[In Nomine] Discord/Disadvantages

[pyrephox]

I have...problems with many of the Discords/Disadvantages in In Nomine. Like the fact that, as written, it is impossible to make a paraplegic using Crippled. You just have to give them 6 and write in, and then some, because missing limb and a little of one other is about as far as it goes. But most of the Corporeal Discords are reasonably okay.

Paranoia, however, is just dumb. Roll a Will roll or else disbelieve for /every/ statement someone wants you to accept as fact? Where the heck is the fun, there? I'd end up tossing my dice off the table half-way through a session. Or you can just ignore it except when the player or DM finds it convenient, and essentially get free points. Same with Fear calling for rolls every CD rounds, even if you pass. That's, what, about five rolls an IC minute as long as you're in the presence of it, or you flee screaming? Again, where is the fun?

I developed an alternate writeup for Paranoia for my RL IN game, in case it ever came up. It never did, for my players managed to avoid most Discord. But here it is.

Paranoia

A character with the paranoid Discord or Disadvantage sincerely believes that 'they' are out to get him. Which 'they' varies...the player and the DM should get together to decide who the character's shadowy enemies are when the Discord is chosen, and what their 'defining characteristics' are (government agency, demons, religious, alien, etc). At the beginning of every game day, the character must roll Will minus their level in this Discord; failure means that they're slipping further into their delusions, and more and more things will seem to have connections to the object of their Paranoia, signs will point to their being stalked, and so forth. The check digit determines the degree of delusion for the day; at level 1, a character may feel compelled to buy every newspaper in the city, convinced that the Media Elite are hiding messages in code in the personal ads. At level 6, even close family members, friends, and loved ones may /clearly/ be members of a grand conspiracy which is directly threatening the character's life, and must be confronted or avoided. A successful Discord roll means that the character can surpress his paranoid feelings well enough to function without acting on his feelings.

Success or failure, a character with Paranoia always takes a penalty equal to his level of this Discord to Detect Lies rolls pertaining to someone trying to convince him that they are not a member of those persecuting him (only removal of the Discord can convince the character that there /are/ no persecutors); on a day which he has failed the Discord check, add the CD of that roll to the penalty.

Comments

[syndarr.livejournal.com]

Rare is the player who actually wants to play a paraplegic, which is probably why the Crippled Discord doesn't cover it. The Powers That Be probably just figured it would never come up. Silly game designers! The well of character concepts is bottomless!

Then again, a LOT of character concepts--concepts that would be perfectly workable in other systems--are impossible to generate at character creation in In Nomine...but I'm sure I don't have to go into detail about that. ;)

Yes. Yes yes yes. That write-up of Paranoia makes a lot of sense, and I like how it can actually get worse over time, thus promoting (gasp) character development! It's like the mortal version of failing Dissonance rolls. X)

What happens if it turns out that the object of the character's paranoia is, in fact, true? Like, what if, say, a mortal character is convinced, without any real proof, that there's a demon in human form dogging his footsteps and watching his every move, and then he later finds out that he's got a Djinn attuned to him? Would that count as a removal of the Discord, since he's discovered the truth of the situation, or would it count as an increase in the Discord's level, since now he has every reason to suspect that "they" are out to get him?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

IMC, I would give the player the option to buy off the Disadvantage right there. If he does, then the reality is what he now focuses on, and fights that however he can. If he doesn't, then he's still at the whims of the dice...CD 1 precautions might be (mostly) reasonable to take against a real threat, but on a CD 6 day, he's calling up his innocent mother and berating her for leading the demon to him, asking if she slept with Satan, etc.

For celestials, of course, it's Discord until it's stripped.