Anti-cult?

[Persell]

Please be aware that Cult is considered a flaw with varying levels.
Anti-Cult


0 - no one haets you, what kind of a pisspoor anathema, are you?


* - a small group of priests, perhaps a half dozen, have bribed some god to lay the hax on you. Every morning, when rolling conviction for willpower, subtract 1 die, down to a minimum of 1.


** - A large community/village or several small villages absolutely haets you. They've hired a bigger god for hire or several to deal with you. Subtract 1 die when rolling for willpower in the morning, down to a minimum of 1. The haet for you can be felt by you as you recover essence, when recovering essence, there is a penalty of 2 motes reduced for every hour of mote recovery.


*** - There are daily prayers to a mighty god to deal with you in a large community/town, or several smaller villages. Subtract 2 die when rolling for willpower in the morning, down to a minimum of 1. Every hour, you take a penalty of 3 motes reduction when recovering motes.


**** - You're doing REALLY good as an anathema now. An entire nation has prayers to various gods, spirits, elementals, demons and even ghosts to deal with YOU. In the morning, when rolling for willpower, you take an external penalty of 1 success to your conviction roll. Every hour, you take a penalty of 4 motes reduction when recovering motes.


***** - Dude, you've hit the BIG time, an entire region absolutely haets you. There is, in fact, an entire religion based on haeting you. With prayers going to any spiritual being capable of smacking you metaphysically. Your very name is a curse-word, and you are considered to be the next thing just under the Yozi Princes to haet and fear. In the morning, when rolling for willpower, you take an external penalty of 2 successes to your conviction roll. Every hour, you're looking at a penalty of 6 motes reduction towards your mote recovery.

I like that, but we don't use flaws. If/when the PCs develop powerful enough enemies that a cult of negativity (assuming I even use the rules) may be directed at them, it will have in-game causes and in-game means of dealing with it.

 

[Haku1]

It's a "flaw" only if you want to make it a flaw as in flaws/merits. Or you could just make it a normal background.

 

[Haku1]

I would also recommend that if you DO use this that the various anathema aka Solars and Lunars as is have the maximum of Anti-Cult directed at them. And when the IO is gone, -lift- the effect and inverse the penalties and make 'em bonuses to willpower and essence recovery.


Basically, their -NORMAL- essence and willpower recovery is somewhat more impressive than what is shown in the corebooks.

 

[Jukashi]

I do not know of anyone that would take it at character creation' date=' but I do know of a few players that may work towards it during play, probably by coordinating their own cult backgrounds.[/quote']
There ar only so many hours in the day that a mortal in Creation can spend directing prayer-essence about the place. Thus, they can choose to do only one of these: pray to you, giving you essence and willpower; Pray against your enemies, making them what amounts to bad luck; eventually die of starvation as you persuade them to do both, thus neglecting their own work; or give up and do none of the above.


If you've got a cult already, why don't you just go and use the essence and willpower they give you to mess with your enemy yourself? A few Social Charms will sabotage his Cult quite well, or if that's not your cup of tea, you can steal one of his artifacts, sabotage his Manse or just plain heave a big rock at him.

 

[Persell]

I would also recommend that if you DO use this that the various anathema aka Solars and Lunars as is have the maximum of Anti-Cult directed at them. And when the IO is gone, -lift- the effect and inverse the penalties and make 'em bonuses to willpower and essence recovery.
Basically, their -NORMAL- essence and willpower recovery is somewhat more impressive than what is shown in the corebooks.

Since you have to kjnow who you're targetting and it uses up a nation's worth of resource to drop anti-cult 5 on someone, it makes very little sense to me for every anathema in existence to suffer from even a single dot, much less 5.

 

[Persell]

There ar only so many hours in the day that a mortal in Creation can spend directing prayer-essence about the place. Thus, they can choose to do only one of these: pray to you, giving you essence and willpower; Pray against your enemies, making them what amounts to bad luck; eventually die of starvation as you persuade them to do both, thus neglecting their own work; or give up and do none of the above.

This is correct. If they're using their cult to screw with their enemies, they won't be gaining the enhanced willpower and essence recovery themselves.

If you've got a cult already, why don't you just go and use the essence and willpower they give you to mess with your enemy yourself? A few Social Charms will sabotage his Cult quite well, or if that's not your cup of tea, you can steal one of his artifacts, sabotage his Manse or just plain heave a big rock at him.

You can't always reach your enemy immediately. If he's a long way away, this can be used as one of many methods to slow his growth before you get there.


