Shataina/RandomIsh

Random Thingetyboo Stuff Etc.

Who's Ish? Okay, I've said it so now you don't have to. ;)

Suggestions and commentary are welcome on all my pages, but particularly on this one, which is meant to be for especially half-formed ideas that don't even merit their own page / entry elsewhere yet. Every idea I throw out on this page is explicitly one that I want commentary on -- I keep the stuff I don't want people discussing to myself.

The setup of this page is a little awkward, for which I apologize. I'm trying to figure out how to best format it so that I can have a section that's open to all, and then a section which my players can avoid without missing out on commentary on the other section or anything like that.

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Non-Ideas

... I flatter myself that anyone cares that I haven't signed TheWikiIsACommunity. It's not that I don't support people treating each other politely, and not indulging in Internet brawls, and not being nasty, and so on. In other words, I don't mean it as a direct snub or anything that I didn't sign it; I totally agree that there's been too much ridiculousness and that people ought to be nicer to each other. There's just something about the signing thing that bothers me somehow. The "old boys' club" feeling? Possibly something along the lines of what Wohksworth was saying when they noted that it's like ... stating something that shouldn't need to be stated? I don't know. Also, any step that leads closer to the Wiki having a codified set of rules / expectations is one I'm not entirely comfortable with, even if they're entirely benign at first.

Comments on Non-Ideas

So what happens when the etiquette that goes unsaid isn't enough anymore? That's what is happening here. - willows

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria. -EJGRgunner

The etiquette that goes unsaid is being deliberately violated, though. So how is codifying it going to help? It seems like doing that is just setting up a sort of retaliatory warlike attitude, if you know what I mean.

~ Shataina

PS: EJGR -- You forgot the "an SRC student handing a paper in on time".

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Ideas

... A Merit / Flaw that's something along the lines of, "Spend (or take) any number of points, and your Storyteller will give you an appropriate Merit or Flaw or Ability or whatever that your character doesn't know about." (something like that "7th Sea" houserule)

... SoundMesh Martial Arts style (inspired by my favourite First Age poet-sorceress, Quicksilver Scribe). I keep trying to develop this further but becoming frustrated by (a) my inability to conceive of mechanical effects and (b) the difficulty I have figuring out what it should actually do. Uses sound and the manipulation of sound, helps the master understand the deeper meaning and harmonics of all sound, etc. Harmonics. What can harmonics do? What can sound do? What can poetry do? -- And what of these are effective in battle?

• Final (or penultimate) Charm called Impending Silence. Deafens? Drives one mad? But that's so cliche.
• Helps with poetry. Or requires poetry to understand? Linguistics requirement along with the MA requirement? Or could it just be a style that builds on Linguistics and doesn't use MA at all?
• One Charm can help one become especially sensitive / desensitize oneself to noise?
• None of this adding to Presence or Socialize rolls stuff. No no no. Maybe a command Charm something like Force Decision (Sidereal Presence), which forces the target to reflexively do something but then they realize and reconsider? Cos the sound can trigger automatic reactions, but not actually mind-control someone or change their mind.
• A Charm which causes severe pain but no damage? Chinese water torture type, fingernails-on-blackboard pain.
• The last Charm solidifies sound itself in a kind of conjuration? Like Quicksilver Scribe's web of enchanted bronze runes.

Commentyboo on Ideas

In regards to the first idea, one of my Storytellers always had a rule along the lines of, "You can spend however many bonus points you want on character creation. But for every one that you spend above what the rules give you, I give the villains ten extra points to spend." Now, due to the ratio there, people very seldom took the offer -- mostly because if any one person in the group even thought about it, the rest would beat them down. The same ST (named Clayton) also usually allowed options such as, "Well, you can spend those 4 points on this Merit, or... you could take the Clayton Special." Without fail, I always took the Clayton Special, and it always lead to awesomeness. So yes, a mechanic like you outline is definitely worthwhile, and provides for a more interesting game.

For the second, some real life martial arts use clapping of the hands as a martial tactic. In one art I took, there was a technique which involved clapping your hands very loud just before or as you were performing a kick, to distract the opponent. So maybe one Charm could be supplemental, and increase the Difficulty of the opponent's roll to defend against your attack (or reduce their dice pool to do so). There is also the art of kiaijutsu (though that metaphysically involves the breath as much as using sound). You use shouting to make your blows stronger, to distract/disorient opponents, to overcome the effects of pain, and more.

As far as harmonics go, you could definitely use those to harm someone, the mechanics probably being similar to that of a Lunar Charm which causes damage by you roaring at your enemy. There is a real life instance of a factory's machinery working at a frequency that happened to be the exact resonant frequency of a chicken's skull, and chickens at a nearby chicken farm were dropping like flies. Took them forever to figure out what the problem was. ~Ghost 2005-11-07 22:41:37

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People who might want to eventually effectively play in one of my games would want to stop soonest ....

