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Offline Jengada

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Intuitions implementation
« on: July 06, 2020, 03:11:20 PM »
May players have used Intuitions a few times, and yesterday an NPC used it on them. The way I play it, the caster specifies the action (X) they'll take as the nexus for the spell, and then we play the duration of the spell. If the caster likes the outcome, we say that's what happened. If the caster does not like the outcome, they can stop it at any point and say "OK, I'm not doing action X, I'm doing something else. Then we restart from the time of the casting. It's a bit cumbersome, but it's the best way I've figured to run the mechanic.
After the session, one of the players posed a question, basically using the spell as clairvoyance. If there is a curtain, you could cast the spell, say "I look behind the curtain." You learn the outcome of that action, presumably what's behind the curtain. You can then choose NOT to open the curtain, and you'd still know what's behind it? Or do you lose that knowledge because you chose not to open it? Schroedinger's Curtain?

Thoughts, or other ways you've run the spell?
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Offline jdale

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2020, 06:10:16 PM »
Not sure if it's the same, but the RMSS version says:
"Caster gains a vision of what will probably happen in the next minute if he takes a specified action."

That seems like you would in fact gain any knowledge that is a significant event. Revealing the thing behind the curtain is central to what would be in that vision. You could assume that the vision gives only a cursory overview, since it doesn't take 1 minute to perceive a vision of what happens over the 1 minute period. It shows highlights rather than start-to-finish detail. That's still likely to reveal major information, e.g. if you open the curtain and there's a dragon, that's clearly relevant and should feature in the vision.

There's some discussion of this spell in the RMSS Mentalism Companion. One scenario noted there is if you use, say, Intuitions I in order to reveal what would happen if you were to cast Intuitions True. Obviously you don't want the lower level spell to be that effective. (Nicholas recommends that no divination spell should be able to reveal the results of another divination spell.) But for example it notes that the spell will reveal likely outcomes, but that's not necessarily the same as the outcome when people start rolling dice (so for example you might assume in the vision the results of all rolls are average).

If you really want to control it, rather than having that vision being a literal view of events, you could have it be a symbolic or dreamlike vision. But that might take away too much utility. (The Mentalism Companion does recommend that the vision is realistic rather than symbolic.)

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Offline RandalThor

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2020, 08:40:24 PM »
May players have used Intuitions a few times, and yesterday an NPC used it on them. The way I play it, the caster specifies the action (X) they'll take as the nexus for the spell, and then we play the duration of the spell. If the caster likes the outcome, we say that's what happened. If the caster does not like the outcome, they can stop it at any point and say "OK, I'm not doing action X, I'm doing something else. Then we restart from the time of the casting.
That is exactly how I was thinking of handling it if I ever got the chance to run a character with it.
Not sure if it's the same, but the RMSS version says:
"Caster gains a vision of what will probably happen in the next minute if he takes a specified action."

That seems like you would in fact gain any knowledge that is a significant event. Revealing the thing behind the curtain is central to what would be in that vision. You could assume that the vision gives only a cursory overview, since it doesn't take 1 minute to perceive a vision of what happens over the 1 minute period. It shows highlights rather than start-to-finish detail. That's still likely to reveal major information, e.g. if you open the curtain and there's a dragon, that's clearly relevant and should feature in the vision.
Yup, it is a "vision" of what would come, so you should totally see and even remember it.

I always imagined the diviner doing the spell, and for a round or two (or however long it is supposed to take) the rest of the group just stand there watching them twitch and grimace and whatever else might be an appropriate response to what might be happening. A zany group might even do silly stuff like switch the diviner's water skin for vinegar and wait for the hilarity to ensue. Of course, the diviner might see that too... Anyway, after the vision - provided they opted to not go that route, they should still have some memory of what could have happened. Basically, they glimpsed a bit down another timeline. I could see these memories fade eventually, perhaps because they don't really belong in this timeline - but I could also see them needing to remember something they saw during the vision.

Also, while I understand the "one divination shouldn't be able to affect another" I do like the idea of someone in the vision interacting with the diviner in a way they shouldn't. That could be played out to be so creepy. But that is another discussion.  ;)
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Offline Jengada

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2020, 09:53:57 PM »
Not sure if it's the same, but the RMSS version says:
"Caster gains a vision of what will probably happen in the next minute if he takes a specified action."
That "probably" is a key change from the RM2 version! And in that case, I agree, a cursory overview and key aspects would be a fair result.

