It’s still Sunday somewere. Renown won out, 33 to 28. Sorry for the lack of replies to last week’s post, I’l be going through and adding some today. Always busy.
Renown is one of those things that didn’t do what it said it did. It didn’t have the impact on the story that it was described as having; it granted Gifts and added to their dice pools but not in a unified way, and determined effective spirit rank… that was pretty much it. It was more expensive than new Gifts and required deeds in the game, but did nothing to actually reflect those deeds.
Part of this is what drove the changes to Gifts that I talked about previously. Renown doesn’t just give Gifts, it’s the main way of getting them. Each dot increases the effect or dice pool for a Gift.
Likewise, if you’re familiar with the God-Machine Chronicle spirit rules, you’ll know that spirit rank is a very effective tool — an Uratha who outranks a spirit does aggravated damage to it.
Renown also powers hunter’s aspects, first mentioned in the Auspices update. In the context of the siskur-dah, the player can place his Aupice’s hunters aspect on his prey. Doing so requires a roll depending on the situation, but it always adds the character’s Auspice renown. A success places the appropriate condition on the werewolf’s prey. A character can only be terrified by one hunter’s aspect at a time.
Here’s the Cahalith and Rahu examples:
Resigned
Your character faced down his hunter, and the frightening beast has shown him the essence of doom. While he may still fight or flee, there’s a part of him inside that welcomes the release of death. Your character may not spend Willpower to add dice or resistance for any action to defend himself from an existential threat. He can fuel Gifts or use other actions, but his self-defense becomes lackluster at best.
Possible Sources: The Cahalith’s Monstrous hunter aspect.
Resolution: Suffer a wound penalty from lethal or aggravated damage, or suffer a lethal wound in your character’s last health box.
Beat: n/aSubmissive
Your character faced the full bore of a Rahu’s essence. He’s cowed, and cannot bear to face the Rahu’s fury. He can not directly attack, insult, or defy the Rahu, or the Rahu’s pack without first spending a Willpower point and making an extended, reflexive Resolve + Composure roll. You may make one roll per turn, but each roll requires an additional point of Willpower. The target number of successes is equal to the Rahu’s Purity.
Possible Sources: The Rahu’s Dominant hunter aspect.
Resolution: Suffer a wound penalty from lethal or aggravated wounds, or suffer a lethal wound in your character’s last health box.
Beat: n/a
Finally, characters can flare their Renown. This is a matter of posturing and dominance, not direct aggression, so drawing claws against a werewolf who dares to use the spiritual equivalent of a boast is a very bad idea.
Renown Conditions make your character act much like the stereotype of her Renown, which makes it easier for another character to manipulate her. An Honorable Uratha gives +2 dice to anyone trying to fool or take advantage of her, while a Cunning Uratha gives +2 dice to anyone trying to detect his lies or notice his sneaking.
But wait, why would you voluntarily take on penalties as a result of your Renown? Well, that comes when resolving the Condition. Someone has to use the bonus against you, but once they have you can choose to resolve the Condition. In so doing, you get your Renown dots in automatic successes roll involving one of three Skills (the Renown’s Auspice’s Skills, but that’s a messy construction).
Here’s the Renown Conditions for Honor and Wisdom.
Honorable
Your character is Honorable. She wields honesty the way some Uratha wield their claws. She fights fairly, and pursues fair prey. She does not abuse the already downtrodden, or take advantage of the innocent. Characters knowing of her Honor will attempt to fool or take advantage of her. Any such rolls gain +2 dice. When your character bears that weight, her humble dignity gives her an aura of grace and respect.
Possible Sources: Flaring Honor Renown brands with Essence.
Resolution: Once at least one character has used the +2 bonus, you may choose to shed this Condition to add her Honor Renown in automatic successes to any Empathy, Politics, or Socialize action.Wise
Your character is Wise. She seeks the intelligent, reasoned answer in all things. She looks to past successes and failures, and those successes and failures of others so as to take a smarter course of action. This inspires others to challenge her wisdom, and question her foundation of knowledge. Any rolls to defy or question her advice gain +2 dice. When she’s proven her reason sound, she’s redoubled in her understanding of the world.
