Deviant Touchstone Ideas

[TerrorCooper]

As the title itself states, this thread is for posting the various Touchstone Ideas you’ve created for Deviant: The Renegades, be it the actual touchstones of a Deviant, new Touchstone Archetypes or something else to do with them. It doesn’t matter to me which you go with.

[Tessie]

The Double Agent: He might've been part of it all, but it never really sat well with him what happened to you and the others. He showed you actual sympathy, and when you wanted to get out he was the one who left the right doors unlocked. You hope he didn't get into trouble for that.

The Good Samaritan: You were lost and alone in a cold world, hunted by forces that were both intimately familiar and absolutely alien to you. You were cold, hungry, and desperate when she found you, but she didn't even think of taking advantage of you in your sorry state. Instead, she got you a meal and some new clothes. She even pulled some strings and found you a place to stay for a little while. It wasn't much, but it had a roof, an electric heater, and a door with a lock. She even paid the rent for the first few months. You're lucky she found you, and even though she doesn't ask for anything, you'll forever be in her debt.

Both of those are Loyalty Touchstones for my character (though details vary). My third Loyalty Touchstone is another PC. In a Cohort where there's little friction and priorities mostly align I'd feel like that's kinda cheating (since you'll get a ton of chances for meaningful interactions), but in this case I think it works since most of the PCs have different priorities and goals, and I try to engage with the natural friction between the characters.

[TerrorCooper]

I like both of those Archetypes a whole flippin' lot! I suppose that your character's Conviction Touchstones are of the canon archetypes, then? If not, I'm all too willing to learn about them. This thread is for Touchstones of both types, ya' know.

[Tessie]

I like both of those Archetypes a whole flippin' lot! I suppose that your character's Conviction Touchstones are of the canon archetypes, then? If not, I'm all too willing to learn about them. This thread is for Touchstones of both types, ya' know.

I'mma tell you in spoilers just in case the other players were to stumble upon this thread:

My character is an Invasive assassin from a communist Conspiracy. The original Conviction Touchstones were part of the kill list he'd been handed some time before he went rogue. The thing is, he still ideologically agrees with his Conspiracy and thus is still fully interested with carrying out his mission. He just couldn't stay when he realised that the top brass were more motivated by the economic gains rather than ideology.
Now for the part that really needs to be spoilered:

One of the Conviction Touchstones was the Progenitor of the PC who is a Loyalty Touchstone. She has a very complicated relationship with her Progenitor (see the Living Progenitor Merit) so while we attacked the base we thought he was in, my character actually snuck all the way down into the basement and had a "discussion" with him regarding the other PC, and then out again. Meanwhile, she thought he wasn't at the base at the time and when we regrouped my character simply never mentioned that part.
It led to a Faltering roll (for leaving him alive) but then I shed him as a Conviction Touchstone since the Loyalty Touchstone is far more important to my character so he'd never actually follow through with killing him.

[Eric Zawadzki]

In the game I'm currently running, one of the characters has Amnesia 5 and started out with an interesting Conviction Touchstone situation:

- Hating someone because they did something awful to you (likely connected to your Divergence), and even if you don't remember the offense anymore, the hatred still burns.
- Hating someone because something about them *reminds* you of a person who did something awful to you, even though they are entirely innocent.

For several sessions it wasn't at all clear which of the two situations applied to his Conviction Touchstones. In one case, a significant part of the arc of resolving the Touchstone was finding out the truth about whether he there was a case of mistaken identity or whether this minister actually needed to die.

[TerrorCooper]

In the game I'm currently running, one of the characters has Amnesia 5 and started out with an interesting Conviction Touchstone situation:

- Hating someone because they did something awful to you (likely connected to your Divergence), and even if you don't remember the offense anymore, the hatred still burns.
- Hating someone because something about them *reminds* you of a person who did something awful to you, even though they are entirely innocent.

For several sessions it wasn't at all clear which of the two situations applied to his Conviction Touchstones. In one case, a significant part of the arc of resolving the Touchstone was finding out the truth about whether he there was a case of mistaken identity or whether this minister actually needed to die.

Interesting bit of interaction between a core mechanic and a Scar! I wonder what else could be achieved(?)...

[Primordial newcomer]

In the game I'm currently running, one of the characters has Amnesia 5 and started out with an interesting Conviction Touchstone situation:

- Hating someone because they did something awful to you (likely connected to your Divergence), and even if you don't remember the offense anymore, the hatred still burns.
- Hating someone because something about them *reminds* you of a person who did something awful to you, even though they are entirely innocent.

For several sessions it wasn't at all clear which of the two situations applied to his Conviction Touchstones. In one case, a significant part of the arc of resolving the Touchstone was finding out the truth about whether he there was a case of mistaken identity or whether this minister actually needed to die.

Because of that interaction, I just have to ask. Are there Scars that you consider just very fun to incorporate into the story beyond being "merely" a drawback to a character?

[Eric Zawadzki]

Because of that interaction, I just have to ask. Are there Scars that you consider just very fun to incorporate into the story beyond being "merely" a drawback to a character?

I strive to incorporate Scars into the story as organically as I can. I would rather a Scar hit only every few chapters but memorably than try to shoehorn it into every chapter. It seems like a fun thing to chat about, but we would definitely derail this thread in the process, so maybe start a new one.

