When I created this character, I was asking if I had any powers I considered to be magical. I've had visions from God, I've had God talk to me, and I've had some pretty amazing experiences with God. Would these count as having done "Magic Spells" previously? Should I add that to my character sheet that I had that before I versed?
I was praying once, for proof that God was real, and He made the wind blow. Would that be indirect control of the weather?
I've had a vision from God, several of them actually, but only one before I versed. What would that be?
I've had God give me driving directions once, and another time, I couldn't sleep, and God clearly spoke to me.
Should I put these in my sheet? If you would like to hear the full stories on these, just ask. I know a lot of you are of different faiths, so I don't want to offend anyone.
I saw one spell - probably on Adam's sheet because he's got everything under the sun - that was basically a "prove Odin is listening" spell. I think your making the wind blow experience is basically that. Probably the same with your insomnia one.
I've had visions, too, but they were always of my past lives, so I don't suppose that counts.
(I was a Roman Senator's son - I remember running across the warm stones of the Forum to meet my father at the Senate house on his last day of work before we were going to the country for the summer. I was also a Templar - I met King Richard and was intensely embarassed because I was taller than he.)
I don't know if MV has a skill for Prescience but... why not? (It does seem like the sort of thing that would make your referee cry if you used it too often, though. You're not Paul Atreides.)
God gave you driving directions? That's... specific. This one I have to hear. (I'm not mocking you, just being all O.o; and wanting to hear more.)
Well, I was going to meet a young lady at a skating rink. I was looking at the directions, and looked up just in time to see that I had passed the exit I was supposed to take. So, I prayed "God, where do I go?" God said "Take the next exit." I did. Then I said "God, what now?" God said "Go to McDonald's and get something to eat." There wasn't a McDonald's in sight, but when I got to one, I went in and ordered. I asked the clerk "Do you know where the skating rink is?" The clerk pointed out the window. The skating rink was across the parking lot. I could have thrown a rock at it from where I was standing. True story.
Wow.
Yeah, stuff like that counts. I'm a bit rushed tonight, so I don't have much time to comment on it, but feel free to describe the other events.
--M. J. Young
The other events.
Well, the time that I couldn't sleep involves the young lady I was going to the skating rink to meet. I couldn't sleep one night, and I kept saying "Why God?" Around 7 in the morning, I checked my email, and there was an email from her (first contact). She had a friend who was dying of cancer, and so emailed about 150 people with the word "Christian" in their AOL member profiles, and asked them to pray for her friend.
I started talking to her over the instant messenger, and after she left, I went back to bed and was asleep before my head hit the pillow. It turned out the girl was an Atheist, and her friend had asked her to pray for him. She emailed the people because she didn't know how to pray. Out of about 150 people who got this, I was the only one who tried to witness to her about God. She got saved a year and a half later. Her friend made a full recovery. God was talking to me the entire time I was talking to her. Telling me what to say, guiding my typing. I couldn't even feel the keyboard sometimes. It felt like someone else was wearing my hands, typing for me. God told me to read the email, and told me to talk to her. It was as clear as if MJ was standing in my room telling me to do something.
The time the wind blew. I was 15 or 16, and I was having a rotten day at school. I was walking home, and I said "God, if you're really there, prove it." There was absolutely no wind blowing before I said that. As soon as I said it, the wind started to blow. Not just some little breeze, I mean WIND!!! After a minute I said "Come on, you can do better than that." No sooner had I said that, the wind started blowing 3 times harder. I turned around to face it, and I felt wrapped up in energy. Like it was a blanket that I could put on and wear. This awesome energy coming from the wind. After a few minutes, I said "OK, you've convinced me." The wind stopped blowing INSTANTLY!!! Probably a 30-40 mile an hour wind to a dead calm instantly.
Regarding the vision. I was driving home, and I was going redline psychotic. So I kept screaming "God, what did I do to deserve this?" I saw a vision of Jesus standing in front of my car. He had the crown of thorns on his head, and I could see the nail prints in His wrists. He held out his hands to me and said "What did I do to deserve THIS John?" I calmed down from redline psychotic pretty quickly too.
I'm not making any of these up.
MJ, I was asking about this, if it increased my "magic" any, and you didn't say yes or no to it. I'd like to know what you think.
