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The Death Note and How To Stop It


Michael Hopcroft

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One of the most controversial manga titles in years has come to the United States, and it poses the idea for a great but difficult campaign.

 

Death Note tells the story of a high school genius named Light who finds a strange notebook on the ground by his school and picks it up. Reading the introduction, he finds that it is the "Death Note", a notebook left behind by an Angel of Death. If you write a person's name in the book while his or her face is in your mind, that person will die in the manner you specify if you do so within forty seconds. If you don't specify a means, he will simply drop dead from heart failure. (the face is a failsafe to prevent you from causing every person on Earth with the same name from dropping dead simultaneously). Light tries it out -- and finds that it works exactly as advertised.

 

And that is when the darkness swallows him, at least in a moral sense. For Light decides that, since he has this incredible power, he should use it to cleanse the world. Soon criminals all over the world are dying for no apparent reason, at a level that causes rumors to being of an "avenging angel" and arouses the interest of Interpol. Light, meanwhile, gradually becomes more and more convinced of his divine purpose, to the point that he is convinced that anyone who would try to stop him -- even his own family -- deserves death at the hands of his pen.

 

In short, Light Yagami is one of the most compelling monsters the comics medium in any country has ever produced. Nevertheless, a monster is exactly what he is. He has one solution to every problem -- sudden death -- and he rains it down without regard to consequences. His definitions of "criminal" and "enemy" become increasingly flexible and all-inclusive with time. And he finds it relaxing to write thirty or forty names in his book at a go.

 

Which brings me to the RPG point. The Death Note, or something like it, would be the ultimate weapon in an RPG. It is so very powerful that writing it up in statistical terms would be pointless. And the question becomes obvious -- if an adversary of the PCs has a power of this variety, how can he even be contained, let alone stopped?

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

What comes to mind is the Andian peasant cure for witchcraft...sneak up on them during siesta and empty both barrels of your shotgun into them....if you can track him down you can put him down...a 30-06 from a few hundred yards should do it...Oh And change your name to Rumplestilskin!

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

Well, theres the obvious dodges of Secret Identity, never using your real name, wearing a mask, etc.

 

From a mechanical point of view Anonymity and Shapeshift / Images would seem to offer dodges. Also, there should be SOME defense -- this Power sounds like a big Indirect or IPE (Source) NND Does Body w/ Variable SFX really -- whether that be Luck, Power Defense, LS: Immortal, or something else.

 

From a story point of view, if theres an Angel of Death w/ such an artifact, there would logially be one or more OTHER Angels with competing / rival balliwicks that would act to stop abuse of such an item.

 

Also, some mystics should be able to detect or otherwise be sensitive to the use of the item, to the point of being able to track it down and thus start doing something to the user directly.

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

A little Mind Control could go a long way, as well.

 

How to stop (or at least avoid) it?

--become undead (ooh, a heroic lich?)

--lose your identity, complete with radical plastic surgery

--make darn sure you frame somebody for your crimes

--invoke divine intervention (or demonic)

--find this guy and blind him, cut his hand off, lobotimize him, whatever

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

From a story point of view, if theres an Angel of Death w/ such an artifact, there would logially be one or more OTHER Angels with competing / rival balliwicks that would act to stop abuse of such an item.

 

{/QUOTE]

 

Verging into spoiler territory, there are other Shinigami (Death Spirits), and at least one other one becomes involved later, though not necessarily on the good guy side.

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

From a story point of view, if theres an Angel of Death w/ such an artifact, there would logially be one or more OTHER Angels with competing / rival balliwicks that would act to stop abuse of such an item.

 

 

Verging into spoiler territory, there are other Shinigami (Death Spirits), and at least one other one becomes involved later, though not necessarily on the good guy side.

There's a good guy in Death Note? News to me. I've been longing for Light to get a truly severe comeuppance since the beginning.

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

I think the real thing to consider is not how to stop him from using this "Death Note", but how anyone becomes aware of who is using these Death Notes in the first place.

 

Once the PCs become aware of who this is, whack 'em (or burn the notebook).

 

The other problem is "Does the person using the Death Notes know that the PCs are his enemies, and does he know their real names and faces?"

 

If so, this is going to be very, very hard to stop without a lot of PC death, as this character basically has complete script authority over the entire universe. Sure, he can say that someone is going to die of a heart attack, but he can also write that "X is killed by Hitler arising from the dead, walking to your house, and beating you to death with Pamela Anderson's Oscar." Since all of this must happen in 40 seconds, not only can the writer raise the dead, but also change the past, as not only does it take Hitler more than 40 seconds to walk to your place, but also retroactively, Pamela Anderson would have had to win an Oscar (or buy one, or be given one as a gift).