Also, my games tend to have the PCs wanting to do fifty things at once: train, fight demon X, fight the dragon bloods, install a friend on the blessed throne, track down solar/lunar allies, politic with friends and enemies, push back the wyld, repair an ancient factory cathedral, find manses to power their first age toys, etc., etc. Sometimes going after a specific enemy hits the back burner but you still want to interfere with their plans as much as you can.

 

[Persell]

Jumping in kinda late in the discussion, it would be neat as a modified version of Taboo in the Lunar book.  Essentially, the concentrated fear and hatred FEED you essence and willpower instead of taking it away, but as a result it imposes wierd rules upon you, based on the ignorant folklore that's grown around your imposing legend.  Crossing water, spitting at a certain sound, repulsion from certain icons, etc etc.  You'd still get essence, probably more of it (for balance sake), but it comes with a drawback.


This way, you can come up with a realistic reason why someone might actually cultivate such a background, you don't need to add flaws if you dont want to use them, you keep the rough idea intact and add a little bit of neat personality to your characters rather than just subtracting numeric values.

 

[Persell]

That could work, but it changes the idea. I want it to be an offensive background, not a buff.

 

[Jukashi]

You can take elements from that idea, though. What if, instead of the generic suck-away-Cult or bad luck effects that you have now, you instead twist their essence through your hate, thereby giving them Flaws? Supernatural Flaws, mostly, perhaps a dot worth per level of the anti-cult.


For example, you could give someone that anima flaw (i.e. they have no personal essence pool anymore, it's all peripheral), or perhaps Unholy (they register as a Creature of Darkness, and holy symbols either shatter in their presence or suck away their willpower). Another option is that the the hate could give them a subtle unsettling aura, functioning as the Disturbing Flaw. And, if you like, you can just plain give them the Bad Luck Flaw.


Even better; channel those Flaws through your (anti-)Cult. Whenever they come near the holy symbol of the cult, it sucks away their essence and willpower if they stay near it. Or, if you have for example Golden Janissery Stylists in your cult, their Holy attacks now treat your enemy as a Creature of Darkness. That's way more interesting.

 

[Persell]

I like it. Are there 2e flaws somewhere? If not, what 1e book are they in?

 

[Jukashi]

They've been referenced in 2e stat blocks, but they aren't properly out yet. They were in the 1e Player's Guide.

 

[Solfi]

<snip> I don't care about canon. At least' date=' not enough to let it negatively impact my crativity and fun.[/quote']

For you' date=' it apparently isn't. Given that, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to convince you that it's fun. For me it's fun because it offers more options, and I'm a huge fan of versatility.[/quote']
Ignoring the fact that this seems highly unbalacing what with the general proliferation of worship among mortals, as well as the resources the Immaculate Order has at its disposal, this hardly seems like any kind of fun.


Used against *enemies* it feels highly unspecific. Used against you (as a player) it seems highly unspecific and fucking annoying. How do you get rid of that? You fight an entire Cult? That's at least a Story arc right there. One that you as the ST would have to work hard at to make any kind of interesting (seems like a boring sidetrack/speedbump to me).


Glancing at the thread briefly I thought this sounded like a bad idea metaphysically (I'm with Jukashi on the nature of spontaneous Essence-flows), game balance-wise , and creatively, but reading Lord Ben's suggestion actually made it sound like fun!


There you have a specific enemy to work against. One that could potentially be an interesting reappearing foe in your Chronicle. Why convolute things with this whole prayer-mess?


But for the sake of discussion:


Personally, I think a person's Essence pattern has some sort of cohesion, which means that trying to *remove* a person's personal essence stores would constitute some form of attack (same as any Abyssal Essence-sucking Charm for instance). Which means some sort of resistance would be in order (as has been suggested earlier). Perhaps this would be a social attack of some form (*sigh* yay for invoking Social rules at an unspecific foe).


Another option would be thinking of the attack as diverting 'Essence in transit' from the target's usual flow of worship. This is another idea I don't particularly like in a metaphysical sense. I'd like to think the laws of Essence and their flows followed some form of absolutes, so as not to create too many 'exception to the rule'. This idea would also mean that any negative effects piled onto a target without any Cult background would be counterintuitive.


Also, with any form of resolution handling needed, how often would one make this resolution? And think of the bookkeeping (this is your *normal* flow of Essence. This is what you have *now*. You may make another resistance attempt at *that* time).


...It's a frickin' unsightly mess any way you look at it.

 

[Persell]

I'm looking at it as sort of a psychic static generator. That static is capable of negating essence flows whose patterns are very close to its own (i.e. positive aspected essence directed at the same person). Any remaining static interferes with the target's base ties to creation, resulting in a karmic downswing (if I go the botch route) or other uncontrolled negative effects (if I go the flaw route).

