Le OSSR : In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas, deuxième édition

[erik]

Wow, In Nomine butchered the source material.

Although Steve Jackson Games had the right idea replacing the d666 lookup table with "2d6 and a check digit" faced with that or not bothering with the thing.

I wonder how much of the butchery was in trying to make it palatable for American sensibilities. I’d say it was a lost cause to even try but I dunno what the mindset was at SJ games considering their trouble with the Man.

[Omegonthesane]

The thing where they're too chickenshit to admit the angels are blatantly the villains in a significant minority of situations, the toning down of religious tensions between angels, and changing Janus = Valefor from confirmed canon to vague implication seem like they're to make it palatable.

Completely redesigning Vessels, changing the Archangels and Demon Princes from "bigger than you but has fucking STATS" to "unstatted plot device", rejigging supernatural powers to be split into generally available Songs, boss-specific Attunements, and Choir/Band specific Resonances... that doesn't seem to fall under project whitewash.

[Occluded Sun]

There are folks that would love Preacher: the RPG, but don't want to actually think about what the basic validity of Christian mythos means for, say, the millions of Buddhists and Hindus in the world.

Surprisingly little. There is no uniform position for Buddhism, and Hinduism is really dozens or even hundreds of different traditions which are loosely grouped together, but there wouldn't be much contradiction.

Some forms of Buddhism accept that 'gods' exist, but don't believe they should be worshiped - and hold that their condition is less suitable for enlightenment than being incarnated as a human.

As for Hinduism, I know that there are people who consider Christ to be one of the avatars of various Hindu deities... leaving aside the issue of whether those deities are supposed to literally exist or are merely personifications of abstract concepts. (If the latter, Christ is undeniably an example or case study of how humanity approaches concepts, whether he's an actual historical personage or not.)

[Nath]

Création des démons

Next chapter is somewhat predictibly "Création des démons" [Creation of demons]. The structure is exactly the same than the previous chapter. It also starts which a short story, followed by creation rules for other type of characters that your are not going to play.


You can't always get it right.

Demons don't have human servants, but can get undead servants and familiars instead. And you are given the rules to create them first.

One thing here: INS/MV has no such thing as a bestiary. Nor does it try here to even vaguely hint at what a poltergeist or a mummy stats should be. You're just told they get 12 points to spread between attributes with a max of 4, some skills, and two powers. Besides, ghost don't get anything like an etheral form or whatever. As far as the rules go, you can cut them in two with an axe or shot them with a rifle (unless they pick the "gaseous form" defense power, that is). No mention either of vampires having or not the Vampire Kiss demoniac power or not (rule-wise, they shouldn't be able to since it's the special power for only one demon-prince).

Then you get rules to create familiars, which you can also get as servant and which is still not what the chapter title says and what you are supposed to play (although it was suggested as an option to play "street-level" games). Familiars are lesser demons who possess an object, an animal or a human body. They either are undead servants who get promoted or demons who got demoted (any demon, no matter who highly-ranked, who get killed on Earth and sent back to Hell is guaranteed to become a familiar, and even demon princes are at risk if they fail). Either way, familiars are (unlike undead) perfectly aware of their curent position in the food-chain and see their master as occupying the next step.


We're getting to it.

You finally get to learn how to create a demon player-character, with 18 points to spread between attributes and 10 points to spread between skills. As said above, angels gets to be mechanically superior to demons.

The full list of powers differs from angels for a few entry. As said above, demons get undeads and familiars instead of human servants. They also get access to some attack powers that allow them to deliver extra damages with poison or acid coating for instance (the closest angels gets is a power to have extra attacks). Penalties also differ: Sexual urge replaces Forbidden sexual act for instance, and Loyalty and Kindness are serious penalty for instance.

There are some advice on how to play demons. The same thing appeared for angels but you would probably overlook as everything there was pretty obvious. It's more significant for demons as it helps hierarchizing between the mission at hand and just slaughtering every humans (which can be summed up as: Satan wants souls, not kills). It also mentions as your lowest priority, but still a priority, to get a Porsche and a bottle of Champagne if you can.

Demons' progression follows exactly the same rules than angels', with missions, full victory/normal victory/failure, ranks, titles, and so on.


