Topic: Death's Tale and others

[Arioch]

Right from the "why magic is too powerful" thread...

Death's Tale True is IMHO one of the worst spells in Spell Law.
At a first thought, it seems to make sense: it's a high level spell, the caster commune with his deity, who shows him what happend and why. What's wrong with it?
Well, IMHO, game-wise everything. And, in fact, most GMs try to find ways to limit it somehow, either by magical means, by giving elusive answers, etc...
The reason is that RM, as a game, needs obstacles and challenges. If something doesn't challenge your characters or if the GM doesn't put obstacles before you the game will end soon (imagine a rpg where your PC always succeed in everything, without any conflict at all).
A murder mystery is one of this obstacles: PCs have to gather clues and interpret them to solve it. This process is the core of a murder mystery adventure and what makes your session fun.
And Death's Tale True kills it dead. No resistance roll, no chance of failure (save in case of spell fumble), no real effort in the solving process, nothing. You cast the spell and the GM solves the mystery for you. 

That's why GMs have to find ways to make sure it can't be used (completely destroying the body, using special misdirection spells,...) or that, even if used, casting the spell will not mean that your adventure will end (you caught the man who murederd your friend, but you know that the man behind him is the Duke of Algor, what will you do now?).
Does this makes the game more "realistic"? No, it only makes it more difficult for the GM to prepare.

The "normal" version of Death's Tale and other similar spells (Past Visions and spells like Intuitions) are slightly better, because they give the GM more chances to give elusive/incomplete answers, but are still bad IMHO. So I think that the various divination spells are probably those more in need of a revision...

Enough ranting, what do you think about it? 

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

The issue of various scrying spells, and their power was a concern of ICE's during the process of reworking and cleaning up RMC.

Thus, ICE asked for and the RMC Team responded with the rules regarding Informational found on page 46 of RMC Spell Law. In short, if the Informational spell is one that impacts or can cause an impact for an individual, then that individual gets a RR versus it.

While this solution is not perfect, it is a step in the right direction, I think.... 

[thrud]

Nothing wrong with the spell imho but it's all setting based.
Usually magic is not common enough for such spells to be used every time, maybe i high profile killings and such?
Still it's easy enough to get around it. Just think about it, only a sloppy assassin leaves the body lying around. A true professional makes the person go missing unless he's making a statement.
A poisoner can be miles away when the target drinks the poison.
An archer can take out the target from several hundred yards.
And Nightblades have their spells to take care of the problem.

[Marc R]

So many limitations in play already you don't seem to be considering. Beyond the casual ways to get around things like wearing a mask. . . .you get to Death's Tale True, which is really high level, but also has loads of limitations:

1) I think that "Making the body disapear" is such a casual aspect of real life (think the mob) or modern era games that it seems unreasonable not to consider this as one aspect of things. If making the body dissapear can be considered a casual part of a modern era game, why does it seem like such a horrible imposition in fantasy?

2) Casters are not always trusted. Killers are often important people. So the hairy hermit who lives in the tower cast a spell and says the prince killed the prostitute. . .is it more likely the Prince will hang for murder, or that the caster will get killed?

3) Knowing who the killer is does not always end the problem. . . .OK, the killer is Durgan One Eye.. . .who's wanted for murder in seven kingdoms, he's a well known murderer. . . .hanging this killing on him is not going to make anyone look for him any harder than they were yesterday.

4) Casters lie. . .why should you trust them? It's not like you can't cast death's tale, see the killer is the prince, decide that would be an unhealthy answer and blame Durgan One Eye, or say the spell result was iffy. (Death's tale and similar spells are awsome framing spells, since only the caster sees the results.)

5) Motive matters. . . .perhaps the killing was in self defense, perhaps the victim was someone who needed killing. . . .only the death's tale true reveals motive.

6) Goose and Gander rule. . .how many people do the PCs kill? How much can casual use of this spell come back to haunt them?

It always depends on the setting details. . .in a high magic game, killing anyone someone cares about and leaving the body behind is likely to haunt you. . . .hell, in a high enough magic game, they raise the victim from the dead, and the victim says "Durgan one eye killed me!".

The RMC "I" spell RR wouldn't affect DTT IMO, as it's one of those spells that detect essence remnants, not scry on a person in particular. . .casting could fail though, and give misleading or wrong results.

