electricpaladin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
electricpaladin) wrote2008-08-22 10:42 am
electricpaladin) wrote2008-08-22 10:42 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
The Game: Changeling: the Dreaming
Publisher: White Wolf
Familiarity: Incredible! I have read every book I can get my hands on and I have played in three games, one that ran nine months , one that ran four months, and one that ran a year and a half. I’ve never tried to run it (though I really want to), except for one kind of abortive attempt. This game is one of my favorites and I love it dearly.
In Changeling, you play a fragile faerie soul who has survived the thousands of years since faerie homeland, Arcadia, was cut off from earth by the growing power of human disbelief. Faeries survived by becoming “changelings,” faeries souls that entered into a symbiosis with a human soul so that the resulting being could live in both worlds, at the cost of some measure of amnesia on the part of the faerie side. Fey society was recently thrown into turmoil by the exile to Earth of several houses of fey nobles in 1969. These Sidhe don’t coexist with human souls, they boot them out, meaning they are, in some sense, different creatures altogether.
Changeling is a game about balancing two radically different identities and points of view – the human and the fey – and trying to build a life that works in both worlds. It is a game about mortality: the beauty of childhood, the power of adulthood, and the wisdom and tragedy of old age. It is a game about the fragility and tenacity of wonder in a world that seems to have forgotten it.
So, what’s my concept?
The image I have is of a young African-American woman, a lizard Pooka, who sees herself as a sort of a trickster goddess. She is wild and only occasionally moral. Sometimes she punishes the wicked and rewards the good… and sometimes she just screws with people. She’s just as free of bad stuff like hatred and rules as she is of good stuff like close relationships and, you know, discipline.
On the other hand, she’s also a runaway. Her dad is an angry and controlling man who joined the Nation of Islam to reject the “Western” world that had screwed him over again and again. I’d say he’s shy of being abusive, but just barely. He sent mixed messages to his kids; on the one hand, he railed against how awful America was to Blacks, but on the other hand he knew better than to let his daughters soak up any more ghetto culture than they had to. The only thing he talked positively about was Islam, but neither of his daughters really bought it. Daughters? My character had an awesome older sister who defied their father at every turn, and finally convinced him that she was going to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, but then ditched with the money. A few years later when my characters was 16, she decided to follow in her sister’s footsteps and run away from home. She chrysalised shortly thereafter. She still hasn’t found her sister, but since becoming a Changeling she’s sort of stopped looking.
She’s living on the streets now (or crashing with other PCs – she really needs a Boggan in her life.). Her life is totally out of balance right now. She’s indulging in her fae side left and right and doesn’t really have a mortal life to speak of. She’s flirting with Bedlam or worse, growing up and realizing that her life is kind of a joke.
And also, another serious thing she’s going to have to deal with is that she’s gay. She doesn’t really know it yet because she lacks the vocabulary to talk about it, even to herself. Right now all she knows is that guys aren’t very exciting and girls are… but she’s too busy causing trouble and being a lighthearted, free-spirited trickster to actually do anything.
I’d love to also make her elderly, but it’s hard to make elderly Changelings. Banality tends to set in.
Her mortal name is Monica Clay. After his conversion, her dad gave everyone in the family brand new names in Arabic. At that point, she got renamed Aisha. It never caught on, but now she’s using it as her name in fae circles.
She’s an attractive, slim girl of African descent who wears her hair in cornrows in front with long, tight braids in back, which she sometimes ties together into a ponytail. Right now, ‘slim’ is beginning to look more like ‘malnurished.’ To those who can see her fae side, she’s still slim and pretty, but she has bright emerald scales growing anywhere that her skin is thin and bones are close to the surface: around her eyes, on her knuckles and toes, on her knees and elbows, and down her spine. To Changelings, her eyes are bright green, her teeth are sharp, and her tongue is pointed and forked, like a lizard’s.
