Cassandra's Tears idea

[Wordmaker]

One of the players in my game has Cassandra's Tears. For ages this has been a challenge, because the rest of the group want to trust her visions, but we've had trouble with the OOC knowledge that the prophecy is true, and the IC curse that makes it so difficult for her to be believes.

So I came up with a solution.

I write the vision down for the player to read, and she then rolls to try and convince the others. If she succeeds, she can share the vision. If not, she has to keep it to herself.

What do you guys think?

[Taran]

That sounds like it would work, although she'd have a hard time rping the details of the vision if she can't tell them.  And as the game goes on, she couldn't mention it...which might be frustrating for her.

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of some other options as well:

Give her the occasional false-vision (and a FP).  You may or may not want to tell her it's false.  The players will be less likely to believe her.

Something else, though, depending whether or not they'd work towards fulfilling the vision or towards preventing it.  Cassandra's tears is supposed to put an aspect on the city.  Possibly, compel that aspect to their detriment if they are supposed to be ignoring the vision, but offer then a free tag or two on the aspect if they believe it and are working towards fulfilling it or, to use those tags (if they are trying to prevent damage from the event)so that they gain an advantage on whatever plan they have for when it comes to fruition.

So let's say the vision entails a particular building catching fire.  If they believe the prophet, give them a free tag on the aspect.  They may not be able to stop the fire, but they may get a leg-up on saving people.

If they don't believe it, you can compel them to show up to the building late or some other detrimental action.

Either way, the event takes place.

[Wordmaker]

I always figured the problem with Cassandra's Tears was that the prophecies always came true? So it's kind of screwing the player if she's one of the ones who can't be certain the vision is real.

I do like the free tag idea. That way, even if the players know it's going to happen, finding out if their characters believe it or not offers a real benefit.

[Taran]

I always figured the problem with Cassandra's Tears was that the prophecies always came true? So it's kind of screwing the player if she's one of the ones who can't be certain the vision is real.

I'm just brain-storming now...so grain of salt and all that:

How about this:  In the social conflict, to convince people, each consequence she inflicts on the group is a part of the prophesy.  A tid-bit of truth.

Each consequence the group inflicts on the character with Cassandra's tears is a tiny little white lie.

Don't mention any of the information until the conflict is done...just tally it all up.

One the conflict is done, you, as the GM combine all the consequences (truth and false-hoods) and read them to the party.  Your prophet know the real truth, though.

Yay for mind games!

[Wordmaker]

That would be an interesting experiment, but I think it'd need a smaller group that plays for more time than mine does. We have 6 players, and between people arriving and waiting for food to be ordered and arrive, we only get to play for about two and a half hours.

[shadowlost]

Any game where there exist prophetic powers I always give a vision with one truth and 2 lies. Then the players have to decipher the truth and hope for the best.

[jftravis]

Looking at Cassandra's Tears (YS172) and the section on Predictions and Prayers (YS324), the power itself does two things. It a) places an Aspect on the campaign, and b) it gives the player a -2 to convince anyone that the aspect is present (that the vision is true). My own take would be that the -2 really only affects NPCs. It seems a bit odd to make such rolls between players, unless they're prone to internal Social conflicts. However, is also creates an Aspect that gets placed on the entire campaign world, and lasts until the events in the vision come to pass. I'd simply present a Compel to any fellow Player she wants to tell about it. If they accept the Fate point, they don't believe it. Player ownership of this allows them to describe how they react; derisive laughter, polite dismissal... whatever. Since I'd always tend to use the power to signify that Something Really Bad™ is about to happen, they're all likely to want the Fate point later, anyway. And keep in mind, nothing prevents the player with the visions from pursuing her own agenda, investigating the vision, and potentially dragging one or more other players along, particularly if they have bonds (Aspects) of group loyalty, or somesuch.

[Wordmaker]

My issue with using a compel is that if a player wants to believe it, they have to spend a Fate point, and one or two people in my group are having difficulty with the idea of RPing that they don't believe the visions. They don't like the idea of telling another player they think they're lying or making something up.

[jftravis]

Then they might be missing the whole point of the ability in the first place: the reason the power is a -0 refresh ability is that it's also a curse. That's the way it's supposed to work. If it were meant to work as an infallible predictive talent, it'd cost more... perhaps a lot more.

They may want to believe. They may not understand why they don't. They don't even have to disbelieve, they're simply pressured by that curse into justifying why they won't act on the information. They may instead not believe it's important enough, compared to everything else they're dealing with. You're saying that they have a hard time RPing disbelief in something when they patently do, as open-minded and at least clued-in PCs. That's logical. As a fellow GM, I'm just saying that this is an RP challenge, for everyone involved, to try and roll with something like this. It also somewhat "cheapens" the choice of the character with the ability, if part of what they wanted to RP was having to struggle with that disbelief.

You can even leave the compel out of it. They can choose to act, or not, regardless of what they do or don't believe. Make it a simple RP situation, and leave it at that. Just challenge them (as above) to RP from the standpoint of disbelief.

It should go without saying (but I'll say it anyway ) that this is just my take on the situation. Ultimately, the entire group should be on the same page and reasonably happy with the final decision.

Afterthought: it also occurs to me that, when Harry encounters Lydia, he doesn't believe what she's telling him at face value... and he's a full wizard who knows about Cassandra's Tears. My take on that entire exchange is that, in the end, he doesn't necessarily believe what she's telling him, but he does believe that she's terrified out of her mind and in need of help, and decides to act on that basis. He RPed doing something to help, even while not fully accepting the nature of the problem.

[Wordmaker]

I'm not entirely sure why the power was taken, really. The character is a "psychic biker", and for a long time was played as though she didn't believe in the supernatural, at least beyond psychic visions and psychometry. It did strain credulity after a while, and the character has finally been convinced that monsters and magic are real.