 

Since you've got someone who can effectively control large swathes of the past and present (You die when the entire male population of Cambodia falls on your head at once.), you've completely screwed any chance of the PCs feeling like they have any competitive chance. Any survival they might have is at your option.

 

You might as well have a villain who can always outsmart everyone all the time, infalliably, and then let the PCs go at him.

 

I feel that the entire idea is a really interesting one for a book, where there's a single author exercising creativity, and a really bad one for a roleplaying session, where everyone else will either quickly die, or not die, just because of the GM's own decisions.

 

Now, if the Death Note writer doesn't know who his "enemies" are, and his "enemies" don't know who he is, then maybe it might be an interesting idea (can we figure out who this is (and stop him) without him figuring out who we are?). However, even in that case, you've established that there are supernaturally active items floating around that can alter the past and present at will (and presumably, since you could write "X dies by a logically impossible manner" violate causality itself at will).

 

Can you tell I'm not a big fan of the idea?

 

Now, if you DO know who he is, and want to stop him, I think that paid assassins would be the way to go. ;)

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

Now, if the Death Note writer doesn't know who his "enemies" are, and his "enemies" don't know who he is, then maybe it might be an interesting idea (can we figure out who this is (and stop him) without him figuring out who we are?).

That is what I am saying: Harbinger of Justice vs Death note guy. :yes:

Harbringer wins. :bmk:

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

If so' date=' this is going to be very, very hard to stop without a lot of PC death, as this character basically has complete script authority over the entire universe. Sure, he can say that someone is going to die of a heart attack, but he can also write that "X is killed by Hitler arising from the dead, walking to your house, and beating you to death with Pamela Anderson's Oscar." Since all of this must happen in 40 seconds, not only can the writer raise the dead, but also change the past, as not only does it take Hitler more than 40 seconds to walk to your place, but also retroactively, Pamela Anderson would have had to win an Oscar (or buy one, or be given one as a gift).)[/quote']

 

Off Topic: This is exactly why the Technocracy hates tradition mages in my version of the World of Darkness. Those damn mages are constantly rewriting history to suit themselves and screwing up our careful plans!

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

If so, this is going to be very, very hard to stop without a lot of PC death, as this character basically has complete script authority over the entire universe. Sure, he can say that someone is going to die of a heart attack, but he can also write that "X is killed by Hitler arising from the dead, walking to your house, and beating you to death with Pamela Anderson's Oscar." Since all of this must happen in 40 seconds, not only can the writer raise the dead, but also change the past, as not only does it take Hitler more than 40 seconds to walk to your place, but also retroactively, Pamela Anderson would have had to win an Oscar (or buy one, or be given one as a gift).

Although in an RPG all bets are off, in Death Note itself when Light specifies a cause of death it has to be physically possible. Not neccesarily likely, but possible. The only thing the Note gives him control over is the actions (for the seven minutes it takes between him writing down the name and the person dying) of the victim. If the conditions Light specifies are impossible, the victim isn't spared -- he simply dies via heart attack as per usual.

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Guest daeudi_454

Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

So, if he decided he had a problem with- Tom Cruise, and writes that a Near Earth Asteroid 2 miles across hits him- he gets to wipe out all of LA? (california, half the continent- dpends on burn)

 

Maybe a good story (not my tastes, I like having someone to cheer for.) but would be nightmarish for an RPG.

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

So' date=' if he decided he had a problem with- Tom Cruise, and writes that a Near Earth Asteroid 2 miles across hits him- he gets to wipe out all of LA? (california, half the continent- dpends on burn)[/quote']

No. I don't think Light can do anything on that massive a scale, and I think he is limited to killing only the specific person whose name he writes down.

 

And hey, who doesn't have a problem with Tom Cruise?

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Guest daeudi_454

Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

Ah- so now we know the SFX may be Variable, but the Advantages aren't AS Variable... no megascale blast radius, etc.

Unless he has speed writing, you would have to learn the term Collateral Damage and Acceptable Losses. Send a team of enough grunts, one of them will pop him before he can write ALL those names down...

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

There's a good guy in Death Note? News to me. I've been longing for Light to get a truly severe comeuppance since the beginning.

 

Technically "L" and the Task Force are the good guys, though L is pretty damn ruthless himself. (Which is why this is in the Dark Champions section.)

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Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It

 

No. I don't think Light can do anything on that massive a scale' date=' and I think he is limited to killing only the [i']specific person[/i] whose name he writes down.

 

 

Correct, so Light can for example, kill Tom Cruise with a micro-meteorite, or being beaten to death with an Oscar (if Tom happens to be near an Oscar at the time specified, better odds than most people) but not by Hitler's animated corpse.

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