Well, I know Aisha is a Pooka, but I also need to pick Legacies and Court. She’s definitely Unseelie. She’s about deceit, hunger, and trickery – nothing noble and honest there. Her dominant legacy is therefore definitely Fool, never taking things seriously, always jumping on opportunities to lower the lofty (who remind her of her dad). Her Seelie side, though, is Panderer. There’s a part of her that enjoys it when her tricks make deserving people happy.
That covers Concept (which is Step One). On too…
Step Two: Select Attributes
Social is primary. She’s a sneaky, sneaky girl, and she grew up in a household where deceit was the only way to avoid getting a constant annoyed earful from an ever-angry dad. I’ll give her Charisma 3, Manipulation 4, and Appearance 3. She’s learned to lie, but she can be charming when she tries and as I said above, she’s cute.
Mental is secondary. Tricksters have to be sharp. I’ll give her Perception 3, Intelligence 2, and Wits 3. She’s sharp and aware, but she just doesn’t think. Her Intelligence will go up when she grows up a little.
Finall, poor Physical is Tertiary. She’s tough, but malnourished, and I think her lizardy side makes her quick and dexterous. Strength 1, Dexterity 3, and Stamina 2 it is!
Step Three: Select Abilities
I think Talents are a good idea for Primaries for her. She doesn’t really work on learning things, she just picks them up. Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Brawl 1, Dodge 1, Kenning 1, Persuasion 1, Streetwise 2, and Subterfuge 2 reflect that she’s talented in social situations (but kind of lacking in Empathy) and knows how to survive on the streets.
I was going to make Knowledges secondary, to reflect that she’s got a brain in her head and she knows more than she thinks she does, but then I couldn’t figure out what to do with nine points, so Tertiary it is. Enigmas 2, Investigation 1, Linguistics 1, and Medicine 1. She’s a tricksy thinker, good at nosing around where she doesn’t belong, and she’s picked up some Spanish and first aid basics.
That means Skills get to be Secondary. Probably a good idea. Etiquette 1 (not exactly high Etiquette, but her dad made sure she knew how to behave herself), Performance 2, Security 2, Stealth 3, and Survival 1.
Step Four: Select Advantages
I get 5 points to spent on Backgrounds, 3 to spend on Arts, and 5 to spend on Realms.
For my 5 Background points, I’ll buy 1 point of Chimera, Contacts 1, Dreamers 1, and Remembrance 2. Aisha has a chimerical outfit that includes some useful odds and ends, like a chimerical flute that she’s learning how to play! She has also made friends among the street people, weirdos and bohemians of her neighborhood, some of which are Dreamers. And finally, I like the idea of her having a stronger connection to her past lives as a fae, born of her lack of a connection to the real world.
For Arts… I’m going to drop a point into Chicanery and two into Legerdemain. That will let her pull some basic faerie illusions and also some telekinetic tricks.
Realms are weird. Unlike everyone else in the World of Darkness, Changelings have two classes for their powers – one for what they can do, and another for what they can do it to. Realm is the latter. Realm also contributes to the dice pool for the power: it’s Realm + an Attribute determined by the Art (Manipulation and Dexterity, respectively, for Aisha’s Arts).
Abby really likes Realms, but I always thought they were kind of… well, XP sinks. Anyway, one house rule I have run with since time immemorial is the collapsing of Actor (humans) and Fae (faerie stuff) into Character (people). It saves points and makes sense, and I’m going to do it here. I’ll take Character 3 (because she’s into tricking people), Nature 1 (Pooka are good at it, and it’ll come in handy), and Prop 1 (tricks often involve stuff).
Step Five: Finishing Touches
Glamour, Willpower, and Banality! Birthrights and Frailties! Check, check, check, check, and check!
Finally, I get 15 Freebie Points.
First of all, it’s house rule time again. One of the things that got changed between Second Edition and Revised was that the Freebie Point cost of Willpower was reduced in all games from 2 to 1. Since I run Changeling using Revised rules whenever possible (and so do all my friends), we usually use that cost instead. I’m going to also do that here.
So, to start with, I’m going to knock her Willpower up to 5. Aisha’s the very definition of a willful person: dealing with her angry, controlling dad without going nuts, running away from home, and surviving so far.