I didn't answer the question because I have too many pressing matters to address, and some of them are the e-mails you sent me. It is probably the case that these "informational" magics would have made a difference to your bias before you managed that contact prayer, but that they no longer matter; it's probably the case that they should be on your sheet, but it's going to take me some time to process them, and time is in very short supply this month. It also appears that these are magics over which you have no control, which both makes them harder to categorize and less useful on your sheet, so there is little urgency and lots of work here.
--M. J. Young
Well, think about it.
I do have some control over it. I have as much control as anyone has over praying. Why couldn't you just use a regular roll for it? Just give me 1@1 ability in it. Just a thought.
With magic, it's rarely as simple as an SAL. There are all the ritual factors that came into play with your other prayers, and it's particularly difficult to assess things like that when you've only done it once - if it's been done twice, you can tell which things are important to the magic by paying attention to what your prayer had in common both times, but with those clues, he has to guess. There's also the issue of what bias each prayer has; there are several ways to do everything, and it's not always apparent from just looking at the effects which method was used.
Short version: the SAL is the easy part. There's no need to even roll, because we already know you have the skill. The tough part is defining what exactly "the skill" is.
That's why I say prayer is not magic. I understand why the rules call it magic, but it is not magic.
Totally not going there again...
The thing that's giving me issues is trying to figure out how finely both prayer and magic need to differentiate by skills.
I could pray (to God in John's case, to Odin in mine, or so on) for an insight into something, let's call it Limited Precognition.
I could then use that knowledge to pray again (to God, to Odin, again take your pick) for the courage to act upon that information, let's call it Morale Boost.
Are they two separate skills because I'm asking for different outcomes, even if the ritual involved is exactly the same? Or is it a generic Pray To Do Anything?
I saw MJ say one time that "Catholics use some version of the Mass for just about everything," and that's the sort of thing I mean - is John's "Limited Precognition" prayer/spell a different prayer/spell than his "Convert the Indecisive" just because the intended outcome is different, even though both instances consisted of him simply asking God to do something, with - correct me if I'm wrong - no ritual trappings involved at all besides the act of asking?
(Again John please don't think that I'm in any way mocking you or aiming you any disrespect by parsing your experiences into gaming terms - MultiVerser seems to invite us to do that sort of thing, and you've provided clear and handy examples.)
... I'm almost starting to agree with John. Even though in my real life I believe prayer and magic are the same thing. Maybe because I do divine magic in real life. Prayer and arcane magic are certainly not the same thing.
John why do you have to put the confusion in my brain, man, why? *thumps head on desk*
Don't worry Osevens. I don't take offense. I've told those stories to many people, and I have been mocked over them. You trying to break them down into game terms is nothing I would find offensive.
And I thought it was going to be a light day....(insert appropriate emoticon here).
First, I apologize for being a bit "short" yesterday. I had a rough weekend that spilled into the wee hours of this morning, and was starting to become a bit impatient with everything and everyone, particularly with anyone who might be perceived as nagging me or wasting my time. That's not your fault, and it shouldn't be your problem.
I also was "short" in the sense that I gave an incomplete answer. At the time I was thinking about the weather control, "God prove yourself" thing. I think that's rather an impressive display of God proving His existence (although someone of my acquaintance--and no, you guessed wrong, so stop guessing--thinks that's a ridiculous reading of meaning into coincidence). However, exactly what is it? You can't say that you controlled the wind; you can't even say that God controlled the wind because you asked Him to. All you can say is that God persuaded you that He was there by changing the wind dynamically. That means whatever this is, it is not the obvious M4@4 Manipulate Airflow. If you were to pray the same prayer again, anything might happen--the sun might come out from behind a cloud, there might be an unexpected rainbow, the moon might suddenly be eclipsed, the earth might open up and swallow you. Maybe it's a M7@7 Communicate Off-World; maybe it's a M7@2 Detect Truth. Maybe it's nothing more than a M1@1 Bonus Morale. I don't know what it really does, and thus I don't know what it really is.
In fact, the best way for me to handle it would be that at some point you would say, "I'm going to pray this, that God would prove He's really here--oh, and I've done this before, blah, blah, blah." That tells me that this is a skill you already have, what happened last time you did it, and what my parameters are. Really, though, until you do it in the game, it doesn't really matter what it is or what it does.