And the titles also sounds like ones for a metal album

For some reasons, the powers granted by ranks are slightly more interesting than what most angels get (things like speaking all languages or knowing the locations of your servants). Setting-wise, demons have no headquarters and bases like the angels can get throughout the country in churches and monasteries. There are hideouts and meeting points, but the demon faction is decentralized.

Ten demon princes are also described in the book. With the Scriptarium Veritas book, you get 30 "christian" princes and 3 "muslim" ones.

Andromalius is the prince of judgement. Inquisitor.
Baal is the prince of war. Warrior.
Beleth is the prince of nightmare. Mental powers.
Belial is the prince of fire. Warrior with destruction power.
Bifrons is the prince of the dead. Demons with undead servants and little subtletly.
Haagenti is the prince of gluttony. Prankster.
Kronos is the prince of eternity. Time-related powers.
Malphas is the prince of discordia. Mental powers.
Ouikka is the prince of air. "Air" as in airliners bombings and hijackings (Ouikka himself owes is promotion to prince rank to his involvement in Lockerbie), prince of terrorists. He is the only prince considered as both a "christian" and "muslim" prince (from IRA to PLO).
Valefor is the prince of thieves. Thief class.


Twenty-five years later, everything about Ouikka feel somewhat... dated, but oddly relevant.

Again, short story on one page, stats, powers and some personality traits on the other. Valefor has the same short story than Janus, archangel of Winds. What looked like lazy writing or an editing mistake actually was hint of a plot point, as it was (later) revealed that Janus (indeed) had broke into Hell and posed as a prince-demon.

Unlike angels, demons do not have a typical look associated to each prince, except for Baal demons' camouflage and combat boots. On the other hand, there is a modus operandi associated with each prince from which it is more difficult to depart. Baal demons are expected to fight their way through, Belial demons to burn things, and so on.

La suite : Autres personnages

[Thaluikhain]

(Ouikka himself owes is promotion to prince rank to his involvement in Lockerbie)

I do wish they woudn't do stuff like that.

Sexual urge replaces Forbidden sexual act for instance

I'm curious, but not sure I want to know more.

[Username17]

A major conceptual problem with stuff like this is that actual terrorists are mostly a bunch of fuckups. Timothy McVeigh and Stephen Paddock were actually kind of shitty people who weren't much good at most things in life. And yet, they obviously killed a shit tonne of people just by using reasonably effective weapons and pointing them at areas with a lot of people in them.

If you posit that terrorism is actually sponsored by demons who are more competent than normal humans, you have to answer why a typical terror attack isn't considerably more deadly than it is. Sure McVeigh blew up a city block with a fertilizer bomb in a U-Haul van, but if he'd had magic powers and guidance from a malign supernatural intelligence he could have had seven vans filled with fertilizer vans at strategic points around the city and gotten away with it by stealing the components from farms and parking lots.

Terrorism isn't actually very hard. The mass murder events we have every day in the US are done by addled and angry young men radicalized by Fox News, Red Pill, and the Daily Stormer. We aren't talking about super geniuses with mind control and invisibility. If they were, America would be brought to her knees pretty much immediately.

Vampire: the Masquerade pretty much got it right on this score. If you want modern society to be remotely recognizable, you have to make the secret magical dudes play nice in deliberately not changing it unrecognizably. And terrorism is really front and center for that kind of shit.

-Username17

[GâtFromKI]

A major conceptual problem with stuff like this is that actual terrorists are mostly a bunch of fuckups. Timothy McVeigh and Stephen Paddock were actually kind of shitty people who weren't much good at most things in life. And yet, they obviously killed a shit tonne of people just by using reasonably effective weapons and pointing them at areas with a lot of people in them.

If you posit that terrorism is actually sponsored by demons who are more competent than normal humans, you have to answer why a typical terror attack isn't considerably more deadly than it is. Sure McVeigh blew up a city block with a fertilizer bomb in a U-Haul van, but if he'd had magic powers and guidance from a malign supernatural intelligence he could have had seven vans filled with fertilizer vans at strategic points around the city and gotten away with it by stealing the components from farms and parking lots.

Terrorism isn't actually very hard. The mass murder events we have every day in the US are done by addled and angry young men radicalized by Fox News, Red Pill, and the Daily Stormer. We aren't talking about super geniuses with mind control and invisibility. If they were, America would be brought to her knees pretty much immediately.

