I got this idea from Dan talking about his werewolf control pool in his other games. I thought it would work brillantly for any game where there's some kind of self control struggle going on in the character's head w/ supernatural powers.
You have a pool of dice that represents thier supernatural powerz and kewl beans. The player can tap into those dice at any time, and take as many of them as they like out of the pool. The kicker is that every time they take dice out of the pool, they also roll the dice left in the pool as a scab roll. If they don't hold onto thier self control, they have in game issues. A werewolf might frenzy, a vampire might go mass murderer, a solar would suffer from limit break, batman might have flashbacks to his parents death, a jedi might start turning down the dark side path... all that kind of thing.
My problem is, how many dice to I put in the pool? How often do I have it refresh? Under what circumstances? What do folks think about at the end of every game session? Every other game session?
I also feel a little bad if I were to use this for Solar combat, since it would be like punishing my players for bringing the cool. That's not how Wushu should work at all.
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Aaron Smith Wizened Alchemist of the Wushu Clan / Wild Eyed Inventor of the SotC Clan.
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Ignore List: MaryAnnS
Last edited by Aaron Smith; 08-22-2006 at 10:18 PM..
Reason: new idea
Well, it depends a bit on how many rolls you HAVE.
I.e, if you have lots of rolls, and most arn't very important, people won't use the pool much.
For Solars, I'd probably just givem them the old limit bar back.
The reason for this being that you might want some sort of build up that resets after a while.
You also might want to make sure the "bad" isn't "ruin the game bad", as that tends to turn people off. You need to find an effect that is cool for the player, but
"bad" for the charachter. That can be hard.
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No, Kiero, that group is pretty much a lost cause. I'm using this idea with an online group that I formed and we use IRC. Some of the IRC folk are big fans of the WoD, and I admit to enjoying the duality of the systems. Mages walk the line of power vs hubris, werewolves & vampires of sanity vs frenzy... etc.
So I was thinking that I really like the pool apporach, and it works really well for The Force in Star Wars too. Honestly anything where with great power comes great temptation. But I'm not going to use this if I can't get it to at least sound right in my own head.
As I said, punishing my players for 'being cool' is competely against the spirit of Wushu. And right now I don't know how to make the 'failure' into something cool for the PC's.
__________________
Aaron Smith Wizened Alchemist of the Wushu Clan / Wild Eyed Inventor of the SotC Clan.
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - James Nicoll
Clichés are to writing as salt is to cooking. A little salt is always necessary to bring out the fullness of the flavors of any dish. However, any cook will also tell you that it is entirely too easy to use too much salt, or even just to use it incorrectly, and completely ruin the dish. - Anonymous
Ignore List: MaryAnnS
If your players love their WoD, they should be more than happy to see their characters flip out and murder their loved ones. I'm the same way when I play Call of Cthulhu; if my PC doesn't die or go insane by the end of the adventure, I'm crushed. EDIT: I agree with Kiero, though, that they should retain control of the character during their "episode."
As for the size of the bonus pool, I recommend 5 dice. Since they apply over the normal pool limit, even 1-2 extra dice can be a serious advantage. Putting in all 5 will crush most enemies like peanuts beneath a steamroller
However, I'd have them roll those self-control dice against a dedicated self-control Trait, not as a Scab Roll. (It's easy to pass Scab Rolls with only a few dice.) Don't make them narrate Details, but do make them roll against a target number and hope for at least 1 success (or more, if the situation warrants). Their self-control Trait defaults to 2 and they'll need to shuffle points into it if they want it any higher. See what I mean?
--Dan
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