[UA] French UA, Rolling for -everything-, Player's School

[Dylan Craig]

Howdy, everyone

Everyone who wonders about France's ability to digest a US-style blood 'n trash
'n sex-fest in the style of Pulp Fiction should really watch Jan Kounen's
'Dobermann' (1997); IMDB link at http://us.vdc.imdb.com/Title?0118996 (or the
trailer at http://www.cinopsis.com/critics/doberman/doberman.mov for that
instant immersion). Nothing particularly supernatural, but weirdness in absolute
spades and a creepy slice-of-crime-life in much the same way as the recent South
Korean flick, 'Nowhere to Hide'.

As far as dice rolling goes, I tried to cut it out as far as possible, like the
rulebook suggests and use the 15% rule, but I guess I've just played too much
Rolemaster. So, now, I make my players roll fairly often, under the following
schedule:

Non-Stress Situation
- roll under skill: immediate and professional success
- roll above skill, but under governing stat: a success, but nothing special
- roll above governing stat: -ugly-, amateurish effort but a vague success
nonetheless
- matched failure, BOHICA: screwup

Stress Situation
- roll under skill: success of degree depending on the exact # rolled
- roll above skill, but under governing stat: simple actions an ugly success,
complex a simple failure
- roll above governing stat: Simple tasks screwed up, but can be re-attempted;
complex disastrously blown
- matched failure, BOHICA: make the player PAYYYYY

Lastly, one of my players came up with this school for his own campaign, and
asked me
what I thought of it. I had several criticisms/suggestions/whatever, and I was
wondering what you all thought of it.

Divinomancy

 ".You can't suture the future,
 Though you might try."
-Pitchshifter    "Microwaved"

Since time immemorial, man has wanted to know what the future has in store for
him. Consulting the Gods, spirits, Oracles as well as bones, cards, entrails,
etc. have all been practiced by various civilizations, From the Israelites,
Babylonians, Mesopotamians, Romans and Greeks, to the Japanese, Chinese and
American Indians, all have had and practiced one form of divination or another.
Today is no different. The only difference from then to now is that most of the
above are practiced all at once by many different people, as are some new ones:
the stock markets to predict financial prosperity or ruin, environmental changes
to predict whether we are dooming ourselves ecologically, and the like. While
these do not strictly fall under the auspices of predicting the future in
general, they still attempt to predict the likelihood of a future event, and so
can be classified as such.

Divinomancers have taken this one step further: their obsessions with what the
future holds has actually allowed them to develop a magickal school around it.
The Seers, as they are known, use their knowledge of and magick regarding the
prediction of the future to actually manipulate the future. The Past is set in
stone; the Future, however, is quite malleable. And this is from where the Seers
draw their power. They cannot radically alter the future, since that is not
within the scope of any form of divination at all, but tweaking the future to
suit their needs is definitely their specialty.

Seers have to choose a specific form of divination that they will base their
magick around. This could be anything from Tarot cards, to the reading of bones,
to the reading of tea leaves, to I Ching to Astrology (by far the most popular
of all forms of Divination). Several are not allowed, however, since they would
fall under the auspices of other schools of magick: Necromancy would be an
obvious example. Others would simply be too conspicuous for comfort: human
sacrifice for instance. In general, Seers are subtle adepts, like Cliomancers
and Calligramancers, preferring to let their magick be seen as the predicted
future coming true, than blatantly showing that they can bend it to their will.
The GM has the final say, as always.

Divinomancy Blast Spells: this varies from Seer to Seer, but in general, it is
linked to the particular method of divination that the Seer uses. A Tarot user,
for instance, would have his blast depend on the card he happens to draw:

- Five of Swords: A Minor Blast would allow the Seer to have a standard sword
materialize out of thin air, to use in combat. A Significant Blast would have
five swords materialize and fly towards the target, doing significant damage.

- The Magician: A Minor Blast would enable the Seer to cast a vague lightning
bolt, doing minor damage. A Significant Blast would be a fireball, doing
Significant damage.

- Nine of Pentacles: A Minor Blast would entail the Seer throwing 9
pentacle-shaped Shuriken at the target, again doing minor damage. A Significant
Blast would have a large pentacle erupt on the target's chest, leaving deep cuts
in that shape and doing significant damage.

A Seer who reads bones would throw shards of bone at the target, in a massive
shower that would again do minor damage. The Significant Blast version would be
massive internal damage; especially multiple breaks to most of the victim's
bones. A Seer who reads tea leaves, however, would have a harder time making a
blast, as would a Tarot user who drew one of the Cups cards (a rain of Cups,
anyone?). In general, the blast is customizable to each different Seer, and can
be as subtle or aggressive as the player wants, as the above Tarot examples
show. Further, a Blast need not be the same each time the Seer uses it. He may
freely change the blast's effects each time he casts it. In the Tarot-Seer
example above, he could change the The Magician blast each time he used it, but
he may not replace the The Magician blast with the effects of the Nine of
Pentacles blast, if he drew The Magician. Essentially, a blast is a variant of
the random effect domain concept. Astrologist Seers have no blast spell, as do
other forms of divination, where applicable.