Except Demons in INS/MV don't really care about the efficiency of terrorism. As Nath says, the philosophy is "Satan wants souls, not kills": demons want terrorism to exist because it brings some misery and fear into the world, and they want to convince humans to commit terrorism acts because then their soul belong to Satan.

But whether a terrorist attack kills 20 or 50 persons isn't the point. And remember: in INS/MV there are Angels and Demons among catholic and muslim and jew and redskins and neo-nazi and IRA and... When an INS demon promotes terrorism, his goal isn't to help human to win some conflict; it's to maintain the conflict. Efficiency isn't key.

Last but not least, demons want servants, but they want competent servants. Usually they provide little help: the servant should be able to accomplish his mission by himself. That's the whole point of having servant (at least for demons): get the mission done while you're spending good time with champagne and whores.

[Nath]

INS/MV has the same problem than every other setting where intelligent beings have capabilities that exceed those of regular humans. It quickly results in a number of aspects the authors model after the real world not making sense. Whether it's the global status of the world in INS/MV, the existence of crime and war in the DC Comics universe because of Superman, or the existence of medieval-type armies in a D&D setting with high-level casters, the murder rate in Vampire, or more subtle things like the president of the UCAS attending any sort of public events when Shadowrun setting has Influence and Mindprobe spells widely available. It's the same issue than asking "if God truly exists, why are there wars/diseases/... ?"

That's not so much of a problem when you can alter the setting accordingly (either from start, like D&D, or over a few decades of uchrony like Shadowrun). It is when you try to establish it as a secret history, where supernatural elements remain hidden while the visible world remains superficially similar to the real world, that it risks breaking down.

INS/MV posits that pretty much everything evil that happened in history is the result of demonic intervention. If you just look at the feat that owed princes their promotion, this includes destruction of the Babel Tower, the Black Plague, London 1666 burning, the Krakatoa 1883 eruption, the Titanic sinking, the Bhopal Union Carbide leak, or Lockerbie bombing. But it is never stated whether demons were directly involved or rather influenced humans to make it happen.

On the other hand, it is a lot less assertive about good things being the result of angelic intervention. The two biggest feats that resulted in promotion where delivering the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people (by Didier, archangel of communication) and helping Denis Papin develops steam technology (by Jean, archangel of lightning/technology). Michel, possibly the most combat-oriented of all, was promoted because... he helped converting Danish leader Rollo to Christianism. You don't get any mention of significant things like, say, the Treaty of Westphalia, the discovery of Penicillin or the end of Apartheid in South Africa.

It somewhat suggests that the default status for the world would be rather good. What angels have to do is to fight the demons, while the demons are to fight the angels and spread evil. So while it's standard operating procedure for demons for instance to murder a human politician to start a war, it is not for angels to do the same to stop one. Obviously, that's what makes one side evil, and possibly explains why they are winning.

As a result, the archangels are easier to define than the princes. Serving an archangel - ie. picking a character class - is using his favored set of powers (whether combat, mental, detection...) to seek and destroy demons. Serving a prince is using a set of favored powers and trying to spread a certain kind of evil. And so you ends up with Baal, prince of war, who favors (obviously) physical combat powers and shuns mental ones, less effective at starting actual wars than Malphas, prince of discord.

[Nath]

"Autres personnages" [Other characters]

The next chapter has five pages in case you want to play something else than an angel or a demon. Well, sort of.

Vikings are servants of the old Norse gods. If you're a bit into Scandinavian mythology, they're einherjar reincarnated into mortal body, hunting demons to avenge their gods and fighting with angels because of misunderstanding or confusion. While all the Norse gods have been destroyed, they retain their powers because... well, as far the book goes, God has a fondness for big, muscular bearded warriors. Which you get to know by reading... other part of the book (it's in the history chapter), because this chapter only contain a list of powers under the header "Les vikings" (to be honest, the chapter introduction warned you about that).


I think because of Bitume, a Mad Max-like RPG also written by Croc that featured vikings, biker was considered as the default occupation for viking character, without any actual basis in the INS/MV rules or setting.

