#pact dice

[estavionpira]

Mia Hurst playing Pact Dice, encountering a rulebook for Weaverdice within the Pact Dice game, playing the Weaverdice inside of the Pact Dice, then reading the Maggie Holt books inside of the Weaverdice game inside of the Pact Dice game, uh oh, the last Maggie Holt book has a eulogy for victims of Gold Morning on the front cover. Mia Hurst is questioning her life. This is technically canonically possible.

[ciltilladeltilla]

Idea for a Pact Dice sandbox campaign setting: for reasons specific to each character, practitioners are obligated to spend a year within a small tourist-trap sort of beach town. Not a super popular one, but the sort with evenly-split on- and off-seasons, where the condos lie empty and the tacky t-shirt shops go into hibernation until things warm up again. Ideally players get to decide which half to start with.

In the spring-summer half, the town is bright and hectic and full of moving parts. Deals, trades, arrests, celebrations, people lost at sea, thunderstorms against the horizon, entities that siphon human jubilance or practitioners seeking the anonymity of the crowd for their own reasons.

In the autumn and winter months, the underlying community coagulates into a smaller portion of the town, and visitors wear out their welcome quickly. The unoccupied condominiums and closed storefronts make it a good place for hiding out, whether you're a human or an Other, but part of the town itself is almost detached from the spheres of ordinary human life. And throughout, forces in the ocean finally have opportunity to act without being noticed.

[mudhound]

I need a Mold. I am not used to working at this scale I must Use Him as an example

[ubormaci]

A character archetype I really like

After my recent reading of Pact Dice: Mile End, I once again started thinking about a character archetype I really like.

It can be summed up as such: "A character gains access to a very strong power, a power that is 'dark', easy to use with devastating consequences for both the attacked and the attacker. No matter who they are, they will be feared." It's a tad long more long-winded than I initially intended, but it gets the point across, I think.

Though I won't shirk examples, starting with two obvious ones: Naruto from Naruto, and Blake from Pact. The former learns that he is the host of the strongest demon, while the latter discovers that he inherited demonic magic.

I don't remember if I ever read a story in which the protagonist was eager to use this power, and it's easy to see why: in-universe because they presumably wish to live a long live, out-of-universe because it removes a lot of the stakes if our protagonist just shoots to the top of the power pyramid. (While you, as the author, can make it so that 'There are actually several tiers of powers above yours.' that feels like a bit of a cop-out.)

But despite these challenges, I love it when the character leans into this power. Burns bright and burns up, confirms the fears of everyone else, and maybe even comes out more or less in one piece; though this last one is a bit much, I admit.

Let's return to the previously mentioned works to see how they fare on this front: As far as I got in Pact, Blake never used demons/demonic magic, which made me sad.

Naruto, though, has good moments. Despite his refusal to use the demon's power, there are situations where he's forced to, life-or-death when the demon comes out and we truly see how far above everything else it is.

He never goes all-out though; he doesn't deliberately use the power, it's accidental on his part. He restrains himself, each time it happens, stopping it from advancing.

That's how it goes in Part 1, and for the start of Part 2, it's the same. There's one delightful moment where we see him reach a new best of 4 out of the 9 tails against Orochimaru, but after that he doubles-down on his refusal to use the power.

That is, until Pain's assault on Konoha. After the titular villain levels the village, and restrains him rather painfully, he is still adamant about his refusal. It changes though, when the girl he likes/loves puts herself in front of Pain to defend him, causing her to be 'mortally injured'.

The ensuing fight is my favorite one from the entire manga. Nothing even comes close. He willingly lets go, immediately manifesting 6 out the 9 tails, and only increasing it from there. When you realize that he was capable of this destruction the entire time, it recontextualizes a lot of Part 1.

What I wanted to illustrate with that is how exhilirating it is, in my opinion, to see the power used.

Anyways, the character who brought this little write-up on is called Gail Neumann, one of the player characters in the aforementioned Mile End campaign. Of the six main characters, she is by far the most powerful in a fight, and her feats outshine everyone else's.

Her Practice is about calling on the Abyss for power; she's a Scourge, infecting others with Taint. The Abyss is eager, easy to use but volatile and with a lot of potential to over-harm.

Watching her use it is thrilling. I love how freely she does it, not even watching the slippery slope. I want more of this, characters given great power, who when confronted by others, lean on said power, damn the consequences; while their lives might not be long or happy, the lives of their enemies won't be, at all.

Crawling through the Pact Dice docs, I found even more of this kind of power-user in the Otherverse, a whole category of them in fact: Harbingers: "Chosen of a higher power or powerful other, who bears their strength & serves to clear the way, metaphorically. Tends to come with transformations, changes, costs in other forms, far more direct, and doesn't necessarily have (or rarely has) a direct line to the power.  Practice includes ambient effects on surroundings & altered consequences to their actions (ie. fights happen around them), balancing act to restrain this or release it without too much casualties.  Harbingers are rarely inducted willingly, but rather forced to become a harbinger by intervention of powerful other, by family, or by accident."

Writing this up, I think I may be able to put it into words better than at the start: "This character archetype is about using power that is heavy: a heavy price for a heavy effect. What I like, is when they pay the price, over and over, using the power despite the cost." I love the atmosphere it creates, of barely restrained aggression just under the surface, of the fear it creates in others, and the volatile release when the fight finally erupts.

(Looking back, there are a couple fanfics that managed to get somewhat close. Here's a short list:

[Naruto] Red Eyes in the Dark

[Harry Potter] Antithesis

[Naruto] Introverted)

[st-just]

There are old practices, and there are the oldest practices.  Hosts have been an approach to the handling of spirits since before the first word was scribed.  To eat the dead and take on their strength, to paint oneself so as to emulate the beasts of the plains, or to pray to the sun and invite a bit of it into you.

On the Practice

[thewizardofrhetkhonn]

[ubormaci]

Pact Dice: Mile End

After seeing somebody mention the Montrel Dramatis Persoane on reddit, I found the Mile End campaign that was hosted by Wildbow, and I am hooked.

I love how fast and dynamic it is, with my favorite part being Gail and her Scourge abilities.

Pact Dice: Mile End

It's this part of the Otherverse I like the best, the practicioners who burn bright and burn up, having access to very strong power that comes at a cost which arrives sooner rather than later; but until then, they're intimidating.

(Throughout the entire first couple arcs of Pact I was waiting for Blake to give in and use Barbatorem. Demons are spicy.)

"Ornias. He once placed stars in the firmament, but he now calls them down to earth.  Say his name seven times."

[yuzu-adagio]

I love learning new mechanics from games but then I get bummed if I'm not ever gonna play the game

this post currently brought to you by pact dice's character creation system (and, to a lesser extent, weaverdice's)