Possible Sources: Flaring Wisdom Renown brands with Essence.
Resolution: Once at least one character has used the +2 bonus, you may choose to shed this Condition to add her Wisdom Renown in automatic successes to any Investigation, Medicine, or Occult action.
This week’s music is the theme to the Resigned Condition up above; the Inspiral Caprets’ This Is How It Feels. Finally for this week, would you like Idigam or Lodges?
I just to post with the name of Antares… but lets change that.
This is a long post and seams a little bit complicated. I need to pass this for my troop and see what we come up with. It sounds interesting but… not really sure.
Yeah, it took me a couple of read-throughs to get it as well, but from what I’m seeing, it seems like the Hunter’s Aspects are analogous to B&S Predator’s Taint, while the Renown Conditions are more like MtAw’s Nimbus flaring.
Which, I think is pretty cool in concept. We’ll see how the execution rolls out. 🙂
Also, I vote Idigam.
IDIGAM!
Now I’ll go and actually read the blog post…
Idigam!
At last Renown feel as “epic story points” as it should be. 🙂 Nice touches.
Another question – would Renown somehow let player collect extra Beats for playing it?
And I vote for Lodges, as I never got to them in original Forsaken games and my current is very low level one so cosmic Idigams will wait for a bit. 😉
As with all Conditions when you resolve them, they grant you a Beat, wyrdhamster.
Idigam, once again.
I vote for Idigam!
I do like the new direction of werewolf in general, but this little tidbit about Renown is posibly the change I like the most (the close second being the “one shape for each job” part of the new shapeshifting).
I like that flaring your Renown is kind of a gambling, you get a potential drawback in exchange for an asured bonus.
Very neat.
Not sure if I like that they have to be challenged to be useful, but you are certainly on a good track here!
Also, I too vote for Idigam. While the Lodges need more fleshing out, they are less central to the setting.
Very interesting! Idigam for next week
Idigam please!
This is interesting. I wonder how it’s going to work out in play though, with or without mechanics.
having a +2 to question someone’s wisdom is a significant bonus. If you win that roll, that “wise” werewolf may not seem wise for long as others will then question its wisdom with the same bonus. Then again, if that werewolf is already known for their wisdom through their renown, it makes me wonder why it would inspire others to question their words – especially with the idea of packs in time of war/hunt/crisis deferring to the specialization of each member of the pack without question (from what I can remember of the original core, although that might just be how we played it).
Hope that makes sense.
With honorable, I could see it becoming an issue for werewolves who hunt other werewolves, praying on that werewolf’s honour to get them to slip up. But when I say issue, I only mean for that werewolf. I think that fits quite well personally.
Very interested in seeing some of the other conditions so far.
I vote Idigam.
Picture an Irraka challenging his Ithaeur’s concerning the reseach of a spirit’s ban, merely to give himself +2 on his own attempt, and +X suxx on his own efforts, which would likely make his roll an exceptional success, which in turn would allow him to finish the task unbelievably fast.
But that kind of goes against the idea of working together? If you get bonuses from, essentially, opposing what the Renowned Uratha is good at, isn’t that essentially encouraging people to constantly question and argue with each other, specifically against the area that that Uratha is good at?
I agree with this.
I see the idea behind it – and can envisage those wanting to impart wisdom ensuring they have their facts right and plan in place first – great for spirit negotiations, but I don’t feel it’s a great idea that its going to push players in a pack to try to get each other to fail to succeed in other areas.
Again, I can see the reasoning behind this, but I think it’ll be abused (and could lead to player on player conflict). Unless I am missing something here.
The grain is for suckers, I want to see Lodges.
I’ll vote for lodges.
Am I missing something, or are the hunter’s aspect conditions meant to resolve after filling your track with bashing damage? It says suffer a wound penalty from lethal or aggravated wounds, or fill your last health box with a lethal wound, but if you have any wound penalties at all they’re necessarily going to include your last health box. Or is it there to cover cases like the Iron Stamina Merit?
