be referred to. I'm leaving the NPC and the strength in the notebook, but they had no screen time.
'Curses' belonged to the spotlit character, but it was also picked up by a new NPC. The first session included Apollo, living as a rock star in the modern age, and we immediately grabbed the ability to curse people as a core characteristic of a Greek god. The second session introduced Dionysus, so it only made sense to follow up. On the other hand, 'Eyes of the Oracle' was picked up by a new PC, who was totally unrelated to the two previous NPCs who held that strength.
I totally agree that this helps develop setting. The jump from 'Apollo can curse people' to 'gods can curse people' was downright obvious - I didn't even have to think about it when picking out a particular strength for Dionysus in the second session. And the reuse of 'Eyes of the Oracle' says things about how oracular abilities work in this world (the two NPCs who had the strength were father and daughter, so in the previous session it was showing up only as a trait of the family).
We started out just kinda forgetting to assign NPC forms to PC strengths, and vice versa. Second session, I deliberately left them off. It does seem to make sense to leave that until it actually comes up.
...
Broad strengths still only affect one NPC form, I suppose because NPC forms already cover two dice. Or, I'm pretty sure ... I'm not looking at the book, but it's come up at my table and that's what I remember.
I'm a little curious about how I'm seeing Unique used here. I always thought of it as more like the Severed Head up there: objects, offices, and other concrete things that only one person can hold at a time. What's the story behind the Weird and the Animating the Inanimate? Why Unique? For no particular reason, Unique has never actually shown up in one of my games, so I don't have any practical experience of how to apply it.
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