So I'm thinking of using a Banshee as a character in one of my games, and I'm mulling over what powers she should have. Flight, obviously, and some kind of supernatural sense about Death. It'd be a Fae (the "shee" in the name coming from the pronunciation of "sidhe" after all).

I'm pondering what to do with the scream. Possibly some reflavor of Incite Emotion (Fear)? Something like the Barabbas Curse, where whoever hears it is fated to die?

So, out of idle curiosity, I'm wondering how exactly to price and model a Green Lantern Ring as an item of power. I'm thinking a +1 discount (it's distinct, but small and hideable), a sponsored magic (Hardlight as the evocation element, evothaum for constructs, tracking, translations, etc.), and Modular Abilities for things like flight, toughness, speed, and strength on the fly.

As for the charging, I'm thinking Human Form (involuntary) for the charge running out.

Any thoughts?

So, this is something I came up with to help my groups (all of whom meet online through mIRC) keep track of things during conflict scenes. And with the beauty of google docs, they can see me updating it in real time, and can check it quickly to see which enemies are wounded, who's got what aspects, and what order they're supposed to go in.

Anyway, me and my groups have gotten good use out of it, so I figured I'd share it--or at least the basic format of it--with the rest of you. Feel free to copy and use with your own groups.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgPUH3x69zQrdG53czdmcVVYMlVGek4wSHMyUTQ2SXc#gid=0

So I had a wild idea, inspired by a friend, for my next scenario. A 24-hour time loop in Groundhog Day/Window of Opportunity/Majora's Mask style.

Essentially, the PCs will be caught in the effect of a spell gone wrong, which will have them reliving the same 24 hours over and over until they figure out what's starting it, and I'm planning to make it a hell of a day--in the first iteration, I'm planning to have some huge tragedy happen in front of each of them that they'll later be able to stop.

The plan is to run through the day quickly in the first session of the scenario--issue a lot of compels to speed things along and keep them moving so they don't dwell too much. Then start the next session exactly the same way, and from that point on, divide the scenario into discrete periods of time and let them 'save' their progress.

So the first thing that's planned to happen is one PC's boss is going to go out, run into ghouls, and be brutally killed before that PC can get there. And in subsequent sessions, he'll be able to relive that, do things differently, and then when he gets through it in a satisfactory way, we'll 'save' the day's progress at that point, with the assumption that the character repeats what he did the one time things went well.

I think this could end up being a really awesome scenario if I can pull it off. I've more or less got the plot of the day scoped out, but I'm interested in hearing if anyone has ideas for how to pull it off mechanically and structurally.

So, I'm still trying to wrap my head around ways for Hunger stress and Feeding Dependency to make sense both in the rules, and with what we see in the canon of the story and the flavor text. This is, perhaps, veering into house-rules, but I think it's in the spirit of the system. It's in two parts.

I. Banking Hunger
This is, basically, having something with hunger stress do some prep work instead of hunger stress just being an after-the-fact, "I did this, now I have to eat" thing. In effect, this would look at your average vampire as a "baseline". Sort of like a human with an empty stomach, but who's been eating regularly. Using their powers makes them hungry, as normal, just like doing a day's worth of yard work would make you hungry.

But, prudent vampires can top up their reserves by maneuvering with their feeding skills beforehand, with each maneuver being taggable later on--either to boost a roll in combat, justified by tapping into those extra reserves, or to boost the discipline roll at the end of the conflict, justified by the conflict depleting the extra reserves, but not pushing you into hunger stress.

This would explain, for example, the fight with Lord Raith in Blood Rites--he can't feed, but he's moving quickly and healing rapidly all during the fight, probably using all the maneuvers he'd built up before he got neutered, but which he didn't want to use except as a last resort.

II. Trading in Hunger Stress for Bonuses
This one is more to deal with things like a vampire going all out, beyond their normal limits, during a fight, then being drained after (see Thomas vs. the Black Court vamps in Blood Rites). Essentially, this would be the vampire boosting some roll or another by trading in a hunger consequence--+2 for Mild, +4 for Moderate, +6 for Severe--during combat, which takes effect at the end of the conflict.

This, I think, works more in line with how we've seen White Court vampires work in the series, and allows the vampire more options in a fight. At the same time, it both makes the hunger track useful, and makes it more likely to actually cause a hindrance.

I was considering the idea of trading hunger stress for the bonuses, but that seems a little too powerful.

So, thoughts?

Thinking about Demonic Co-Pilot got me thinking...just what lasting effects should being taken out have?

Specifically, this comment by Becq:

The problem is that after using the belt for a short time, all someone would need to do is poke them and they'd keel over, having no consequences left to sacrifice.  I still hold that a Sponsor Debt-style system would be more fun, more playable, more balanced, and better reflecting the "reality", so to speak.

I was going to respond that maybe a Hexenwulf might forgo taking the consequences at all, and allow themselves to simply be mentally Taken Out right off the bat and 'giving in' to the demon, so to speak. But mechanically, how would that giving in be represented? Aspect changes? Temporary aspects?

And then I got to thinking, how exactly does Taken Out work for the other types of conflicts? Yes, I know that whoever does the taking out decides it, but how is it, or can it be, mechanically represented?

Does someone who chooses to be Taken Out by a blow to the head--getting knocked out--suffer no consequences, when he would have taken the Moderate Consequence of a concussion if he'd stayed in the fight?

Putting aside all the other issues we're all discussing about thaumaturgy in another thread, my table and I are trying to figure out if and how two wizards' Lore scores should interact when starting up the ritual, i.e., how many shifts the characters start from when building up complexity.

So far, we've discussed three options:

A. Only one wizard's Lore score matters; other wizards can only contribute to the complexity through declarations, invokations, etc.

B. Combine the Lore scores directly, so if you're doing a Divination ritual with one wizard specializing so his Lore's effectively 6, and the other has a Lore of 4, you can do a 10-shift ritual immediately.

C. Pick one wizard as the "lead" in the ritual, use their full lore skill, and take half the Lore score of the assisting wizard, so the example in B. would let the pair cast an 8-shift ritual right off the bat.

What do you guys think?

So, most sponsored magic allows you to cast Thaumaturgic rituals with the speed and methods of evocation (set power with Conviction, roll Discipline to control), and you can normally devote focus item slots to either Thaumaturgy spells of a given type, or Evocation spells of a given element.

So, my question is, if you have a character with a focus item for Thaumaturgic rituals, and a sponsored magic that allows that type of ritual to be cast with Evocation's speed and methoids, does the focus item still contribute to power/complexity or control?