It’s not just for theaters anymore, kids…
(aka gossips, busybodies, doormats, dramamancers)
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, dramaturgy is “The art of dramatic composition and representation.” The Authentic Dramaturges (or Dramamancers) know it’s far more than that, however. You’ve met these people in your lives – the friendly neighbor who informs you that your husband’s cheating on you “for your own good”, the elderly relative who warns you away from a potential job because “they do bad things behind closed doors at that place.” But people like that are only the tip of the iceberg; truly masterful Dramaturges are everyone’s best friend, and no one ever realizes they’re manipulating other people’s lives for their own personal gain. Which suits most Dramaturges just fine.
Authentic Dramaturgy is a school of magic based on the creatino of personal drama in other people’s relationships. Dramaturges gain charges by provoking others into arguments (or worse) wihle avoiding the responsibility for doing so. A support group for codependent people is often a Dramaturge’s greatest resource for charges. The central paradox of Authentic Dramaturgy is that of control through avoidance: Dramaturges must avoid conflict in thier own relationships at all costs, but they thrive on the conflict of others.
DRAMAMANCY BLAST STYLE
Authentic Dramaturgy’s blasts are generally nonlethal, but they’re nasty all the same. A victim hit by a minor blast is assalied by whatever emotino he or she most hates – envy, anger, love, you name it. This usually triggers level-2 stress check, but my also activate a Fear, Rage or (occasionally) Noble stimulus as well.
The major blast is the same, but more intense. The hated emotion boils up from the depths of the victim’s psyche, triggering repressed memories and *always* triggering an appropriate stress check and either the Fear or Rage stimiulus. A matched success on a major blast causes a heart attack, stroke or aneurysm; a crit is the same, but always fatal.
With both blasts, of course, no charges can be gained from arguments resultiing from a provoked emotion.
STATS
Generate a Minor Charge: Directly or indirectly provoke two or more people you know into an argument or falling-out, and watch or listen as it happens. Giving a person information directly is fine, as is leaving notes or planting evidence, but in any case you have to see the argument or watch one of the people walking out on the other to get the charge.
Generate a Significant Charge: Directly or indirectly provoke two or more people into an argument that could be punished by law. This includes physical fighting, discharging of firearms, destruction of property, and the like. Particularly juicy crimes like arson or murder may yield more than one signicant charge, but even fisrt dgree murder won’t get you a major charge, though genocide might. See below.
Generate a Major Charge: Authentic Dramaturgy is flexible on this, so read carefully. The best known way to gain a maor charge is to follow the steps for gaining a minor or significant charge, but on someone important enough that it affects an entire country or an international organization. For example, getting the head of the Church of Latter Day Saints to leave his wife would get a major charge; it’s been speculated that Linda Tripp had a major charge until the public discovered she’d been manupulating Monica Lewinsky. Note that national organizations like the NRA or KKK aren’t big enough for this to work (well, GM’s discretion, of course, but I recommend the organization be international).
The other, lesser known way to get a Major Charge is to set up two (or more) professional actors in a situation where they spontaneously break character and start having a personal argument on stage in front of a live audience. This may sound a lot easier than the other option, but really it isn’t, and if you’ve ever seen the faces of an audience after actors broke character, you’ll understand why it’s so upsetting. This hearkens back to the origins of the art of dramaturgy, much like Oneiromancy’s major charge-gaining formula is a throwback to ancient divniation.
Taboo: Have an argument with anyone. You can still sabotage other people’s property or relationships if you want, but if they catch you and so much as slap you across the face, all your charges go bye-bye. Most Dramaturges learn to be very friendly and very agreeable so as not to arouse suspicion.
Random Magick Domain: Dramaturges are expert at maniuplating the emotions and actions of others, particularly into conflict. Random Dramaturgy can also cover appearing blameless or harmless in a situation, getting away with something scot-free, or uncovering people’s dirty little secrets.
Starting Charges: Newly created Authentic Dramaturges have five minor charges.
Charging Tips
Busybodies usually look for people whose lives are already mired in drama, and who have thus learned to blame it on “the circumtances” or other people rather than their own actions. Support groups are ripe for this – particularly AA, NA, and the like, as well as groups for codependent people. Generally it’s advisable to look for the newest members, who are much more likely to see a dramamancer as a trusting, concerned friend than as a master manipulator.
