Deviant Kickstarter

[Minty]

Eric addressed Explosive Lash back on page 15.

Oh, thanks, I must have missed it.

[Satchel]

Small discrepancy between the actual writeups and the quick reference lists in Preview 3: Misfortune is listed as a Social Scar in its writeup but Any in the list.

Is Hemophilia 5 supposed to result in any bashing damage taken causing both the Magnitude 2 and 3 effects to kick in, since the upgraded damage is lethal, or is it just the former?

[BrilliantRain]

I feel like encouraging STs to inflict microaggressions on their PCs should maybe come with a note not to overdo it and to see the sensitivity suggestions on pg. XX. I get that you want things to feel isolating and emphasize that Deviants are now the rejected Other, but enough people have to deal with those kinds of things on a daily basis that I could imagine this easily crossing a line if you aren’t careful.

[Leliel]

I feel like encouraging STs to inflict microaggressions on their PCs should maybe come with a note not to overdo it and to see the sensitivity suggestions on pg. XX. I get that you want things to feel isolating and emphasize that Deviants are now the rejected Other, but enough people have to deal with those kinds of things on a daily basis that I could imagine this easily crossing a line if you aren’t careful.

I think that's what the sidebar on the X Card and drawing the line is for, but yeah, a couple words about checking that section might be good.

I must say, I did not expect the University of Delaware to be the setting of a school for aspiring mad scientists and the setting for players who want to punch Nazis.

It's hardly a flaw, and I dig the satire of freeze peach types. But I wasn't expecting Irene Engel with an American accent as the setting main antagonist.

Also, I had no idea her secret books existed, and I feel cheated for knowing more. I'd ask who believes this garbage, but I read the RPG Horror Stories reddit. I know GMs who believe that crap. Good on this book trying to scare them off with that discussion on how much being a Deviant sucks because of the reason being poor sucks.

[The MG]

I took another look at the Conspiracy rules and... now I have more problems with them. They just seem too rigid to be useful and, in places, strangely detached from the conceits of the game.
Some examples:

The Divergence is unpredictable and unruly, even for the mightiest conspiracies, and some lack the secret knowledge to induce it at all, but creating or recruiting a Deviant is a Complexity 1 project. As a result, whether or not a Conspiracy can get Deviants is basically ST fiat, as if the system didn't exist, but with numbers.

Projects abstract away a lot of things, some of them for the best (like influencing NPCs and other ST-against-ST scenarios). As part of this abstraction, the system removes the PCs' ability to interact with the project in any sense beyond destroying the relevant Node, without addressing, say, what happens if the PCs intercept the truck carrying an Icon from Node to Node, or bust into a facility to rescue a test subject without torching the place or killing the Linchpin.

What Standing means for a conspiracy's reach is defined only vaguely. Standing 1 is supposed to be "locally influential or regional but diffuse," but Darwin's Sixth Number wield a potential apocalypse they can manifest in ten sessions (and this is an Icon, for some reason, instead of just a Project they can pursue).

The Surveillance roll is presented in such a way that it doesn'treally care what the PCs do. Sure, there are modifiers to shift the probability towards specific outcomes, but the result remains down to chance. A conspiracy can fail to target you even though you haven't moved an inch since the last session, or find you unerringly even after you burn every bridge and shed even your body (though that's really the lesser of the two issues; it at least serves the premise of the game).

A lot of these faultlines are pretty easily resolved by just ignoring the system, but then I'm left wondering what the system is actually for.

Fundamentally, I think just wanted something out of the conspiracy rules that they can't or won't provide. This is honestly fine -- the game doesn't need to cater to every single possible game, after all -- but it does leave me without much to work with.

On a positive note, Chapter 7 is good so far. I quite like the additional inspirations (Akira, at last, where it deserves to be), and both Down and Out — Life Without Privilege and the Axis of Inhumanity and Poverty look like they'll be worth reading and rereading as I run the game. I do wonder why the (clean and efficient) heist rules are here and not in the systems chapter, though.

[Satchel]

The Divergence is unpredictable and unruly, even for the mightiest conspiracies, and some lack the secret knowledge to induce it at all, but creating or recruiting a Deviant is a Complexity 1 project. As a result, whether or not a Conspiracy can get Deviants is basically ST fiat, as if the system didn't exist, but with numbers.

You need an appropriate Node to accomplish it and you need to be able to spare 1 Effort on getting a Deviant on your team instead of accomplishing something else.

Projects abstract away a lot of things, some of them for the best (like influencing NPCs and other ST-against-ST scenarios). As part of this abstraction, the system removes the PCs' ability to interact with the project in any sense beyond destroying the relevant Node, without addressing, say, what happens if the PCs intercept the truck carrying an Icon from Node to Node, or bust into a facility to rescue a test subject without torching the place or killing the Linchpin.

