Playing As Objects And Locations

[Sanctaphrax]

DFRPG allows a pretty wide variety of character types. But not an infinite one. With the RAW, it's not really possible to play as a coin-bound Denarian or as Demonreach.

Fortunately, there's nothing stopping us from writing a "you're a coin" Power or a "you're an island" Power.

So, who's interested in talking about how to write such Powers?

[Sanctaphrax]

For a start, here's KOFFEYKID's take on an object Power:

(click to show/hide)

Bound Spiritual Entity [+3]
Description: You are a spiritual entity imprisoned in a physical object, you have no body, and cannot act in the physical world without a bearer.
Effect:
Unbodied. You cannot take physical skills, you cannot move yourself, and you cannot communicate verbally and other neat things. You do not have a physical stress track, and your prison can not be destroyed by any means. Any physical stress you would take is instead converted to mental stress.
Communicate with Bearer. You are able to telepathically speak with the bearer of the object you are tied to.
License to Possession. You may take the possession upgrade of Domination in order to possess your bearer. For the purposes of the Possession upgrade you are considered to be constantly "insubstantial".
License to Item of Power. You may act as an item of power for the bearer of your prison. You are allowed a Item of Power rebate equal to the size of your prison but you must purchase the powers you are able to grant as well. Normal restrictions to the refresh rebate apply.
Called to Bearer [-1]. You have the ability to tie yourself to the bearer of your physical prison, and you can teach them to call your prison to their hand.

I have mixed feelings about it. Honestly, I kinda dislike giving a Refresh rebate in exchange for the loss of normal capabilities. There's a reason that all canon rebates modify other Powers.

Also it seems too easy to do mental stress to object characters.

But the fundamentals are there. Objects can't do much, but they can give Powers to people who use them and some of them can possess those people.

[Haru]

I don't know...
I generally like the idea of treating everything as a character, but that does not necessarily mean that everything can be a player character.

However, a spirit possessing someone can very well be a player character, but as a union, not by playing the item the spirit is bound to. The same goes for an island or what have you. Playing the island itself? Not really. Playing an avatar or an emissary representing the island? Absolutely.

I'll be glad to be convinced otherwise, but I don't really see that warranting its own power. It can be represented by an aspect pretty easily. What kind of campaign/game do you have in mind that would be using those powers?

[Silverblaze]

Yeah inaimate objects don't need full personification if only to be used as NPCs.  PCs really shouldn't be inanimate.

All the game has to do is move to a new location or put the item in cement and that player is essentially dead to the story.

A novel idea for a one night game maybe?  Long term, it will work in such rare circumstances rules for it are not needed.


It would be like making a law in a country for something like the following:

It is illegal to walk backwards whilst wearing ice skates in July in handicapped parking zones, if it is also a holiday.

Yeah it could happen.  Yeah the prson is likely crazy or going to hurt themselves....is it common enough to need a precedent set?  No.

[Sanctaphrax]

Let me introduce you to a character I wanted to play two years ago.

And I'm not the only one who has wanted to do the Denarian thing. I've seen it from other people, and KOFFEYKID even wrote a Power to try and make it possible.

I think the fact that people want to play this concept is enough to justify making it playable.

Sure, most people would find such a character unfun. But that's okay, they don't have to play as one.

The location thing is more for NPCs...I could see someone playing one but mostly I just want to make it possible for players to fight Demonreach or something along the lines of an Exalted Primordial.

[Haru]

I would probably stat a character like your loa with mimic abilities and be mostly done. Give the low itself some powers that you are inclined to take, but the whole changing hosts part can be done without any powers in a case like that. Maybe at milestones or at the cost of a fate point invoking the high concept.

If you want to play the shadow of a denarian in a human, go the route of the wolf-were. They are written exactly like werewolfs, only the logic is reversed.
Usually the person is still acting on their own, and the shadow is merely making suggestions, which kind of makes the whole thing fall apart in my eyes. But again, if you want to switch hosts fairly regular, take mimic abilities and work from there. I don't really see the appeal of having a mini match against the host each time you want to do something, and then rolling again for the action itself. And if you eliminate that, you are pretty much a regular character, you are just not "regular joe", you are "possessing regular joe". Doesn't make much difference to me in the writeup for regular joe, it's just not him who's behind the wheel.

I just don't see the need for an actual power to cover that. Also, I think domination+possession(+gaseous form as a prereq) is ridiculously overpriced.

As for demonreach... How do you fight an island? You can destroy the island, sure. But fight it? You can fight the avatar of demonreach, but that is a character that can be created much like any other.

[Sanctaphrax]

You fight an island by damaging its environment or by beating up its avatar. In order to do that, you need some mechanics.