I always imagined the diviner doing the spell, and for a round or two (or however long it is supposed to take)
Duration (RM2) is given as "-" so it doesn't go beyond the round it's cast, but I like the image.

In my session, the NPC used Intuitions V, which covers 5 minutes of the future. I was very specific (to myself) what the "specified action." In theory, after that one action by the caster, any subsequent actions by the caster present the chance of everything diverging between the vision and the reality. So in this case, the "specified action" was the mage throwing suggestion on a PC who was on night-watch, telling him to give him a suit of armor. The PC, not being told otherwise, chose to loudly exclaim "Oh, you want the armor! Yes, let me get you the armor!" I let things continue to unfold, until the wizard saw himself about badly injured and about to be killed. He decided not to go that route. But he could have still started the same way, changing the action by suggesting the PC silently give him the suit of armor. After that, the spell's vision content is no longer valid.
(The mage chose a totally different course of action, and did end up getting iced. Literally, twice, covered in a shell of ice and then taken out with a cheap shot.)
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Offline pantsorama

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2020, 09:59:58 PM »
I beleive I commented on this over at stack exchange:

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/106423/how-to-handle-seer-spells-so-they-dont-either-waste-time-or-make-playing-tediou

Offline Ecthelion

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2020, 03:12:00 AM »
The way I play it, the caster specifies the action (X) they'll take as the nexus for the spell, and then we play the duration of the spell. If the caster likes the outcome, we say that's what happened. If the caster does not like the outcome, they can stop it at any point and say "OK, I'm not doing action X, I'm doing something else. Then we restart from the time of the casting.
IMHO the way of handling the spell goes a bit against the spell's idea a the "vision of what will probably happen". Mentalism Companion p82 gives some explanation on the Intuitions spells. From what's written there my understanding is that the vision should be described in rather broad terms. What's also against the play-it-through variant is that the vision should describe what should probably happen, not one version that was played through and might be very unprobable due to some lucky/unlucky rolls. OTOH, if you like your way of handling the spell then just keep it. What I dislike - apart from the aforementioned explanations about the handling violating a bit the spell's intentions - is that it may take a lot of play-time in those cases where the player decides not to use the outcome of the spell. E.g. using Intuitions III and playing a 10 round combat during this time might use a lot of play time. Then discarding the outcome feels like the time was wasted.

We use the spell in a way that the GM roughly describes what he thinks would be the most probably outcome of the player's specified actions. The GM is free to add important details that he feels the players should know. So the vision is as blurry as the GM would like it to have - which might vary depending on the situation. IMHO this freedom in deciding which details to expose to the players makes the spell quite intesting to handle for the GM. He may add subtle details (or leave them out) to direct the players a bit. And resolution of the spell is quite fast. If the player decides, after the vision has passed, that he does not like the outcome then only the short time for describing the rough vision was used.

Just my 2 cents

Offline Jengada

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #6 on: July 07, 2020, 12:58:28 PM »
IMHO the way of handling the spell goes a bit against the spell's idea a the "vision of what will probably happen". Mentalism Companion p82 gives some explanation on the Intuitions spells.
If I were playing RMSS, yes, it would go against the "probably." But that word isn't in RM2, which was where I started from. I've also been thinking of how this played out in my game, with the party member loudly exclaiming. I would never have thought about that, and the vision would have gone wrong immediately. Given that my players ALWAYS do weird stuff like that, I have very little sense of what "probably" would mean, when their actions are involved. So "probably" may make life harder for me, than not having that word in there.
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Offline RandalThor

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2020, 01:04:12 PM »
(The mage chose a totally different course of action, and did end up getting iced. Literally, twice, covered in a shell of ice and then taken out with a cheap shot.)
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Offline pantsorama

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #8 on: July 07, 2020, 01:10:36 PM »
IMHO the way of handling the spell goes a bit against the spell's idea a the "vision of what will probably happen". Mentalism Companion p82 gives some explanation on the Intuitions spells.
If I were playing RMSS, yes, it would go against the "probably." But that word isn't in RM2, which was where I started from. I've also been thinking of how this played out in my game, with the party member loudly exclaiming. I would never have thought about that, and the vision would have gone wrong immediately. Given that my players ALWAYS do weird stuff like that, I have very little sense of what "probably" would mean, when their actions are involved. So "probably" may make life harder for me, than not having that word in there.

