Sunday, April 29, 2012

Triple Threat

Question: The idea of Duality as the Slavic PSP didn't ever work for me, but it IS a very common element in mythology for gods and goddesses to have multiple aspects. How would y'all handle a PC developing into a dualistic or triadic figure, with each aspect having different proclivities?

I'd say a lot of that needs to be on the player who wants to do it (which is probably fine - I've found that players love doing crazy ridiculous stuff to further their own Legends!). There's no mechanic for actually being different people at the same time, but that doesn't mean an enterprising PC can't find a way to invent one!

Illusion, of course, can take care of appearing as two or three people with facile ease; it's available as early as level three with Doppelganger, and higher levels of Illusion can pull off ever more complex and artistic representations of a double or triple aspect. More solid representations of other aspects could easily be created with any of the elemental purviews (there's no reason I wouldn't let a Scion stunt an Earthborn Spirit, for example, so that it looked just like her) or built with plants for those skilled in the Fertility purview. Then there's also the Appearance option - high-level Appearance knacks can do totally wacky things, and you might be able to run with this idea a number of ways, from just appearing as a different one of your "aspects" all the time to actually creating a body with several torsos or heads. I'd definitely also allow things like creative use of the Intoxicate boon to cause viewers to see double or triple, or even for enterprising science-minded Scions to create a drug (perhaps dispersed through mist or some other convenient way?) that has the same effect without needing to use powers at all. Moon boons might also cause peculiarly specific temporary madness that encourages such a view of the Scion. And, of course, Scions are so shockingly better at everything than mortals that it's not even necessary to use powers to pull this sort of thing off; you might be able to use good old fashioned smoke and mirrors without anyone ever being able to see anything but the awe-inspiring front you put up. And don't underestimate the power of social knacks, either - a little Rumor Mill can go a long way toward convincing even people who have never seen you of your multifaceted amazingness. Show me an awesome stunt, and I will show you a mortal that probably totally bought it. As far as separate personalities and proclivities go, that's something that an individual god can play up at their leisure as well - want one aspect to be known as a carefree lover and sun-goddess? Great! Do that while in that aspect, and do other things in the others. Most players who are really dedicated or excited about the idea of being a multi-personality god will police themselves on that better than an ST would.

There's also always the option, especially at the Demigod or God jumps, of giving them some kind of Birthright that furthers the image, whether it's a couple of Guides that embody their other aspects or even an invented Birthright that is another aspect, requiring X resources to swap to and providing X bonuses that are different from normal. There's plenty of room to work with that, especially if it's something the PC really wants to be a defining factor of their Legend.

I'd say that if a player is putting effort into being seen as a duplicate or triplicate god, and they're trying some of the above or coming up with their own ways of pulling it off, let them. Humanity will totally run with it. And if you want to get even crazier, perhaps by doing some kind of insane stunt once they're gods wherein they bind other low-Legend deities to themselves in some kind of insane Wyrd-ritual... hey, if they're that dedicated to the idea, I'd help them along as long as they were working toward it in some semi-reasonable way.

5 comments:

  1. At God level, what would you think of a God using Avatar to create multiple lower-level selves?

    That would be odd effects if one aspect was killed, but then that opens a whole new question of "what happens to a God when he dies in powered-down avatar form?"

    A question that's been posed by one of my players, but I haven't worked out an actual answer to him yet. Suppose I should.

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    1. I probably wouldn't make it a feature of Avatar, simply because A) it would be weird that so many people don't use it for that, if they could be making multiple selves to run around at once, and B) it horns in very uncomfortably on Psychopomp's Co-Location territory. Being less powerful is certainly a drawback, but when everyone can split into ten people to run errands using their Avatar, Co-Location is a lot less cool and unique as a power. I'd confine Avatars to one at a time, which is what I think they're best suited to do.

      If you'd like it to be something done with Birthrights, I'd probably invent a custom one, similar to what we do for Aztecs and their nahualli. Sit down with the player, figure out what extra powers or features they think they should have as a dual/triple god, and then figure out how to express those with a Birthright. It might be an item that projects a different image of them depending on how they use it, or it might be a whole "double" that they can inhabit or shift into like the Aztecs shift into their nahualli. God Birthrights are a place that creative insanity usually serves us well.

      For what it's worth, when one of our PCs dies in Avatar, they get shunted back to their Sanctum (or Overworld's Axis Mundi, if they don't have a Sanctum) as their normal self. All Legend/Willpower/Deeds etc. spent while Avatar are still gone, and while bashing and lethal damage disappear with the shucked body, any aggravated damage it might have had (which affects the Scion's essential self) remains. They can then figure out what they want to do and how they want to get there, which can be a significant trial for those who don't have Psychopomp.

      We've found that the automatic disadvantages of not having access to your highest boons and epics more than make up for the "free Skin-Shedding" of not dying when the Avatar does. Especially since the Avatar costs resources to create in the first place, so it's the most expensive Skin-Shedding ever.

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    2. Interesting. I must ponder. I like your idea on how to handle Avatar-death, though. I'll probably adopt it myself when my players reach Godhood.

      Hmm. I'm going to have to work on the dualistic/triadic aspect thing some more. At one point I floated the idea of a Special Purview called Dualism. As the Scion learns more and more of it, they split further and further apart until at the 10th level, their aspects are totally divorced and they become two different characters in every way. I'm not convinced that's the best way to handle it.

      Pondering. Pondering.

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    3. Hmm, I feel like I saw someone on the forums tinkering with that idea a while ago - was that you or just someone like-minded?

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    4. Probably me. I never finished it, it didn't feel quite right.

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