[Tessie]

If the Scar meaningfully impacts the game (which is the whole point of them and the basis for getting Beats from them), then I'd say they are incorporated in the story. Maybe not planned or in the backstory of a character, but still.
But (although the question wasn't aimed at me) I do think most Persistent Scars works a lot better than most Controlled Scars when it comes to impacting the story of the game. Most Controlled Scars are things that happen primarily on the character sheet while most Persistent Scars are things that forces certain behaviours and/or reactions from others. But it's certainly not a hard rule. Suppression, for example, is a Persistent Scar that happens exclusively on the character sheet unless effort is put into roleplaying your lowered Attributes. My way of making it interesting is to couple it with Persistent Drawback (which, conversely, is one of the really good Controlled Scars) to make the change in Attributes variable so that the change is noticeable by others.
Some good Scars I like (mostly in theory as I've only played a few of them) are: Alternate Persona, Subliminal Conditioning, Monstrous Urge, Conspicuous Appearance, Involuntary Stimulus, Power Build-Up, Persistent Drawback, Tabula Rasa, and the first dot of Power Failure (which I just now realise is the inverse of Involuntary Stimulus).

[TerrorCooper]

Now, now, people, while I understand that you want to puzzle out a lot of the potentially extremely interesting interactions between Scars and various other things, you’re beginning to derail the thread. And I’d much rather NOT have a Mod feeling the need to post here.

[espritdecalmar]

This isn't a Touchstone I've actually played (as I actually haven't gotten a chance to play Deviant yet, unfortunately), but it's an idea I'm kicking around:

The Conspiracy Theorist: He's got it all figured out, or at least he will once he puts all the pieces together. The secret meetings, the scandal coverup, that strange recurring symbol. . . What does it all mean? What's the real goal of that shadowy group? Of course, you know the answer (It's you.), but between the constant risk of surveillance and your now less-than-palatable appearance, you can't just waltz up to the press and demand to make a statement. Him though, he's got the media contacts, the eye for detail, the relative anonymity to maybe stand a chance of bringing down the SOBs who did this to you, once all the evidence is on the table. You haven't revealed yourself to him yet, as you're pretty sure that would break his brain this early on, but you've been slipping leaked documents and recorded confessions into the dead drop whenever you can get them; you even had to scare off some hired muscle once before they got to his apartment. One day you'll step out of the shadows and show him just how far the rabbithole goes, but in the meantime you'll play the Deep Throat to his Woodward & Bernstein for as long as it takes.

[TerrorCooper]

Oooooohhhhhhh! Me likey!

So, the current inventory of homebrew Deviant Touchstone Archetypes are; The Double Agent, The Good Samaritan and The Conspiracy Theorist.

…

It may be a good idea for us to make a folder to contain these, since I can easily foresee this growing.

[SomethingFishy]

Let me see... two of my favorite Touchstones from the game I ran were a character's "kid sister", and a different character's wife.

The "kid sister" was sort of like the Mentee in the book, and was a Loyalty Touchstone. The character, Ellen, had been a professional Gymnast, hoping to go Olympic [the game was set in Colorado Springs], but was not quite good enough to make it. Her sister, Rebecca, was her protege of sorts, and had much greater promise. Then Rebecca suffered a career ruining injury in a traffic collision, prompting Ellen to agree to a conspiracy experiment in exchange for Rebecca's full recovery. Except, when Ellen finally found her, Rebecca was... different. She had no memories of Ellen, or... anything, really. Everyone assumed she had been changed like the rest of them [a different character had the Amnesia Scar], but as time went on, it became increasingly clear that "Rebecca" was not Rebecca anymore, even as Ellen's Loyalty grew more fierce. In truth, one of the conspiracy's employees had stolen Rebecca, killed her, and created a Galatea Promethean in an attempt to resurrect her daughter. I even wrote up custom versions of the Disquiet Conditions to reflect the dangerous obsession of Galatea Disquiet intermingling with Conviction and Loyalty [and keep what had happened to her a surprise]. It was a lot of fun watching the player double down on blind loyalty in the face of any doubt that "Rebecca" was no longer Ellen's sister.
I also really loved the running gag where the cohort would try to sideline Rebecca, to great protest. Even after she turned into a marble statue and bricked a guy in the face.

The wife was a lot more complicated, because she didn't start off planned as Poppy's wife. Instead, Jasmine was a Conviction Touchstone, an operative of the conspiracy, dedicated to bringing Poppy back. Because Poppy had the Amnesia Scar, though, large parts of her past were a total mystery to her, including the specifics of her Divergence. I was given free reign by the player to do whatever I saw fit with Poppy's past, so, to up the drama, I made Jasmine her wife, desperate to prove that Poppy could yet return to the conspiracy willingly. She was devastated to learn that not only did Poppy not remember her, nor care about a life she could not remember, but blamed Jasmine for what happened. Later, Poppy learned that, in truth, joining the conspiracy was her idea, and she had dragged Jasmine into it. She switched Jasmine to Loyalty and tried to make amends. Unfortunately, she was also trying to escape conspiracy custody at the time. Jasmine noticed her manipulation, and came to the conclusion that Poppy's new gestalt personality was no longer her wife, switching her to Conviction. This also turned Jasmine into a Nemesis. It was a very dramatic scene!

Some honorable mentions were the school boy giving a character library books in exchange for harming his bullies and a sleazy conspiracy recruiter who I can best describe as the smiling idiot in Die Hard.