[2E] Hack - Sleeping Curse as Supernatural Events

[wyrdhamster]

Once again, WHW made great idea that resurface now and then this forum - About changing how Sleeping Curse works on Sleepers and making it to translate to any closes supernatural ( but still non-Supernal ) event they thinks it will work. But let's just see an authors own idea:

In our games, Mage population is much smaller than associated Sleeper Sleepwalker "pyramid" under them, and a lot of estabilished Mages wraps themselves in Sleeper Cults [the fact that we houserule Sleeping Curse to modify memories of Magic not to "mundane stuff" but to "most believable NON SUPERNAL explanation for the victim, including lower case magic, supernatural, ESP, UFO, etc] where they first carefully shape their victims worldview [so the Curse will rationalize Magic for them in the "wanted" way] and then procedurally abuse Integrity of the few chosen ones in hope they will get the Fitful Slumber Merit.

It also makes hunters, police and other investigators much less ignorant; not unignorant enough to TRULY grasp the beauty of Magic, but unignorant enough to perceive how dangerous it is.

I've always felt it's ok for non Mages to know about Mages, as long as they cannot grasp Supernal for what it is. Makes Mage even more tragic than "they just rationalize it to gas leaks" imho, especially because you can try to fool yourself into thinking that maaaaaaaaaaaaybe they are one breaking point away from getting it. Integrity Bombing your own family and then despairing that they are almost getting it, but that almost is in the worst MISSING THE POINT way anyone?

What would be other interesting implications of this reframing Sleeping Curse?

[WHW]

Any rumors among the Sleepers about supernatural things, like UFO sightings, crazy grandmas talking about seeing devil, crazy grandpas talking about angels and so on can potentially be Supernal in origin.

[wyrdhamster]

Dataweaver made some point's in the other topic, but I still try to grasp meaning of it. Maybe he will expands or describes it here?

Makes sense. Given how diverse non-Supernal supernatural phenomena are, not restricting it to exclude all sorts of supernatural would pretty much defang Quiescence.

[Ashenrogue]

Dataweaver made some point's in the other topic, but I still try to grasp meaning of it. Maybe he will expands or describes it here?

Well, if you're allowed to see Awakened magic as literally any other supernatural event you could pretty easily see any feat of magic exactly as it was, and just not associate it with the Awakened, and that's even assuming you know what the hell an 'Awakened' was. Someone chucks a fireball? Well, you can't associate it with mages so you see someone chucking a fireball and think psychic, or mutant, which to the average joe doesn't really make a bit of a difference. You still see a guy throwing fire around, just because you think the source is another different font of magic doesn't change anything and defeats the purpose of the Sleeping Curse.

[Michael]

Well, you can't associate it with mages so you see someone chucking a fireball and think psychic, or mutant, which to the average joe doesn't really make a bit of a difference. You still see a guy throwing fire around, just because you think the source is another different font of magic doesn't change anything and defeats the purpose of the Sleeping Curse.

I disagree somewhat. If our sleeper thinks Awakenend magic comes from being psychic or a mutant, then they're just wrong. In fact it could actively be leading them away from Awakening.

Also, this doesn't take into account integrity. WHW's proposal pretty specifically doesn't get rid of the horrible effects supernal magic has on sleepers.

[Ashenrogue]

I disagree somewhat. If our sleeper thinks Awakenend magic comes from being psychic or a mutant, then they're just wrong. In fact it could actively be leading them away from Awakening.

Also, this doesn't take into account integrity. WHW's proposal pretty specifically doesn't get rid of the horrible effects supernal magic has on sleepers.

But it still leaves them to explore the Mystery and to dig deeper. If they honestly believe it is something supernatural then that's still reason enough to investigate, because it is something abnormal. If it was just some maniac chucking molatov's then that's pretty much all there is to it. You might be curious as to why someone would do that, but it doesn't lead into the sort of obsession that the supernatural seems to inspire. That's why it is safer and more logical to design (assuming that's really what the Exarchs did) the Sleeping Curse to mask all evidence of something truly strange, to curb that curiosity, because while it may drive some sleepers to insanity, some will find the inspiration to Awaken.

[Michael]

But it still leaves them to explore the Mystery and to dig deeper. If they honestly believe it is something supernatural then that's still reason enough to investigate, because it is something abnormal.

Have you listened to conspiracy theorists? If they actually were interested in exploring mysteries they'd pretty quickly stop being conspiracy theorists. Plenty of people believe in the supernatural in a highly dogmatic fashion; further investigations made pointless by the fact the person willfully believes they already know the reality. Plus, it's still a breaking point to investigate further.

That's why it is safer and more logical to design...

I don't think you can really say that. It's fiction, we set the limits. Wyrd pretty clearly marked it as a hack, they're not saying burn the 2e core because it's illogical, it's just a different approach.

[wyrdhamster]

Have you listened to conspiracy theorists? If they actually were interested in exploring mysteries they'd pretty quickly stop being conspiracy theorists. Plenty of people believe in the supernatural in a highly dogmatic fashion; further investigations made pointless by the fact the person willfully believes they already know the reality. Plus, it's still a breaking point to investigate further.

< Just looks over Hunter: The Vigil books and reads what Compacts and Conspiracy thinks they know about supernatural - and smile in his own soul. >

Wyrd pretty clearly marked it as a hack, they're not saying burn the 2e core because it's illogical, it's just a different approach.

