[UA] Getting Charges

[Nick Wedig]

>With most of the existing schools of Magick in UA, getting a charge is 
>pretty strightforward.  Take a drink, visit the Empire State Building, cut 
>yourself...and you have a charge.  I've been thinking about a school that 
>would require the adept to attempt an action, and then ahve to make a 
>successful skill role in order to get a charge from it.

Kleptomancy requires a roll (at least, I wouldn't let a player steal stuff without a thievery roll).  Cryptomancy might to, except I can't remember how you get charges.  Andif you're letting your Plutomancer PCs in your game say "I'm selling my company for $100 million dollars and getting a major charge" without requiring a Make Gobs of Money roll, then, well, that seems a bit unreasonable.  Probably another school or two I'm forgetting.  

>The school is Art based magick.  Minor charge is easy: write a limerick, a 
>scrap of fiction, do a quick sketch...no skill roll required.  Singnificant 
>charge would take time and a successful "Poet" or "Painter" roll to produce 
>a decent piece of artwork, and a Major charge would require months of time 
>and a OUACOWA.  The taboo is showing your work to anyone else -- to get that 
>Major charge you'd have to create something that's the equivalent of "The 
>Mona Lisa" and then destroy it as soon as you realize that you've got a 
>masterpiece on your hands.
>
>Does this strike anyone as being particularly unblanacing or unweildy in 
>play?  I really like the Major charge idea, but I don't like the idea of a 
>plyer declaring that he's just going to take some time off and write the 
>Great American Novel...the creative process isn't that predictable.

There's a Monty Python sketch about Hardy writing Tess of the D'Urbervilles, with a hyperactive sports announcer detailing the action.  I guess the only reasons I mention it are that a) I'm currently reading Tess and b) to show that the creative process isn't exactly riveting to watch.  That would be one reason I wouldn't like the school, the other being the having to roll an OACOWA to get the major charge (would that be before or after the months of work?  this is important).  There must be a better way, though I don't know what it is.

On the other hand, I like very, very much the idea of an art based school.  Mainly because the vague outlines for a UA campaign in my head (likely to never be run) involve a major theme of "Life imitates art" and vice versa.  It'd be rather like the one Burroughs piece "Apocalypse" (I think).

Mr. Teapot
mugwump

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