Note: Unless otherwise noted, all Dramamancy spells require the caster to be at least in the same room as the target.
DRAMAMANCY MINOR FORMULA SPELLS
Giess Who
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: The target of this spell mistakes somene else you choose as a person they feel has wronged them in the past. For another minor charge, you can choose who they think it is. Lasts until they’ve talked and left each other’s presence, or one hour, whichever comes first. You can spend additional charges on a one-for-one basis to extend the duration by an hour per charge.
Slip of the Tongue
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: Your target accidentally says whatever it is he most wants to conceal from you at the moment. This can be anything from “I’m gay” to “I murdered my girlfriend and her body is in the trunk of my car.” For an additional minor charge, you can get the information mentally rather than forcing your target to say it out loud, but he still gets a weird feeling that somehow, you know his secret, which san sometimes be worse. Note that this information is sometimes vague, such as “I have a mistress” instead of “My mistress is so-and-so.”
Grrrr
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: For a split second, you can provoke someone to become annoyed. Just what annoys them at any given time is based on the circumstances, but if they’ve already had a mediocre or bad day, they might rant for an hour. Otherwise, they might just frown and move on. It’s a mixed bag, but useful in a bind.
Come On, Let It Out
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: This is the Dramamancy minor blast.
Crippling Angst
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: In order to cast this spell, you have to know of some unfortunate event that recently befell your target. For the next 10 minutes after the spell is cast, the target is overwhelmed with grief and suffers a –15% shift on whatever she tries to do, including battle (being partially blinded with tears isn’t conducive to attacking someone).
Seek the Juicy Tome
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: At some point, a clever Dramamancer uncovered the ritual Seek the Lost Tome, and adapted it to finding diaries, a staple of every good Dramamancer’s repertoire. This ritual allows a gossip to exactly pinpoint the location of a person’s diary, but she has to be inside the person’s house or apartment first. For an additional minor charge, this spell may also be used to find love letters, incriminating tax documents, shopping lists of drugs, or pretty much any other juicy bits of writing – but the Dramaturge must know exactly what kind of item he’s looking for before casting it, or it automatically fails.
The Show Must Go On
Cost: 3 minor charges
Effect: This spell is identical to the Cliomancy spell “You Remember Now.”
Gnostic Gossip
Cost: 3 minor charges
Effect: This spell is identical to the Cliomancy spell by the same name.
DRAMAMANCY SIGNIFICANT FORMULA SPELLS<./b>
Digging Up the Good Dirt
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This spell works like Slip of the Tongue, with two exceptions: all information is gained directly from the target’s mind without his or her knowledge, and each time the busybody succeeds, she can roll again to get a new piece of information the target doesn’t want her to know. This can continue until the Dramamancer fails, although the GM should require another charge to be spent every few rolls. A matched failure on this spell alerts the target that someone has been mucking about in his head, which normally causes a rank-5 Unnatural check and/or a rank-3 Self check.
Temporary Insanity
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This is the Dramaturgy significant blast.
Seek the Juicy Blog
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This spell resembles Seek the Juicy Tome, but it’s more specialized – it only works on weblogs or online journals. All you have to do is know the name of the person whose journal you want to read, type that name into Google, and press the button for “random link”, and it takes you to the journal. It even logs you in as that person so you can read private entries. Rumor has it, because of the way this spell works, that it might have been a joint effort between a Dramaturge and an Entropomancer.
Party From Hell
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: This spell works just like Grrrr or Come On, Let It Out (your choice), but on an entire room full of people. For particularly large rooms (wedding receptions, large convention halls, auditoriums), you may need to spend additional charges.
Yellow is the Color of Your True Love’s Hair
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: Cast this spell on someone else, and you get a mental pictore of whomever they truly love – romantic interests first, then family (for the purposes of this spell, only romantic love and familial love count). You also get their names and a general idea of how good the target’s relationship with each person is – great, okay, a little rocky, or very difficult. Naturally, this spell is a staple of figuring out who to provoke your target into an argument with.