Exactly that. There are multiple situations in the Storyteller System that let you ignore wound penalties. So the note is to account for those.
My vote is for Idigam!
I vote Lodges, because let’s view the best for the end.
Holy crap those inflicted conditions are powerful… And flaring renown feels like bating someone into a trap. “Here, take +2; I’m gonna take 4 automatic successes, thank you very much.”
Idigam!
i vote for Idigam
IDIGAM!!!
Very nice. Renown actually feels like a resource you can take advantage of rather than a passive bonus to dump points into. I really like the idea of the renown flare and the trade between having someone else take advantage of you to get a bonus.
I’m curious, though. Since, in Forsaken, renown is usually only visible in the Hisil, does this make your brands visible in the material, or is the ‘flare’ less of a physical term and more of an instinctual understanding? Or, have you changed how the brands are displayed completely
I forgot to vote again. My vote goes to Lodges.
Cool! I especially like the idea of flaring renown. However , I’m not sold on the +2 Wise gives being on challenging the wise character’s logic. Wouldn’t that imply that their logic is easier to successfully refute when they have the condition? That would seem to actually make them less wise.
I guess the description does say they become a charicature of the Renown, so is Wise supposed to make the character come off as more of a know-it-all?
Z-splats are Z-splats. I’m more interested in the antagonists. Let’s see the Idigam!
I think it’s supposed to be more like playing devil’s advocate during a friendly debate. If Georgia is dealing with a local bureaucrat over a zoning issue and decides to act Honorably it would make sense for Mina the Ithaeur to challenge her thinking, to poke holes in her argument and the like and roll a +2 to do so, but when the actual roll comes Georgia gets to add 1 success to the honor roll as her honor has been tempered by her packmate’s questions.
I hope that made sense i’m fighting with a one year old right now.
Personally I think that the wise drawback would be that they’re vulnerable to sudden or surprising actions, things that don’t give them a chance to think for a moment before choosing how to react.
Keep in mind that the challenge doesn’t necessarily succeed. The opposition gets two dice, and presumably they’re at a deficit if they’re seeking advice, so if the Wise using character has a very strong position (high dice pool), it’s probably not going to help that much. If their position is less tenable, they deserve to fail, as it isn’t an act of wisdom to make assertions from a position of ignorance.
Either way, they get the benefit of the automatic successes.
Lodges for my vote.
Right, but no matter how good the Wise character’s position is, an opponent is two dice more likely to succeed at challenging the point than they would be if the character did not have the Wise Condition. Which is kind of counter-intuitive, unless Wise doesn’t actually make the character wiser, just more tempting to try to prove wrong.
Er, what’s more Wise: Accepting criticism and pooling ideas or throwing a fit because someone called out a mistake and putting your entire pack at risk because you were wrong on something?
…what? I just made an observation that flaring your wisdom renown actually makes your logic easier to refute than it normally is, and that’s a little counter-intuitive. That’s all.
except that if anybody challenges you with that +2, you can lose the condition and get at least one automatic success, which is usually worth more than 2 dice.
I think this is actually a common misconception right now, as far as I understood it, flaring your renown doesn’t make you MORE wise, honorable, etc…it’s werewolf swagger. You’ve already proven your wisdom to the lunes, that’s how you got the brands in the first place. Flaring them is more like saying, “Hey everyone, remember how wise I am? Well, look at it. I’m damn wise!” And, when someone starts boasting and bragging about how undeniably wise he is, people are gonna jump at any opportunity to prove him wrong, thus the +2 bonus to refute his wisdom. After that, he gets a nice pool of automatic successes to SHOW how wise he actually is.
It’s a system of boast, accept the bouts of nay-saying, then prove the nay-sayers horribly wrong. I think it makes perfect sense.
No. It gives them +2 dice. You get automatic successes to prove your logic, instead.
Honk honk, I am on the Idigam bandwagon.
Also, nice system.
Is there a noted difference in the power between Submissive (basically a one-target Sovereignity, and that is if these auras are limited to one target) and Resigned? Would adding ‘cannot dodge’ go part of the way to addressing that difference?
