How to learn about the curse?

[Flyck]

That was Supes' flaw, in my mind. Kryptonite was pretty much the only thing that affected him. It got old after a while. Superman is an imminently boring character precise because he is so perfect. There's nothing interesting about him. That's why Batman is so much more interesting - he has human frailties that make him a bit more accessible.

Ding!  My thoughts exactly.

 

[FluffySquirrel]

Not any of these then?

 

[Vanman]

If he actually did any of those things, then that would be one thing. But he never did. Those covers were incentives to buy the book. Except for purhaps the eating one - which doesn't actually endanger anyone - none of the other ones will actually happen in the book itself. So I repeat - Superman. YAWN!

 

[Kremlin KOA]

I think the positions are pretty entrenched right now. I for myself think, that kremlin and zombie cat are interpreting the rules wrong, as shown in the fact, that kremlin's whole aregumentation was based on the very false assumption, that you gain new vices which you never had before upon exaltation. Taken that away from his example it crumbles and is easily seen as unlogical attempt to break the system.
Still, if we want to have a solution at the end, we need to organize the discussion again. So I propose that zombie cat (who has shown a greater rules understanding than kremlin and less of a tendency to completely arbitrary houserules) proposes a character concept, with a virtue flaw and the virtue spread, afterwards we all, discuss the concept, its viablity and adherence to the rules and what it means for the game when we abstract away from the concept towards canon "fluff" and rules.

you mean i house ruled that you did not have the flaw in any way before exaltation


so that means your copy does not have a page 81? with a sidebar about the things you add to a mortal character sheet at exaltation? the bit which explicitly states that a mortal does not have the traits in or associated with a virtue flaw


whoops my copy must have extra pages

It states that you choose a virtue flaw upon exaltation, NOT that you randomly gain vices you did not have before.

yes you have vices


but you are temperance 5, you have about a 7.8% chance of succumbing to one


then you go from tht to succumbing, up to 3 or 4 times a month, to not only your vices, but to any vice that might be around, regrdless of yoru usul desire for such.


During Overindulgence you will engage in vices you would nto normally consider,


Looking at our teetotaller monk, let's give him a weakness for dice from his acolyte years... this is a simple vice that he believes to be wrong, but used to indulge in.


since getting to temperance 5 he does so much less often now, like maybe annually


he becomes a solar and gains the overindulgence flaw.


now this monk has a weakness for dice, but not for the other usual vices


now fast forward


long sea voyage, since sailors dice our Monk has ben sorely tempted, he is now at limit 9


he enters an inn for a room. In this inn he sees a group of soldiers... playing dice.


He rolls temperance, and scores some successes (doesn't matter how many)


LIMIT BREAK.


This teetotaling virgin sits down at the table, and uses social charms to be allowed to join in the dice game.


The barmaid comes over and offers him a drink. He takes in a mug of whiskey.


When she brings the mug over, he fondles her ass and pulls her into his lap, using social charms ot make her like him.


The charms, usually used to teach people about righteousness, now serve to get her top off in the public bar.


One mug of whiskey later he heads up to a room with barmaid in tow and 2 bottles of whiskey.


Barmaid's hubby hears about this and storms up to the room to kill him.


Being a lover, not a fighter (at least, at the moment) he uses heart compelling method to change the hubby;s rage into lust and have him join the fun.


A couple hours later the Barmaid's 10 year old daughter returns from playing with her friends.


The more the merrier?


Aww she has a pet doggy...


arf arf ARF!!!!


Sometime the next day thsi monk comes to his senses and flees the tow to work out what happened


Remember ALL vices are desired during overindulgence, not merely the ones you normally go for.


also you WILL commit crimes if that is what it takes to slake your appetites


theft, rape, serious sexual deviancy, murder, all justified by by your need for a 'fix'

 

[Charon]

The bottom line is that outside of personal preferences, absolutely nothing in the rules prevent you from creating a character whose virtue flaw will be in opposition to his normal persona instead of an exageration of it.  


That's enough for such a character to start asking the right question, is all I'm saying.


Boy has this thread taken a tangeant.


150+ post and so far the best solution to the initial query is looking up Lytek.  