I'm starting to think Cassandra's Tears is one of those powers that players just shouldn't be allowed to take.

Another suggestion has been to have a vision start off incredibly cryptic, but as the story goes on it recurs and becomes more and more clear. I'm not sure how to pull that off, again given that we play for 2-3 hours a week.

The funny thing is, that none of the visions so far have actually come true, because the group has always acted to prevent them. We only have about one vision per story arc, but I'm still not sure how to handle it. Anything I could do, aside from insisting that the players RP it, seems either over-powering or disruptive.

[Taran]

My understanding is that the vision is supposed to come true.  Hence the reason why there's a city aspect.  It's supposed to be compelled so that it comes to fruition.

What's important is the fall-out as a result.  So maybe the visions are too specific.

For instance, if she had a vision that a building was going to fall on people and kill them, they could prevent it by keeping people out of the building.

But maybe the vision is about a giant earthquake that's going to hit the city.  There's not much to prevent the earth-quake, but they can still do a lot to alleviate the fall-out from said vision....

I like the compel idea...it's very smooth.

[Wordmaker]

In most circumstances, I'd go with a compel, too. But I've had players, one in particular (the husband of the person playing the psychic), explicitly state they're not comfortable trying to RP not believing the visions.

[jftravis]

I'm not entirely sure why the power was taken, really. The character is a "psychic biker", and for a long time was played as though she didn't believe in the supernatural, at least beyond psychic visions and psychometry. It did strain credulity after a while, and the character has finally been convinced that monsters and magic are real.

Then it might be time for an update to the character at the next viable milestone. Granted, it's a big no-no to change a character's high concept or trouble aspects, but this seems to be more a case of an overdue retcon of an ability for which the group as the whole didn't fully understand the ramifications. It might even be worthwhile to speak to the player beforehand and discuss the idea of taking on an Extreme consequence (or a very nasty concession) to make losing the ability part of the story. A lot of epic story potential, there.

I'm starting to think Cassandra's Tears is one of those powers that players just shouldn't be allowed to take.

I tend to agree with this just on general principal. At the very least, something like this shouldn't be taken unless all the players in the group agree that they can accept the full nature of the ability and run with it.

Another suggestion has been to have a vision start off incredibly cryptic, but as the story goes on it recurs and becomes more and more clear. I'm not sure how to pull that off, again given that we play for 2-3 hours a week.

Having run games with this type of power, you're correct: that's not always possible. My own method frequently means making the vision cryptic enough that there's no obvious way for a group to avoid it, because it contains too little specific information to know what it's even about. It's also extremely important to design the vision in such a way that the efforts taken to avoid the apparent outcome actually cause it to occur. In short, make the vision look like a disaster, and then make player group victory look like the vision. Granted, it's also a good idea to make player group failure look like the vision, but hopefully you won't have to cross that bridge often.

My tl;dr way of saying I agree with Taran. 

The funny thing is, that none of the visions so far have actually come true, because the group has always acted to prevent them. We only have about one vision per story arc, but I'm still not sure how to handle it. Anything I could do, aside from insisting that the players RP it, seems either over-powering or disruptive.

Then yes, I'd guess the visions are much too specific. They shouldn't have any idea how to prevent it, even down to the wire. The trick, as mentioned above, it to make the outcome look like success AND failure, as dictated by the actual outcome. It shouldn't be showing them the actual outcome, it should be showing them the setting that the events occur in. I hope that makes sense; it's not an easy thing to describe, and I've done it a lot in some games. The last year (of three) of my weekly Legends of the Five Rings campaign was rife with this kind of thing. Keeping six players headed toward the same event, while all being guided by six radically different visions was a tremendous amout of extremely rewarding work.

In most circumstances, I'd go with a compel, too. But I've had players, one in particular (the husband of the person playing the psychic), explicitly state they're not comfortable trying to RP not believing the visions.

That's going to be a very touchy point, and probably the biggest justification for retconning the power out of the group. I don't know any of the people involved, but my hindbrain is warning me that he's having difficulty in 1) separating "truth" from "fact", in context of the game, and more importantly 2) having difficulty separating the RP of a) disbelief in what his wife tells him, b) disbelief in what his wife's character tells his character and c) disbelief in the information given by the visions.

It's just not worth the potential strife it can cause.

[Belial666]

1) Cassandra's Tears visions always come true. The PCs can't avert them (go on - let's see you stop this earthquake) or their attempts to avert them lead into them coming true (whoops! you stopping the graveyard ritual creates the zombie apocalypse - because those mysterious wizard guys were trying to stop it, not start it), or their attempts to avert them are compelled to failure because the aspect can be tagged for free for every action leading towards that disaster (a roll of 6 stops the bad cultist from waking the Old Ones - too bad he tags the "Stars Are Right" campaign aspect for a -2 to your roll).


2) The "not believed" thing is both a part of the power itself and a character aspect (you need a relevant aspect to get Cassandra's Tears). You can compel both the power itself (through its city-wide aspect) and the character's own aspect to compel her into not telling in the first place (she believes she won't be believed, or that telling will lead to disaster), or into saying it in such a ridiculous way so as not to be believed (i.e. compel her to get on a crowded station at midday and shout her predictions at the top of her voice to warn as many people as possible)

[Wordmaker]

That's another mistake I made. I never made sure the character had an aspect to reflect Cassandra's Tears.

I think the group needs to have a proper talk about the power. It should be a defining element of the campaign, and so far the group's response to visions has been to send away magic items seen in them, keep friendly characters away and have hostile characters fought and/or killed by someone who wasn't in the vision.