There are 6 sublists of 6 powers, with numbers that suggest rolling a d66 at some point, and a Special sublist of eight power, that you can infer, based on angels and demons rules, must be related to a viking's boss. And that's it. There are no actual rules to create a viking character, how much points or powers he or she could get, or any indication about which boss are available. As far as I can tell, the point possibly was only to provide a list of powers updated for 2nd edition.

I saw Trill message, but, really, as far as reviewing the corebook goes, that's all there is to say about vikings. I'll expand a bit in another post later.

The same goes for Voodoo, with a list of 6x6 powers for the béké and a list of 6 powers for the tontons macoutes. Like the vikings, there is also no background or actual rules to create a voodoo character. Going back to the Background chapter is even less helpful, as it refers to a plot and an archangel that do not appear in this book (actually a first edition adventure).

Psionics and sorcerers do get background information... but they don't get any description of their powers, let alone creation rules. At this point, you may start to suspect the author is voluntarily trying to piss you. Maybe he was just trying to keep selling first edition books (you could argue the book 190 pages may have been a limit, but they still could have cut some short stories out).


Psionics get an extra effect if they roll 4-2-1. It's a reference to a dice game that, as far as I know, is only played in French-speaking countries.

Had you taken a good look at all those archangels' and demon princes' profiles in the previous chapters, you'd realize the author filled for each and every one of them the "summoning components" list that relate to sorcerer's rules he won't give you (a personal favorite is "arresting Pablo Escobar and putting him to trial" as a rating 6 component for the summoning of Dominique, archangel of Justice).

If it wasn't for the fact that you don't have the rules to actually play them in the corebook, psionics and sorcerers (and the corporations that employed a number of them) were a practical addition to the game, either as antagonists or mere chaos factor that allowed to depart a bit from the God vs Evil overarching theme. the sorcerer's ability to summon and entrap angels or demons and tap into their powers made them a significant threat. Psionics were more of mixed bag: the gamemaster could make one arbitrarily powerful, but if you stick to a reasonable amount of point to stat a NPC, they were more of a glass cannon (psionists, but also sorcerers, vikings and voodoos having a lot less hit points than demons or angels).

Stuck in the middle of that, you also get information about the lives of renegade angels and demons. The renegades are the angels and demons who stopped obeying orders and try to live their lives. At least you can use the complete creation rules from the two previous chapters. Once officially considered as renegade, their bodies start aging again, and can no longer acquire new powers. Renegades also were a recurrent plot. Both factions hunt their renegades, all the while generating more and more disillusioned angels and demons that will turn into new renegades.


Almost. Human max strength is 3, their number of hit points is equal to 1xStrength and they are knocked unconscious when reaching 0.

La suite: Guides des pouvoirs

[DrPraetor]

Psionics get an extra effect if they roll 4-2-1. It's a reference to a dice game that, as far as I know, is only played in French-speaking countries.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/421_%28jeu%29

Wow, it doesn't even have an english language wikipedia entry!

That's obscure.

Vikings show up and fight you (for whichever reason.) Well, that's something to do.

So there's information on Houngans, Sorcerers and Psionics - lack of game rules aside, what do they do? Do psionics have an agenda beyond "is a guy with psionic powers?" Do sorcerers want demons (angels?) to procure mystic knowledge for them?

This game has a lot of short stories in it, which you'd hope at least would provide some guidance on how to use these guys.

[Trill]

I saw Trill message, but, really, as far as reviewing the corebook goes, that's all there is to say about vikings. I'll expand a bit in another post later.

The same goes for Voodoo, with a list of 6x6 powers for the béké and a list of 6 powers for the tontons macoutes. Like the vikings, there is also no background or actual rules to create a voodoo character. Going back to the Background chapter is even less helpful, as it refers to a plot and an archangel that do not appear in this book (actually a first edition adventure).

Psionics and sorcerers do get background information... but they don't get any description of their powers, let alone creation rules. At this point, you may start to suspect the author is voluntarily trying to piss you. Maybe he was just trying to keep selling first edition books (you could argue the book 190 pages may have been a limit, but they still could have cut some short stories out).

So basically "I made this game about angels and demons. What do you mean, 'other types of characters'? Uhh, okay. Well, you have Vikings! And Houngans! And Sorcerors! What do they do? Uhh, urgent appointment, have to go, bye!"
That's kind of dissaponting. If he gives so little info I'd rather he'd just thrown them out instead of teasing and then delivering this thin soup of a character class.