Also, the vision of Jesus you describe might be the same skill, or it might be a different one. If what we're seeing is two situations in which you were asking for God's assurance that He was with you, then we can take those two events and distill them to one Bonus Morale skill. If we think these are two completely different skills--one assuring you of God's presence, the other temporarily healing your psychosis--then we make them different, and deal with them accordingly.
The communication with the young lady seems to be a divine guidance thing--and I always have trouble with divine guidance skills. On the one hand, they seem to be part of M7@7 Communicate Off-world; on the other hand, that skill really is intended for dramatic communications, visions, God's audible voice, angels appearing, and reducing it to simply knowing what to do seems unfair to the skill and unfair to the concept of simple guidance. After all, God can guide me by speaking to me audibly (no, never that I recall), or making me aware of options, or through something I read, or something someone says, or even through circumstances. Were you to ask the Architect (and I think he may be right), the very fact that you appear in a particular world is a message from God guiding you, letting you know that you are supposed to do something in this world--but it's not a magic skill, it's only a clue.
Here's one of my favorite jokes.
Lars was a hard-working pastor of a successful church. Every week he spent hours preparing his sermons for Sunday morning. Then one week he read that Dwight L. Moody, the famous and successful evangelist, never prepared a sermon at all. The man would get into the pulpit and trust God to tell him what to say.O.K., the point here is that Lars delivered good God-given sermons when he worked hard all week, and D. L. Moody delivered good God-given sermons totally by inspiration--but both were divinely-given sermons. In much the same way, God is guiding whether He does so in dramatic and unmistakable ways, or in subtle insubstantial ways. When I get letters posing difficult religious and theological questions, I'm pretty sure that the answers I write come from God--but they also come from years of study, prayer, and thought, because I already know many of the answers from having asked and pondered many of the same or similar questions. Thus I cannot say whether the words which flowed from through keyboard to that girl were abruptly given to you by God, or whether they were expressing truths God had taught you over the years which were now coming into articulated form. I can agree, though, that they were divinely given.Lars was fascinated by this, and thought his life would be much easier if he didn't have to spend so much time on sermon preparation. So he told his wife, "This Sunday, God is going to give me a sermon. He will tell me what to day."
"Are you sure about this, Lars?" his wife asked.
"Oh, yes," Lars replied. "He does it for D. L. Moody all the time, and there's no reason He wouldn't do it for me, too."
So Lars enjoyed a relaxing week. He got in some golf, read the paper, watched television. Occasionally his wife would ask whether his sermon was ready, but he would answer, "God is going to give me the sermon; it's all in control."
Sunday morning came, and the service was going well as always. Then time came for the sermon, and Lars stepped into the pulpit--and delivered the very worst sermon of his life.
As the parishoners were filing out, they politely thanked him for his sermon and moved away. His wife held back, waiting until all the others were gone.
"Lars," she said, "did the Lord speak to you up there today?"
"Yes dear," Lars answered, "He did."
"And what did He say to you?" she asked.
Lars replied, "The Lord said, 'Lars, you're a durn fool.'"
And thus I tend to hang back from making such guidance situations specific skills too quickly; I want to see how they work, when they work, why they work, whether these are more than just following your faith where it leads, less than hearing the audible voice of God, and where between those points it falls.
*****
Harry, the question of how finely magic skills need to be differentiated is not really a different question than how finely any other skills need to be differentiated. The discrimination/generalization question (in psychology terms) always exists in skills.
I usually use the example of driving. Do I need to discriminate driving a car from a truck, both from a tractor? Do I need to discriminate race driving from stunt driving from over-the-road driving? Do I need to distinguish ramp jumps from skid turns, or even one hundred eighty degree skid turns from ninety degree skid turns?
The answer in that case is that I need to make those distinctions which work for my game, this player, the worlds I run or envision running. If one player winds up with expert level driving with his Camaro such that he can do stunt driving, race driving, over-the-road driving, and any other kind of driving based on that one skill as long as he is in his vehicle; and the other player winds up with an expert level in stunt driving such that he can do all those stunts with any vehicle from a motorcycle to a Sherman tank, that's fine--as long as I know the boundaries and parameters of the skills, and what I need to roll to get an answer.
