Cassandra's Tears

[Amseriah]

Has anyone (GM or Player) played with this power?  How did it go?  What sorts of plot hooks did they facilitate for you?  I ask because I have a character that has it, but as of yet my GM isn't compelling them at all...nor is he giving me any predictions, and so far hasn't allowed me to make any predictions of my own to put in the game.  I am looking for ways that I can try to bring it up so that it won't just be a wasted aspect.

[Ryan_Singer]

You really have to negotiate with the GM here. The basic mechanic for you to use is using lore rolls or fate points to make prophecy-style delcarations, and the GM should sometimes use your power as a plot-enhancing mouthpiece, as a compel.

If your GM doesn't want prophecy to be a theme in his game, then you should probably make a different character.

[mostlyawake]

I'm a little surprised it hasn't come up: it's the ultimate plot device power.  "You know this kid will die. Only you know it. Here's a fate point."

I like to give other PCs fate points to not believe my cassandra's tears players.  not really in the rules but it keeps them from just going "okay no one else does, but we'll listen to you!"

which has ended with one player screaming (as her character) "I'm not crazy!"

good times.

[sinker]

You could always sit down with your GM and talk it out. Hell if I was your GM I'd be using it like crazy but some people forget (or don't think about) that kind of tool. If it turns out they feel like they just can't use it then you might want to rework your character but only after thoroughly reminding your GM that they are missing out.

[Becq]

I'm a little surprised it hasn't come up: it's the ultimate plot device power.  "You know this kid will die. Only you know it. Here's a fate point."

I like to give other PCs fate points to not believe my cassandra's tears players.  not really in the rules but it keeps them from just going "okay no one else does, but we'll listen to you!"

which has ended with one player screaming (as her character) "I'm not crazy!"

good times.

Good stuff.  And giving players Fate for disbelieving actually meshes well with the rules.  Basically you are compelling the players with the world aspect the prediction created.  Or, at least, compeling them with the disbelief portion of it.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

That sounds like all kinds of good. I second everything said here.

We have a player in a game I am in with Cassandra's Tears. We are only an intro session in, so it hasn't come up yet, but I will post on this thread how it goes when we meet on Wednesday.

[mostlyawake]

I should add that until recently, I had two player characters with that power. I tried to compel one of them each session, both if i could.  But sometimes a session was too busy for it, and i just compelled whatever was appropriate.

[neko128]

I guess my biggest fear about Cassandra's Tears as a GM hook is that it could be abused way too easily.  I once played in a D&D campaign that became known as "The Green Arrow Inn Detective Agency Campaign", because every time we finished an adventure or story arc the GM used his favorite bartender to introduce the new one.  I wouldn't want - as a player or as a GM - the campaign to end up being "Mrs. Cassandra and her Detective Agency", y'know?

It's a wonderful tool, and something with a lot of potential.  I guess I just worry about the ease of mis-using it.

I'd tend more towards using it for less...  Earth-shattering things.  That, or just more vague things.

Or, you could leave them with some nasty, longer-term ones.  A prediction is an aspect on the world - it doesn't have to be an aspect resolved immediately. 

(click to show/hide)

How long did Harry have "Die Alone" (a death curse, but still) hanging over his head before it was resolved?  If it even has now?

I would try to get into the habit of having "tiers" of predictions.  One or two big, scary, multi-plot-arc ominous predictions that hang over their heads like the sword of Damocles ("New York will burn because of you."); these also have the advantage of being potential major RP points for the character...  Since, by definition, people have trouble believing those with the gift.  Maybe 3-4 mid-tier predictions, relative to the plot arc; these may be minor, or they may give a key clue or motivation.  And lastly, depending on how long you guys play and as long as you're careful not to make the entire campaign about this, however many minor predictions you're comfortable with; I may even say one per scene, if it works for you guys.

I mean, you can't be giving out fate points like candy, but for a relatively minor thing your players may agree that it's not relevant - after all, the system is pretty specific that things which aren't significant should be assumed and moved past.  And the fate points should be going both ways, anyway - the player should be compelling it (or attempting to) as well as you.

And on top of it, never forget the confusing nature of prophecy.  The prophecy "New York will burn because of your actions" sounds incredibly ominous, but has miles and miles of leeway.  I'd almost dance with glee to dump this aspect onto a story I was running.  Does it refer to the state or the city?  Is it literal or figurative?  Could it refer to a model of the city, in the way Harry had a model of Chicago?  Could it refer to the government - the political power structure?  Could it refer to the players igniting a feud between supernatural factions, starting what amounts to a turf war?  How about the players getting into a fight in a warehouse and starting a major fire on the docks?  Could the city itself suffer a major catastrophe, enough to change the world, that the players are directly involved in?  It sounds bad, but what if fulfilling this prophecy is the result of avoiding something worse?  Don't belittle the prediction, but it never has to be obvious.