This is clearly Hack - and it's marked in topic name, so we are from the start in area outside of corebook rules. But yes, I still would leave Integrity Breaking Points - hell, you get them even for proper supernatural event's in RAW, don't you? There is no difference between being attacked with fireball and seeing werewolf shedding his human skin to fury of claws and tooths. Or vampires unnatural strength, for the matter. Easily we can have 'UFOs' or 'saints miracles' events that way also working.

[Ashenrogue]

Have you listened to conspiracy theorists? If they actually were interested in exploring mysteries they'd pretty quickly stop being conspiracy theorists. Plenty of people believe in the supernatural in a highly dogmatic fashion; further investigations made pointless by the fact the person willfully believes they already know the reality. Plus, it's still a breaking point to investigate further.



I don't think you can really say that. It's fiction, we set the limits. Wyrd pretty clearly marked it as a hack, they're not saying burn the 2e core because it's illogical, it's just a different approach.

And as a hack it's fine if he does whatever he wants, but he asked if Dataweaver could go into greater detail as to why not excluding all supernatural phenomena would defang Quiescence, and while I'm not Dataweaver I figure I could at least give my take on why it would do so. And my response above is pretty much why.

As for conspiracy theorists and the supernatural, that's what happens when you don't have some supernatural force explicitly making them frame what they've seen or what the people who they talk to has seen as something mundane. Instead they scream Big Foot and make it a quest to uncover the supernatural, and in the CofD that's a good way to fall head first into the supernatural and potentially Awaken. In the CofD they're justified and are likely to actually find something if they aren't forced to rationalize what they see as being mundane.

[WHW]

Before hacking anything, it's always worth to pull back for a moment and try to decipher meaning and reason behind original rules. Remember, very rarely there is a point in saying "my hack is better" - correct way to think is "my hack is better suited for specific games that include X".

Quiescence in original form serves several purposes. It's the tragic force alienating Mages from rest of their humanity. Thing that makes them isolated and unable to be understood by their families. You can't explain to your close ones that you can read minds, period - after a short moment, they will remember it as you being just "really good at people stuff". It drives you mad and away from humanity, and thus, your humanity. Which, in turn, makes Mages flock together and form communities. Quiescence is probably the strongest motivator for a Mage to go out and find themselves a Cabal, an Order, a membership in a Concilium. After Awakening, interacting with Sleepers is kinda like interacting with someone who suffered from a stroke or other form of disease and illness that renders their mental capabilities inferior, which can get extremely frustrating and lead you to hate people who you previously loved, because they just can't get it, it's so simple to just see it, right? It also makes clear that performing magic close to your friends and family will, sooner or later, hurt their souls real bad. It gives you a reason to not trigger Sleeping Curse, because it makes you literally a jerk who pings people souls because laziness. It allows you to be in conflict with someone over the fact that "Bob The Seer, please stop abusing Sleepers, it's cruel and bad". It gives you another reason to go and punch Bob The Seer. It also curbstomps the curiosity, as mentioned above.

Having that in mind, remember that my games are very local and that we decentralize the Mage community, focusing on Mages as individuals instead of as a members of Awakened society. This means we don't care that much about having another reason to push them into arms of other Mages. We enjoy the alienation, but find the default one little too forceful, so we soften it - your spouse might understand that you throw fireballs and are a member of a Secret Society they may never see. We accept that, and instead of "woe is me, my loved ones live in a different world than I do, I need to leave them behind and go hang out with other Awakened", we focus on "yeah, they can semi get it, but they will never get it fully. They will be always missing the point, thinking they finally can please your moods. Is this "compromise" really worth it? Is it worth constantly degrading and grinding and zapping their Soul, potentially into insanity or worse? ".
And because we zoom in, we kinda don't care about the "hiding magical world from mundane world" aspect - honestly, we just prefer it to be like with Vampires; majority of people is aware something is lurking in the darkness, and majority of that majority decides to pretend it doesn't exist. Again, "war for humanity and truth and and" aspect doesn't interest us, so our hack deemphasizes it.
Other than people and individual-centric, our games are mystery centric - Consilium politics are of little importance, unless they serve a personal plot linked to a character that players want to investigate, for example. But it's a mean to flesh out the character, not a "thing" in itself. Being Mystery centric means investigating a lot of weird stuff, and weird stuff loves being investigated - and because we limit number of Mages in our setting [for various reasons], it's much more likely to meet a Sleeper "rival investigators" than a fellow Mage. Which makes it important for us to make these possible for Sleepers. Such endeavors being maddening and Integrity exploding Lovecraft style actually are a feature for us, as they allow to show another angle, another dark side of obsession. These Obsessed Sleepers get burned by their search, destroying themselves in the process [are you that much different?]; they spend whole lives chasing the Truth but end up being satisfied by lower case "truths", never able to see the bigger picture and beauty of the world; they might say they are after the Truth, but instead they just want power or can't accept reality. And so on.

That's what we want. We want lonely mages who are one foot in the Sleeper World, and one foot in the Magical Society, ending up isolating themselves in their lone towers on their lone islands they choose for themselves. You also might see a pattern in my "in my games" that makes it pretty clear that our Pentacle isn't really a "good faction", being mostly composed of self serving jerks. This, plus reasons above, is why our hack works for us. When hacking your game, look carefully at what experience you and your players want to, well, experience. Then look at the book and check what experience it is supporting. Then manipulate it carefully, adjusting it to your own needs. But always try to understand the reason behind original ruling. Make informed, aware choices.