thread: 2006-06-10 : The new specializations rules
On 2006-06-12, Vincent wrote:
Colin's questions!
It's legal to have the consequence of a conflict be "erase the Head from your character sheet and let me write it on mine," right?
Erase the head from your character sheet, yes. Write it on mine, no.
The only time you ever get to write a mastery on your character sheet is during a chapter's beforeplay - when you're updating a recurring character's sheet, or when you're first creating a new character sheet after chapter 2.
This is super important to the dynamics of unique masteries. The head in the box, right? At the end of chapter 1, it's in Cath's possession, but Carl is at the top of the owe list. At the beginning of chapter 2, Carl can add it to his character sheet, as his update, with no explanation given or required why he has it now and Cath doesn't.
Possession of it is what matters during a chapter. It can change hands (if it's not innate) a hundred times over the course of a chapter, and whoever happens to have it right now gets its dice. Between chapters - particularly, at the beginning of the next chapter - what matters is whose character sheet it's written on.
What about characters that are not in the current chapter?
If it's unique and written on someone's sheet, whether they're in the current chapter or not, you can't write it on your sheet.
Does it have to start at modest?
It does! I'll make that clear.
I guess I'd be inclined to interpret this rule as "trade a mastery for one of one significance level better."
Ah yes, very good. Let's go with that.
So for the first two chapters, the GM is making up masteries, but player characters aren't allowed to have them on their character sheets?
Exactly.
Is it possible to have an innate mastery that's not written on the character sheet? You can't be *temporarily* initiated into the warrior cult.
It's totally possible.
So I'm the GM and I create a sheet for initiation into the warrior cult. You're playing the young warrior, so I pass the sheet to you. For the duration of the chapter, you've got that mastery (you can't lose it, because it's innate).
The chapter ends. Sooner or later, your warrior comes to the top of the owe list. Now you get to decide: do you want to write "mastery: initiation into the warrior cult" on your character sheet?
If you decide yes, bammo, it's yours forever, more or less.
If you decide no, then huh! You're saying that you don't expect your initiation to be a forever kind of thing.
As GM, I might say, "well, you're still an initiate, so you still begin the chapter in possession of the mastery." Or I might say no such thing, I might say, "well, I guess the initiation didn't take for some reason," or "ha! They booted you out! They revoked initiation!"
If you don't write it on your sheet, you're leaving it up to me.
But suppose you have "get visions from Minerva" as an innate mastery—under the old rules, you could "lend" a vision to another character. Does it come down to GM fiat whether it's allowed or not?
It comes down to the compelling logic of the events in the game. Everyone's fiat.
Anyhow you can have visions from Minerva if you want to, you don't need the mastery to say so.
Like this: the mastery says that it's always within your rights to have visions from Minerva. It doesn't say that it's never within anyone else's; anyone might have visions from Minerva any time, as events in the game warrant. Just, you ALWAYS can.