What about a young Sideral who starts asking tough questions, like :


"How the hell were we so certain creation would endure if we removed the Solars from the equation when we made the prophecy?  Our astrology can't include the actions of the Undead, the Fair Folk and the Yozis.  The three worst enemy of creation are outside of our purview and still we're 100% sure about a prediction that involve creation survival when basic logic skill should tell us these are exactly the kind of prediction we can never be sure of.  What's up with this.  If I know this, why the heck Chejak can't figure out the high likelyhood of such a prophecy being innacurate?  Especially after the Contagion that we din't see coming damn near proved us wrong."


Siderals have access to a lot of information.  A young firebrand who is breaking with traditional politics could provide much crucial information to Solars.  I have such a Sideral NPC in my campaign, I could use him.

 

[Persell]

@Kremlin: Please read the rules again properly. The scenario you proposed would not happen that way, because neither are a few games of dice overindulging when you got nothing else to do, like for example you are on a ship, nor are you "passing up your favourite vice IN ORDER TO ACT IN A MORAL WAY" when you pass up on dice games or drinking when you got nothing else to do. So, your solar on that voyage would accumulate no limit at all. Really, read the rules and don't read things into them which you want to see for your arguement. I told you that only a couple of pages ago and yet you start the very same arguement again, after you have been proven wrong.


@Charon: Yes, I agree with you, a limit break which is a diametral opposite to his usual self is indeed a great roleplaying tool, just like any other extreme can be. What I disagree is, that from this "snapping" it should be possible just with logic that there is something wrong with the shards that can be fixed, i.e. some sort of ancient curse.


I think revealing the curse for what it is, is either focus of a campaign or something you set a character concept on, like for example, the twilight social engineer who wants to make the second age a truly golden age and wants to find out what went wrong in the first place. So he loads up on sociazlie, lore, occult and investigation and digs and digs and digs and while others conquer nations, he conquers shard theories. That is epic and worthy of the great curse.


The great curse is the one truth which can shatter any society based on exalts, it should not come cheap.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

@Kremlin: Please read the rules again properly. The scenario you proposed would not happen that way, because neither are a few games of dice overindulging when you got nothing else to do, like for example you are on a ship, nor are you "passing up your favourite vice IN ORDER TO ACT IN A MORAL WAY" when you pass up on dice games or drinking when you got nothing else to do. So, your solar on that voyage would accumulate no limit at all. Really, read the rules and don't read things into them which you want to see for your arguement. I told you that only a couple of pages ago and yet you start the very same arguement again, after you have been proven wrong.

And if you are a monk of an order that sees gambling as immoral?


at that point any dice gaming is against your temperance


is it so hard for you to understand that other people have different moral ideals than you? that those with high temperance might hold themselves to a higher moral standard?

 

[Persell]

Kremlin, how long do you want to whine around and break your neck trying to score a point?


You specifically narrow and narrow this down to a point where you think the rules mechanic will break, you don't reach the point and childishly push on and on.


Furthermore I was speaking of the temperance condition, that specifically excludes morals for morals sake.

 

[Persell]

And if you are a monk of an order that sees gambling as immoral?

Sure, you could do that. You'd be limit breaking left and right, but you haven't broken the game because obviously that's what you wanted for the character to begin with, or else you wouldn't have chosen the combination of "must overindulgen" and "overindulgence is immoral." What you've done is found a way for the game to help you play the character you wanted to play.

 

[Dracogryff]

What about a young Sideral who starts asking tough questions, like :
"How the hell were we so certain creation would endure if we removed the Solars from the equation when we made the prophecy?  Our astrology can't include the actions of the Undead, the Fair Folk and the Yozis.  The three worst enemy of creation are outside of our purview and still we're 100% sure about a prediction that involve creation survival when basic logic skill should tell us these are exactly the kind of prediction we can never be sure of.  What's up with this.  If I know this, why the heck Chejak can't figure out the high likelyhood of such a prophecy being innacurate?  Especially after the Contagion that we din't see coming damn near proved us wrong."