Lethal damage to a conspiracy includes carrying out major attacks on Nodes and causes crisis points that the cohort may be allowed to choose the consequences of, including removing invested Effort or forcing the conspiracy to dedicate conspiracy actions to recovering assets from them before they can resume the Project.

What Standing means for a conspiracy's reach is defined only vaguely. Standing 1 is supposed to be "locally influential or regional but diffuse," but Darwin's Sixth Number wield a potential apocalypse they can manifest in ten sessions (and this is an Icon, for some reason, instead of just a Project they can pursue).

Please reread the examples of Complexity 10 Projects and also understand the difference between "this group could potentially end the world by completing their doomsday weapon" and "this group has the reach to accomplish things on the global stage." As a Standing 1 organization, the Sixth Number relies heavily on going unnoticed to be able to work on the Zero Solution, because they have one conspiracy action to work with and any destroyed Node or other lethal damage might set them back double.

The Surveillance roll is presented in such a way that it doesn'treally care what the PCs do. Sure, there are modifiers to shift the probability towards specific outcomes, but the result remains down to chance. A conspiracy can fail to target you even though you haven't moved an inch since the last session, or find you unerringly even after you burn every bridge and shed even your body (though that's really the lesser of the two issues; it at least serves the premise of the game).

The Surveillance roll cannot go below Standing - 5 due to the nature of penalties versus basic dicepool components, and the only way a conspiracy can't affect you with conspiracy actions at all in a chapter is if it rolls a dramatic failure.

[Sir Dragos]

This being the Deviant Kickstarter thread and all, I just want to shamelessly remind everyone that may be lurking that this is the last day of the KS. If this is a game that interests you, please consider backing it.

We are very close to an exciting stretch goal that will add a Devoted Companion supplement to the materials included with the Deviant pdf. Let's get there!

[Custos Tenebrarum]

This being the Deviant Kickstarter thread and all, I just want to shamelessly remind everyone that may be lurking that this is the last day of the KS. If this is a game that interests you, please consider backing it.

We are very close to an exciting stretch goal that will add a Devoted Companion supplement to the materials included with the Deviant pdf. Let's get there!

If you have backed, please also consider upgrading to a physical book if you only have the PDF level and/or consider adding something onto your pledge, there is a $20 ST Screen for example.

Edit: we are so close to the Devoted Companion (just $718 away), if every current backer added an extra $0.45 we would hit that stretch goal.

Edit2: now just $119 away, if every current backer added an extra $0.07 we would hit that stretch goal.

[Custos Tenebrarum]

WOOOOO! $80k! We just hit the Devoted Companion stretch goal!

[Geomancer]

Can you just make Scars "generic" and then have variations that match them but aren't necessarily entangled? For example, someone with the Alternate Persona Scar, linked to the Involuntary Stimulus of "When they sleep" and have the total be something like 5 points of magnitude, then have 5 points of magnitude in variations that aren't linked to a scar?

[Stupid Loserman]

Can you just make Scars "generic" and then have variations that match them but aren't necessarily entangled? For example, someone with the Alternate Persona Scar, linked to the Involuntary Stimulus of "When they sleep" and have the total be something like 5 points of magnitude, then have 5 points of magnitude in variations that aren't linked to a scar?

No, you can't have Variations that are not entangled with any Scars (except for the one free dot granted by your Origin). You can, however, entangle multiple Variations to a single Scar, with a number of Variations after the first equal to the difference between the Scar's rating and the Variations' rating. So you can entangle two 4-Magnitude Variations to one 5-Magnitude Scar, or three 3-Magnitude Variations, or four 2-Magnitude Variations.

[HelmsDerp]

You can get pretty creative with chains though. You should be able to take Alternate Persona and then have "Alternate Persona takes control" be the Involuntary Stimulus that triggers other variations.

I think that's how you would make a character like the Hulk. I mean yeah Hybrid Form but there's a limit to how many Variations that can support.

[Leliel]

So, now that the Devoted Companion is being funded, who wants to play reformers of the Onachus?

They don't seem like inherently bad people, just having succumbed to that distinctly Vigilant thought of "we who fight monsters must become them", and I like their transhumanism.

[Custos Tenebrarum]

So, now that the Devoted Companion is being funded, who wants to play reformers of the Onachus?

They don't seem like inherently bad people, just having succumbed to that distinctly Vigilant thought of "we who fight monsters must become them", and I like their transhumanism.

I am excited to be able to play Doctor Victor Von Doom.

[Geomancer]

Doom is too much of a crossover of everything. He's got super science and super magic and special powers.