With magic, I need to pay a lot of attention to what people are doing and what they are trying to do. For example, Moses called water from rocks several times, but there is no case of him calling fire from the sky even against the enemies of Israel; Elijah called fire from the sky at least thrice, but never called water from rocks even when he was struggling to survive the drought and famine he himself had announced. That suggests to me that one had skill connected to water and the other connected to fire. Is the parting of the Red Sea an example of the same skill Moses had, that he was able to control water, in this way or that way, or is it a separate skill, that he was able to part bodies of water (which his student Joshua later did at the Jordan River, and which both Elijah and Elisha also did at that river) and also call water from rocks (for which there is no record of anyone else doing the same)? If I think Moses is likely to call water from more rocks, or part more bodies of water, I'm going to make these distinct skills; if I think these are unique applications of a more general skill, I'm going to generalize them into something I can define and name. (I would discriminate these, but that does not mean every referee has to do that for every player.)
One thing I want to avoid, though, is creating the possibility that a character can do something completely unlike anything he has ever done before with an incredibly high chance of success and great power. Thus I'm unlikely to give you a skill in "working miracles" (and if I do, it would be a M15@10 Do Anything, so it will be useless unless the curve is through the roof). After all, maybe you parted seas, called water from rocks, brought fire down from heaven, walked on water, fed thousands--but if you suddenly decide to heal a man blind from birth or raise a man who has been dead three days, I don't want that to be as easy as snapping your fingers and it happens. I want your experience with miracles to mean something because you have the confidence that your God has done this for you before.
Oh, but shouldn't the fact that your God has done various miracles for you in the past boost your confidence that He will do different miracles for you in the future? Sure--and it does. That's why you get half of your religion SAL when you pray--because your confidence in your God impacts your confidence in your own ability to work this miracle. 1@0 Religion is not merely knowing about your God; that's 0@1 Theology. 1@0 Religion also includes your confidence in Him, your trust, faith, in the truth of what you know. The higher that is, the easier it will be to perform miracles by prayer that you've never done before. They're new skills, but you've already got an increased chance of success because you know what your God can do.
I would distinguish your "limited precognition" (although I would probably make it a M7@6 present information skill, not a M7@10 future information skill, because those four points on the curve are often significant) from your "boost morale" (a 1@1 skill). Of course the rituals are similar, but they are also clearly distinct--in the same way that Humpty Dumpty complains to Alice that human faces are all alike with the eyes at the top and the nose in the middle, but we are so good at seeing and discriminating faces that we see them in the tailights of cars and patterns in the clouds. If you're going to tell me that all your spells come to thinking what you want and wriggling your nose, I'm going to tell you that you get wrong results on a lot of your botches, because you didn't do enough to distinguish which skill you were doing.
What do I do with people like Smendrick, who shouts, "Magic, do what you will," and hopes for the best? Probably I create a table of random possible outcomes, give him a 15@10 Do Anything with a high bonus because he has absolutely no control of what he is doing (when using that skill), and let the dice decide whether his hopes or fears are realized. Maybe the unicorn becomes a statue instead of a princess, and Smendrick has to go on the quest to defeat the Red Bull alone. Since I haven't decided that only the last unicorn can defeat the red bull, we still can create a story from that.
I've taken too much of your time; hopefully, though, I've answered some of your questions.
--M. J. Young
What about being given driving directions? I was hundreds of miles from home, going to meet her at a skating rink that was in a different city on the other side of the state. I had no idea where I was, but wound up 100 feet from it after missing the exit I was supposed to take. Divine Guidance? That's all I can think of.
Sounds like MJ's M7@6 Present Information to me.
Well, the other thing is that with all of these, I was not kneeling, nor did I have my hands folded. I was driving on two of them, and just praying to myself. God answered the prayers. That's part of why I don't like it that praying is bonused in the game when you kneel and fold your hands. Show me in the Bible where it says "You must kneel or else God won't hear your prayers." Honestly, I find it kind of offensive that you don't get a bonus because you're not kneeling when you pray in the game. I don't recall ever getting my prayers answered the way I did here when I was kneeling.