[Username17]

Except Demons in INS/MV don't really care about the efficiency of terrorism. As Nath says, the philosophy is "Satan wants souls, not kills": demons want terrorism to exist because it brings some misery and fear into the world, and they want to convince humans to commit terrorism acts because then their soul belong to Satan.

That's not really very compelling. If the demons are doing Lockerbie Bombing crap instead of bringing countries to their knees with devastating sustained assaults, it's just because their actual goal is to make the news and nothing more than that. That's pathetic, actually.

The demons described are just the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. They have the ability to destroy dozens of planes in a single day and repeat it every day until people ground all flights all over the world and huddle in fear in the dark because they've also destroyed all the power stations, but they give handjobs and high fives all around for blowing up one plane. Their goal obviously isn't to terrorize the populace, it's to maximize their share of the headlines with the minimum possible effort.

And if that's what they are doing, they should just go all in and do supervillain theme-crime. There's murders every day, but you can still get headlines by putting flowers or chess pieces on victims. These are demons who don't give a shit about the effectiveness or scale of their crimes, only how much ink they get for doing them. So we should be seeing colorful outfits and fanciful crime-names.

-Username17

[GâtFromKI]

That's not really very compelling. If the demons are doing Lockerbie Bombing crap instead of bringing countries to their knees with devastating sustained assaults, it's just because their actual goal is to make the news and nothing more than that. That's pathetic, actually.

The demons described are just the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. They have the ability to destroy dozens of planes in a single day and repeat it every day until people ground all flights all over the world and huddle in fear in the dark because they've also destroyed all the power stations, but they give handjobs and high fives all around for blowing up one plane. Their goal obviously isn't to terrorize the populace, it's to maximize their share of the headlines with the minimum possible effort.

And if that's what they are doing, they should just go all in and do supervillain theme-crime. There's murders every day, but you can still get headlines by putting flowers or chess pieces on victims. These are demons who don't give a shit about the effectiveness or scale of their crimes, only how much ink they get for doing them. So we should be seeing colorful outfits and fanciful crime-names.

-Username17

... I don't think you understand the tone of the game.

INS/MV closer from Paranoïa than Vampire. Your goal is absurd and contains contradictory injunctions, but that's what the game is about.

Good and Evil don't fight for some Big Purpose: they fight because God was bored and decided to create a game (and an opponent). Angel are better than demons because God is a fucking cheater and he made sure he has the better pieces.

The goal of demons is to prove humans are worthless piece of shit who commit Evil acts and succumb to temptation. Except when demons really love humans and want them to be free and do what they want without stupid rules. The goal of angels is to prove that humans are redeemable - except when they think all sinner should be burned.

As a demon, committing murder or terrorism doesn't advance your goal: it doesn't prove humans are Evil. But you have to commit murder (or some other Evil stuff) nonetheless, because you're a fucking demon and you should do what you want. If you don't commit enough Evil stuff, the administration will reprimand you because you're supposed to be Evil; but if you commit too much Evil stuff, the administration will reprimand you because your goal is to make humans commit Evil stuff, not to commit it yourself. Can you see how the game relates to Paranoïa?

As a demon of Ouikka, you have to promote (and commit) terrorism because that's your purpose. But if you're so efficient that "people ground all flights all over the world and huddle in fear in the dark", you'll be disposed by the administration because huddling people won't commit anything Good or Evil; this may even be a case where angel and demons will ally against you (they are mortal enemies and they have to fight one another on sight, except when they ally with each other) because your action threatens the Big Game.


None of this make sense? This is somehow the point of the game ("religions don't make sense").

As you said, "that's pathetic, actually"; this is where the disillusioned angels and demons come into play. Or even the non-disillusioned ones: Jesus has a bar, Chez Régis, where angels and demons can come and discuss (remember, they to fight one another on sight, that's the rule - yet Chez Régis exists, they can't fight in that place, and the owner of the place isn't even a renegade), because Jesus is a hippie who think everyone should be friend. And he is God's favorite, hence he will never be a renegade.


I'm not saying the game is perfect or anything; but to make a fair criticism of the game, you have to understand its tone.

At the beginning of the thread you wrote: "The people I knew who were into In Nomine were the college wiccan types. People who hated on Christianity and thought weird ass deconstructionism was super deep". This is a fair criticism (INV/MV deconstructs Christianity, and it's not that deep).

