Life is just a game. Who cares if you die? You still have 3 life left . . .
(please bear with me, this is my first post)
Ludifico – Latin – to make game of, deride, delude, cheat, frustrate.
When very young, you felt it. Ever since you recieved CandyLand for Christmas, you became an addict. As you got older, and your copy of CandyLand wore out from playing, and as your parents got more and more tired of playing with you over and over again, you began to discover the variety of games in the world. Solitaire and computer games all became second nature to you. At school you would gladly write papers about how Math Blaster helped to save his favorite little robotic dog and tell stories about your honorable climb to the top of every ladder and the dissapointment of falling down the chutes. By middle school you played and owned most collectible card games, miniature games, board games, PC games, and electronic game systems of every make and model. You were known as the Guru of Gaming among your classmates and you spent most of your time trading and thinking about your next move in chess.
Then one day you fell into heaven. For your 16th birthday, a cousin and fellow gamer aquired tickets to the most revered gaming conventions in the world. He got tickets to Gencon. And you were going with him.
Game after game you played into the night. While your cousin was sleeping in the corner on the floor, you were hoping from table to table with energy and finesse. Card games, board games, RPGs, LARPs, you played it all. At 3:33 am, it all clicked into place. Suddenly, you weren’t just a kid playing games and living in a constant reality of the hum-drum sort. Your life WAS the game. You WERE your character in Vampire and in Dungeons and Dragons. You WERE the guy on the couch from Chez Geek. You WERE the Sims, Alice, every person in Grand Theft Auto. And everyone around you? They were the one’s stuck unknowingly in the game. They were the NPCs. You were the PC.
Paradox – Everywhere the Ludificomancer goes, he/she is in game. There is no other reality for this person. Everyone else in the world is a NPC or a drone in the game, unaware of their reality.
Taboo – A Ludificomancer may NEVER accept anything other than the gaming world as reality. If he/she ever thinks even for a moment that maybe they are not their games, then he/she will cease to be a Ludificomancer forever and loose all charges. Another reality can never be accepted as true.
Blast style – The blast takes on the form of the Ludificomancers favorite attack skill from a game. The attack always deals the same amount of damage but the Ludificomancers blast attack may look or feel different than any other time he/she has used it depending on his/her preference at the time.
Generate a Minor Charge – play a multi-player game for at least an hour. Muti-player meaning more than one. That would include a online game in which other people are playing at the time, such as Ultima Online. Other game examples would be poker, pool in a bar, Axis and Allies, or even a childrens game with a child, like Monopoly Junior or Twister. Charges are gained in an hour but also must have an hour between them. Example, if you are playing Risk and the game goes on for 6 hours you gain 3 charges.
Another way to gain a minor charge: Someone must listen to you rant about your character for 10 minutes, willingly or unwillingly. You may gain a charge like this once every hour.
Generate a significant charge – Attend a big gaming event and play games, such as a gaming convention, a Magic the Gathering Tournament, Lan Party, or other such events. Big meaning at least 20 other people are participating with you in this event. Or, organize a large gaming event in which over 20 people are going to participate in.
Another way: Get into the media in which at least 10 people read about your gaming experiances or 50 people hear about your gaming experiances (ie, magazine/newspaper article, or televison/radio broadcast).
Generate a Major Charge – Be involved in a gaming event that invoves over 500 people, organize a gaming event that over 1000 people are going to participate in, make someone believe that the world you live in as a Ludificomancer is true, while theirs is false, play one game for over 48 hours without falling asleep or getting up to eat, drink, use the restroom, etc.
Random Magick Domain – anything to do with gaming. (ie, making your character succeed in a game, playing the game for a long period of time {note that if random magick is used while attempting to generate a major charge will cause the major charge to vanish and never generate}, ect. GMs may use thier judgement.
Ludificomancers begin with 4 charges.
TIP!! – A good way to gain charges is to have a regular gaming group, be a member of a club or center that games regularly, be on a test pannel for several games, design electronic or non electronic games (such as Disney, or work on a committee that organizes gaming events.
Minor Formula Spells
TASTE MY WRATH (1 minor charge)
The blast takes on the favored attack skill from his/her favorite game at the time. This attack must be a normal type attack found in the non-Ludificomancer world, such as firearms, melee attacks, and non-magick attacks.
