Monday, May 14, 2018

Required Weirdness for Wizards

This sprang out of a discussion on G+ that in turn sprang from my post yesterday on the Weird Wizards of Felltower.

What if you want to require weirdness, in order to encourage players to make spellcasters who have warped themselves in order to achieve power?

Here is one way to structure it.

Only the Powerful

Magery 0-3 don't come with any special disadvantages. You can master magic at the normal bounds without paying a price for it.

Magery 4, 5, and 6 each come with issues. For each of those levels, you are required to take 5 points in disadvantages from the list below:

Compulsive Behavior: And not the fun ones, either, like Carousing or Gambling. Mild addictions, vowing by forbidden gods, sacrificing of small animals, etc.
Frightens Animals
Lifebane: Remember this is a disadvantage. I've had players claim this makes them immune to mosquitoes, swarms, mold, etc. No, the mosquito bites you and then dies in my world.
Obsession: You probably have one already. If not, get one.
Odious Personal Habit: Weird twitches, shouting instead of speaking, lack of grooming, etc. This doesn't even have to be willful - maybe you do douse yourself with perfume but the stink of hell still comes through.
Unusual Feature: tails, extra eyes, weird skin colors, scales, what have you.

You can also take quirk-level versions of these as well.

It's possible to exceed your disad limit with these; if so, they reduce your value, not the cost of additional Magery. Optionally, you can swap in new weird warping for more normal disads. Who needs Sense of Duty and Honesty anymore, right? You have Obsession and Lifebane!

Everyone

Another way to go is every level of Magery past 0 (1+) requires some odd disad, subject to the level:

Magery 1: -1 point
Magery 2: -5 points
Magery 3: -10 points
Magery 4: -15 points
Magery 5: -25 points
Magery 6: -35 points
Magery 7+: additional -15 points per level. Go nuts!

All of these are "or more." GMs may require physical or psychological warping based on certain colleges you study.

What about Weirdness Magnet?

Sure, if you want the players to offload their weirdness onto you. "I'm normal, but weird stuff happens to me!" is not quite the same as "I have a third eye on my forehead, smell of sulpher, and frighten animals." So I left that off.

***

I haven't tested this, but it would work pretty easily. It just enforces unpleasant disads on magic users. Clerics of good gods probably should be excused, but demon worshippers? Hey, a tail and hooves is an easy choice if it means a bit more power, right?

1 comment:

  1. I love this. I gave Bergamot "Frightens Animals" and Oblivious, and he doesn't care about hygiene. He's on his way. I'm still miffed Gerry didn't take Zombie Arm and upgrade it to Ghoul, Wight, etc as game went on.

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