[Arioch]

So many limitations in play already you don't seem to be considering.

I'm considering them, and they're all limitation put by the GM to make sure the spell can't be used or to challenge the players even if the spell is used. IMHO they do not solve the spell problems, they're part of it beacuse the GM has to rely on them to make his sessions challenging even in case similar spells are used.

While this solution is not perfect, it is a step in the right direction, I think.... 

Yes, I agreee 

Maybe another solution could be rewording such spells in a way that they magically reveal all the clues for one particular mystery in an area, without actually showing the players how the fact happened? This way the spells would still be useful in the information-gathering process but will leave the problem-solving part (which is probably the most fun part) to the PCs...

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

I'm considering them, and they're all limitation put by the GM to make sure the spell can't be used or to challenge the players even if the spell is used.

No more IMO than a GM not making every country in a modern setting have a huge nuclear arsenal just because the technology exists in the world is putting an (artificial) limitation to the power of nuclear. A coherent world would self-regulate itself, no matter the "power" of any discovery, magic included.

Once again, I think it's a matter of setting: either you have an exact idea about how such a spell would work in your world, in which case you can tweak it to fit your world. Or you don't and admit the spell's existence, then consider how the world would self-regulate itself to react to the existence of such a spell... which is pretty much the "many limitations in play already" that we told you.

[Arioch]

I think you're mixing up two very different things: setting desing and game design.

But, first:

A coherent world would self-regulate itself, no matter the "power" of any discovery, magic included.

No, not in rpgs at least. Maybe in real life, but in rpgs nothing will never do nothing by itself. The GM or the players may regulate the game world, but the game world by itself cannot do nothing, because it doesn't exists outside the shared imaginary space created by the players.

What you're missing here is that, given a set of rules, a GM can regulate how things works in his setting. He can decide if using magic is moral or immoral, if people will use special precautions when murdering other people etc... Sure, no arguing on this.

OTOH, on the game design level, it's a gamedesigner job to make the GM's life easier, at least IMHO.
Death's Tale True is not built with this concept in mind, because it forces the GM to find specific setting-related ways to prevent it's use.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Looked over the spells again....

On thing to remember about the Death's Tale spells is that the caster isn't actually given the name or any other information regarding the death.

He is given a vision, not sure knowledge.

For example, Death's Tale True says....
Death's Tale True - Caster gets a vision of the events surrounding the death of any 1 dead being within 10 feet. Caster gets an understanding of the reason(s) the deceased died, exactly who the killer was (if any), and who was ultimately responsible (if anyone). Corpse may be of any age.

Key word is at the beginning of the spell description -- it is "vision". This means that the spell shows images to the caster. All of the information gleaned is going to be through images.

Caster gets an understanding of the reason(s) the deceased died -- does this mean "motive"? I would say no. I would say it means the actual "cause of death". For example, if he died because of an ingested poison, the image have the poisoned substance glow and/or show an image of the poison super-imposed over the image of what it was in.

exactly who the killer was (if any) - to me this is saying that if the death was intentional, the spell will show an image of the killer. However, I would have to say that it would only show an image of the killer based on how he looked at the time that he took action that caused the death. The spell is looking into the past and tracing back from the death point of the target. A target who was in disguise will be shown in disguise, IMO. And since this information can strongly affect the "killer", he would, IMO, get a RR against the spell.

who was ultimately responsible (if anyone) - This has two primary interpretations that I can think of. First is in the case of accidental deaths and such. It would show who setup the conditions that caused the accident in the case of somebody leaving something behind (for example, a child leaving a small toy on a stair - later on, somebody trips on it, falls and dies - the child is "ultimately responsible". The second possibility is in the case of somebody being hired to kill another person (or being ordered to). The person doing the hiring or giving the order would be considered "ultimately responsible".  In these case, the one who is "ultimately responsible" would get a RR against being "outed" because it is information that can personally affect that person.

And I want to stress, again, that all the caster gets is images. He won't learn the motives behind anything, or even the names of those involved (unless he already knows them)

Another thing to consider --- In any society where scrying and past visions is prevalent in any form, there is most likely going to be an abundance of items that works against scrying of any type. Even if all it does is to "cloud the visions" so that one appears as a blur rather than a distinct image. This could range from devices that totally block scrying to small charms that only last for a short period (i.e. one job or to counter scying during a specific period). There could even be devices that mis-direct scrying to some other target, or that provide false images if anybody scries for a specific time period.