 

[Persell]

What about something along the lines of a Sorcery spell?  Something along the lines of:


Corrupted Words of Prayer


Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, 20m


The effects of this spell temporarily poison the wellspring of essence generated by worship by intermingling carefully crafting sorcerous curses into the prayers of the faithful.  The target of this spell must have a cult rating and the caster must be within (essence) miles of an area relevant to the cult for this spell to work.  Upon the casting of this spell, the caster rolls (Charisma + Occult) with a difficulty equal to the victim's permanent essence rating.  Being in the physical presence of a major temple or relic of the target provides a variable bonus to this roll (only the highest applies) and having an arcane link to the target automatically grants a +2 to this roll, regardless of any other bonuses.  Provided that the caster is successful, the essence generated by the victim's cult rating is poisoned for a number of days equal to (Caster's Essence - the Cult rating of the victim).


Each time the victim receives essence from his cult rating, he suffers a number of dice of lethal damage equal to (Caster's Essence - Target's Cult) plus the successes remaining from the spell roll.  Armor does not apply to this damage and charms that increase soak may only be applied if the victim spends a willpower in addition to the normal cost of the charm.  


The spell is completely undetectable until the first time the target takes damage via this spell.  When first damaged, though, the target may make a (Wits + Occult) roll at a difficulty equal to the caster's essence.  If this roll is successful, the caster may choose to cut themselves off temporarily from their cult, thus negating both the positive effects of the cult and the negative effects of this spell.  If the target fails, they may attempt this roll each further time they take damage from this spell.  If the target is successful in cutting themselves off from the cult the spell will continue to build (accruing a "charge" each time it the character would have normally received essence from their cult rating) until either the spell expires or the target reconnects with their cult via another (wits + occult) roll, with the same difficulty.  If they reconnect, any "charges" accrued immediately do damage, though the target must wait an hour for the essence from their cult rating to benefit them.


The target cannot normally know when this spell has expired, but charms such as All Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight may allow a (Perception + Occult) at a difficulty equal to the caster's Essence to determine whether the spell is still in effect.  If this roll fails, the target must wait an hour to try again.  Any rolls made at a difficulty equal to the caster's Essence automatically drop to 1 when the spell does expire, though neither the target nor their player need know this.

 

[Persell]

That's cool, but way different than what I'm looking for. I want the system to hamper people, not kill them.

 

[Persell]

That's the problem, James - you want to hamper people.  This, to me, sounds like a way for an ST to suck his players' WP dry with there being very little they can do about it.  And that's dumb because players are going to hate any ST who uses this mechanic, and rightfully so.


I think that if enough people prayed against an Exalted or god, it would gain the notice of Heaven, and one of the gods up there would quickly step up and say, "Pray to me and I'll make sure they don't bother you."  They then themselves gain the benefits of the cult.  Whether they actually do it or not doesn't matter as long as the cult believes that the god does just that.


Therefore, if an Exalted has a cult, and a different cult opposes that Exalted, that different cult would just pray to a champion to bolster them to take on the Exalted.  The cults don't directly negate each other, but they can do so indirectly.


Don't implement this.  Ever.  Trust me.  No good will ever come from something like this.  Unless you want to never play with your players again.

 

[Haku1]

James, listen to us.


We're, in effect, telling you that's a bad idea (which you disagree with), give you ideas and alternatives to stay on topic (which you viewed with suspicious). I really don't know what more you want, really.


If you wish to run an effect like this, you've got to work out the pros and cons. As well as work out WHY you want this, and if your players will want it.


As an ST and a player, I wouldn't use something like this as it's too vague, it's not clearly defined. Nothing for your players to strive against beyond, "oh yeah... some cult is out against you, putting the mojo on you".


You can't croak some god, and do you HONESTLY want to open the can of worms of killing an entire population that HATES you?


Because that only makes them RIGHT and people will fear you even more, a vicious circle.


Use charms to "change their minds?", again people will be pointing fingers. And believe me, a solar CAN destroy/remake a religion/society with silly ease if they want to and they have the right charms.

 

[Haku1]

>_>


<_<


Amusing parellel thread on the WW forum.


http://forums.white-wolf.com/viewtopic.php?t=60500

 

[Persell]

Nice find ^^


Actually... I am so going to steal hls explanation of metaphysics for the next time I run a game of siddies (which is in autumn ^^ yay siddies book!).

 

[Persell]

That's the problem, James - you want to hamper people.  This, to me, sounds like a way for an ST to suck his players' WP dry with there being very little they can do about it.  And that's dumb because players are going to hate any ST who uses this mechanic, and rightfully so.

Actually, it's a way for players or NPC to suck their enemies' willpower up to five times per story. That's far from "sucking them dry." Your players may hate you for it, mine don't mind adversity that generates stories.