So that's why you focus on the aspects of the vision under the GM's control, and elide to the player's actions.  The vision is supposed to tell them what they DON'T know, not what they do - and what they do "know" is how they might react to the situation.  So it's OK to say things like -"you prep for the battle accordingly", or "having found the scorch marks you prepare accordingly".  If they insist on detailing the prep work, then track the time casting defensive spells, talking strategies, doffing and donning equipment, etc. and dump them out of the vision in the middle of prep time.  It's not like they care about what they do anyway, I think it is in their interests to say that the spell will focus on a relevant two minutes (or 6, 10, etc) in their future, and not one steeped in adventuring mundanity.  That said - don't go to far ahead outside the ability of the spell.  It's not that powerful.

About the probability line, I would argue that it HAS to be about probability - else wise the vision locks them into a future that they must follow.  For if it is a vision of what actually happens, then you play it out one time, and it becomes what happens.  No backsies.

(Which is an interesting take, I guess.  If you did it that way you can play it out then you don't have to go back, but you might allow them to have certain prep ready at the time the vision runs out.  Not nearly as good a spell then though. )

Offline Ecthelion

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #9 on: July 08, 2020, 09:49:56 AM »
If I were playing RMSS, yes, it would go against the "probably." But that word isn't in RM2, which was where I started from.
Sorry, I wasn't aware that the probably was not contained in the RM2 spell description. In fact I wasn't citing from the RMSS rules but used Jdale's quote above, from which I thought it was part of the spell descriptions of RM2 as well as RMSS.

Personally I think that the later Spell Law versions also contained rules clarifications and improvements which may well be "back-ported" to earlier versions. The "probably" might be such a clarification where the authors wanted to make clear that the vision was not meant to be something guaranteed.

Anyway, just according to your original question I wanted to explain how we run the spell. And, as I said before, if you like your way of handling the Intuitions spell then just keep it.

Offline aarcc

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Intuitions implementation
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2021, 07:05:32 AM »
IMHO the way of handling the spell goes a bit against the spell's idea a the "vision of what will probably happen". Mentalism Companion p82 gives some explanation on the Intuitions spells.
If I were playing RMSS, yes, it would go against the "probably." But that word isn't in RM2, which was where I started from. I've also been thinking of how this played out in my game, with the party member loudly exclaiming. I would never have thought about that, and the vision would have gone wrong immediately. Given that my players ALWAYS do weird stuff like that, I have very little sense of what "probably" would mean, when their actions are involved. So "probably" may make life harder for me, than not having that word in there.

So that's why you focus on the aspects of the vision under the GM's control, and elide to the player's actions.  The vision is supposed to tell them what they DON'T know, not what they do - and what they do "know" is how they might react to the situation.  So it's OK to say things like -"you prep for the battle accordingly", or "having found the scorch marks you prepare accordingly".  If they insist on detailing the prep work, then track the time casting defensive spells, talking strategies, doffing and donning equipment, etc. and dump them out of the vision in the middle of prep time.  It's not like they care about what they do anyway, I think it is in their interests to say that the spell will focus on a relevant two minutes (or 6, 10, etc) in their future, and not one steeped in adventuring mundanity.  That said - don't go to far ahead outside the ability of the spell.  It's not that powerful.

About the probability line, I would argue that it HAS to be about probability - else wise the vision locks them into a future that they must follow.  For if it is a vision of what actually happens, then you play it out one time, and it becomes what happens.  No backsies.

(Which is an interesting take, I guess.  If you did it that way you can play it out then you don't have to go back, but you might allow them to have certain prep ready at the time the vision runs out.  Not nearly as good a spell then though. )
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Offline Neee-Wom

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Re: Intuitions implementation
« Reply #11 on: July 15, 2021, 05:58:36 AM »
I always used that they can change/cancel something that it's going to happen during the duration of the spell and later fades.

For example, a group could enter a tunnel and there is a trap that activates. If the spell is used they can stop before it is activated but the future has changed after that. Or if the PC are ambushed there would be no surprise and they could declare they have hidden weapons.
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