I’ll let the rest of you vote this one out: both sound interesting.
Totally forgot! Idigam, please.
Lodges. Definitely lodges.
Idigam! I gotta say though, I really love these changes to Renown!
Idigam, please.
Idigam!!!!!
Finally, Renown actually feels like it does something! Idigam, please!
Idigam please!
Idigams please. I already wear my lodge inked on my arm.
Lodges.
Idigam please.
I like that the hunting aspect things (or the Rahu one at least) can be useful for non-fatal hunts. Opens up options and makes me want to play a rahu.
The catch for Honorable seems more brutal then for Wise, but I guess that most Ellsworth are going to be well-equipped to handle deception. So maybe it’s just a buff for their poor besieged foes.
Idigam please. Good work!!!
I’m not sure if its intended this way, but the wise flare is particulary useful when the pack discuss what they know about the matter at hand. Consider this scenario: the pack is arguing or debating about what they know about a particular threat. The Itheur flares his wisdom and rolls first telling everyone what he knows about the subject in hand. Every other pack member can there try to challenge his knowledge, rolling with a plus 2, thus getting aditional information about the current issue. Finally the itheaur ponders about everything that has been said, looking for more information with some free succeses to make add to this roll.
?That whole setup might be extremely usefull and im not if its intended or is exploiting the system.
Interesting, gonna take some re-reading to wrap my head around it. But I like that Renown is less passive.
I choose Idigam. I rarely use Lodges so I can wait on that. I think it’s time we hear about the big mamaa jammas. 🙂
Interesting, gonna take some re-reading to wrap my head around it. But I like that Renown is less passive.
I choose Idigam. I rarely use Lodges so I can wait on that. I think it’s time we hear about the big mamma jammas. 🙂
I’m not sure if its intended this way, but the wise flare is particulary useful when the pack discuss what they know about the matter at hand. Consider this scenario: the pack is arguing or debating about what they know about a particular threat. The Itheur flares his wisdom and rolls first telling everyone what he knows about the subject in hand. Every other pack member can there try to challenge his knowledge, rolling with a plus 2, thus getting aditional information about the current issue. Finally the itheaur ponders about everything that has been said, looking for more information with some free succeses to make add to this roll.
That whole setup might be extremely usefull and im not if its intended or is exploiting the system.
Vote for indigam.
Hmmm not sure about the renown change when reading through the description it sounds like a bit bulky (and complicated) to use ingame.
So far just a gut feeling though would need to see an example of use there ingame.
Although I don’t know much about the Idigam, I’ve never really gotten what Lodges were and how they work and more importantly: Why I should use them.
So my vote is for Lodges.
I definitely like what you have done with Renown, any chance of telling us how many Experience Points it’s going to cost in the new system? Or has that not been finalized?
I’m going to vote for Lodges.
I like it. Nice subtle touch on how increasing in renown does, in some ways, make a werewolf more spirit-like, and that asides the effects make it feel much more pertinent.
Now if it’s not crazy to purchase EXP wise, we’ve got a winner.
Hmm…I’ma gonna go…Lodges. I want to find out about the Idigam, and thus certainly won’t lose either way next week, but I like the idea of having them serve as a darkening final note.
I vote Idigam
Indigan
Idigam.
Idigam!
I think it’s time for the meat: Idigam, please.
I vote for the idigam
Lodges
Vote: Idigam
Interesting take, I’ll be very curious to see how it works in play.
Idigam please!
Hum, this will take time to piece together. Let me get back to you on what I think of these changes.
In the mean time, mark another down for Idigam.
if a spirit outranks a werewolf does it also deals aggravated damage??
Idigam
No.
“Cunning Uratha gives +2 dice to anyone trying to detect his lies”
I want you to reread that sentence and see if you can see the same thing wrong with it.
The thing is, you’ve made Renown bulkier…it has more weight now, certainly, and it’s going to be more things to remember and keep straight…but you haven’t really shown why Renown is essential to Forsaken or its themes. What does Honor or Purity have to do with the hunt? Why do I care what spirits think of me, if a major driving force of the game is them hating me? How is this Forsaken’s thing and not Apocalypse’s thing? You have to do better.