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Stuff My (Potential) Players Shouldn't Be Reading

... The Book of Sand: a potential artifact whose concept was filched from Jorge Luis Borges -- long-winded description:

• The Book of Sand is a large volume bound in dark material with simple gold lines on the spine and "Holy Writ" written in gold lettering. In the modern day "Holy Writ" is written in High Realm, but records indicate that during the First Age it was always written in the most common scholarly tongue of the time. If the examiner attempts to extrapolate its age, then she will come up with a publishing date of any random time since the beginning of time; if she examines it again, she will come up with a different random date. The same thing will happen if she attempts to identify the material the book is bound in. Only with 6+ successes on an Intelligence + Lore roll will she determine that the book is from no particular period and that it is made of no particular substance (i.e., that it is impossible to determine when or from what it was made).
• When opening the book, it is impossible to get to the first page or the last page. Every time one attempts to turn to the first page, pages simply end up being between one's hand and the cover; the same happens in the back. It is impossible to count the pages in the book; they are numbered, again in the most common numeric system of the time when it is read, with random numbers at the top of each page, which range in all the possible values of numbers, from decimals to fractions to powers to imaginary or negative numbers. One page may read 999, and the one facing it may read 1/5. There is no discernible rhyme or reason to this.
• In the margins of each page are small drawings, appearing to be doodles marked in pencil: they depict small objects -- a mirror, a masque, a coiled snake, anything. Each doodle is unique, and once the page is turned on a doodle, it will never be found again.
• The pages are written in an unidentifiable script which has always been foreign to anyone who attempted to read it. Any attempt to decipher this script, even if assisted with Charms that automatically succeed or attempted by a god whose domain is relevant, will automatically fail. There is an old and lost legend of a brilliant and obsessed Twilight Caste sorceress who is said to have spent three thousand years attempting to read the Book of Sand; she even came up with Charms specifically oriented towards the Book itself, none of which worked throughout the centuries until one day she disappeared and was never heard from again, the Book left lying innocuously upon her desk.
• Those who encounter the Book of Sand rarely simply put it down and walk away. It often leads to obsessions, attempts to catalogue or document it or decipher it. Some persevere until they die, but others are wise enough to eventually realize their own addiction and get rid of it in any way possible. It is not immune to harm; fire will burn it to ashes, a sword will slash it apart until the "old" pages disintegrate to dust. But every time it has been destroyed, no matter what it is that destroys it, it has reappeared elsewhere: a bazaar in Chiaroscuro, a library in Nexus -- someplace, of course, that seems to be completely random, although they are always places in which it is certain that someone will eventually find it. It is impossible to partially destroy the Book of Sand, and it is very fragile -- if someone say, rips out a page, that page will disintegrate soon, etc. Once any damage is done, it is certain to fall apart and reappear elsewhere.
• Once in a long while, someone will gain something from the Book of Sand -- an insight, new knowledge, or whatever. Whether this mechanically manifests itself in random dots of Abilities, Willpower, Virtues, whatever, or does nothing but bring dreams, or waking hallucinations, or whatever, is entirely at the Storyteller's discretion. Though a few who owned the Book of Sand noticed this, they were never capable of controlling it -- one cannot "ask" the Book of Sand for a dot of Larceny or Willpower, for example, and one cannot control what bonuses one gains, or how many there are. It has never driven anyone truly mad in this way, although the obsession some experience for it might be considered madness. Of course, the people who gain this are, once again, completely random.
• To any and all known Essence-analyzing magics, the Book of Sand is a book -- no more, no less.

I like the concept I stole for this artifact, but I'm not sure what else to do with it. I'm torn between thinking it's perfect and that it should have some point. As for what it actually is, I've considered everything from one of Gaia's souls (the equivalent of a Third Circle Demon) to a lost Primordial to a behemoth ... these all seem like such clichés, though. If anyone has any ideas for something further that this artifact should do, or be, please share.

... Spirits of the constellations (personification-type things). Sort of like Sidereals, only they don't have to be annoying like Sidereals are. Each spirit being a perfect representation of the stereotype as described under that constellation in the Resplendent Destiny bit (e.g. the personification of the Ewer carries a book of poems, is carefree and in love with life, etc).

• Sidereal game -- the spirits themselves come and take something up with the Sidereals. Do they answer to the Maidens? Can they take power away from the Sidereals? Can they actually force the Sidereals to bargain if necessary? Would do well as random mysterious figures for much of the game, especially amusing since any players would immediately assume them to be Sidereals using particularly stereotypical Resplendent Destinies.
• What happened to the spirit of The Mask? Maybe the spirits are mad at the Sidereals for what they did to The Mask? Maybe they want the Sidereals to restore it?

Commentyboo on Stuff Not For Players

Oooh. I really like that idea. Maybe the spirit of the Mask became twisted and lesser ... I'm picturing a sad looking woman in green veil after green veil, each one with holes worn in them. She's always crying quietly. --dissolvegirl

Nice description! Why green -- oh, Mask is under Secrets, right? Do you have any ideas of what kind of intrinsic powers the spirits of constellations might have, and what the Mask might have had taken away / destroyed?

~ Shataina

Check this out: Thus_Spake_Zaraborgstrom/SadIvoryDeath - Quendalon

Ever get the feeling that White Wolf writers have a tap on your brain?

~ Shataina