[Marc R]

IMO if you approach things from that standpoint, all magic does the same thing.

Unless you nerf magic down to the utmost minima, which I have done for low magic games, you will run into the same issues.

These issues will cause shifts in behaviors or constructions.

In worlds where magic is high-common then the anti-magic solutions will often be magical, in worlds with high magic threat but it's not common, the solutions will be non magical.

Like. . .

All movement spells make really simple things like walls, gates and bridges a non issue.

All teleportation/leaving spells make gates and fences a non issue.

All object movement/telekinisis spells make museams and treasuries vulerable.

All Charm/Domination spells make it far harder to secure a location with personel.

All Distance death spells make it harder to guard a person.


As a result of all of the above, if magic were really a big problem, people would either have magical defenses in place, or normal mechanisms that block the method from working.


DTT is not a low level spell, it's a high level spell, available to only pure casters in standard rules. . . .the level of absurdity you can get up to with DTT is not really all that far off of the absurdity you can get up to with other spells of equivalent level. . .

I think you're mixing up two very different things: setting desing and game design.

No, not in rpgs at least. Maybe in real life, but in rpgs nothing will never do nothing by itself. The GM or the players may regulate the game world, but the game world by itself cannot do nothing, because it doesn't exists outside the shared imaginary space created by the players.

What you're missing here is that, given a set of rules, a GM can regulate how things works in his setting. He can decide if using magic is moral or immoral, if people will use special precautions when murdering other people etc... Sure, no arguing on this.

OTOH, on the game design level, it's a gamedesigner job to make the GM's life easier, at least IMHO.
Death's Tale True is not built with this concept in mind, because it forces the GM to find specific setting-related ways to prevent it's use.

This seems kind of a strange way of looking at things. . . .if in a gameworld where flight is common, architects put bars in the windows all the way to the top floor, instead of stopping at the 2nd floor, is that the GM going way out of their way to create a mechanism to avoid the Fly spell from being too powerful? I think that's just the GM putting the bare minimum thinking into realistic non magical responses to common magics.

When the bare minimum simple non magical fix to Death's Tale True is to destroy the body or dump it where it cannot be found. . . .which is already something many killers normally do. . .I don't see that being some absurd thing the GM is imposing into play either.

All magic alters reality. . .but to the PCs and NPCs in the game, that magic IS their reality, so their normal behaviors would be modified to suit their reality.

We could do this all day long really. . .take spell law, open it to any random spread of two pages in the spell listings. . .if you can't come up with at least 10 major ways the spells on those two pages could radically affect standard plot motifs as compared to a game that doesn't have magic, then you need to try harder.

I don't see this as a game design flaw, I see this as being the direct result of putting unreality into a context where you need to resolve it in something resembling reality. . .magic will radically change the way things work in generall, and high level magic will do so in a more spectacular manner.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

The GM or the players may regulate the game world, but the game world by itself cannot do nothing, because it doesn't exists outside the shared imaginary space created by the players.

We got this discussion already, and LordMiller nailed it again but... Are you telling me that people in your game world behave exactly the same people in our world behave for instance faced to death, even though, for instance, magic to resurrect people is common? And having them behaving differently would be a GM's house rule?
I think it's just being logical. If resurrection magic exists, if only for people rich enough to afford to hire spellcasters knowing such spells, obviously such people would fear death less since they'd be able to be resurrected if they die.
It's not making a house rule. It's being logical and coherent with the fact you postulate that resurrection magic exists and is available to such people.

It'd be like postulating that in your sci-fi game someone has invented the blaster, everyone commonly uses it, yet no one ever even thought about searching for a way to counter it.

[Marc R]

To offer a simple example of what I mean:

In a no-magic, post apocalyptic game, I recall running something like 20 sessions of a game revolving around getting up to a hole 100' up off the ground. . .the cliff was not unclimbable, but the PCs had decided it was too dangerous to attempt as it took 5 checks, and any one failure would likely be fatal (the area under the cliff was a mass of broken concrete, rebar and I-beams). . .plus there were hostiles nearby making it hard to build a big scaffold or nail pegs into the cliff.