Demonreach isn't just a person, it's an environment. If you leave that distinction out of its stats, those stats will not reflect it well.

As for your suggestions on how to stat a possessing object...they're bad. Being an item that tells other people what to do is in no way the same as copying other people's abilities. It's not even similar, really.

I can tell you right away, any suggestion which turns your user into window dressing is a bad one.

PS: It really doesn't matter whether you see the appeal of a character type or not. Personally, I find the whole angsty vampire hunger thing boring. Doesn't mean WCVs shouldn't be playable characters, with hunger mechanics.

[Haru]

You fight an island by damaging its environment or by beating up its avatar. In order to do that, you need some mechanics.

You can fight the avatar, but you can only damage the environment. It is not actually fighting back. The avatar is fighting back, and you can stat the avatar.

Demonreach isn't just a person, it's an environment. If you leave that distinction out of its stats, those stats will not reflect it well.

Avatar + various free tags on environment aspects should do the trick. I still see no reason to have an "island power". It just doesn't make sense to me.

As for your suggestions on how to stat a possessing object...they're bad. Being an item that tells other people what to do is in no way the same as copying other people's abilities. It's not even similar, really.

It can use the possessed might skill for example, instead of its own, which it will probably not have anyway. That is best represented with mimic abilities, as far as I am concerned.

I can tell you right away, any suggestion which turns your user into window dressing is a bad one.

Again: tell me how you think a campaign like that would work. A player character has to have a way to interact with the outside world. In the case of a spirit being, that will most likely be the host it is possessing. Unless you want to have a game within the game, where the spirit character only interacts with the person it possesses, you only need stats for the possessed person. Maybe enhanced by some powers the spirit carries with it.

[/quote]
PS: It really doesn't matter whether you see the appeal of a character type or not. Personally, I find the whole angsty vampire hunger thing boring. Doesn't mean WCVs shouldn't be playable characters, with hunger mechanics.
[/quote]
It's not about appeal, it's about the fact that I don't really see a game unfold if you can only directly interact with someone you are possessing, and everything else has to be done by convincing/forcing your host to do what you want. Like I said above, that seems like a game within a game, which can be fun, sure, but only on a 1on1 basis, I don't really see this as compatible with a group.

I think it boils down to the fact, that I don't understand what kind of game you want to play with a power like this. I'm all for the premise, but as far as I am concerned, it is well doable with the existing powers.

[Sanctaphrax]

You can fight the avatar, but you can only damage the environment. It is not actually fighting back. The avatar is fighting back, and you can stat the avatar.

...

Avatar + various free tags on environment aspects should do the trick. I still see no reason to have an "island power". It just doesn't make sense to me.

You have an island Power because the first part of your post is untrue. The island is fighting back. IIRC Turn Coat has Demonreach wipe out a bunch of baddies by collapsing part of itself at the end.

Also because intellectus, inability to leave the area, vulnerability to geographical damage, ability to project an avatar, etc.

It can use the possessed might skill for example, instead of its own, which it will probably not have anyway. That is best represented with mimic abilities, as far as I am concerned.

Why do you assume it could use the possessed Might skill?

And why would that be better represented with Mimic Abilities than with, say, Possession?

Mimic Abilities really doesn't work well if you don't know how many abilities you'll copy.

Again: tell me how you think a campaign like that would work. A player character has to have a way to interact with the outside world. In the case of a spirit being, that will most likely be the host it is possessing. Unless you want to have a game within the game, where the spirit character only interacts with the person it possesses, you only need stats for the possessed person. Maybe enhanced by some powers the spirit carries with it.

The point of being an object is to interact with the world through another character. If you mechanically are that character, that doesn't work.

It's not about appeal, it's about the fact that I don't really see a game unfold if you can only directly interact with someone you are possessing, and everything else has to be done by convincing/forcing your host to do what you want. Like I said above, that seems like a game within a game, which can be fun, sure, but only on a 1on1 basis, I don't really see this as compatible with a group.

I think it boils down to the fact, that I don't understand what kind of game you want to play with a power like this. I'm all for the premise, but as far as I am concerned, it is well doable with the existing powers.

You are completely wrong.

No offense.

But this can not work through the existing Powers.

By the existing Powers, an ensouled sword can walk around and punch people if it just buys off a Compel. Narrating away the ridiculousness of that, the way you do when a disabled person buys off a similar Compel, is ridiculously hard sometimes.

And the existing Powers don't really let you act through other people.

PS: You should check out my Domination and Possession rewrites. Much less overpriced, and much easier to understand.

[Haru]

The point of being an object is to interact with the world through another character. If you mechanically are that character, that doesn't work.

