Thursday, January 23, 2020

Collector Space

A narrative point that’s niggling at me, and probably worth pinning down: what exactly is a “Collection”, if items can be stashed there for free and returned at the expense of Reality Damage? Do Collectors have secret high-security vaults that items are being couriered to and returned from, or some kind of personal storage container or vehicle that travels with them? Or a combination of these, or something else? Why does taking an Artefact back out of a Collection affect Reality?

The rules we’ve got don’t describe Collections directly, and risk becoming contradictory (if they aren’t already) if players differ in their ideas about what a Collection actually is. (eg. Would a proposal allowing a player to move to a Collection be plausible or nonsensical?)

posted by Kevan at 23 Jan 2020 14:50:00 UTC Comments (4)

Comments

Lulu: she/her

23-01-2020 15:09:39 UTC

My headcanon for Collections are that they’re pocket dimensions, kind of like a bag that’s bigger on the inside.  The portal to the dimension (the bag’s hole) isn’t entirely stable though.  You can get around this by just dropping the item in, but taking something out requires you stick your hand in it, thus taking reality damage.

Josh: Observer he/they

23-01-2020 15:36:20 UTC

For me, the reality damage is a representation of the idea that - unlike the Institute - Collectors don’t have means of adequately containing the energies of the artefacts that they are collecting. Storing large numbers of improperly shielded artefacts should have strange effects, and 1 Reality damage just symbolises that. It’s been in the back of my head that it might be fun to systematise those weird interactions, but given that we’re headed (I think) into a period of more explicitly adversarial Researcher vs Collector relations that might not be taken in the spirit it’s intended.

As for what actually is a “Collection” - in my head, none of this is exactly well-funded, and most of the Collectors are kooks rolling around Europe in tricked out VW vans with tinted windows. Meanwhile, the Institute is a rented office in Barking that spends a huge amount of money on reality shielding but literally pennies a month on awful biscuits and worse coffee. Again, it’s crossed my mind that the security of these facilities should be vulnerable, but again, I’m not the good-faith actor required to do anything about it.

Kevan: he/him

23-01-2020 17:14:02 UTC

This is all very good.

I was thinking of Collectors as having highly-paid staff or low-life accomplices who could take the Artefacts away for safekeeping and return them when requested, with the Reality cost symbolising rough handling by a third party (and being a simplification of charging 1/2 a point of damage in either direction). We all know that it doesn’t take much to set these things off.

The fact that “Artefacts in Collections are never considered to share a Location with any other Individuals or Artefacts” suggests that they’re being stashed in separate locations (perhaps by different sidekicks), perhaps because - along with the two-Artefact carrying limit - it’s physically dangerous to have too many Artefacts in close proximity.

Madrid:

23-01-2020 18:35:37 UTC

Collectors don’t tell the secrets, but if you insist… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PQDGBDfINc