I’m also going to take her Glamour up to 5 (that still costs 3 points). At least in part that’s because I want Bedlam to be a serious possibility in her future, which is more likely of her Glamour is equal to (and therefore one oath away from becoming higher than) her Willpower.
Let’s see… Dreamers up to 3 (that’s how she’s been surviving so long).
And I’ll knock her Chicanery up to 2, because invisibility is fun, and the later powers are even more fun.
And with my two last points, I’ll… I dunno. Take her Dodge up to 2. That’ll come in handy. She’s a dodgy lizardy girl.
There are also Merits and Flaws in this game. I’ll take Echoes at 2 points (to reinforce the idea that she’s slipping out of the real world and becoming a little more fae than is good for her) and Overconfident (because, you know, teenager). I’ll use those points to buy another point of Glamour, bringing her final score to 6.
I should also note Aisha’s Musing and Ravaging thresholds. Aisha, by the way, does both, depending on her mood (though she’s smart enough to Ravage outside her circle of Dreamers).
Like the good faeries of old, Aisha’s Musing Threshold is Helping Those in Need. She guides lost kids home, gets money to poor families, and frustrates the efforts of bad people to hurt good people. Her Ravaging Threshold, though, is Create Anger. It’s probably got to do with her dad’s angry outbursts, but she loves getting people all riled up while she stays perfectly calm and poised… or better yet, hidden somewhere out of the way.
I imagine Aisha would do well in any game that had a strong focus on the motley and its dynamics. She’s dangerous and unpredictable, but she’s looking for a Whedonesque surrogate family, and once she finds one she’d be extremely loyal. Although she’s very Unseelie and a modernist, she doesn’t care about politics at all. She’s got a lot of internal plot hooks and lessons to learn, and she’s got a few external plot hooks, too, like her sister and her old family.
And I think I’m done. I have a clear idea of who she is and what her issues are. I hope you all find her compelling and go out and play Changeling!
And that’s it for Changeling. Next up, one of my new GenCon aquisitions... Hunter: the Vigil!
Publisher: White Wolf
Familiarity: Incredible! I have read every book I can get my hands on and I have played in three games, one that ran nine months , one that ran four months, and one that ran a year and a half. I’ve never tried to run it (though I really want to), except for one kind of abortive attempt. This game is one of my favorites and I love it dearly.
In Changeling, you play a fragile faerie soul who has survived the thousands of years since faerie homeland, Arcadia, was cut off from earth by the growing power of human disbelief. Faeries survived by becoming “changelings,” faeries souls that entered into a symbiosis with a human soul so that the resulting being could live in both worlds, at the cost of some measure of amnesia on the part of the faerie side. Fey society was recently thrown into turmoil by the exile to Earth of several houses of fey nobles in 1969. These Sidhe don’t coexist with human souls, they boot them out, meaning they are, in some sense, different creatures altogether.
Changeling is a game about balancing two radically different identities and points of view – the human and the fey – and trying to build a life that works in both worlds. It is a game about mortality: the beauty of childhood, the power of adulthood, and the wisdom and tragedy of old age. It is a game about the fragility and tenacity of wonder in a world that seems to have forgotten it.
So, what’s my concept?
The image I have is of a young African-American woman, a lizard Pooka, who sees herself as a sort of a trickster goddess. She is wild and only occasionally moral. Sometimes she punishes the wicked and rewards the good… and sometimes she just screws with people. She’s just as free of bad stuff like hatred and rules as she is of good stuff like close relationships and, you know, discipline.
On the other hand, she’s also a runaway. Her dad is an angry and controlling man who joined the Nation of Islam to reject the “Western” world that had screwed him over again and again. I’d say he’s shy of being abusive, but just barely. He sent mixed messages to his kids; on the one hand, he railed against how awful America was to Blacks, but on the other hand he knew better than to let his daughters soak up any more ghetto culture than they had to. The only thing he talked positively about was Islam, but neither of his daughters really bought it. Daughters? My character had an awesome older sister who defied their father at every turn, and finally convinced him that she was going to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, but then ditched with the money. A few years later when my characters was 16, she decided to follow in her sister’s footsteps and run away from home. She chrysalised shortly thereafter. She still hasn’t found her sister, but since becoming a Changeling she’s sort of stopped looking.