Kind of amusing to see this. The one long term Sid I played was asking just those questions. Of course, she was ronin, so didn't really have access to Yu Shan or the other Sidereals (as a matter of fact,  she viewed them as just as having become just as corrupt as the Solars they sought to 'save' creation from in the first place), though she did have an awesome first age library, and was trying to figure out how the batshit crazy Solars described at the end of the first age tally with the two or three (the third's sanity was debatable...he'd been played with by the fae) relatively sane Solars that were currently living in her city. It was interesting. She hadn't come up with any ideas that it was a curse on the shards...she was actually thinking that maybe the shards were the curse...or that just having such a long lifespan was the problem. Watching everyone you care about die, as well as their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and further while you still look and feel sixteen probably isn't that good for mental stability.


Of course, she was also studying Necromancy (Iron Countermagic is always handy) and the underworld's astrology...at least she didn't have illusions that being able to read the stars made her infallible. Having a gate to Malefeas open up on the first floor of her library kind of ends that real quick. 'Twas fun making a ward holding it shut into part of the architecture of the Manse...but that's another tangent.


Probably the two best ways to find out about the curse are Lytek or Autocthon, if you can not only find him, but wake him up too. So Lytek's the best bet. Another is possibly managing to get the gods off their crack addiction to the games and paying attention to the world again would get them to notice it...odds are Secrets and Luna are already aware of it, though. Nobody's asked either of them, and the former hoards her knowledge like jewels (considering that's her job) while the latter is too chaotic to be reliable. Luna's probably also waiting to see if any of her chosen has the balls to ask her why they go batshit crazy under the moon instead of just assuming she wanted it that way. She does like people who can think for themselves, instead of assuming she'll do things for them, after all.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

Kremlin, how long do you want to whine around and break your neck trying to score a point?
You specifically narrow and narrow this down to a point where you think the rules mechanic will break, you don't reach the point and childishly push on and on.


Furthermore I was speaking of the temperance condition, that specifically excludes morals for morals sake.

Rules mechanic break?


ummm


go back over my posts, I don't believe the mechanic is broken


I believe it is a perfectly working mechanic to represent an unnatural psychological flaw that is beyond mortal


I just don't see how you see the limit break as a minor bender, but the triggering condition as a serious drunkeness.


maybe you should look up the meaning of temperance sometime.

 

[Flyck]

On the tangent of the young siddie asking questions, my understanding is their curse is of course their arrogance and belief in their self/justification of actions.  You know what I mean.  Even a young firebrand will immeadiately begin ignoring any facts that go against her thoughts or ideas.  God help her when she joins a group of different siddies who see somewhat likewise.  Tough to roleplay properly, but honestly the only Siddie I could see who would actually start asking questions, is one who never gets a mentor, sifu, or joins a faction.

 

[Persell]

Kremlin, how long do you want to whine around and break your neck trying to score a point?
You specifically narrow and narrow this down to a point where you think the rules mechanic will break, you don't reach the point and childishly push on and on.


Furthermore I was speaking of the temperance condition, that specifically excludes morals for morals sake.

Rules mechanic break?


ummm


go back over my posts, I don't believe the mechanic is broken


I believe it is a perfectly working mechanic to represent an unnatural psychological flaw that is beyond mortal


I just don't see how you see the limit break as a minor bender, but the triggering condition as a serious drunkeness.


maybe you should look up the meaning of temperance sometime.

Ok, let me word that differently: you narrow it down and down until the mechanics swing in your favour, which for 99% of all character concepts they don't.

 

[The zombie cat]

There are a lot of character concepts that result in limit breaks that are noticeably out of character. True the more extreme intense are given but the examples you have suggested are just as extreme in the other direction. The only moderate example so fare suggested was the pit fighter that has over indulgence as a flaw, alcohol as a favored vice but dosnt consider it immoral to have a few drinks when there is no pressure to perform.


That example wont result in limit breaks all that often but when they do the actions will still be out of character in terms of using harder drugs, if the limit break coincides with some important duty that he wouldn’t normally refuse his behavior becomes even more concerning.


Can you work out from this that there is something wrong with the shard, defiantly not.


Can you work out that there is something wrong with you. Probably.


Now when you observe several other solars undergoing similarly extreme behavior (solar PCs travel in groups) and you realize that they are all undergoing mood swings that they never suffered as mortals the only logical conclusion is that the exaltation is in some way involved. In what way it is involved you can not say but you can infer that its involved.


I do think Kremlin takes the information a bit lightly having in my game insisted he can work out this much from 2 limit breaks observed during the game nether of which was drastically out of character and one of which lasted less than 10 seconds.