 

[Persell]

We're, in effect, telling you that's a bad idea (which you disagree with), give you ideas and alternatives to stay on topic (which you viewed with suspicious). I really don't know what more you want, really.

There've been a couple suggestions I've taken and one (the "give the target flaws" one that I think sounds really cool but have to investigate more. That's what I'm looking for in this thread: ways to make this work. If I later decide to flush it that's fine, but I won't flush it just because a bunch of people don't like it, I have to see that it's actually unworkable.

If you wish to run an effect like this, you've got to work out the pros and cons. As well as work out WHY you want this, and if your players will want it.

I've answered that several times. What else do you want to know that hasn't been covered already?

As an ST and a player, I wouldn't use something like this as it's too vague, it's not clearly defined. Nothing for your players to strive against beyond, "oh yeah... some cult is out against you, putting the mojo on you".

Of course the negacult itself is vague. If it's too specific then it's not going to be useful in multiple situations. It's the who and why part that makes the story, not the underlying mechanics.

You can't croak some god, and do you HONESTLY want to open the can of worms of killing an entire population that HATES you?

First, I see negacults the size of nations as an insanely rare thing. Second, there are a lot more ways of dealing with one then killing every man, woman, and shild who swings by the ritual rooms every day.

Use charms to "change their minds?", again people will be pointing fingers. And believe me, a solar CAN destroy/remake a religion/society with silly ease if they want to and they have the right charms.

See, there's a way right there. It's not the only way, and as you point out it has drawbacks, but it could work. There are much simpler ways though, such as killing the leader and disrupting the organization enough so it falls apart, killing the thaumaturge(s), developing occult defenses, custom counter charms, petitions to Yu-Shan, hunt down and kill the god of negacults, and more.

 

[Persell]

Immaculate order -> Bull of the north. Nationwide negacult. Right there in canon. And the immaculate order could easily sprout hate sermons about any known anathema. There you go. It can be incredibly common.

 

[Persell]

Actually' date=' it's a way for players or NPC to suck their enemies' willpower up to five times per story. That's far from "sucking them dry." Your players may hate you for it, mine don't mind adversity that generates stories.[/quote']
I dunno man, I think you're either overestimating your ability to pull a fast one of your players or overestimating the gullability of your players.  Players like adversity when it's clever and clear - they don't tend to appretiate the ST dreaming up random rules to screw them over.  I've known plenty of GMs who've pulled tricks like this with huge amount of glee at how evil it was and how much their players luuuuuvved it, totally oblivious to how their players groan in agony whenever you even mention the scenario.


And yeah, I do feel, reading through this, that general concensus runs against the idea, but hey, it's up to you to do what you feel is best for your own game.  I gotta say though that I love adversity in games, but the the thought of dealing with this mechanic as a player doesn't blow my skirt up - for much of the same reasons that have been said before; it's vague and unclearly defined, it's kinda superfluous/redundant since it thematically deals with things already dominated by the whole IO/Anathema/Wyld-Hunt thing, it doesn't seem to clearly fit within the metaphysical concepts of the game, and it lacks any flare to make it viciously enjoyable and truly dastardly... in its current conceptual form it feels too minor to feel like a real threat but not serious enough to be anything more than an irritance.  It feels like a hacked-in mechanic mainly meant to sap numbers from a pool of resources.


Players can (and should be able to) tolerate a lot of abuse, but a few core things should always be in place for ad hoc mechanics like this - it needs to fit into the story/world, it needs to add something neat to the character for whatever it takes away, it needs to be reversable or exploitable (provided your players are smart enough), and it needs to make the game better as a whole.  What does this mechanic add to the world besides just an extra mechanic?

 

[Persell]

I'll have to disagree with your assessment of my players, and cite my having played with the same guys for almost a decade as backup.


I'm confused by your use of phrases like "pull a fast one" and "gullibility of your players." What part of the situation makes you think of it as a con or scam?

It feels like a hacked-in mechanic mainly meant to sap numbers from a pool of resources.

It's main purpose is to hamper, through either botcher or flaws. That Cult can act as a shield is a benefit of Cult, not the primary thrust of the mechanic.

What does this mechanic add to the world besides just an extra mechanic?

I've already answered this question in general terms several times. Is there anything more specific you'd like to know, or aspects of your question that those previous responses didn't cover?

 

[Lord Ben]

How would you even use it in a game?  With context and all that.  Beause everything you've said when put into my game would be lame due to the fact that the Realm hates anathema and could quickly smoosh people with anti prayers.  And the gods of corruption, death, decay, etc would all not exist as powerful gods.


So give an example of how you'd use this mechanic to make a game more interesting.