I am looking at it from a group perspective, and From there it makes the spirit player play a different game than the rest of the group, which (to me) would be counter productive. From the perspective of the other players characters and probably most of the non player characters, the spirit will interact with them through his host.

I could see you having extra rules if you use them to play out the interaction between the spirit and the host. In a group consisting only of "possessors", I can actually see that work. In a mixed group however, it would create a game within the game, every time the player of the possessed object wants to make his host do something. From the perspective of everyone else, that doesn't really happen, they only see what the host is doing as the outcome of this internal conflict.

And if that's the case, I don't really see a reason to have this internal conflict fleshed out all that much. You can stat a "possessed mortal", and just turn the logic around. Instead of compels being for the spirit having its way, it's the mortal overpowering the spirit for a moment.
Which does not mean that there should not be internal conflict at all. Every character is entitled to his very own adventures, those could be part of his.

I was proposing mimic ability, because you could change part of your powers/stunts/skills according to the person you are possessing. Granted, this will only work if your type of possession allows part of the host to come through, but it is a common enough trope that I would use it.

By the existing Powers, an ensouled sword can walk around and punch people if it just buys off a Compel. Narrating away the ridiculousness of that, the way you do when a disabled person buys off a similar Compel, is ridiculously hard sometimes.

Having a sword walk is kind of silly, and you know it. Apart from having to behead any player who actually attempted to do such a thing, I would make that part of a compel that leaves the possessing object without a host. Also, you can easily justify spending a fate point to have a host come along, even if it is just a raccoon that will drag the object to a location where it will be found by humans.

You have an island Power because the first part of your post is untrue. The island is fighting back. IIRC Turn Coat has Demonreach wipe out a bunch of baddies by collapsing part of itself at the end.

Also because intellectus, inability to leave the area, vulnerability to geographical damage, ability to project an avatar, etc.

Wasn't that Harry using his connection to demonreach?

I would probably just slap a few aspects around and call it a day, but I see why some people might want to have powers for things like that.

PS: You should check out my Domination and Possession rewrites. Much less overpriced, and much easier to understand.

Been meaning to, just haven't gotten around to it.

[Mr. Death]

By the existing Powers, an ensouled sword can walk around and punch people if it just buys off a Compel. Narrating away the ridiculousness of that, the way you do when a disabled person buys off a similar Compel, is ridiculously hard sometimes.

That is...really not how compels work. Buying off a compel should never let you do something that should be literally impossible--it just means that whatever bit of your nature is brought up isn't inconveniencing you. Any player who buys off a compel of their disability by saying, "Okay, I get up out of the wheelchair and walk up the stairs," should be smacked on the head, and so should any GM that agrees to it. It's not the fault of the powers or the system, it's a fault of someone not understanding compels.

A disabled person buying off the compel just means there's a way for him up the stairs, be that a ramp or whatever. An ensouled sword buying off a compel means someone is there to wield him.

[Sanctaphrax]

I am looking at it from a group perspective, and From there it makes the spirit player play a different game than the rest of the group, which (to me) would be counter productive. From the perspective of the other players characters and probably most of the non player characters, the spirit will interact with them through his host.

I could see you having extra rules if you use them to play out the interaction between the spirit and the host. In a group consisting only of "possessors", I can actually see that work. In a mixed group however, it would create a game within the game, every time the player of the possessed object wants to make his host do something. From the perspective of everyone else, that doesn't really happen, they only see what the host is doing as the outcome of this internal conflict.

And if that's the case, I don't really see a reason to have this internal conflict fleshed out all that much. You can stat a "possessed mortal", and just turn the logic around. Instead of compels being for the spirit having its way, it's the mortal overpowering the spirit for a moment.
Which does not mean that there should not be internal conflict at all. Every character is entitled to his very own adventures, those could be part of his.

I wanted to avoid this derail, but...such issues are not the Power writer's problem. Each Power is appropriate for a different situation, and you have to trust groups to use them sensibly.

Either by using these Powers for NPCs only, or by using them in PbP, or by using them in solo games, or by using a non-possessive variant (if you've read Soul Eater, you'll know what I mean), or by some other trick.

I was proposing mimic ability, because you could change part of your powers/stunts/skills according to the person you are possessing. Granted, this will only work if your type of possession allows part of the host to come through, but it is a common enough trope that I would use it.

It also only works if the possession totally overrides the host, letting you use your own skills. That's only appropriate in some circumstances.

Having a sword walk is kind of silly, and you know it. Apart from having to behead any player who actually attempted to do such a thing, I would make that part of a compel that leaves the possessing object without a host. Also, you can easily justify spending a fate point to have a host come along, even if it is just a raccoon that will drag the object to a location where it will be found by humans.

