Sense8

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
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freid78
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Sense8

Postby freid78 » Fri Sep 11, 2015 11:29 am

I'm currently listening to a netflix serie (Sense8) and I found the idea pretty appealing. More so, I would think it possible, and interesting, if players had access to the same abilities. So i'm testing the idea with you guys!

In the tv show, you have 8 people with some skills (some more complex than others) and they have the possibility to borrow these skills from the others (admittedly not knowingly at first). The cop for example speak korean without knowing how, and after he does speak korean, he still doesn't know the language, but can speak it without problem. What if a group pattern allows this?

I guess it all goes into the basic question, what are group patterns? If group patterns are just legendary groups, or a group of legendary heroes, it doesn't do anything. The Avengers are, in the line of thought, a group pattern without any benefit outside the social status it brings (thinking about Ant-Man). But if the group pattern is something more magical, how does it present itself? There's a major part of the group pattern that goes into the metaphysic of pattern items, with the strange element that normally, you cannot thread your own pattern items. But strangly enough, in a group pattern, the members can thread pattern items to get bonus, and not against the team, but for the team. That ability made all pattern item somewhat strange, or that some of the metaphysics were misunderstood. For example, could you thread a pattern item of your ennemy to gain thought link? Or could you thread a pattern item to upgrade one talent not against, but for the target. The idea of a group pattern had to be explore. So, I had players trying to thread the pattern item inside a group, not to improve existing abilities, but to give them new abilities or to expand the one given by the group pattern. The thought link for example, could you, as a member of the group pattern, improve that ability? What about blood share? And going further, is the group pattern gaining legendary points as much as a status? Can the members of the group spend points to gain access to, let's say melee weapon, for anyone in the group? So you could have access to talents via the pattern that are not part of your pattern. That was getting messy... and frankly time consuming, if not bog by micro-management of legend points of the members and of the group. The abilities were also not very high, so the players had to find exotic talents, and everything felt wrong!

So scratch that. What if, instead of considering the group pattern a person (I feel like a business man advocating that an enterprise is a moral person, so that laws can affect companies as much as any individuals) or if you prefer a singular pattern that can evolve like a adept person, you consider the group pattern just a link between individuals. Instead of threading your own group pattern item (which made no sense) in order to increase your abilities (and this not against the group, which also made no sense), what if you can only thread you group pattern item to gain access to the other individual pattern, such that connexion gives you access to the other pattern, like it is yours. Instead of dealing with a thought link talent (the ranks and such), you gain access to his feeling, and vision of the world from his perspective. Something in line of the possession talent of any ally spirit. But it goes both ways (just like Sense8), where you could be here and there at the same time. You suddently can speak elven, not because you have that talent, but your group member has it and now, you also have it while the thread is active. In other words, you could thread your group pattern item to give a temporary link between you and one of your team member, and while this temporary thread is active, you can use any talents as if it was yours. By doing so, you don't give a substance to a group pattern. It's not a pattern on itself, but more like a hub between patterns.

To align this with all threaded items, you would need to spend 1 slot of your thread weaving talent to anchor your pattern to the central hub (the group pattern), and each rank you buy increase the duration by 1 round (up to a maximum of 15rounds). To activate this ability, you would need the spend a round, rolling thread weaving against the basic difficulty number of 6 (or perhaps the highest mystic defense of the group members). Success means you gain access to any talents used by 1 member of your choice, for x round where x is the number of thread you spend on the group pattern. With this, there's no new group abilities. There's also a closer brotherhood, where optional talents can be chosen not on an individual basis, but to give access to the entire group to the said ability.

Can't wait to be criticized :P

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etherial
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Re: Sense8

Postby etherial » Fri Sep 11, 2015 11:45 am

First of All: Sense8 is awesome and I highly recommend everyone buy a month of Netflix just to watch it. It's by J. Michael Stracyznski of Babylon 5 and the Wachowskis (the ones who made The Matrix, not the ones who made The Matrix Sequels).

Second: I've heard several ideas of integrating The Cluser into RPGs, though usually not into existing settings. The challenge I see about what you're suggesting isn't the game mechanics so much as the player mechanics. I think most people won't really want or understand how to borrow or swap out all of the Talents an Earthdawn PC ends up with.

freid78
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Re: Sense8

Postby freid78 » Fri Sep 11, 2015 6:56 pm

@ etherial, i would suggest players to target specific talents, such as speak language, or fireblood, depending on the situation. It should not be treated like a dual discipline, but more like a situation help out.

Telarus_KSC
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Re: Sense8

Postby Telarus_KSC » Fri Sep 11, 2015 10:25 pm

Interesting idea. I've always considered Group Patterns as (kinda)"Named Mobile Spaces", which fits in nicely as the "hub" idea. Also kind of like the Beastmaster's Borrow Animal Sense.

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Kasbak
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Re: Sense8

Postby Kasbak » Tue Sep 15, 2015 4:56 pm

I've been experimenting with an idea for an upcoming campaign that would use a specialized group pattern mechanic somewhat similar to this idea. Essentially it would fall along the same line mechanically as the Lightbearer Talent. When an adept joins the group pattern, after they've been woven into it, they get to buy a Talent at rank 1 named after the group, raising it as a Journeyman Talent. At each rank, they gain some new abilities based upon the legend of the group. This also keeps things balanced if the group gains new members; a newcomer joining the group does not automatically gain all abilities that the senior members have, but has to work their way up to it. Essentially the group pattern works like an immaterial, giant Thread item that everyone in the group can weave to and raise the rank of the connection on to gain new abilities, only difference being that for this main connection it gets its own Talent.

For the experiment I'm running, this would be an already established pattern that the players are being woven into as new members, but this could very easily be adopted by a new group, with the GM limiting the highest rank available and adding new powers as the group gains legend. This would make it a further award to be given when the group does something truly legendary. Did the group just take out a powerful Named Horror, say Artificer? Give them a Talent rank-based ability for detecting traps. Did they heal the Blood Wood? Give them a rank per day ability to stop bleeding wounds. It doesn't have to just be massive one-shot events either. If the group spends a lot of time on riverboats fighting pirates for example, give them an ability that helps with ship combat once that reputation spreads around. If they get into a lot of combat situations where they just barely come out alive, give them some sort of bonus to Durability. These are all just examples, of course. In this case, I would recommend to keep the rank in line with the party's average Legendary Status and Circle and to keep the abilities structured similarly to Talents available at those Circles, though of course that would depend on the group and their actions.


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