Edward

 

[Ned]

but deep down each one will somehow know that they completely lost control.
and that can be used as a stepping stone for them to find out about the curse

I reiterate:


All of your concepts are about someone who never did something before exalting. Gamble, drank, over-ate, beat people up, stopped caring. All of these things are something normal people to do relieve stress. At least, that's what it might seem like to the character and anyone observing him.


After exalting and succumbing to more stress then any other human, or being unable to take in the perfection granted by the shard, your character snaps and "tries out" something that he witnessed someone doing to relive stress.


After doing this, they fell much better. Just like the normal people who do this feel when they go out on binges.


Feeling crap -> went mad -> felt better. Therefore, going mad makes me feel better! Feeling better is a good thing! Going mad is a good thing! Those people who go mad to feel better were on to something! But, I am temperence 5 and I still look down upon these actions, so I will try to cope without these for as long as I can untill I truly need them again.


In other words, the temperence 5 character may feel a little guilty over his actions, and try to restrain himself. But he cannot deny that it made him feel better, and that it is a common technique used by people for ages to feel better. Whether the strain for his new life coupled with his inability to truly grasp the perfection of the shard can be unknown to the character, but with the overwhelming evidence in favour of his human nature and not the shard being the problem he would just assume that he is the problem.


The conbination of feeling better afterwards and that they are all observed in normal people to a lesser degree is simply too much evidence in favour of humans being the problem. Using any sort of raw logic, one cannot blame the shard itself. It needs to be told to them, or stumbled upon while directly examining a shard.

Now when you observe several other solars undergoing similarly extreme behavior (solar PCs travel in groups) and you realize that they are all undergoing mood swings that they never suffered as mortals the only logical conclusion is that the exaltation is in some way involved. In what way it is involved you can not say but you can infer that its involved.

Again, all these people have two things in common: they were all mortal humans and they all exalted. As explained in the rest of my post, peforming actions some mortals do to relieve stress will only give more strength to the "it's our human bits' fault."


The first time someone with an out of character flaw limit breaks, yes, they will find it odd. But after successive limit breaks and thinking about the cause, the fault of their human selves will overshadow the chance that the shard is messed up.


The logic only approach will only point the wrong way.

 

[Flyck]

I still think that Limit Breaks for the most part should be in character.  If you've got a Temperance 5 monk / priest who refuses to drink, gamble, or party...  then perhaps Overindulgence is a bad choice for your break.  And while funny as it may be, the Mother Hen limit break simply doesn't make sense for the Full Moon death-machine.  IMHO, taking bizzare and out of character limit breaks in hopes of being able to rationalize how your character may learn about the Great Curse, is a bit lame.

 

[Charon]

The conbination of feeling better afterwards and that they are all observed in normal people to a lesser degree is simply too much evidence in favour of humans being the problem.

To you.  Only to you.


A Solar with berserk anger engage in bouts of rage that are so far outside anything a mere human would do that to rationalize it as merely being your normal self with a bit more intensity is entirely your choice and hardly the only or even normal, conclusion.  Many like to bury their head in the sand but it's hardly the only possible reaction.


Anyone who decideds instead that it's not his fault but is a result of the exaltation would be doing something that is just as natural as blaming alcohol or drug for your problem.


---

I still think that Limit Breaks for the most part should be in character.  If you've got a Temperance 5 monk / priest who refuses to drink, gamble, or party...    

Enough with the monk already.  Much better example have been given since then.


The Hercules archetype for example (High Valor, Berserk Anger flaw, high compassion).

 

[Persell]

The conbination of feeling better afterwards and that they are all observed in normal people to a lesser degree is simply too much evidence in favour of humans being the problem.

To you.  Only to you.

No, not only to him. The designers of this game thought of it exactly as he does. Look at the suggestions they have for campaigns revolving around the great curse in for example in the first edition sidereals book.


It says finding the curse is an epic undertaking worthy of a chronicle all by itself. So, Ned is, contrary to you, spot on about the great curse.

 

[Persell]

Anyone who decideds instead that it's not his fault but is a result of the exaltation would be doing something that is just as natural as blaming alcohol or drug for your problem.

Even if that is the case, it's still a big leap from "my exaltation is messing with me" to "my shard is cursed."

