Speak With Dead - Different ways to build

[Greywind]

Or they lead you on journeys to get the information/MacGuffin yourself.

[Sean Waters]

Or they lead you on journeys to get the information/MacGuffin yourself.

 

Indeed: spirit guides are often inscrutable

[Kraven Kor]

Well, hell, if that is the case who needs a Contact?  Build it as a DNPC with useful skills

 

And I would allow such a power in a VPP - but not all GM's would.

[Lucius]

Well, hell, if that is the case who needs a Contact?  Build it as a DNPC with useful skills

 

And I would allow such a power in a VPP - but not all GM's would.

 

A Dependent Nonplayer Character in a Variable Power Pool?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wants an indoor heated Variable Power Pool

[Kraven Kor]

A Dependent Nonplayer Character in a Variable Power Pool?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wants an indoor heated Variable Power Pool

 

No.  Just joking that if you go with the wily spirit guide deal it could be a DNPC (outside a VPP, because even I am not crazy / stupid enough to put Complications in a VPP...)

[Sean Waters]

I suppose all of this is a good example of having to reason from effect: what you want is to get information through the use of a spell.  This is, I suppose, analogous to other methods of information retrieval, form skill use, for example, and not analogous to non rules methods like GM discourse and role playing.  

 

The issues are the same as with skill based information retrieval: the GM still gets to decide what information is given out, but at least concedes that some information will be released as points have been paid, and assuming that any necessary rolls are made.

 

What you need to do, I suppose, is ask how the player wants it to work, if the GM is willing to allow it to work like that, and then how you are going to implement that.

 

I kind of like the idea of treating the dead (assuming that you have an afterlife in your campaign) as people in a different state.  You can compel them as you could compel a living person (well, with some differences), or persuade them, or maybe they are actually keen to tell you.  However, there should still be rules.  For example,  are dead spirits everywhere in your game and, more precisely, can a specific spirit be reached from anywhere.  If you can speak with them are they basically the same as in life or somehow different?

[Christopher]

The problem with contacts - unless you can stick them in a VPP or otherwise change them at will, which require GM permission - is that you have to spend points on them, and you don't get the points back.

Not if you properly define them. You could make a Contact "Police Chief Wigum"*. Or you could make a contact "Current Police Chief of Sprinfield".*

Contacts (especially Organisational ones) are not tied to a specific Person/Entity.

 

*But honestly, if Wigum stops being Police Chief of Springfield, your Contact would have lost it's value. So you should get your points back or be able to rewrite it to the current Police Chief.

[Sean Waters]

Not if you properly define them. You could make a Contact "Police Chief Wigum"*. Or you could make a contact "Current Police Chief of Sprinfield".*

Contacts (especially Organisational ones) are not tied to a specific Person/Entity.

 

*But honestly, if Wigum stops being Police Chief of Springfield, your Contact would have lost it's value. So you should get your points back or be able to rewrite it to the current Police Chief.

 

True, but I'm not sure how organised the dead are.

 

Player: Hello?  Hello?  Is that The Dead?

Voice: Yes, Sir.  How may I direct your enquiry?

Player: I'm trying to get hold of King Lorimar III.  I want to know where the Key to the Chastity Belt of Frustration is.  It is getting quite urgent.

Voice: Connecting you now, Sir.

**Sound of poorly tuned lute music**

Other Voice: You are 79,124th in line.  We are sorry for this delay but value your call, so please hold...

[Greywind]

Not if you properly define them. You could make a Contact "Police Chief Wigum"*. Or you could make a contact "Current Police Chief of Sprinfield".*

Contacts (especially Organisational ones) are not tied to a specific Person/Entity.

 

*But honestly, if Wigum stops being Police Chief of Springfield, your Contact would have lost it's value. So you should get your points back or be able to rewrite it to the current Police Chief.

 

Not necessarily. Especially if you offended the new chief somehow before he got into the position and has a long memory.

[Captain Obvious]

Somehow, Hamlet's Father knew how he died even though he was asleep at the time.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders if ghosts can lie, for that matter. Or be in error.

The classical understanding of spirits is that they're not bound by space and time.  They are therefore essentially omniscient.  They also generally have no reason to mislead anyone, being above all that earthly ambition nonsense.

[Sean Waters]

The classical understanding of spirits is that they're not bound by space and time.  They are therefore essentially omniscient.  They also generally have no reason to mislead anyone, being above all that earthly ambition nonsense.

 

If spirits are omniscient, any of them could answer any question. I think this just points out the need for the GM to make some afterlife decisions about the campaign, as that will perhaps limit or at least direct how such a power can be built, the most fundamental one, I suppose, being, "Is there an afterlife?"

[bigdamnhero]

On further discussion with the player, we've decided to go with Transdimensional Mind Scan. For getting the spirit to talk, the player thinks it'll be more fun to roleplay that using Persuation/Interrogation/PRE Attacks. Incidentally, since you only need EGO+0 for basic communication, you don't really need to buy a lot of dice.

 

One way to accomplish this is literally to require a piece of Indramar to summon the information that it contains.

Definitely, tho in this case we decided you could also use something the deceased owned, tho that's less effective depending on how important the item was to the deceased. Having something the deceased casually owned gives a CV penalty; a prized item is +0, and having actual body parts gives a bonus.

 

I kind of like the idea of treating the dead (assuming that you have an afterlife in your campaign) as people in a different state.  You can compel them as you could compel a living person (well, with some differences), or persuade them, or maybe they are actually keen to tell you.  However, there should still be rules.  For example,  are dead spirits everywhere in your game and, more precisely, can a specific spirit be reached from anywhere.  If you can speak with them are they basically the same as in life or somehow different?

What we're going with (YMMV of course): spirits can be summoned from any location, as long as you know where their soul currently resides, ie which version of the afterlife they're in. At this point, the character can only reach souls that are in Hell. (It fits the character's background.) So the Transdimensional is defined as only reaching into one dimension. She's researching how to summon souls that went to heaven, to alien versions of the afterlife, or whatever, so we can buy that up to Related Group Of Dimensions when plot-appropriate. At that point, knowing (or inferring) if teh soul is in Hell/Heaven/Valhalla/wherever helps you narrow the search, making the Mind Scan roll easier.

 

We're treating the souls as mostly the same as they were in real life. Which means among other things that dead allies are more likely to tell you the truth, but dead enemies are free to lie their noncoporeal butts off unless persuaded otherwise.

 

The classical understanding of spirits is that they're not bound by space and time.  They are therefore essentially omniscient.  They also generally have no reason to mislead anyone, being above all that earthly ambition nonsense.

 

I'm not sure how that would work in game tho. If every spirit knows the same thing as every other spirit, then essentially you've created one big Contact that is omniscent, always available, and always tells the truth. How many points do you plan to charge for that?

[Aversill]

I bought hearing into a related group of dimensions (the afterlife(s)) and then put transmit on the hearing group.  That doesn't actually compel the spirits to talk and doesn't even let the character know if they're there.  Putting the dimension thing on sight will let the characters know if any ghosts are nearby.  It's low Active and it does the job.

[bluesguy]

This has been a great discussion since I have a group of mages/shamans who can contact spirits to talk with them.  I will make changes to the approach I originally took.