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Author Topic: Hacking the Storyteller System  (Read 26090 times)

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Hacking the Storyteller System
« Reply #120 on: June 08, 2021, 01:37:54 PM »
I was doing some thinking about Opening the Dark mechanics. The magic system is a descendant of Ars Magica and Mage: The Whatever. An interesting rule is that every character effectively has a 0th rank (which is somehow distinct from having no rank at all) in the "Dark Art," allowing them to cast spells if they have a dark artifact to provide a positive rank. This means that even muggles can cast dark art spells if they have a dark tome or whatever.

I was thinking of expanding this concept to, say, folk magic. This would, for example, allow characters to perform minor magical actions such as protection spells without needing to go overboard on things like vulnerabilities for magical creatures. I might want some nuance where not all ghosts are inherently warded by salt but still want a character to be able to use a circle of salt for protection. Substitute "salt" for any other apotropaic such as Buddhist prayers, brick dust, true faith, etc. It's easier to place all that stuff under the umbrella of "Folk Magic" rather than trying to account for all imaginable vulnerabilities in the monster entries.

Chris24601

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Re: Hacking the Storyteller System
« Reply #121 on: June 11, 2021, 07:43:41 PM »
I was doing some thinking about Opening the Dark mechanics. The magic system is a descendant of Ars Magica and Mage: The Whatever. An interesting rule is that every character effectively has a 0th rank (which is somehow distinct from having no rank at all) in the "Dark Art," allowing them to cast spells if they have a dark artifact to provide a positive rank. This means that even muggles can cast dark art spells if they have a dark tome or whatever.

I was thinking of expanding this concept to, say, folk magic. This would, for example, allow characters to perform minor magical actions such as protection spells without needing to go overboard on things like vulnerabilities for magical creatures. I might want some nuance where not all ghosts are inherently warded by salt but still want a character to be able to use a circle of salt for protection. Substitute "salt" for any other apotropaic such as Buddhist prayers, brick dust, true faith, etc. It's easier to place all that stuff under the umbrella of "Folk Magic" rather than trying to account for all imaginable vulnerabilities in the monster entries.
An even simpler method might be to include all things supernatural under the heading of “things affected by countermagic” and make countermagic a default ability of the Occult/Religion skill with “use methods appropriate to your religion or occult beliefs” as a prerequisite. So a devout Catholic doesn’t need salt to repel a ghost, just their crucifix or rosary or perhaps holy water (Catholic dogma basically links it all the dark supernatural back to demonic power so the same practices pretty much work on everything).

That also sparks a thought in me of the Nega-Psychic from Palladium whose innate psychic power was focused into their intense disbelief in such a way that they could cause supernatural things to NOT happen around them; the ghost doesn’t appear, the cult leader’s waving hands and invocations just prove he’s a crazy person who thought he could do magic.

I know you’ve got your own mechanics in mind, but you might want to see if you can’t dig up a copy of Palladium’s “Beyond the Supernatural” and perhaps the Nightbane books as there might be some concepts worth cribbing in terms of a less WoD focused game.

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Hacking the Storyteller System
« Reply #122 on: June 12, 2021, 06:04:14 PM »
I was doing some thinking about Opening the Dark mechanics. The magic system is a descendant of Ars Magica and Mage: The Whatever. An interesting rule is that every character effectively has a 0th rank (which is somehow distinct from having no rank at all) in the "Dark Art," allowing them to cast spells if they have a dark artifact to provide a positive rank. This means that even muggles can cast dark art spells if they have a dark tome or whatever.

I was thinking of expanding this concept to, say, folk magic. This would, for example, allow characters to perform minor magical actions such as protection spells without needing to go overboard on things like vulnerabilities for magical creatures. I might want some nuance where not all ghosts are inherently warded by salt but still want a character to be able to use a circle of salt for protection. Substitute "salt" for any other apotropaic such as Buddhist prayers, brick dust, true faith, etc. It's easier to place all that stuff under the umbrella of "Folk Magic" rather than trying to account for all imaginable vulnerabilities in the monster entries.
An even simpler method might be to include all things supernatural under the heading of “things affected by countermagic” and make countermagic a default ability of the Occult/Religion skill with “use methods appropriate to your religion or occult beliefs” as a prerequisite. So a devout Catholic doesn’t need salt to repel a ghost, just their crucifix or rosary or perhaps holy water (Catholic dogma basically links it all the dark supernatural back to demonic power so the same practices pretty much work on everything).

That also sparks a thought in me of the Nega-Psychic from Palladium whose innate psychic power was focused into their intense disbelief in such a way that they could cause supernatural things to NOT happen around them; the ghost doesn’t appear, the cult leader’s waving hands and invocations just prove he’s a crazy person who thought he could do magic.

I know you’ve got your own mechanics in mind, but you might want to see if you can’t dig up a copy of Palladium’s “Beyond the Supernatural” and perhaps the Nightbane books as there might be some concepts worth cribbing in terms of a less WoD focused game.
The OtD SRD doesn’t appear to have specific rules for “countermagic.” I would prefer not to make it a general part of the mundane skill list. Just because someone studies these things doesn’t mean they truly believe it. In retrospect, I find it rather odd that “The Art” is a separate statistic from the “Knowledge (Arcane Lore)” skill.

I’ll probably have to check those books out. I’ve been looking over BRP, Action!, and WitchCraft and thought it had some good ideas.

I’m writing a doc of various hacks I had for adding to or revising OtD. Most are basically replicating innovations from CoD1 and V5, such as removing Will ranks and requiring only a single successful die for standard actions. I should revise that and share it some time.

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Hacking the Storyteller System
« Reply #123 on: June 21, 2021, 10:16:05 AM »
I’m writing a doc of various hacks I had for adding to or revising OtD. Most are basically replicating innovations from CoD1 and V5, such as removing Will ranks and requiring only a single successful die for standard actions. I should revise that and share it some time.
Here's a link to that doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRjMbDl1lWGxo0o_OqDU0NDcGh-EDoYcNSsgI40Qge-des_KgbIjEs7Rb0DWxfInSqeyj1RjB47RCeE/pub

A lot of the hacks are rudimentary, so feel free to critique.

Most of these hacks are fairly simple mechanically, but the one that I have the most trouble with is the expanded rules for spirits. I wanted to provide a framework for GMs to create spirits while still offering a lot of leeway and not outright copying the rules from CoD (though you can easily convert rules from any edition of CoD if desired). Probably the biggest difference is that I made astral bodies a distinct power rather than the default and introduced hacks for RuneQuest spiritual combat and WitchCraft animism.