 

[Charon]

For the upteenth time, I never said you'd figure the shard is cursed that way.  Just that something is wrong with you since exaltation and that would starts you in the right direction.

It says finding the curse is an epic undertaking worthy of a chronicle all by itself.

When did I say it wouldn't be epic?


Damn, I sugested looking up demons of the third circle as a way to gain some understanding.  Raiding Autochton and look up either sacred text (or if that's not enough, get answers from autochton himself).  Lytek has been suggested as a source of info.  I find it a good idea, but you still need to access Yu-Shan and obtain an audience.  Or perhaps explore the Labyrinth and pry answers from the neverborn.


And then to cure it.  I suggested perhaps a third circle spell that would involve trek into the depth Malfeas or the Underworld in order to design it.


Where do you get the idea that any of it is easy?


The wole point of the tread was to suggest ways to find out the truth about the Great curse, starting from the premise that you figured something was wrong with you.  


I keep getting response in the format of : "It's impossible to figure something is wrong with you just by the fact that you sometime act completely crazy (Slaughter or a whole tavern, spend a whole day crying etc.)" and "It's not epic to find out about the curse this way".  


Considering the first, I really don't give a damn anymore.  I have characters in my campaign that suspect something is wrong with them due to the curse forcing them to do things they profondly regret and fearing that there will be more of it in the future despite their best effort to avoid it.  That's that.


Considering the second, if they are to undertake epic actions to find the truth, they must start to get the belief that "The Truth is out There".  Then you start the epic journey.  Again, the whole point of the damn thread was asking opinions on how you'd find more about the curse.  Go ahead and make epic suggestion.


The naysayer are getting really unproductive and have nothing to do with the OP anyway.


---


I'm using a troupe style of campaign with many PCs played by 4 players.  One PC is a brillant Wood Dragon exalted doctor.  He is close from learning Madness-Analyzing stare (Next session) and use it to kickstart even more the quest to discover the great curse (Which will be the focus of 4 of the 16 PCs in the troupe).  Of course, Madness-Analyzing stare can't diagnose the great curse.  But drawing a blank reveals information in itself.  


That Wood Dragon Blooded PC is a close friend to the Solar with Berserk Anger who initiated the soul searching in the troupe.  That PC is convinced there is something wrong with his friend (A berserk Solar doesn't look very sane any way you cut it).  When his charm turns up nothing, he'll abandon mundane madness theory and start working seriously on something beyond that.  From that point it is legitimate to start suspecting curses from the big Five (Gods, Primordials, Undead, Siderals and Fair Folk) as possible theories.  If you persist on believing in an external cause to the madness, these are the only groups that conceivably could be responsible for a mental disease that the Madness-Analyzing stare can't discern.

 

[Flyck]

Enough with the monk already.  Much better example have been given since then.


The Hercules archetype for example (High Valor, Berserk Anger flaw, high compassion).

Dead Horse!  Must Beat!  DIE DEAD HORSE, DIE!

 

[Persell]

I know you said it would be epic, but you got mixed in with those other two who at first very valiantly defended their ability to "logically" derive the great curse from a couple of limit breaks, though zombie cat seems to have seen the light or had seen it from the beginning on. So, don't take the non epic stuff as too serious an attack.


Oh, btw. there are no sacred texts in big A containing information about the cursed exaltations. Big A would have to figure that out when he is back, at least according to 1st edition canon.

 

[Flyck]

Safim's right on Auto's knowledge of the Abyssals.  He may be able to derive a "cure", but not until he's online again, returns, and actually sees one.  That's also assuming he actually decides to.  For all anyone knows, he might see an Abyssal and say 'Hmm... neat!', and leave them be.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

I still think that Limit Breaks for the most part should be in character.  If you've got a Temperance 5 monk / priest who refuses to drink, gamble, or party...  then perhaps Overindulgence is a bad choice for your break.  And while funny as it may be, the Mother Hen limit break simply doesn't make sense for the Full Moon death-machine.  IMHO, taking bizzare and out of character limit breaks in hopes of being able to rationalize how your character may learn about the Great Curse, is a bit lame.

So you ban that flaw?


because Temperance 5 characters do not indulge in anything to any great extent


not without spending willpower

 

[Persell]

Read. the. rules.