Getting up into that hole was a major plot point, that consumed most of a year. . .and with Fly they'd have just popped up there and dropped a rope for the other players.

Yes, DTT could totally Nerf a potential plot point designed for a session in which that spell was not in play. . .but then so would any number of magics. . .if you were to run a 20th level RM party through any Top Secret module, they'd mega monkey stomp it, because none of the obstacles assume access to things like charm, invisibility, passing through walls, flight, clairvoyance, or enemies that can walk through a metal detector and close body search and still be able to toss around fireballs and lightningbolts.

[rdanhenry]

And it is stymied by a 4th level spell (Shadow Assassin). Furthermore, unless the word of one spell-caster is considered conclusive (and why should it be?), there's still the matter of finding enough evidence to put the murderer away. Plenty of mysteries have been about the process of revealing the killer without hiding his identity.

Then again, the whole murder mystery genre is about contrived situations to begin with. It shouldn't be that hard to not have a high-level Cleric on hand.

[mibsweden]

Also, since this is a Channelling spell and also on a Cleric base list, we need to consider the motives that the character has for this spell. Will his god approve?

[Arioch]

Looked over the spells again....

On thing to remember about the Death's Tale spells is that the caster isn't actually given the name or any other information regarding the death.

He is given a vision, not sure knowledge.

Good idea, and maybe the "vision" could be a synbolic vision about the muder, rather than an actual vision of what happened.
This way the GM could give players hint without robbing them of the fun of solving them mystery.

[Arioch]

DTT is not a low level spell, it's a high level spell, available to only pure casters in standard rules. . . .the level of absurdity you can get up to with DTT is not really all that far off of the absurdity you can get up to with other spells of equivalent level. . .

I think you misunderstood my problem, probably I've not explained myself very well:

I'm NOT saying that DTT is too powerful or that magical defenses are unrealistic. I'm saying that DTT is not fun.
When you're reading a crime novel the last thing you want is someone who tells you who is the assassin. That's because solving the mystery in the book is the mainsource of fun of those kind of books.
DTT is that person when it comes to "in-game" murder mysteries. 
In other words, when I'm playing an investigative session I want to investigate! I don't want to have a spell that solves all the mystery for me!
That's why I've said that on a "setting design" level DTT gives you no problem (because it's perfectly coheren with the right setting), but on a "game design" level it's a problematic spell!

[Marc R]

As stated above though, murder mysteries are already a contrived plot device. . . .if it's a straightforward "He came home drunk, he killed his wife, and he walked to the tavern, still bloody, put the bloody knife on the bar and ordered a beer." then you don't have a proper agatha christie story.

If you're going to get into parlour murder mystery, then you can either drop that bomb on the PCs at a level when they cannot cast the DTT, or simply have the murderer do any one of the many magical or mundane things needed to smurf the DTT and save the plot device. . . .

It's a 19th level spell! I'm used to the RM2/RMC method of dealing with overcasting, which is far less friendly than the RMSS/FRP version. . .I'd say risking it below 15th level is semi-suicidal. (And only semi since it's a non attack spell). . . .

Having a party of 15+ level characters investigating a murder, to offer a real world equivalency, is like having the Behavioral Sciences Unit from the FBI show up and toss their resources into the ring. . .if the murder is mundane, and the murderer isn't operating at the high-high level of efficiancy of doing things like using magic or mundane methods to throw off scrying and detects. . .they're busted, in a short time frame.

That's the way it should work. . .that's 15+ level characters chasing down a 5th level scale problem.

If you toss 5th level characters at that, unless they have DTT on a scroll or in a magic item, or unless there just happens to be a 15+ level priest handy to cast DTT for them, they'll have to proceed without it.

A murder mystery, scaled to 15+ level characters, if it's expected to go on for very long, should involve twists relating to avoidence of magical investigation. . .

It's not like DTT is the only problem for this specific, the murder mystery at high levels. . .Past Visions, Finding ("I want the location of the knife that killed this man" <Ping> "That way"), raising the victim's body back to life, speaking with the dead, summoning demons/spirits to ask questions of them, super tracking spells, etc, etc.

If you want to go high enough level "Commune true". . ."OK, Odin, who killed this prostitute? I know you keep your one good eye on things, so don't tell me you don't know."