Yeah really. The whole kneeling to pray thing is also almost uniquely a Christian thing. Muslims both kneel and bow when praying. Pagans often do something entirely different - sit, stand, dance, act out a battle, or something else. Somatic components are the realm of arcane magic, not divine.
O.K., first, there is nothing particularly or innately important about kneeling. The benefit comes from focusing, by doing something that involves you more fully in the prayer. Harry's list of "sit, stand, dance, act out a battle, or something else" can be just as good. What we want to see is that the praying itself has your attention in a manner that limits what else you can do while you are praying. Handling prayer beads (which are neither strictly Catholic nor even strictly Christian--Buddhists use something very similar), or holding a cross or crucifix or other emblem, or closing your eyes or looking heavenward or raising your hands, or doing calisthenics or lying prone or supine or standing on your head, these are all the same to me: to the degree that the action requires you to put more of yourself into the prayer, you are bonused because you are focused on the prayer and not incidentally praying while doing something else.
I'm a bit bothered by the notion that not getting a bonus is the same as being penalized. Not getting a bonus is the norm, the baseline; the bonus is extra. I do see some biblical basis for this. When Jesus sweat drops like blood, that was not a tossed-off prayer; when He fasted and enjoined others to engage in prayer and fasting to cast out demons, that was not about tossing off a few words; when Paul prayed for several days, this involved his full focus and involvement. Sure, I believe that God will answer prayers that are casually tossed His direction, and I would not be one to say that He is more likely to answer prayers if we do things like fast or kneel or hold a cross in our hands--but within the context of the game, 1) I have to create some reason why anyone would ever do any of those things, and that reason is it increases the chance God will grant the request, and 2) I need to have a system whereby the more difficult a skill is, the more effective it is likely to be, and that is accomplished by creating involvements, things the character must do as part of that skill. If you pray in Latin, or Greek, or Celtic, or Old Norse, or even Pig Latin, I'll give you a bonus for using that holy language--holy because you have devoted it for use in prayer.
If you pray an ordinary prayer, you have an ordinary chance that your prayer will be answered. If you want an extraordinary chance that your prayer will be answered, you must pray an extraordinary prayer. I don't care how you make that prayer extraordinary, as long as it makes sense to you within the context of your religion, and it appears to me that it actually does create a greater focus on the act of praying.
--M. J. Young
One thing I wanted to mention specifically is the use of a magical language.
I want to claim that bonus when I cast my spells worded entirely in English. The reason for this is because when I was taught magic originally, one of the things I learned is that your magic has no power if you don't know what you're saying.
If it's in a language you don't understand, can't pronounce, or had to translate laboriously in order to use in your ritual, you're doing it wrong.
If it flows naturally, because it's in a language you know intimately, then the poetry - and the magic - is coming from inside you and being channeled more naturally.
Osevens, I totally agree with you. I have spoken in tongues once. I don't have a clue what I said, but it scared the daylights out of me. I remember trying to retreat away from the pastor and get away. How can that be a good prayer if you're scared whilst praying?
MJ, that makes more sense. The reason I keep asking if Marijuana is known in this world is because I have had some of my most enlightening prayers answered whilst I was high. I've had visions from God whilst I was high. I don't remember them as well, but I know I had them, and I remember what they were about. My sister told me the same thing. She believes that God talks to her when she's high. You can write that off as a drug induced hallucination, but I can't see how it could be a bad thing. If God really does see all and know all, then He knows your heart, and knows that you really believe it is Him talking to you. Why couldn't God use that to His advantage?
A1Nut - kinda like Mexican shamans using peyote as part of a ritual to see spiritual visions? There's plenty of precedent for that. If it were me I would totally give you a bonus for that, if you used it as part of a serious ritual and not just "I think I'll smoke up and try to see God." (Not saying you would, just pointing out the difference.)
No, it's more like "I think I'll smoke up and try to see God." Sometimes God talks to me, sometimes not. Sometimes I have visions, sometimes I just go into a laughing fit. It's not really a ritual for prayer, it's more like opening up my mind to accept what God wants to offer. Sometimes God doesn't want to offer anything.