Note: Both the Seer player and the GM should be familiar with the divination
method that the player proposes to use, since this school of magick is dependent
on the method of divination the Seer uses.

Generate a Minor Charge: Make a prediction using your specific form of
divination, and have that prediction come true, or 70% true. The prediction must
come true or mostly true, and must concern an everyday event. An example would
be: " I predict that tomorrow, a black hoodlum will mug me at noon, as I pass a
7-Eleven store." If a white hoodlum mugged you at 22:00, you would still get the
charge, as the crux of the prediction came true: you were mugged the following
day, outside a 7-Eleven. Predicting that you will wake up will not count. The
prediction must be detailed enough to count as a prediction and not an educated
guess, and must be of a nature that you cannot guess - predicting that you will
spend $5 at McDonalds doesn't do it. Further, the prediction must be such that
you cannot make it happen: predicting that you will watch a movie in seat G11,
and then booking for G11 doesn't count.

Generate a Significant Charge: As above, except that the prediction must be of a
major nature. An example would be: " I predict that on the 21st of July, Los
Angeles will be rocked by a massive earthquake, and 500 people will die." or " I
predict that Mary Douglas of Des Moines, Iowa, will win next week's episode of
Jeopardy." or " The Nikkei stock market will crash in 2 days, by roughly 5%,
with IT stocks being hardest hit."  The key to generating this charge is that it
is major enough to have significant impact, and that the chance of it happening
is very small. As such, the level of detail is less but the level of accuracy
rises to 80%.

Generate a Major Charge: When Nostradamus predicted the Fire of London in 1666,
he generated a Major charge when it came true. Predicting a world-changing or
once-in-a-lifetime event will get you a Major charge. If the fire happened in
1667, he wouldn't have acquired a charge. If he predicted that WW11 would start
in 1938, he would still have acquired the Major charge, due to the worldly
significance of WW11, whereas the Fire affected only London, but got the world's
attention.

Note: The awarding of charges for Divinomancy is completely at the GM's
discretion. Be nice to your players: they should acquire charges as easily as it
is for the average adept. Since we cannot accurately determine the future, so
the GM shouldn't be too hard on the players. However, only grant them charges
for predictions they made for when they role-played their characters well, as
well as if the predictions were well made or impressively well thought-out. The
examples above are the standard that should be set, Beware of loading them with
too many, however, as any other adept-players will not appreciate someone who
gets charges too easily.

Taboo: Since Seers deal almost exclusively with the future, so they are
forbidden from dealing with past. If they deal with or interact with people from
the past in any way, they lose all their charges. This, however, requires
clarification: the past in this case refers to any event that has been completed
in the past, and that will not exactly repeat itself in the future. Further, a
Seer can not keep any physical reminders or mementos of past events.  Thus, a
Seer could plan his next birthday, since it has happened in the past, but will
continue to occur for as long as he/she lives. If he broke up with his
girlfriend, he could not go out with the person again, or interact with anyone
who would be closely associated with the ex-girlfriend, and he could not keep
anything that would serve as a reminder of that relationship. A business
contract from the past that has not been completed will not drain charges, but
will once it is finished and the Seer has dealt with it. He could not keep his
graduation certificates, although he could study a different course at a
different university from the previous ones. Being a lawyer or historian etc. is
thus very hard for the Seer.  GM discretion is applicable.

Random Magick Domain: Seers have control of coincidence, and of entropy.
Starting Charges: Starting Seers have 4 Minor charges.

Divinomancy Minor Effects

Glimpse of the Past
Cost: 1 Minor
Effect: This is the only way the Seer has access to the past. By picking up an
object or being at a specific location, the Seer can see what has happened in
the past to the object or in that location.
This is analogous to the psychic effect of psychometry. The greater the degree
of success, the further back the Seer can see, up to 6 months back. An OACOWA
will allow the Seer to see 1 year into the past. A BOHICA will cause the Seer to
see a maximum of a minute ago. If this seems, fairly restrictive, remember that
the Seer's forte is seeing into the future.

Visions of the Future
Cost:  1 Minor
Effect:  This is the opposite of the spell above. The differences are that these
visions will come true, but are cryptic in nature, and will have to be
interpreted by the Seer. The visions' "effects" are not also exclusively going
to happen to the Seer, but may occur to someone else. The range is up to 10
years. An OACOWA grants a clear understanding of exactly what the vision means
and to whom it refers, while a BOHICA causes the effects of the vision to occur
at that moment.

The Future Looks Good
Cost: 1 Minor
Effect: When this spell is cast, the next roll that the designated target has to
make is at a +10% shift. The Seer has effectively manipulated the future to make
a better outcome more likely. If the Seer spends extra charges, he/she can
increase the shift by +10% per extra charge.

Hex
Cost: 2 Minor
Effect: This spell allows the Seer to adversely affect someone's future, by
manipulating the circumstances around them to make it more likely that they fail
their next attempted action. When cast, this spell imposes a -20% shift on its
target. If the Seer spends extra charges, he/she can increase the negative shift
by -10% per extra charge.

I See Pain In Your Future.
Cost:   2 Minor
Effect:   This is the Divinomancy Minor Blast. It causes the possible effects
described above, individual to each Seer.