CHEAT CODE (2 minor charges)
This spell is used to aqure the basics of life by using a cheat. The Ludificomancer must be at a computer in a game at the time, and type in
BUT IT’S ON MY CHARACTER SHEET! (2 minor charges)
The Ludificomancer may aquire a skill at 15% that they already have from another game that they may not have in real life or add that 15% to a already existing skill that they have (such as adding 15% to an already 40% drive skill) . Since the Ludificomancer IS his characters, technically, he believes that he DOES have the skill. This spell is limited to skills that appear in real life (ie, driving, firearms, climbing, vocal immiation, pick pocket, ect.)
I ROLL A D20 (3 minor charges)
The Ludificomancer may roll a d20 to change the outcome of any situation (and yes, in the game, he/she DOES take out a d20 to role, so all characters in the game may see that!) Example, David is in a bank and several robbers come in to rob it. David can take out his dice to change the outcome of this situation. The change depends on the success rate of the dice. A 1 is a criticle failure and the situation may in fact become worse than it originally was. A 20 could cause the police to bust in and take the bank robbers into custody. The outcome is dependent on the GMs creativity of the outcome depending on the situation.
Significant Formula Spells
YOU HAVE ANGERED THE WRONG HALFLING! (1 significant charge)
This is the blast that caused more damage than a minor blast spell as well as can occur in any other form. It could look like a magickal attack from final fantasy if need be, but it is all dependent on the favored attack of the Ludificomancer at the time.
CHEAT CODES THE EXPENSION (2 significant charges)
Works like the minor spell “cheat codes” but stronger. (ie, Money will find itself into your pocket up to $1000, fancier more expensive clothes or even real uniforms up to 5 sets, or even 5 uniforms) Any cheat code from any electronic game would apply here, GMs discretion.
SUMMON CREATURE (2 significant charges)
A creature card from Magic the Gathering could be summoned into reality. The card MUST be either in sight or owned and with the Ludificomancer. That creature (with the same stats as on the card) is controlled by the mancer and is in existance for a period of 3 hours unless told to turn back into a card by the mancer. The creature is limited by its ablities and race. A Elf would be able to hammer nails, but a beast may not.
IT SAYS I HAVE GREY EYES, BUT I WANT BLUE EYES (4 significant charges)
The Ludificomancer may change his/her appearance to look as one of his/her characters in a game, which includes, race, gender, age, and perhaps even species. The stats that that character has are replaced by the NEW character stats for a period of 3 hours. This can be prolonged by adding two additional minor charges per hour. This spell cannot prolong to over 5 hours, otherwise the change is permanent and the original self is lost forever, but keeps the school of magick. All charges are lost with the original and new charges must be gained in order to continue casting spells.
Major Spells
Gain 3 more life, so that if one life is lost, you may regenerate after 1 hour of being dead up to 3 times, unless this spell is used several times. Lives accumulate.
So, any feedback? Please be kind if not positive.
An entertaining read, though I don’t know that I’d actually use it. Major charges are way to easy to pick up (all you have to do is pay your money and go to a major con every year), and the taboo isn’t hard to avoid, though the penalties are pretty severe.
Don’t actually have anything to replace them with as yet, but stay tuned.
Hm. It’s an interesting idea, and nicely self-referential, but the paradox isn’t _really_ a paradox. Perhaps instead, focus upon the self-referential element? A Ludificomancer believes that they are nothing more than an avatar in a game – someone else is using them as a playing peice. The paradox is that, though they are acting with what seems like “self-will”, they are always placing thier actions subserviant to the actions of the supposed “controller” or “player”. Make generating charges based upon the Ludificomancer doing something which is against thier self-will, but would help the “player”- disregarding thier relationships for a chance to go fight something, and getting “experiance” (a charge) for doing that. Taboo would be… what? Doing something which someone who was a controller would never have them do? Like… go to the bathroom? (Loosing charges every time you need to piss is not fun.)
Really the concept of this one is hard, because the character _IS_ nothing more than a character in a game. So how do you get an inate contradiction that has some bite to it, when the character’s world view is, well, correct? The character will _always_ be acting like a character in a game, because they _are_ a character in a game.
I like the feedback on this one! Keep it coming! It was something I really came up with one day just to think about. Mostly, it is a joke for all my gaming friends. Most of us act this way anyway. Wouldn’t it be odd to play a Ludificomancer and suddenly, while rummaging through a bookstore, find a Unknown Armies book, and read it?Even more interesting, what if the Ludificomancer was online and saw this post and read it, realizing he is what is written here and IN FACT was designed by a small town girl in New England? That would be kinda strange, don’t you think? The strangeness of it all was the main reason for designing it.