I'll tell you one vision that I believe was from God. I was trying to convince the blacksmith to copy a 30-06 hunting rifle that I had brought with me. I was also arguing with MJ about whether or not versers should interfere in the worlds they were in. I was so convinced that I wasn't interfering. God gave me a vision of the future of the world I am in, if the blacksmith managed to copy my rifle. I saw 4 distinct scenarios, each of them radically different than what I had envisioned. After I came out of it, I emailed MJ a full apology. I didn't realize I was doing what I kept saying versers shouldn't do, which is interfere.
Harry, my feeling is that if I give you a bonus for praying in English, it negates the sense that there's a bonus for praying in some other language, and I have to eliminate the bonus entirely.
What I hear instead is that, for you, magic in some other language is wrong. Let me explain that by example.
I was in a world Eric created called Haston. In Haston, magic was very strong--but it was always sung, and no one sang except to do magic. Thus in the minds of everyone in Haston, music was magical and magic was musical--no one from Haston could do magic unless they were singing when they did it. I would fully expect that someone who versed out from that world would have a limitation on their magic, that they had to sing to make it work. On the other hand, someone who came to that world from Dungeons & Dragons or Harry Potter would have no concept that music was necessary, and would be able to sing without performing magic, and perform magic without singing, even while in that world.
All bonuses and limitations are based ultimately on the fact that the mage/priest believes that this is how magic is done. Even if he is aware that others do it differently, this is how he does it. You might analogize it to the taboos of the OAD&D Wu Jen, that in order to perform magic they must live within certain limitations. Others can perform magic without adhering to those same taboos, but this person must do these things in order to perform magic.
Thus in your particular case, speaking in a "magical" language is of no benefit--and that's not something I'm enforcing against you, but something you are taking on as a character aspect. In the same way, when my character here (not the Architect, but the one Graeme is currently running) decides to create a spell, he usually starts by looking for a song he knows that says what he wants to do, and using that as the basis for his magic. He's learned a few magical things that are outside those limitation (most notably the use of a particular magical weapon from a steampunk world), but what he has learned about magic causes him to think of magic in this way.
So you don't get a bonus for that; it's simply a matter of your character not perceiving magical languages as something that will give a bonus.
John, I certainly would allow you to use marijuana as part of a ritual, and would bonus you according to how difficult I think it is to get the stuff in all the universes of the multiverse (and how closely you limit it--would peyote or mushroom or synthetic hallucinogens be acceptable substitutes, can you intake it by some method other than smoking, or does it have to be this specific thing). It's probably somewhere between +2 and +5, depending on how narrowly you define the requirement, and doubled because obviously it is destroyed in the process. Also, I might consider whether it gains you an "appropriate" bonus for certain skills, particularly informational ones in which you are seeking a vision or other communication.
I just think that the English/European blacksmith would never have heard the Mexican name of a weed that is indigenous to the far eastern penninsulas of Asia.
--M. J. Young
Is there any way to do spells the D&D way - pre-casting the majority of the spell in the morning and triggering it with a command word later on - in MV?
How about this. As part of my psychosis, I often repeat the same phrase over and over and over. Howard Hughes is also a known sufferer of this condition. I think that could be a form of magic. The effect that the repetitive speech is that it keeps my mind locked in a place where the psychosis has a hard time breaking through. My doctor calls it a Mantra. Says that it is more common than some people realize, and has been used effectively as a training technique. Maybe it would be more effective as a psionic skill, now that I think about it. Any thoughts?
Sounds like a (I'm going to guesstimate this) P4@1(?) Autohypnosis. I give it an @1 because it's possible in reality, so it's probably possible anywhere, but it's practice not theory so it's not @0.
I was thinking perhaps defense against mental attacks. It blocks out the psychosis to a degree. Perhaps a measured defense against mind attacks. Just a thought.
Except that resisting your own psychosis is different from resisting my attempt to make you bleed from the eyeballs or collapse in a gibbering heap (P10@5 Induce Blithering Idiocy? *grin*). Your mantra would also let you drown out outside distractions and probably enhance your focus if you used it when you /weren't/ having a psychotic episode.
It does enhance my focus. I was just thinking that psychosis, which is of the mind, should have some kind of bearing on the use of psionics. I've always thought so. Perhaps an attempt to read my mind would be thwarted, because of the penalty of needing to sort through the junk. I sort through the junk on a daily basis, but could you? Maybe give me P2@1 protection against mind reading or something. Only a psychotic could use it. Just a thought.