I Can Read You
Cost: 2 Minor
Effect:  This spell allows the Seer to discern whether someone is lying to them.
Further, it allows the Divinomancer to determine what the truth the target is
meant to be telling is. Many have fallen into the trap of lying to a Seer, and
have paid for that mistake.

The Future is Mutable
Cost:  3 minor
Effect:  This particularly powerful effect allows the Seer to change the future
slightly. When the Seer casts the spell, he will see what will happen in the
next 10 -30 seconds, depending on the degree of success acquired. He must then
immediately afterwards declare what aspect of the prediction he will manipulate.
For example, Clarice and her two friends are being chased by a hitman when she
casts the spell. She sees the following: the three of them turn into an
alleyway, and suddenly find that a wire-link fence blocks their escape. The
hitman rounds the corner, and shoots Clarice in the head. She can now declare to
have any one of the following effects occur: the hitman's first bullet could be
a dud, he could trip on a can, the wire-link fence could have a hole cut in it,
or the shot could hit her in the shoulder. This is a good example of the maximum
boundaries the spell can reach. This spell can only be cast once every 24 hours.

Divinomancy Significant Effects

Try Your Luck
Cost: 1 Significant
Effect:  When casting this spell, the Seer chooses a target and then draws a
card/bone/rune/I Ching ideogram at random. The general meaning or effect of the
randomly chosen card/bone/etc manipulates the target's next action. This could
either be beneficial or disastrous, depending on the outcome/meaning inferred.
GM discretion is definitely applicable here. For example, Clarice could be about
to be shot by the aforementioned hitman (she really asks for it, doesn't she?),
and she draws the Death Tarot card. The card generally refers to change, so the
GM proposes that one of the following could happen: the gun could be empty, the
hitman could hit one of her friends, he could hit an innocent bystander across
the street, or Clarice could be seriously wounded but have a friend's wound be
minor later. Clarice's player would now have to choose one of them. In this
case, the GM and player could choose to use the general meaning (as above) or
the meaning based on the card's orientation (straight or upside-down).

I'm Feeling Lucky.
Cost: 1 Significant
Effect: This spell causes the next roll of the Seer to be a success no matter
what the roll is. A roll that would normally be a matched failure is now a
matched success. A gunshot will now do the damage specified by the roll, even if
it is higher than the normal skill of the Seer (damage caps still apply). The
only exception is a BOHICA, which is changed to a simple failure. This spell may
only be cast once per day, and may only affect the Seer.

Tomorrow You Die!
Cost:  1 Significant
Effect:  This is the Divinomancer's Significant Blast, as outlined above. It
also follows the same rules stipulated by the Minor blast.

Reversal of Fortune
Cost: 2 Significant
Effect: This spell causes a single attack or magickal blast, aimed at the Seer,
to be deflected at another target of the Seer's choice. All the effects of the
attack or blast now affect the new target.

The Future Is Now.
Cost:  2 Significant
Effect:  This spell allows the Seer to bring an event, which he has to verbally
specify, to the present moment. Thus, he could bring the mugging that will occur
in two hours time to him now, while he still has his gun! There are two rules,
though: firstly, the event cannot be more than a day away from occurring, and
secondly, if the Seer has to guess the event and does not correctly predict the
event, he does not use up the charges. The charges are only used when the event
is brought forward. This applies only to this spell.

Reality Ripple
Cost:  3 Significant
Effect:  With this spell, a Seer is able to essentially take a point in the
future, and pull the two points together. When this spell is cast, the Seer must
predict an event that will happen in the next 1-3 minutes, depending on the
degree of success achieved. The Seer will then have those two points brought
together. An example will illustrate this effect clearly.  Clarice and her two
friends are still being hunted down by the hitman, and are currently still
running down another alley. She then casts this spell. She then casts the spell,
and chooses the point when they are running down another alley, but in a minute'
s time. The two points merge, and they find themselves running down another new
alley. The hitman stares in amazement as the three just disappear in front of
his eyes. For every extra significant charge spent, one extra person may be
affected by this spell, but they will suffer the same effects as the Seer.

Divinomancy Major Effects
With a Major charge, a Seer could permanently change someone's future, make that
person incredibly lucky for a few months, and pretty much anything else that has
to do with the future
and/or luck. The Seer could even travel to the future, but could not bring
anything from the future back into our current timestream, except ideas. "Time
travel" is beyond the scope of this school.

Note: Stress Checks should be called for when applicable. This is so because
most people will be slightly disturbed if their well-aimed shot suddenly swerves
in mid-air and hits someone else. The Seer is not immune to these Stress Checks.
Remember, however, that the Seer can make his/her magick as blatant or as subtle
as they want, so this rule may not always be applicable, but when it is, let
them have it. Typical checks would be Helplessness and The Unnatural.

© Brendan Quinlivan  soulstice at webmail.co.za

--
"When you hear sweet syncopation / And the music softly moans
T'ain't no sin to take off your skin / And dance around in your bones"
Dylan Craig · Writer and Observer · Cape Town, South Africa
Contact Details: http://www.eyeballkid.co.za/contact.html


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