Idagam, please. You are naming the whole Chronicle book/ God-Machine Update thingy after them; I should have some clue what the heck they even are.
Keep in mind that flaring your renown is a supernatural form of bragging. An Uratha flaring Cunning is the equivalent of someone walking up to you and telling you “I’m such a great liar, you’d never know I wasn’t telling the truth.” If someone did, you’d be analyzing what they said pretty closely. The same applied to flared Cunning. The Uratha is announcing, “I’m an incredibly deceptive individual” and others will be on alert for the deception, thus the +2 bonus.
Also, the reason Renown is important in roleplaying terms is that it represents the messengers of Luna acknowledging that you are fulfilling the duties you inherited from Father Wolf. The Lunes brand you so that other spirits know that you are their peer. This doesn’t necessarily make other spirits like you. As a matter of fact, it probably makes those of lesser rank fear you and those of equal or greater rank hate you for even attempting to be their peer. Obviously, this depends on the spirit, but Renown has a great importance in that it gives the werewolf their place in the spirit world and shows the rest of Uratha society how well (or poorly) they are performing their spiritual duties.
The hunter’s aspect Conditions bring up a similar problem with other Conditions. To resolve them, you have to do something stupid or become a victim. How about succeeding? Even Call of Cthulhu lets players regain sanity by defeating monsters. If the player manages to inflict a lethal or aggravated wound on the hunter or even kills him, wouldn’t that resolve it?
That should be inflict a lethal or aggravated wound that causes a wound penalty. Also, Idigam.
I don’t get this complaint at all. The werewolf is causing supernatural fear or submissiveness in your character. You get a Condition to remind you which effects are on your character and how to remove them. If you manage to remove it, you get experience points. Sounds like most other RPGs to me.
All Conditions are aids for roleplay. The Condition is a way for the rules to enforce the fact that your character is scared or dominated by the werewolf in his Hunter Aspect. It is an excellent system for unifying all the rules that affect your character. Some conditions are just reminders that your character is scared or seduced or dizzy, and gives you a mechanical reason to play that out (or “acting stupid”, I guess):
I fully agree with you.
Is the character still scared or dominated if he kills the werewolf? The point is, the character can’t remove it, except by something like shooting himself in the foot. This isn’t a reminder, it takes away control of the character. There’s no way for a character to overcome his fear?
There’s a general rule that when a Condition is no longer relevant or adding to the story, it goes away (without Resolving and granting a Beat). So if a werewolf scares your character and you act scared, you get a reward for doing so, and then your character gets over it. If you don’t act scared, you don’t get the reward, but if your character destroys or escapes from the source of her fear, there’s no reason for her to be scared any more, so she’s not.
But the character isn’t getting a Beat for acting scared, but for getting wounded. Which makes for better drama: a main character who passively goes along with his fear, or one who takes action to fight it?
Hm, I like that Renown matters more now from a storytelling perspective. In the old system Renown always felt kinda meh to me. So I’ll look forward to try this new Renown out when the book is released. Not sure if I fully get Everything from the post above, but some things tend to get clearer once you have the whole thing in front of you to play with. Kudos on making Renown interesting.
I can’t wait anymore. I NEED to know about Idigam!!!
On Renown Flaring I believe this will be a better sequence :
Spend an essence to flare the renown -> Gain the Renown rating as automatic bonus on it’s Auspice Skills -> All observers gain a +2 die bonus to fool or take advantage of the werewolf because of his self boasting.
I believe this sequence is better since it makes renown look like a double edge gift of Luna , one that aids and tests the worthiness of her children at the same time.
It´s no so easy. If you must spend essence, then it need to be worthy, at the same level as gifts are, otherwise, no one would use it.
Idigam or Merits 😛
Idigam, please
Lodge
Lodges, please.
Idigim
First, my vote is for Idigam.
And now, a question – Predator’s Aura conditions can only be applied once a month to a person. Is it the same with werewolf aspects?