Or perhaps trying to read the mind of a psychotic, would be the psionic equivalent of getting a staticy reception on a TV. That's kind of what it is like most of the time. Like having a radio turned to a static station playing in your head all the time. What would that be like for someone that had to read it? Or do telepathic contact? Maybe I could use it as an attack during telepathic contact. "Induce Psychotic State in target" Only a psychotic could do it. Just an idea I had.
A1Nut - Go read about Vampire: the Masquerade's Clan Malkavian. If you like the idea of making others psychotic along with you, you'd like them, I think.
I definitely think that trying to read the mind of someone who is in an altered mental state (psychotic, but also schizophrenic, tripping on acid, or otherwise WAY off the norm) ought to have some sort of untoward effect on the unwary psion.
Well, MJ will be back on Sunday, if everything goes well. I wonder if it would be possible to turn the psychosis on and off. Keep it off most of the time, but turn it back on at will? Perhaps, as I said, as a defense against mental attacks.
BTW, I really like that "Induce Bithering Idiocy" If you're interested in what psychotic states are like, watch the movie Johnny Mnemonic. When they are uploading the data, and unloading it are very much like what a psychotic state is like. (Except I scream a lot) I mean what it's like for Johnny is what it is like for me. I also used to have these flashes that my doctor could not identify for years. When Johnny goes to the bathroom after getting the upload, he has a flash, very similar to the type that I have. And yes, I have had them hit as hard as the one that hits Johnny.
Is there any way to . . . in MV?
Yes.
Is there any way to do spells the D&D way - pre-casting the majority of the spell in the morning and triggering it with a command word later on - in MV?
Yes again! Graeme does something similar with his potions. In MJ's games, such things are worth a -10 penalty on success, but it's usually worth it because you can fit in more ritual if you get to do it ahead of time.
Induce Blithering Insanity would actually be a P8@ psionic attack, P8@3 if I recall correctly.
I definitely think that trying to read the mind of someone who is in an altered mental state (psychotic, but also schizophrenic, tripping on acid, or otherwise WAY off the norm) ought to have some sort of untoward effect on the unwary psion.
Possibly in a botch scenario, but I would inflict that on a successful character unless it was somehow explicitly part of the target's defenses.
What Scott said.
I so appreciate having Scott here, because he nearly always saves me the trouble of making all those same points.
I would not normally make psychosis an inherent defense, because really it cuts both ways. For example, on the one hand you can argue that the psychotic mind is so jumbled that it is difficult to find anything there, while on the other hand you can argue it is so undisciplined that it is difficult to hide anything there. Similarly, you can argue that the orderliness of a sane mind makes it easier to read, but you can also argue that the disipline of a sane mind makes it more difficult to penetrate undetected.
I think, John, that the sane among us do not have such calm and orderly minds as you suppose. I certainly don't.
--M. J. Young
I am sane dammit!!!!!!! If I was INsane, I wouldn't know I had a problem. Stop calling me insane. Psychotic is NOT a synonym for crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I guess I shouldn't blow up like that. I thought psychotic was a synonym for crazy at first too. Until my doctor explained what it really means. It means that the neuron pathways in the brain fire too quickly, too hard, or too often. This can affect your memory, both good and bad, it can affect a lot of things. In my case, it causes flashbacks, extreme headaches, and a lot of idiosyncratic behavior. The first question I am going to ask God is "Why did you make me like that?" It's like having a radio tuned to a static station constantly playing inside your head, that's on a good day. On a bad day, it feels like you have the blades of a blender turning inside your skull. Not like your head is inside the blender, like the blender is inside your head. Fortunately, I developed, and am still developing, a therapy which has helped a lot. But, for the record, I am completely 100% without a doubt SANE!!! I am not insane, I am mentally disturbed. There's a big difference between insane and mentally disturbed. Insane people think they are fine, and the rest of the world has a problem. A mentally disturbed person knows they have a problem. See the difference?
Yes.
What I don't see is how to speak casually in ordinary conversation without either using technical jargon, or using long descriptive phrases, or getting you upset.
--M. J. Young