[UA] Risking it - Sunbjectivity or objectivity?

[James O'Rance]

Machiavelli132 at aol.com said:

 >>>I doubt that's what he meant. Magick shouldn't be "Insert Tarot Card in 
X, attach Voodoo Doll to Altar Y..."<<<

I don't think that's what anybody wants. I haven't seen any quasi-scientific 
rules for magic in this forum. I expect that most people agree that magic 
should be subjective - after all, that's what the different schools rely on. 
However, you can have *consistent* subjectivity, and I believe that this is 
what is being asked for.

 >>>It should be unreliable, dangerous, risky...<<<

The argument has been that placing an unknown gun against your head and 
pulling the trigger *is* a risk, even if the gun is actually unloaded. If 
the entropomancer simply doesn't know that the gun is unloaded, then he *is* 
placing his life in the hands of fortune.

Giving the entropomancer a charge in this situation would be consistently 
subjective, all other things being equal. Not giving him  charge is 
inconsistently subjective, because in other situations where the 
entropomancer thought he was taking a risk, he did receive one.

If you only give the entropomancer charges when there is an objective chance 
of danger (because the universe "knows" whether the gun is loaded regardless 
of whether the entropomancer does) then you are no longer being subjective. 
You have strayed into the realms of UA magic being based on an objective 
reality, and I don't believe that this position holds very well with the 
nature of adepts and schools.

>From a game-play PoV, I can see how some GMs would be unhappy with 
entropomancers getting charges from unloaded guns. For example, another PC 
could hand the entropomancer a gun, which the entropomancer would then 
receive charges from. Easy mojo - although the character may have no way of 
knowing that the gun is unloaded, the players probably will.

This is a metagame issue that can be solved with a little thought. Either 
ask players to play fair and not try to rort the system, or consider what 
other in-game consequences this activity might have. For example, if an 
entropomancer really isn't sure whether his friend would give him a loaded 
or unloaded gun (thus the risk), then he should be making Isolation stress 
checks, and possibly Self or Violence (depending on how the situation is 
roleplayed out).

Thoughts?


James O’Rance
“Divine being creates petting zoo. It gets out of hand.”
- The Bible (summarised by John W. Mangrum)

http://www.geocities.com/dragon-dreamer/



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