TheDarkness

Kaspar, this is what I was talking about earlier in reference to fear. It is not a steering wheel, it is an engine. Letting it guide is often disastrous, it is exactly what Trump needed his voters to do, fear, Islam is coming, war on Christmas, Mexicans, the MSM, fear fear fear. The rational response is not more of the same. Assess what is productive to oppose, do not obsess over what MIGHT be the future because of what is now: Knowing what you don't care for now, seek useful ways to make yourself count. BUT, have a life as well. Everybody gets one. History as we read it is not history as it was. Vast swathes of humanity, the vast majority, are not written into the histories we have, and we gain the illusion that leaders had more power than they truly did, were not themselves hemmed in by other influences, were not themselves hemmed in by their own actions or the image they must sell. History occurs in the cracks as well as the heights. Don't become too fearful of what happens at the heights. It is very hard to see what is happening in the cracks from the heights. The great powers often have so little influence over ordinary life that they could honestly be said to have never existed for such people. It is important to keep in mind that Buddhism became one of the most influential schools of thought in China not because of its temples, but because every attempt to surpress it took away those temples, took its worship out of the temples and hid it among the people, until it became so intertwined with the culture that it was impossible to separate from the culture. Yes, there are bad things that have occured for many recently. But, those bad things are themselves working against the very culture that espoused them. That kind of thing does not often succeed. Usually, it ends badly for those seeking it.

What's always funny to me is that fantasy and sci fi and comics were the nerd genres of my youth, but traveller players were few and far between, Champions players the same. It's not like the same people aren't reading fantasy, sci fi, and comics in a ton of cases. I think it's more a coincidental culture that sprouted up. I think D&D marketed more effectively at the start, and it ended up being the go-to genre. It's not like there is an innate desire for humans to specifically want to battle troglodytes, but not stormtroopers.

Darnit, I was being so productive until you posted that link!

That's what fiddling and fire are all about!

I think that players need to understand that the power requires extra work and time, because it's affecting story. I would just say, "the vision comes, but as soon as you wake from your state of clairsentience, you cannot remember it's details," and then tell them the details the next session, saying the vision returns or some such thing.

Another thing to consider, is, in a game with precognitive abilities, you will have their opposite. If the master villain knows an enemy can see into the future, how will he or she respond? A powerful magical item at their keep to prevent scrying into it? Having their base located completely outside of the timeline? In a fantasy game that has some people in the world who can do this sort of thing, rulers would likely place a premium on having those who have visions of the future in their employ, and ways to prevent being scryed upon. This would then mean that some wizard orders might be quite aware of a lot of what's going on, not by virtue of scrying, but by virtue of supplying wizards who protect meetings from scrying present at a lot of important things. This actually gives me ideas for my master villain, Kaiser Mayhem. He's a scientific genius, but saw the foil that magic could make of his plans and has learned much in that realm.

Plus, if a city has a long enough history, it will be sacked and rebuilt, trying to avoid the problems of the old design. And then grow organically again.

In fairness, it's a power with NO mechanism for its use, so GMs are all making it up on the fly. And thus, this thread. My contribution to the future. Or, the first step in my evil plan. The future is a choose your adventure book. SPOILER: you die.

So you claim...

Totally agree with Massey's point on time being a necessary thing to give the GM. The main point I don't necessary agree on is on precognition as GM fiat in cases of its reasonable use(this is all assuming the GM is allowing the power). At that point, it becomes the GM's power, not the character's, and the character shouldn't have to spend any points on it. This is part of the reason that I alluded to even a 'scientific' precognition having accuracy limits, having elements that can be wrong(oh, this other timeline or divergent reality and ours must have been close at that point, so there's apparently another timeline where that element happened, this allows for the same vagueness of dream visions and such). If the character spends points on an energy blast, that blast is useful in game, even and especially where its use foils us evil GM's nefarious plans. It is not GM's fiat paid for by the player. This is why I am constructing a mechanism for production of the content of the vision. It makes it easier to define the vision next game, leaves the actual meaning vague, AND allows for the vision to alter my vision of the story as GM, just as any other use of a power can. Further, by having a fair number of 'generic people' cards in the deck, the content may very well include people that the hero does not know at all, by having people only I know as GM in the deck, they will have an even greater chance of having a vision whose content they cannot fully understand, and the same with places. Further, if I do introduce some elements as GM's fiat, the player can likely tell, oh, this vision has more elements than I actually drew from the deck, my GM shenanigans sense is tingling, but they will not necessarily know WHICH elements are the ones they drew from the deck, and which are my introductions. This way, its use is not abdicating the normal balance of both GM and players affecting things, plus allows for the vision to have utility to both GM and players for how they view the story and potential action.