Urban Legend
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: This spell is identical to the Cliomancy spell by the same name.
Bar-room Brawl
Cost: 4 significant charges
Effect: This is an area-effect spell like Party from Hell, but it inflicts the significant blast effect instead of the minor. This spell is best used with care – it’s also been known in recent years as Riot, after several unwise Dramaturges used it in close quarters and were beaten or trampled to death.
AUTHENTIC DRAMATURGY MAJOR EFFECTS
Use any Dramamancy spell on someone you don’t know, have never met, or who’s famous. Make a public official admit a horrible secret on national television. Cause an entire city to erupt into riots over a recent event. Turn someone who hates you into your best friend. Get a job as an advice columnist simply by asking. Start an international war. Invent an unbelievable piece of news for the front page that everyone will believe, no matter how outrageous. Gain a doctorate in counseling or social work without ever studying either one. Become a national advisor or the trusted friend of a famous person. Learn another person’s entire history – even things he or she doesn’t remember or has blocked out – even a person you don’t know have never met.
Okay, so what does everyone think? I know there are too many formula spells, but I figured people could pick and choose… and I really couldn’t narrow them down, especially since a few of the spells I had thought of were already written up under Cliomancy. Thoughts, anyone?
I really like the concept, and over all, it seems pretty well balanced. It is very UA in its approach, and gaps the bridge between personamancy and cliomancy in an original way. Really cool job. The only problem I have is “Digging up the good dirt”.
Essentially, the way I read it (correct me if I’m wrong) it does everything “All is known” does for Cliomancer, for much cheaper, more powerfully due to the reroll part, and with none of the downside. Even though it is more narrow in application, I still think it’s a bit over the top. Upping the charge cost would help.
Also, I have noticed that the magical schools dealing with the human psyche (Amoromancy, Perrsonamancy, Cliomancy) or information (Infomancy, Bibliomancy) usually do not have balsts in UA2, although they do have spells that can hurt indirectly. And the way you wrote them, your blasts seem more aimed at attacking the mind than hurting the body. the heart attack part makes sense though.
So maybe rewriting them the way the personamancy blasts were rewritten from UA1 to UA2 would be more in the keeping of the game’s spirit. Maybe. I don’t know.
Those are just thoughts, not criticism. Again, I really like what you wrote. Keep up the good work.
Actually, I think your points are pretty valid. I also should have spell-checked because I missed a lot of typos. In fact, I had no idea of that Cliomancy spell… I should have taken a better look at Cliomancy first. I don’t think Gnostic Gossip was exactly what I wanted, either… I was thinking about planting a single outside thought, not a memory, which I think I saw in one of the online magick schools, but I couldn’t remember which one so I couldn’t find it again.
A shool about drama that contains:
a) A minor Blast that triggers fear
b) A major Blast that triggers fear
c) A blast that targets an entire room and triggers fear in everyone (with an alternative use as well)
d) A significant blast that targets an entire room and triggers fear in everyone.
This is the most aggressive school I have ever seen. And it is about Drama.
Nope, won’t use it like this.
The intention was not to trigger fear. It was to trigger whatever emotion the person most dislikes feeling. I worded it badly, obviously. And tell me it’s more aggressive than irascimancy… I don’t think so. I could use some constructive criticism instead of just simple pokes and prods.
Also, there’s no such thing as a “major blast”. That was a typo on my part. Anywhere you see the words “major blast,” read it as “significant blast.”
Let me clarify again. The readon a person’s Fear or Rage stimulus is triggered is that I assumed whatever emiotion the person hates feeling relates to one of these two stimuli. In a particularly depraved person, it could be the Noble stimulus – a person who really hates helping others and being a decent person, but occasionally feels the drive anyway. I shouldn’t have made it a mandatory trigger, though, as it depends on each indivicual character concept. I’m open to suggestions for a better way to work the blasts, but at the moment I’m drawing a bit of a blank on my own.
I’m working on a revised version. I’ll probably be posting it later today or tonight.
I could so see an ED user or Internet Troll using this school…
This school was my very first attempt at writing something for UA, and these days it strikes me as pretty sloppy. I’d like to rewrite it, but I don’t really have that many ideas on it anymore.