Here, you write "The demons described are just the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. They have the ability to destroy dozens of planes in a single day and repeat it every day until people ground all flights all over the world and huddle in fear in the dark because they've also destroyed all the power stations, but they give handjobs and high fives all around for blowing up one plane. Their goal obviously isn't to terrorize the populace, it's to maximize their share of the headlines with the minimum possible effort". This isn't a fair criticism. Of course demons want to do the minimum possible effort, they are demons (sloth is a deadly sin, remember); of course they give handjob for no reason, they are demon; they don't want people to huddle in fear in the dark, since they want to play with humans - be it to corrupt them, or because they find them more interesting than boring angels (this is why they have fallen in the first place). They are Pirate Who Don't Do Anything, because in the end that's the whole point of the Big Game, INS/MV acknowledge this to the point there are disillusioned angels and demons who clearly understand the silliness of the Big Game. All your criticisms here are features of the game, not actual flaws - if you don't like those points, then the game isn't for you, it doesn't means it's bad.

[Grek]

What would justify this specific level of terrorism (but not supervillain hijinks) is if there were a small number of very specific people who the good guys need to protect and the bad guys need to terrorize, both without letting their targets find out about the deal. Get yourself some Tzadikim Nistarim to serve as a cosmic jury deliberating in secret (even from themselves) on the moral worth of the universe, and suddenly the fact that you blew up an airplane becomes very relevant - provided that the righteous one's spouse was onboard, or that the wreckage smashed into their house, or they were the one in charge of security and ended up getting shitcanned as a result.

[Mask_De_H]

That is some hardcore fanboy, Gat. And say what you will about the tone or whatever, the system is kind of a shitshow.

The game comes off as two chords and a vague idea, like a French Cosmic Bumfights. Which is cool for the 90s, but it's current year baby; pop nihilism is out, screaming terror is in.

[Username17]

Here, you write "The demons described are just the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. They have the ability to destroy dozens of planes in a single day and repeat it every day until people ground all flights all over the world and huddle in fear in the dark because they've also destroyed all the power stations, but they give handjobs and high fives all around for blowing up one plane. Their goal obviously isn't to terrorize the populace, it's to maximize their share of the headlines with the minimum possible effort". This isn't a fair criticism. Of course demons want to do the minimum possible effort, they are demons (sloth is a deadly sin, remember); of course they give handjob for no reason, they are demon; they don't want people to huddle in fear in the dark, since they want to play with humans - be it to corrupt them, or because they find them more interesting than boring angels (this is why they have fallen in the first place). They are Pirate Who Don't Do Anything, because in the end that's the whole point of the Big Game, INS/MV acknowledge this to the point there are disillusioned angels and demons who clearly understand the silliness of the Big Game. All your criticisms here are features of the game, not actual flaws - if you don't like those points, then the game isn't for you, it doesn't means it's bad.

I find that argument extremely unpersuasive. If the goal of demons is to cause exactly the amount of suffering that there is in the world and not more of it, why bother celebrating those who commit crimes at all? Isn't the person who sat on the couch all day eating Cheerios and watching Netflix just as responsible for the level of suffering as the person who bombed an airplane? If either one added any more or less suffering, the levels of suffering would be different and no the exact level they are now.

A creed that can be used to justify any action or no action at all is a fundamentally useless creed. And it's fundamentally ridiculous to pretend that the demons exist as a force for evil and celebrate great historical acts of wickedness while simultaneously conceding that they operate under voluntary restraint and don't perform acts of wickedness that are a tenth as impressive as what they could accomplish tomorrow or the day after that (or both!).

What would justify this specific level of terrorism (but not supervillain hijinks) is if there were a small number of very specific people who the good guys need to protect and the bad guys need to terrorize, both without letting their targets find out about the deal. Get yourself some Tzadikim Nistarim to serve as a cosmic jury deliberating in secret (even from themselves) on the moral worth of the universe, and suddenly the fact that you blew up an airplane becomes very relevant - provided that the righteous one's spouse was onboard, or that the wreckage smashed into their house, or they were the one in charge of security and ended up getting shitcanned as a result.