I remember after my folks relocated to Kentucky, I was nineteen, but stayed in the midwest. I went to visit them, and someone explained to me that some people might be a bit paranoid because there were rumors of blonde haired blue eyed men abducting children and raising them as satanists(I'm blonde haired and blue eyed). And an actual case of a politician winning some local position by buying votes with liquor and cash. Honestly, I couldn't even concieve of either thing being something that people did or believed in the real world. After returning home to the midwest, I was talking with some friends, and I told them about the roving satanist story, and one of them shook his head. Apparently, his parents and half the people he grew up around believed the same stuff. I kind of wonder if there's a lot of now older people telling their grandkids, "You kids don't know how easy you have it. When I was a kid, we didn't have cell phones and video games. You were lucky if you made it to the end of your street without the satanists getting you." Actually, that might make a really good, semi-campy game. Set in the eighties.

That may be part of it, but he has never before come off as being able to deal with criticism, so I'm willing to bet that plays its role as well.

Death Tribble, after twenty years in the business, was finally recognized by the academy after winning best new artist three years in a row.

Pattern Ghost has a secret compound where 1000 monkeys are currently typing counterfeit Judy Bloom novels for the Chinese market.

I just think it's worth saying, although I started this thread on an idea I had for producing prophesies, I think the thread is perfectly suitable for looking at different views on that as a power and as an aspect of a character. So, Christopher's essay on how making it specific or general impacts how it may play out. Infinite Karma's post on how to make a character whose abilities stem from knowing what's going to happen. My view on making the prophesy itself something the person who has the power has an impact on, and creates a chance for the GM to gain unexpected glimpses into possibilities in their world that they may not have seen. One think occurs to me regarding Niobara's Uncertainty Principle. If the prophesy shows something the characters want, then they might try to make it happen that way, which may help or harm. But for GMs, there is the interesting option of what happens if their enemies get their hands on the prophesy? How would they try to affect its outcome? What new game opportunities might that make? For Infinite Karma's build approach, what other powers and skills might we find fit that well?

Yeah, it's really not actually a difference in content, so it's funny that it could make a difference in understanding. I recall reading a short story once written in two columns, each column described the same event from two different perspectives. Depending which one you read first, it tended to color your perspective on the overall event. Brains are funny things.

Ah! I was just saying I didn't really think his write-up was about 'showing, not telling' as much as 'here's what tends to happen, based on how precise the prediction'. This was in response to the previous post, where Infinite Karma mentioned a build that implied an ability to see in the future(a build that I think is pretty cool), but wasn't so much a direct 'prophesy- 20AP' thing. Infinite Karma had referred to Christopher's approach as showing, not telling, but I didn't really see it as related to whether it was shown or told. Thanks for translating!

That's actually my favorite kind of character to play. It's just so rewarding. I actually picked that up from my first Traveller game. Really good GM, I had always played combat monsters before, and that game really opened my eyes to the value of taking a different perspective and seeing gaming beyond wish fulfillment of dreams of power, that, in fact, going beyond that tended to make one's characters MORE effective.

Yeah, I think that having the combat viewed first, as you said, makes purchasing powers and skills make much more sense. I also think the combat section should have the explanation penetrating and such, since they are very common influences on damage. Obviously, it would not make sense to include all things, such as many drains, in the combat section, but if the player gets the combat, they understand a lot more of the system, and are more likely to be able to build something.

The advantage of hero is that if you don't like a fireball spell being normal damage, you make a fireball spell with killing damage. The disadvantage is the same.

I don't have the fantasy hero book, but one thing I can note from other of the genre books is that, unlike most games, Hero might be best presented as things like stats and dice rolling conventions first, THEN the combat system, then skills, powers, the stuff to build with. Putting character creation before the play part of the system mistakenly gives the impression that combat is as complex as character creation, and may send some people running for checkers.

I'm not sure I understand?

But, if a player does not take uncontrolled, I think there is value in having a more systematic approach than the GM decides, and I think it's more helpful for some GMs in many ways to have such an approach. And I'm not sure Christopher is suggesting not showing the prophecy as much as understanding the consequences of specificity. Maybe I'm reading him wrong. As for the build you discussed, that's clever! I will say, for that style build the GM should pay for the precog power, if it's really a plot hook and not a power.

Who isn't?

From here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/87678-dealing-with-prediction-or-the-uncertainty-principle/ The setup I discussed above is alot about a mechanism to minimize prophecy being just the GM having influence or the players getting dirt, Christopher's writeup above, imo, is interesting and useful for how the content can be displayed once it is known and what effects one can expect.