World of Darkness One Rote

Contemplating around things, and thinking of funny jokes one of those, like 'chehehe' ideas. A real :ROFL: idea. Ya know when you contemplate flying satanists, shapechanging panda bears, and the assorted version of will working and magic ..believe that these things are in some distant echo of possibility and are want to weave these thoughts into some sort of experiencable phenomena of play. I came up with a Euthanatos / VA rote. Wanna hear about it? Here it go,

A reality hacker plans a modification to a computer algorythm. More than the simple actions, but the entire experience of redesigning the program. This rote prepared the mage could instantaniously apply the task to the designated target. *Magic* This would require some form of data storage prime/spirit/mind rote to prepare, and some fashion of quintessence spenditure. If spirit an action on the other side, if prime ..well, if mind the memory might be sacrificed or stamped depending. Fin! Rote:System Hack.

In dice this would be a rote activation roll (arete) to create the storage space. Possibly a social roll, if you are using the spirit sphere. The Storyteller then performs the same series of skill checks that would need to take place to hack the system in question. You may or may not then require a containment or storage roll (arete) again so that the actions are maintained (paradox induced failures are a possibility here) and then! The spell casting itself, aka the fun part. You would be bop your way into the place that the spell is to go off and trigger it with another arete roll. If your curious 'arete' means 'understanding' in like Greek or Etruscan or something. SUccess results in the hack substantiating instantly, failure ..well that is the fun part about this particular magical system. Failure could mean ..anything.

Mage The Ascension is not about fireballs and dragons. The theme of this story play setting is that of nearness to reality. How would this, *really work? Magic being 'not as easy as falling off a log' but a simple action that is contingent upon the character's comprehension of reality. The idea is simple. The more you know, the more you can effect. Realms of understanding are differentiated into 'spheres' that define the mechanical aspect of what kind of phenomena you are able to create. Paradox represents the *gap* between the character's understanding and the reality of the situation. A matter rote extends the character's comprehension beyond human ken. A forces rote turns the flow of gas in a pipe to trigger an explosion. Paradox occurs.

No matter what, the mage's arete is insufficient to alter the very fabric of reality directly. Though these are the understandings of the sphere's of entropy and prime. Destruction and Creation. Should a mage utilize more than the first rank (the observational) allowances of the sphere at least a single paradox will occur. Using matter one to analyze the pipe is fine, reality has not been altered. Your character has simply become aware of information that ultimately his avatar is already aware of. Using the allowances of force two in order to push onto reality creates the 'push back' of reality itself. In the pipe example two paradox would occur, unless the character in question has a rote for this spell. Rotes can be pretty wild, bunkish even, but wonton will working relying on nothing more than your comprehension of existence automatically produces paradox ~ expressly due to your lack of understanding in what it was that you did. You don't have any idea *how* you did what you did, you simply understand that it is possible. You flex your willpower and viola!

Learning D20

Learning is an interesting subject to consider when contemplating D20. 3D20, 4D20, or 5D20. How is it that learning is handled? In many systems, and in many games the rule is as such. 'I the conductor tells you that you learned something, and instructs you to write it on your sheet' and that's that. One friend of mine uses a numerically vertical system to mechanically handle learning. This is a 5D20 dot system. When you succeed at a check, you get a dot. When your dots equal your value regarding that skill your value goes up by one. Quest for Glory and the Elder Scrolls systems use this kind of numerically vertical utilize and benefit system. I consider that to be a worthy and emminatly playable system. I also consider innacurate in the terms of verisimilitude. In reality you should learn most from your failures than you sucesses, as the old addage says. Success breeds regularity and rutine. Hard work is regular, successful, and yes familiarity comes with regular use of any system. However, it is more in the 'I'll never do that again' moments, than the development of habits (and often the cause of the development of habits) that one should call learning. imo.

I prefer spot attribution of experience and learning, but cnsidering the amount of time shift and miss that occures in the system during the narritive.. you are looking at countless scads of unquantified skill checks that are occurring conceptually, but not provoking reaction from conductor or players as the incident occurred outside the narrative. I have thought on this often, and a 'Learning System' is an intended major feature of the Complete SRD.

Time Management ~ 3d20 cyberpunk hero

Time Maximization

You have a character. She is a hyper computer tech, and she wants to maximize her click through rate for a monotonous task. She has a job with a tech company and they want her to implement a process and training procedure for this new task. The task is ..name indexing and crm management for a large research company named ..Vantage! They happen to be the subsidiary of a villinous corporate cult, but your Vigilante computer hero don't know that.. yet! You are playing in a 3d20 varient of the 3rd edition Shadowrun system¹ :smile:

( :heh: ¡ this would make a good ecad article if I cut the :cheeky. ) ²

To start with a player decision would be called for. Do you want to use programing or process to streamline the process. An MPC³ would set the cognitive die to intelligence in the long term check to determine that process is the solution in this case. A player should be expected to make these desicion and save as part of the cognitive die when they make the check. An MPC does not make saves. The challenge die is set to the computer skill, and the constitution die is set to stressed due to the other long term checks that are being maintained by your hero. The check in this case is shared. As part of your player decision you also decide to use a contact to help with developing a training module for your characters efficiency maximized click path (with keyboard shortcuts). You decided to use a contact because your character would have needed to set the challenge die to profession in order to create the training module. In this case the contact is your friend and fellow player. This will be how your teo characters are brought together in the narrative of the story play. The first scene will be the meeting of you characters, and that scene will also be the location of the other two players work. They will not be involved in this long term check except on the saves. You roll 3d20.

Bam! Turns out the waiter (one of the other two players) fails the constitution save. Everyones checks go fine otherwise. The click path is made and ready for the scene. The training module is 90% made because you already have the path from another module, the specific click paths simply need to be punched in, and the fluff text is best left to Vantage anyhow :smirk: the project is all but done when you are meeting each other in the classy restaurant. Then, :smirk: the waiter (who did not call in sick to work even though he should have) sneezes ..horribly!

Now, talk. You ~ are in the kitchen.

This is the start of a game. If I had premade characters. I could. Run this game right now. As easy as I wrote this. Direct stream of thought, complete with Typos™

¹ That I am fabricating on the fly as I write this. Cognitive, Challenge, Constitution! Perfect! ¹

² No :hm: or :ha: ..dude ²

³ Mechanical Player ..Conducted Character? CC? C5 system? C7 system? ³