Win or lose, it’s all about playing the game
Contests have always been a part of the human experience. Warfare, duels, sports, games, they are all the same when you get down to brass tacks. Recently there has been a shift in the statosphere, removing the emphasis on rewards and decision making and shifting it to the pure art of the game.
Masks: Dice, Cards, Chess pieces, joysticks, d-pads, computers, boards with strange symbology, all of these are masks of the gamer
Taboo: A Gamer must never accept nor offer a handicap. A gamer must do everything in his power to win, and expect others to do the same. The gamer must likewise handicap himself if he faces someone who insists on handicapping themselves. This does not mean the gamer cannot shoot someone who has no gun, in fact it would be taboo not to in a fight, unless it was a strictly nonlethal fight with killing the opponent as a lose condition. It does mean that if in a brawl a man who insists on fighting with his hand tied behind his back must be fought likewise.
1%-50%: A gamer is an expert of keeping track of resources. On a succesful avatar check, the gamer can tell exactly how many resources someone had expended since the gamer saw them last/when they first met/last time he checked, and if they had gained any resources since the last time the gamer checked. The gamer may also, once per day, attempt a check to take full stock of his own resources. When doing so, he automatically can tell if anything is there that shouldn’t or anything that should be there but isn’t. ‘Resources’ is a very vague term that includes wound points, magick charges, spiritual parasites, money (including bank accounts if he has his checkbook or debit/credit card with him), gas (if he’s in his car the contents are also checked, same with house), weapons, explosives, gadgets, bullets, battery charge, and more. This channel may also be used in more abstract ways, such as automatically performing a perfect recount of all cards dealt at a blackjack table, but the GM must approve.
51%-70%: A gamer, having picked up on a wide variety of counter-intuitive knowledge, learns things faster with practice. A gamer gains two points in a skill with a matched success or failure when doing a major check, and one with a significant check. A gamer may gain two points per skill in this manner per session. The Avatar skill itself is not subject to this bonus.
71%-90%: The gamer now can translate gaming skill into real skill. A body-based gaming skill (not general athletics, but a volleyball, kendo, or fencing skill would do) may now be used instead of any one other body skill (say, a beauty skill?), a speed-based gaming skill may now be used instead of any one other speed skill (say, firearms or dodge?), A mind-based gaming skill may now be used instead of any one other mind skill (say, notice or general education?) While the Avatar skill itself may be used instead of any one other soul skill (say, charm, lie, or aura sight?)
91%+A gamer may now create a supernatural game, shunting it’s participants into an otherspace where only the GM can put limits on what occurs. While there may be a prize of some sort in the contest (anything that could be bid in a magical Gambler game), everyone is in exactly the same condition as when they entered, no matter what happened in the game. Got killed? No worries. Tabooed? Your mojo’s back. Cast the mother of all random magicks? never happened. Generated a major charge? Tough luck. Gained a few dozen points in skills due to matched successes? Gone. Not even hardened or failed notches on stress checks remain, as the whole experience is very muted after the fact, although an unnatural check may be warranted for particularly bizarre games.
While the gamer must construct the game, he cannot force anyone into it, nor lie about it’s contents, even by omission, and he may only use this channel every three days (actually three days, three hours and three minutes).
This is my take on the Gamer. I did sort of use some ideas from the other gamer, particularly for the second channel, but this is mostly my work.
I’m bored, so I think I’d elaborate on my channel decisions:
First channel: I wanted something that could be mistaken for a mundane ability, but explicitly wasn’t. The flawless tracking of inventory, wound points, and magic charges seemed sufficiently game-themed while still leaning in the plausible for a chunk of the population to be able to muster occasionally, unknowingly.
Second channel: I like the way I balanced it, but I did steal the idea for this channel from that other guy.
Third channel: This one was difficult to come up with, but I like how it turned out. the reasons for this is so the gamer can have a reason for putting points into ‘useless’ gaming skills, and the true benefit being the bonus to the soul skill. At the GM’s option, there could be a ‘non-magickal’ tag onto those skill substitutions, but I wouldn’t suggest it. If I wasn’t clear, you pick a skill to link to the gaming skill.
I was considering adding another bonus, something like ‘and this works both ways, for every 5% of the supplanted skill, boost the gaming skill by 1%. This does not apply to the Avatar skill.’ but I felt it was a bit much. If you disagree, feel free to toss it in.