That would be a whole different ballgame, yes. If the Demons were unconcerned with spreading suffering or wickedness generally, but were instead concerned with getting specific arbitrary people to do bad things without realizing that they were being fucked with, then sponsorship of intermittent low-impact terrorist attacks and other crimes would be entirely reasonable. All demonic activity would be geared towards finding who the lamedvavniks were and how to piss them off without giving the game away. So you'd have demons supporting the bombings of individual cafes or robbing individual liquor stores and shit.

Evil for the sake of evil in general is bluntly incompatible with human history. It just isn't very difficult to commit atrocities that are way beyond what people actually encountered. And if you have honest to wickedness magic fucking powers, then the sky is the fucking limit.

In Nomine sets vague enough goals for the demon faction that the question arises why the world isn't an incomprehensibly terrible crap sack. And the answer is, as Gat's feeble protestations demonstrate, extremely unsatisfying. But yes, if the game actually had 36 pieces on the board and points were scored only for their actions, the lack of demonic initiative to transforming Oklahoma City into a war torn ghetto would no longer be a mic drop.

-Username17

[Trill]

AAHRG
FRANK
THOSE TAGS
PLEASE FIX THEM

[deaddmwalking]

I'm not familiar with the game, but it doesn't sound terribly inconsistent. Maybe I relate because frequently in my job I've been given incompatible goals and/or told to follow instructions that COULDN'T result in the stated objective...

But my take based on what I've read here...

If you're a demon and you were responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing, that's bad. Sure, some people were hurt, but the general response was 'Boston Strong' and a coming together/being good to your fellow man. If you had committed that act of terrorism, you could be in trouble with your superiors. On the other hand, if you convinced someone else to bomb the marathon, you've scored a soul for Satan, so the specific results of that action are a little more ambiguous.

I'm not sure why Lockerbie would be a direct demon action, but it could at least be plausibly explained as providing a blueprint or encouragement for evil in humans. If enough people say 'shoot, blowing up a plane seems like something I should do', well, that might score you some points.

As far as whether people are more evil when they're starving or when they're wealthy, I think the jury is out. Demons could honestly be conflicted about whether trying to make more billionaires is a better strategy than trying to reduce the world to a post-apocalypse.

[Nath]

It is likely that the author(s) of INS/MV put less thought in their setting that a dozen of posts in this forum already did. The year was 1990 (for first edition) and the most probable explanation for some part of the setting is either "rule of cool".

The Pan Am Flight 103 "Lockerbie" bombing took place in December 1988 and was, at the time, the most recent and one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever (the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in 1985 remaining the single deadliest attack at the time). As I said above, they linked all the promotions to demon prince rank to big, dramatic events in History. My guess is that they took the biggest terrorist action they knew to make a prince of terrorism.

Someone more knowledgeable about history could have used the 1793 Terreur or the 1920 Bloody Sunday as much more significant cornerstones in the history of terrorism.

[Nath]

Guide des pouvoirs

"Guide des pouvoirs" [Handbook of powers] is 46 pages that describes all the angels, demons, vikings and voodoos power. The powers are listed alphabetically. Almost. Because if for instance you're looking for the Familiar power, you have to look at the "Servant" entry that apply for all the different type of servants.

In case you wondered how much the author really wanted to piss you about not giving you the rules to create a viking character, that Servant entry has the rules for vikings' servants, with actual stats and numbers of skill points and powers to create them.

If you're looking for the Strength Augmentation power, it's listed a Strength (Permanent), next to Strength (Absorption) and Strenght (Temporary). Which you may find perfectly reasonable... in English. In French, those powers are called "Augmentation permanente de Force", "Absorption de Force" and "Augmentation temporaire de Force" and they are listed under "Force".

They bothered with writing down numerical codes for each power - for instance Strength Augmentation is A351 and D351, meaning the 351 entry in the Angels and Demons list of powers. It doesn't help you finding the right entry, but at least allows you to check if you're looking at the good entry. Which is not always that obvious, as "Guérison des maladies" [Disease Healing] is power VD31 (entry 31 in the Voodoo list of powers) but "Guérison des malades (bénédiction)" [Disease Healing (benediction)] is power A151 (entry 151 in the angels list of powers).


I couldn't find an image about properly naming things in the first place.