Once games hit a certain level, the characters are going to really really be able to step on things. . . .

Your complaint here seems akin to "Trolls, they're really kick butt, I can scare a whole party of 1st level characters with one of them. . .even at 10th level a group of them was still scary, but at 20th level, the fighters just don't take them seriously anymore."

They're 20th level, they spank ordinary trolls after getting dressed but before breakfast. . .expecting a straightforward, mundane murder mystery to be anything but a gimmie to a 20th level cleric seems unreasonable to me. . .it's not a game design issue, it's a powerscale isse. . .one regular out of the book troll is not going to scare a 20th level fighter, unless you make it a 15-20th level troll, or make sure to strip the fighter naked and toss him into a pit with the troll. . . .same thing with the murder mystery, you have to scale it up a bit if you expect it to challenge the 20th level cleric, it'll need to have a lot more distraction tossed on it, or some sort of giant political twist or something. . .that's not because the game is broken, it's because you're dealing with a 20th level character, and straight vanilla won't cut it. . .

(And all of that avoids the really silly sleuth spells like "Detect Evidence" and "Detect Crime". . . .heh. That profession took a lot of crap in my RPG group.)

[Arioch]

They're 20th level, they spank ordinary trolls after getting dressed but before breakfast. . .expecting a straightforward, mundane murder mystery to be anything but a gimmie to a 20th level cleric seems unreasonable to me. . .

I understand this, but I'm still not convinced: what's the sense of having a high level spell that gives you so much informations if when you'll be able to use it the GM will make sure that you won't get those information, then?

[Marc R]

Depends on the GM, and the situations.

Like, at 20th level, you will be able to step on every mundane murder you come across. . . .frankly, missing person cases are not all that hard for a 20th either.

I can think of many examples, but to offer one, for a high magic world, in a high magic law-n-order location, which shouldn't be considered an "ordinary" situation in most gameworlds, but suffices for a simple example:

So there are 10 murders a month in the city of Gameopolis. . . . .your character is the 20th level priest of justice in charge of the city watch. . . 75% of all murders are solved-on-the-spot. i.e. Knife fight in bar, one dead, one badly wounded, both still there when the watch arrived. or Wife killed husband, called the watch herself, confessed on the scene. . .etc etc. like in real life.

Your 20th level paragon of justice solves the other 5 murders a month with his DTT. . .That still only identifies the killers and who hired them, you still need to actually go out and find and catch them, which keeps you and your men busy.

Once or twice a year that's not enough, the killer did something to cover themselves from detection, and you end up needing to throw more resources at mundane methods. . .at least you keep your investigating skills polished, and charm spells really do make interrogations easier. . .

Casual murders are to a 20th level party what a handful of orcs or a solo troll are, a momentary speedbump. . .if they care enough to stop and deal with it, odds are it won't take them more than an hour to resolve it. . .The GM shouldn't have every single killer practicing RM gameworld master-serial killer teqnique. . .odds are most of them would be an easy catch for a 20th level priest. . . .but those people are not the prey of 20th level priests. . .they should be after the ones that do have the capability to evade scrying, and go to the effort to do so. (if anything, for a 20th level priest, if the DTT works, most of the time that would indicate it's time to dump the case off on a subordinate to resolve from there.)

And as has been said above, just knowing the details the DTT gives you doesn't end the mystery. . .so now you know what the killer looks like, and perhaps some more detail. . . . there are whole books revolving around chasing down killers who the protagonist knows a lot more about. . . .the latter Hannibal Lector books. . .the Carlos the Jackal stories. . .

And in fantasy gameworld context. . . .

"Wormtongue killed him with poison, under orders from Sauron."

OK, you better be brave to challenge the king's minister for murder, and even braver if you want to serve an arrest warrent in Mordor. . . ."knowing is half the battle", but only half.

[Marc R]

To offer a single clear example of why DTT isn't necissarily the death of drama, even if it works:

"Osama Bin Ladin"

Aight, you've got your killer's name and face, a glimpse of his motives and methods. . .adventure over, or just begun?

[kevinmccollum]

Or, how about you see who is responsible and it is a powerful political figure? Do you want to try to convince the authorities he did it and to do something about it? Will that just put you in danger? Will the knowledge alone put your life in jeopardy?