Fourth Channel: Not so sure on this one, but it seemed to fit. I was a little unclear with it, and it clashes a bit with the gambler, but it’s less of ‘playing the odds’ as ‘fair contest of skill, guile, and cunning’, which is what I was going for. This even has a sinister plot hook, with a gamer and some particularly erudite adepts abusing the games to test the boundries of their magic, stockpiling charges then using those same charges repeatedly on experimentation, coming up with something as outlandish as a major formula spell! (dun dun DUN!)
Now that’s quite cool. I likes it!
Brilliant!
If I might make a suggestion about the fourth channel, since the one you have posited seems more like a Godwalker thing to me, very overtly magical.
At above 91% the Gamer could force people into a real-life game where he sets the rules. This would work a bit like a geas in D&D, the players will do thier best to ‘win’ by whatever arbitrary criteria the Gamer has set. This could be something as serious as a fight to the death, or as frivolous as trying to collect the most bottlecaps. The only drawback is that the Gamer must play in the game himself.
Every extra rule and player that the Gamer includes in the game requires a check against his avatar skill. He can make as many rules or add as many players as he likes, until he fails, after which he can add no more. Players can join willingly, and this requires no roll against the Gamers skill.
When a player or the Gamer wins, they get whatever prize was determined in the rules, though it must come from the players. This could be money, skills (like the Merchant), anything really. If one of the players wins, they automatically gain 5% of the Gamer avatar skill, and the Gamer loses 5%.
Picture some serious games of high level Gamers trying to add enough to thier skill to ascend, or knock another Gamer down a peg or two.
Awesome concept, really!
Excellent elaboration on the fourth channel! I mean it.
One problem with it though, this iteration of the gamer has less to do with winning, so it might be a good idea to nix that overt part of the skill modification. Besides, beating another gamer at a game automatically nets you avatar skill, if you do it while realizing the ritualistic significance. It’s like a Masterless Man challenging another one to a bar brawl, any challenge within the archetype allows for stealing of avatar skills.
I’m confused by the taboo, somewhat. The Gamer must never accept or offer a handicap. If he faces someone who handicaps themselves, he must handicap himself.
I don’t understand how these go together.
As I am of a similar mindset, let me explain.
Say your playing street fighter. You are a gamer, and thus may accept no handicap. Your opponent, bein much better then you, sets the handicap function to the max. This is no longer a fair contest of skill, planning, and resourcefulness, so it falls out of the domain of the gamer. You remedy the situation by handicapping yourself the exact same amount, so it is once again a fair contest. The gamer is not the gambler, winning is not the end all be all.
Oh yes, you also have the option of refusing to play at all or insisting he remove the handicap.
How would this work with Go, to not offer a handicap to an inexperianced player goes against the rules of the game?
Fun fact: the handicap rule in Go was invented by the Godwalker of the Demagogue in 1996, who had it in for the Godwalker of the Gamer of the time.
Fun Fact: Creating histories in which histories change is not a legitamite way to adress concerns about hipocrasy in the way an avatar is laid out.
I admit Go is a bit of a sticky widget, but the thing is, There are no absolute rules as to the amount of the handicap, an an avatar of the gamer would just be a bit of a prick about having no handicap, and would insist on some form of random determination as to who goes first.
Ah, but no matter how you start the game, an immutable rule of the game is that one of the players gets a handicap. This is a rule that was created in order to keep people from tieing games.
If I recall, the minimum handicap is just a half-point, depending on who goes first. As I said, the gamer would just devise some fair method (a coin flip perhaps) to determine who goes first.
The taboo seems wrong to me, if a gamer was playing an inexperienced player he would want a handicap to make the game interesting. I would go with : can’t cheat, can’t throw a game, can’t turn down any reasonable challenge of skill.
“Reasonable” means a gamer doesn’t have to stop in the middle of grocery shopping to play checkers (just set a date for the game later in the week) or agree a sword duel when he doesn’t fence.
The gamer also doesn’t have to accept contests with bets attached like racing for pink slips (unless he makes a habit of racing for pink slips in which case it would be a reasonable challenge).
I picked the taboo because of how I’ve seen serious gaming done. Serious gamers tend to do anything to win, and don’t even bother moderating themselves in casual play. Furthermore, they tend to be rather picky on who plays with them, because they want it to be fair.
I know it’s a rather large gray area, but I am standing by the decision, although I think it could use some rewording.