But its still a rough draft. I’ll be working on it and it will eventually all click into place. Perhaps you’ll see an updated version of this mancer sometime in the future.
Thank you both for your advice. I’ll be working on it.
For an interesting take on this, check out Over The Edge, which contains a self-referential plot line as a potential campaign arc. There’s a disclaimer to not use it if your players are on halucinogens.
Well, all the concentration and attention that people put into gaming has to go somewhere. There could be a school that generates charges by giving up their live in favor of a game.
Minor charges would come after a 4-6 hour session of a single game. Sigs might come from gaming a single character for 24 hours straight.
The taboo could involve having a real life, valuing anything more than the game. These guys’ ambition would be limited, given that focus.
The magick could be restricted to the characters you play, maybe temporarily conjuring them or something. This idea could be good as a mix between the Dreamers and the Vidiots.
This school is about living in a gameworld. It treats reality as a game the same way that a Videomancer can force reality to conform to TV standards…
I am not so sure about including all games from videogames to roleplaying games. When you focus on video games, it’s about winning. When you stress rpgs, it’s about immersion. I feel that this is somehow to wide. But i may be wrong.
This is interesting to me because I have a book called Secret Games of the Gods.
Secret Games is all about how ancient divination and magic practices have eventually mutated into games of enjoyment. It was really interesting but a bit boring.
I like the idea of a post-modern adept fortune-teller using games (including RPGs, nintendo, war games) to divine, describe and maybe prescribe the future. But it would look very different to your one.
If I may try an alternative, I’ll do it.
Cheers,
Chris.
Ooooh… that sounds nifty. Taking old elements of throwing bones and interpreting them to tell the future, and combining it with rolling dice and interpreting them to play a game…
This is something which I could really see as being a school a mageekan (or however that’s spelled) developed. One lonely guy out there with his lucky dice, and his character sheet for himself that he made up, who rolls against his “Education: Math” skill to see if he passes the Calculus exam.
If nothing else, it’d be a great variation on the classic oracle. The players need to find out something, and are told to consult “the oracle” – a classic element from stories anyway – and when they go and track him down, they find an aging geek holding court at the local game store. (I’m imagining the guy from the Simpson’s here.) After earning his favor with a gift of issue #333 of Superman, he rolls his dice and tells them thier future.
WOW, this is all great stuff guys! I guess I’ll be re-writing this school very soon! Perhaps someday it would be useable!
This school could be loosely based off a tradition of chessmasters, like Anagram Gematria is based off the cabbalistic version.
RPGs might come in via their supposed historical development out of wargames (debatably a variation on chess), but their really closer to the Personamancers than anything else. I’d focus it more on the wargamers than the roleplayers, though D&D might get in on the edge.
The Wargamers could generate charges by playing against others with fully-painted armies, or building their armies (like bibliomancers), painting an entire army of miniatures yourself, stuff like that. Designing and producing your own sucessful line of models, etc.
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The video gamers (Platformers?) could be their own school, a spin-off of the Vidiots. They do seem different enough that they could consitute separate schools.
It seems like these would have very different random magick domains. With the platformers being very similar to the Vidiots (plus blasts, maybe mimicing the game the charges came from, or generic via a light gun). I have no idea what the Wargamers would have power over… maybe systems and organizations, like the Urbanomancers or Geomancers.
A platformer would have to have a “focus;” keyboard, Nintendo controller, whatever. Using charges requires operating the device. If you go for more of a “matrix” kind of thing, a cell phone might work.
Fingers paralyzed? Try toes, or face… but that’d require a Speed roll (to hit the right buttons) in addition to the normal Magick roll.
Dropped it down the sewer? Your current charachter lapses into catatonia and someone disturbingly simmilar (controller 2) rushes in to fish it back out, costing you several charges and all your buddies an Unnatural check as the Doppelganger vanishes.
Also, they go to herbal-remedy stores looking for white mushrooms with green spots, convinced they’ll get an extra life. All kinds of kleptomania, for that matter.
I’d say that beating an MMORPG would be a good way to get a Major charge. It would take some planning, bribery and coercion, but it could be done.
I think that whilst the major charge is too easy to get, the effect is proportional to this, keep it up!