She’s living on the streets now (or crashing with other PCs – she really needs a Boggan in her life.). Her life is totally out of balance right now. She’s indulging in her fae side left and right and doesn’t really have a mortal life to speak of. She’s flirting with Bedlam or worse, growing up and realizing that her life is kind of a joke.
And also, another serious thing she’s going to have to deal with is that she’s gay. She doesn’t really know it yet because she lacks the vocabulary to talk about it, even to herself. Right now all she knows is that guys aren’t very exciting and girls are… but she’s too busy causing trouble and being a lighthearted, free-spirited trickster to actually do anything.
I’d love to also make her elderly, but it’s hard to make elderly Changelings. Banality tends to set in.
Her mortal name is Monica Clay. After his conversion, her dad gave everyone in the family brand new names in Arabic. At that point, she got renamed Aisha. It never caught on, but now she’s using it as her name in fae circles.
She’s an attractive, slim girl of African descent who wears her hair in cornrows in front with long, tight braids in back, which she sometimes ties together into a ponytail. Right now, ‘slim’ is beginning to look more like ‘malnurished.’ To those who can see her fae side, she’s still slim and pretty, but she has bright emerald scales growing anywhere that her skin is thin and bones are close to the surface: around her eyes, on her knuckles and toes, on her knees and elbows, and down her spine. To Changelings, her eyes are bright green, her teeth are sharp, and her tongue is pointed and forked, like a lizard’s.
Well, I know Aisha is a Pooka, but I also need to pick Legacies and Court. She’s definitely Unseelie. She’s about deceit, hunger, and trickery – nothing noble and honest there. Her dominant legacy is therefore definitely Fool, never taking things seriously, always jumping on opportunities to lower the lofty (who remind her of her dad). Her Seelie side, though, is Panderer. There’s a part of her that enjoys it when her tricks make deserving people happy.
That covers Concept (which is Step One). On too…
Step Two: Select Attributes
Social is primary. She’s a sneaky, sneaky girl, and she grew up in a household where deceit was the only way to avoid getting a constant annoyed earful from an ever-angry dad. I’ll give her Charisma 3, Manipulation 4, and Appearance 3. She’s learned to lie, but she can be charming when she tries and as I said above, she’s cute.
Mental is secondary. Tricksters have to be sharp. I’ll give her Perception 3, Intelligence 2, and Wits 3. She’s sharp and aware, but she just doesn’t think. Her Intelligence will go up when she grows up a little.
Finall, poor Physical is Tertiary. She’s tough, but malnourished, and I think her lizardy side makes her quick and dexterous. Strength 1, Dexterity 3, and Stamina 2 it is!
Step Three: Select Abilities
I think Talents are a good idea for Primaries for her. She doesn’t really work on learning things, she just picks them up. Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Brawl 1, Dodge 1, Kenning 1, Persuasion 1, Streetwise 2, and Subterfuge 2 reflect that she’s talented in social situations (but kind of lacking in Empathy) and knows how to survive on the streets.
I was going to make Knowledges secondary, to reflect that she’s got a brain in her head and she knows more than she thinks she does, but then I couldn’t figure out what to do with nine points, so Tertiary it is. Enigmas 2, Investigation 1, Linguistics 1, and Medicine 1. She’s a tricksy thinker, good at nosing around where she doesn’t belong, and she’s picked up some Spanish and first aid basics.
That means Skills get to be Secondary. Probably a good idea. Etiquette 1 (not exactly high Etiquette, but her dad made sure she knew how to behave herself), Performance 2, Security 2, Stealth 3, and Survival 1.
Step Four: Select Advantages
I get 5 points to spent on Backgrounds, 3 to spend on Arts, and 5 to spend on Realms.
