Friday, December 09, 2022

Proposal: Four animals of the apocalypse

Fails 1-3. — Quirck

Adminned at 11 Dec 2022 15:12:45 UTC

If Malfeasibility failed, enact it.

Reword the rule Possession to:

The spirits of four ancient demons haunt the Mansion - Katastrophe, Shuck, Sorrow, and Rampage. At any time each of them independently may be Possessing either nobody or one Explorer, defaulting to nobody, privately tracked by the Narrator. If an Explorer is ever possessed by more than one spirit at any one time at the end of a Mansion Phase, the Narrator should set those spirits to be possessing nobody and place their associated animals in random rooms.

When one of these spirits Possesses an Explorer, or ceases to Possess an Explorer, the Narrator should inform that Explorer privately.

Any Explorer currently Possessed is under no obligation to honour any informal promises they have made with other Explorers, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to lie to and betray other Explorers in order to achieve any possible advantage. An Explorer is under no obligation to honour any informal promises they made while they were Possessed, regardless of whether they are still possessed, but when they break such a promise while not Possessed they should disclose that they were Possessed when they made it.

If an action available to the Narrator is defined as being Supernatural, then a Possessed Explorer may privately urge the Narrator to perform that action, optionally including instructions to perform it in a particular way. The Narrator should attempt to meet this request, while that Explorer remains Possessed. While an Explorer is Possessed, the Narrator may not take Supernatural Actions that a Possessed Explorer has not urged them to take.

Add a subrule to The Black Cat called “...and friends” with the following text:

When the total number of rooms first exceeds 7 rooms, a randomly selected spirit out of Rampage, Sorrow and Shuck Awakens. This happens again when it first exceeds 15 rooms, and again when it first exceeds 23 rooms. Each time a spirit Awakens, it must be a different spirit. When the number of spirits is greater than 1/3 of the number of Explorers, the most recently Awakened spirit that is still awake ceases to be Awakened (down to a minimum of 1 spirit), and no more spirits may ever Awaken.

The spirits are each associated with a different animal:
Katastrophe: The Black Cat
Shuck: The Red-Eyed Dog
Sorrow: The White Raven
Rampage: The Crazed Ram

After a given spirit has Awakened, the rule The Black Cat and its subrules (except this one) apply to the associated animal of the Awakened spirit as if those rules were duplicated and each instance of “The Black Cat” were replaced by the associated animal, and each instance of Katastrophe were replaced by the spirit’s name. Any bullet points in the rule Mansion Phase which mention the Black Cat are likewise duplicated and have the associated animal substituted to replace The Black Cat.

The Repossession Malfeasance for Shuck has a defence of Fast and a hindrance of Slow rather than its normal values.
The Repossession Malfeasance for Sorrow has a defence of Wise and a hindrance of Rash rather than its normal values.
The Repossession Malfeasance for Rampage has a defence of Strong and a hindrance of Weak rather than its normal values.

Remove all instances of “by Katastrophe” from the rule Malfeasances.

One traitor out of 14 feels a little low, so a few more being released over the course of the game should make things interesting.

Comments

Bucky:

09-12-2022 15:23:22 UTC

It’s not going to stay 14 all dynasty.

SingularByte: he/him

09-12-2022 15:24:38 UTC

At that point, a proposal can easily remove them again. It’s not set in stone.

SingularByte: he/him

09-12-2022 15:31:30 UTC

But okay, I’ve added a limit in now - four spirits needs at least 12 players still in the game.

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

09-12-2022 15:45:12 UTC

Does “and no more spirits may ever awaken” mean that once the limit lowers it can’t go back down again?

SingularByte: he/him

09-12-2022 15:49:11 UTC

Correct, once spirits go back to sleep, that’s the maximum spirit limit lowered. You can of course cfj it, but since player counts normally have a downward trend over the dynasty, there’s probably not much point working out the exact mechanics to allow them to re-awaken over and over.

Kevan: City he/him

09-12-2022 16:57:47 UTC

What happens if two Possessed Explores urge mutually incompatible Supernatural Actions during the same turn? (eg. “move Shuck north” vs “move Shuck south”) The Narrator just chooses which one to honour?

Brendan: he/him

09-12-2022 17:04:36 UTC

I see what it’s going for, but the clause “When the total number of rooms first exceeds 7 rooms, 15 rooms and 23 rooms” seems to shake out to “when the total number of rooms exceeds 23 rooms,” since the “and” there means that the total has to exceed all three numbers simultaneously.

SingularByte: he/him

09-12-2022 17:09:47 UTC

Yeah, the Narrator can just choose one. Ideally it would all balance out in the end assuming one person isn’t given priority every time.

I’ll see if I can edit the wording for the room counts.

Josh: he/they

09-12-2022 17:31:04 UTC

Doesn’t this just extend the scam in Malfeasability four ways? Now rather than just having Katastrophe stuck on Brendan, you’ll have all four animal spirits stuck on whoever gets them first with the right Hindrance, and losing them is still stuck behind a Malfeasance which can be trivially blocked.

Josh: he/they

10-12-2022 12:18:48 UTC

against

Kevan: City he/him

10-12-2022 13:44:59 UTC

against I like the creatures here, but it feels like it might dilute the gameplay and deduction too much if four people are constantly fighting over the “spirit force” that animates the Supernatural Actions.

quirck: he/him

10-12-2022 15:03:52 UTC

I somehow read this so that after a spirit has awakened, we get a new animal, but if that spirit ceases to be awakened, that animal doesn’t disappear..
Not sure that I’d like to have 1/3 possessed explorers :)
against

Habanero:

10-12-2022 15:48:16 UTC

imperial