Exactly. Eventually, the number of convenient raccoons becomes a bit absurd.

Especially when they come along while you're locked inside a prison.

Aspects can do anything if you're willing to push them far enough. But at some point it just gets stupid. If you're going to toss out a Compel every single time a character attempts to move, you should probably start looking at another approach.

Wasn't that Harry using his connection to demonreach?

IIRC Harry asked Demonreach to do it. Regardless, effect needs mechanics and maneuver + invoke is pretty thin stuff.

I would probably just slap a few aspects around and call it a day, but I see why some people might want to have powers for things like that.

Good, you're making progress.

On a related note; have you read Soul Eater?

Been meaning to, just haven't gotten around to it.

This might be presumptive of me, but I'm pretty sure it'd be well worth your time.

That is...really not how compels work. Buying off a compel should never let you do something that should be literally impossible--it just means that whatever bit of your nature is brought up isn't inconveniencing you. Any player who buys off a compel of their disability by saying, "Okay, I get up out of the wheelchair and walk up the stairs," should be smacked on the head, and so should any GM that agrees to it. It's not the fault of the powers or the system, it's a fault of someone not understanding compels.

A disabled person buying off the compel just means there's a way for him up the stairs, be that a ramp or whatever. An ensouled sword buying off a compel means someone is there to wield him.

I know. I've given you similar speeches.

That's what I meant when I talked about narrating away the ridiculousness of that. You need to come up with some kind of contrivance that allows the character to perform mechanically normal human actions for X amount of time without actually doing anything they're narratively incapable of doing.

At some point it just gets silly.

Really, I'd rather handle Mythic Strength purely by invoking Aspects then handle being a sword purely by Compelling Aspects. Less hassle, more elegant, and more likely to encourage an entertaining game.

[Sanctaphrax]

It occurs to me that I've already written something much like these Powers. Namely, Mindless.

(click to show/hide)

MINDLESS [-0]
Description: You don't have a mind. Either you mindlessly obey others or you simply execute a complex program or you operate entirely on instinct.
Musts: You must take an aspect to represent the thing that you use instead for a mind. For example, THE MERLIN'S PROPERTY or PROGRAMMED TO KILL.
Skills Affected: Mental and social skills.
Note: This power requires excellent justification if taken by a character with positive refresh. Not for balance reasons, but for logical reasons. As such, this power is mostly unsuitable for player characters.
Effects:
No Mind. As a mindless creature, you cannot be attacked mentally. Duh. You have no mental stress track and never take mental stress. You are not immune to social stress, but you cannot be persuaded or frightened or otherwise influenced mentally. So unless someone wants to ruin your reputation or credibility, there's no point attacking you socially.
Incapable Of Thought. Not being able to think has its downsides. You may never use the listed trappings of the following skills: Burglary (Casing, Infiltration), Contacts (All Trappings), Conviction (All Trappings), Deceit (All Trappings), Discipline (All Trappings), Empathy (All Trappings Except Social Initiative), Intimidation (Provocation, Interrogation, Social Attacks), Investigation (Examination), Lore (Common Ritual, Magical Versions Of Banned Scholarship Trappings), Performance (All Trappings), Presence (Command), Rapport (All Trappings), Resources (All Trappings), Scholarship (Research And Lab Work, Computer Use, Medical Attention), Survival (Animal Handling, Camouflage). In addition, all of your actions are limited by your brainlessness. Your knowledge rolls are simply the regurgitation of stored data, your ability to build things is simply a matter of following memorized procedures, and so on. This has no mechanical effect, though, and should be handled with Compels.
Superior Instincts/Programming [-1]. The complexity of your program or your instincts is impressive. Select one skill trapping. Ignore the effects of Incapable Of Thought on that trapping. This trapping may be purchased multiple times.

Turn that around so that you're immune to physical damage and unable to use physical trappings, and you've got an object Power. Though I suppose a "You Are What You Are" trapping might be needed too.

Remove Superior Instincts and get upgrades letting you provide Powers and dominate your users, plus an upgrade that lets you shift into and out of human form, and Bob's you're uncle.

A location Power could be built along similar lines. Allow physical attacks only if they're extremely large-scale, add a "landscape control" trapping/skill, and modify perception skills slightly. Then add an upgrade that lets you Sponsor people and one that lets you create avatars. Maybe also an "Improved Landscape Control" upgrade that'd let you break physical laws within yourself.

Come to think of it, Sponsorship and power-granting kind of deserve to be their own Powers. Especially since I still plan to stat Mab one of these days.