[luminos]

Talk to the GM, tell them that you want compels for Cassandra's Tears.  Thats pretty much the purpose of the power anyways. 

Have you tried paying a Fate point to get to describe your characters visions?  If he won't let you make your own predictions even when you pay for them, you guys need to have a talk.

Tips for making good visions:
- Use a bunch of vague symbolism.  Hint at definite outcomes, but keep the details unknown and shadowy
- Really play up the "nobody believes me" part of the power.  Intentionally have your character misinterpret some early prophecies to undermine his credibility.  Get the rest of the players in on it, so they can support the feeling as well
- Never create prophecies that are meant to simply solve a problem.  It should always seem like fate can't be beaten.  Getting actionable information out of prophecies should require real finesse, where you don't get the ability to change what you see, but rather the ability to affect some side outcome not revealed by the prophecy.
- Have them at inconvenient times

[Amelia Crane]

I have a player that is playing a half-banshee.  Banshees are supposed to foretell deaths, so I emulated it with that power.  However, instead of not being believed, in general people tend to think she is causing the foretold death.  Obviously the case because she knew about it ahead of time.

It's a decent hook.  I haven't needed to overuse it.  The characters tend to have at least one heroic aspect each with which I can compel them into action against whatever dastardly schemes I have cooked up.  Plus my group has included cops, so that's too easy to put story hooks into.

The thing I have a hard time with is knowing myself when someone is going to die.  In a combat recently two unnamed NPCs died.  But I didn't know if anyone was going to bite it before the situation resolved itself.

[luminos]

The thing I have a hard time with is knowing myself when someone is going to die.  In a combat recently two unnamed NPCs died.  But I didn't know if anyone was going to bite it before the situation resolved itself.

You can always kill NPC's outside of combat   NPC's can kill each other, accidents can happen.  It's all good.  Man, I'd hate to be the banshee when I started predicting all these deaths (hate in a very good way)

[dannylilly2000]

One of my players is a very good role-player and before we start a session I give him a general outline of what I have planned for the session.  He uses it IC to make predictions and it works great.  Especially since every time the other players ignore him something really bad happens.  It also makes it easy to get the party together, cause he saw them all in the vision fighting RCV on the street.  I still give him visions but giving him the info ahead of time really lets him shine with the power.

[neko128]

Always remember...  DFRPG is big on collaborative story-telling.  The Fate system is based around dragging the players, enthusiastically or kicking and screaming, deep into the creation of the story.  City creation and character creation is steeped in it.  The rules are based around it.  Cassandra's Tears is just a tool to that end, and like many tools it has two sides.  On the one hand, it's an incredible and effective way to introduce new plot hooks and arcs, suspense, tension, and role-playing opportunities.  On the other hand, it has the risk of being turned into a Plot Hammer.

I'm long-winded, but bear with me.  I hope this story will illustrate my feelings. 

My historically favorite RPG is Amber Diceless (which, if I remember right, Fred called out as a big influence on Fate).  I've played a bunch of small little mini-campaigns, single arcs, and one-off sessions, but I had one really good campaign that lasted a long time.  It involved five characters; a prince and a princess of Amber, a prince and a princess of Chaos, and one guy who came from the Shadow-lands with no clear origin.  The entire campaign revolved around this one Prophet, and a Prophecy relating to the tree Yggdrasil and his effect on an upcoming conflict.  It walked us through the prelude to the war, through the entire war itself, and we ended it when the dust had mostly settled.  The GM was a local college kid (the rest of us were in High School - the GM was one of the players' older brother), and he planned out most of this storyline beforehand.  He's a fiction writer, and he turned it into this big thing.  The plot he wrote was long and involved, included the fall and re-creation of Amber, a near apocalypse in the Shadowlands.  Really good end-of-the-world type stuff.

The game we ran was nothing like that, because of this one damned clause he threw into the prophecy.

Don't get me wrong, the game was incredible.  It was just *nothing* like he'd intended it to be.  He ended up scrapping almost his entire story, and running something completely new.  See, he'd included one of those really really ominous clauses about "...And one of the people in this room will die a senseless death!" or some such.  Maybe it was dieing alone, or maybe it was dieing with hopelessness in their heart.  But two of the characters were siblings, and another pair were lovers, and the fifth was pretty well set on immortality...  So what had been intended to be a minor plot point and/or motivational factor ended up being the center of every single character's focus.

The counter-point to this is that he *could* have then used another aspect of the prophecy to hammer us back into line, but didn't.  He let us run with it, and we eventually did save the universe...  But it was more as a side effect of saving ourselves. 

Cassandra's Tears, and prophecy in general, are awesome.  They're wonderful tools.  But they're *frigging dangerous*.  Never forget that.

[Richard_Chilton]

My historically favorite RPG is Amber Diceless (which, if I remember right, Fred called out as a big influence on Fate).

Fred and Jim Butcher first met on a Amber MUSH, and Fudge originally a redo of the Amber rules.

Richard