For my 5 Background points, I’ll buy 1 point of Chimera, Contacts 1, Dreamers 1, and Remembrance 2. Aisha has a chimerical outfit that includes some useful odds and ends, like a chimerical flute that she’s learning how to play! She has also made friends among the street people, weirdos and bohemians of her neighborhood, some of which are Dreamers. And finally, I like the idea of her having a stronger connection to her past lives as a fae, born of her lack of a connection to the real world.
For Arts… I’m going to drop a point into Chicanery and two into Legerdemain. That will let her pull some basic faerie illusions and also some telekinetic tricks.
Realms are weird. Unlike everyone else in the World of Darkness, Changelings have two classes for their powers – one for what they can do, and another for what they can do it to. Realm is the latter. Realm also contributes to the dice pool for the power: it’s Realm + an Attribute determined by the Art (Manipulation and Dexterity, respectively, for Aisha’s Arts).
Abby really likes Realms, but I always thought they were kind of… well, XP sinks. Anyway, one house rule I have run with since time immemorial is the collapsing of Actor (humans) and Fae (faerie stuff) into Character (people). It saves points and makes sense, and I’m going to do it here. I’ll take Character 3 (because she’s into tricking people), Nature 1 (Pooka are good at it, and it’ll come in handy), and Prop 1 (tricks often involve stuff).
Step Five: Finishing Touches
Glamour, Willpower, and Banality! Birthrights and Frailties! Check, check, check, check, and check!
Finally, I get 15 Freebie Points.
First of all, it’s house rule time again. One of the things that got changed between Second Edition and Revised was that the Freebie Point cost of Willpower was reduced in all games from 2 to 1. Since I run Changeling using Revised rules whenever possible (and so do all my friends), we usually use that cost instead. I’m going to also do that here.
So, to start with, I’m going to knock her Willpower up to 5. Aisha’s the very definition of a willful person: dealing with her angry, controlling dad without going nuts, running away from home, and surviving so far.
I’m also going to take her Glamour up to 5 (that still costs 3 points). At least in part that’s because I want Bedlam to be a serious possibility in her future, which is more likely of her Glamour is equal to (and therefore one oath away from becoming higher than) her Willpower.
Let’s see… Dreamers up to 3 (that’s how she’s been surviving so long).
And I’ll knock her Chicanery up to 2, because invisibility is fun, and the later powers are even more fun.
And with my two last points, I’ll… I dunno. Take her Dodge up to 2. That’ll come in handy. She’s a dodgy lizardy girl.
There are also Merits and Flaws in this game. I’ll take Echoes at 2 points (to reinforce the idea that she’s slipping out of the real world and becoming a little more fae than is good for her) and Overconfident (because, you know, teenager). I’ll use those points to buy another point of Glamour, bringing her final score to 6.
I should also note Aisha’s Musing and Ravaging thresholds. Aisha, by the way, does both, depending on her mood (though she’s smart enough to Ravage outside her circle of Dreamers).
Like the good faeries of old, Aisha’s Musing Threshold is Helping Those in Need. She guides lost kids home, gets money to poor families, and frustrates the efforts of bad people to hurt good people. Her Ravaging Threshold, though, is Create Anger. It’s probably got to do with her dad’s angry outbursts, but she loves getting people all riled up while she stays perfectly calm and poised… or better yet, hidden somewhere out of the way.
I imagine Aisha would do well in any game that had a strong focus on the motley and its dynamics. She’s dangerous and unpredictable, but she’s looking for a Whedonesque surrogate family, and once she finds one she’d be extremely loyal. Although she’s very Unseelie and a modernist, she doesn’t care about politics at all. She’s got a lot of internal plot hooks and lessons to learn, and she’s got a few external plot hooks, too, like her sister and her old family.
And I think I’m done. I have a clear idea of who she is and what her issues are. I hope you all find her compelling and go out and play Changeling!
And that’s it for Changeling. Next up, one of my new GenCon aquisitions... Hunter: the Vigil!