Once you min-maxed your attribute at chargen, the set of powers is really what define your character. But remember powers are given on a semi-random basis unless the Gamemaster consider you fully succeded every mission objective. So your character is going to be a mix of (semi ) random power taken during creation and after "normal" victory, and a set cherry-picked powers after "full" victory.

In my experience, it is not as bad as it sounds. The random powers added some originality to character (like an unexpected defensive power or a hideout). The main problem was keeping the team power level consistent when some players were luckier and/or more focused.


Well, it's still a role playing game so you have a little more than your set of powers to define your character, right?

The majority of powers work through an opposed test between one of the angel/demon/...'s stat and one of the target's stat, with the margin of success causing some number of something (damage, lost turn...). As I said above, the resolution system is a pain and you wil never ever be able to assess what your chance of success are. But it still going to cost you one or even more power points.

A starting character is going to have something like 7 or 8 power points. Hitting 20 power points puts your character in the top tier (for reference, archangels and princes have around 50 power points). You only get one back per day, unless you can fullfill some ordeal from your archangel/demon prince (usually 1 per hour doing something specific enough).

So spending one power point for no effect is a *very* big deal. You are NOT going to spend 3 power points when the target can randomly roll a 6 for success margin. You are not going to spend 1 power point per turn to slightly increase your defense. And fuck, you are NOT going to spend 1 point to be invisible for only 3 seconds.


If you were worried about demon terrorists, their own damn prince can't even get invisible for two minutes.

For the people with any understanding of the game, the most sought-after powers are those who don't cost any power points (like magical weapons, super-skill and permanent attribute increase), the absorption powers (those have zero casting cost because they're supposed to be used to gain power points, but for instance the Strength absorption reduces as a side effect the number of hit points of an opponent) and the contact attack powers (for which the power point can be spent after an attack hit to deliver). But then again, you don't get the opportunity to pick all your powers at will.

La suite: Scénarios

[Nath]

Scénarios

Most of the adventure titles are (dirty) play on words that are impossible to translate.

"Une de perdue, tu l'as dans le c.. !" is a Magna Veritas adventure (ie. for a team of angels) in 5 pages.

It introduces as standard procedures for freshly arrival angels to see a psychologist to help them adjusting to their new body and life. The adventure supposedly starts with three mandatory months of appointments with a psychologist, Pierre Lecaillou, himself an angel, and two more months after they stopped seeing him, until he calls them for help.

Clarisse, Pierre's wife (well, initially the wife of the actual Pierre Lecaillou, before the angel took over his body) has disappeared. Pierre himself must leave the next day for a mission in Yugoslavia (we're in the nineties, remember) and asks the PC to look for Clarisse.

There's no hint of anything supernatural at this point. It's a service, not a mission (and so, no power or penalty at the end, at least initially).

Clarisse actually shows up the next, with a small bruise on the back of the head and no recollection of any sort of the previous day. The adventure does not mention the possibility that the angels may consider their help is no longer required, and won't investigate what she was doing during that day.

There are two false leads involving the other angels who had appointments with Pierre (one who is currently torturing a human dealer in the basement of his home and another who's trying to hide living in concubinage (which catholic angels are forbidden to).

Another lead is Pierre and Clarisse second child, Thomas, which is a "Son of God". He was fathered by the angel inhabiting Pierre's body, which sometimes result in the children receiving some angelic powers.

Sons and Daughters of God were previously mentioned in Création des anges and Guide des pouvoirs as a possible type for servant for angel, with no explanation whatsoever about their nature (save the fact they had better stats and more powers than the other servants).

Of course, in the end, it involves demons. Clarisse had noticed a dead letter box for demons, that she mistook for mere dealers (her son did as well, having the Detect Evil power). She talked about it to her neighbor, who happened to be a demon tasked with identifying the angels who come to see Pierre. Demons abducted Clarisse and erased her memory (no rule for that).

The angels are supposed either find out the neighbor is lying to them about some minutia in the timing of the day Clarisse disappeared, or detect the demons visiting the dead letter box in the park next to Pierre and Clarrise home.

Full success doesn't require to understand anything, just to find and eliminate the demons and destroy their hideout. As said above, no penalty if the angels fail.

The end boss is a grade 3 demon of Nisroch. Having 28 power points and the Willpower absorption power may allow him to spam his Charm power, at 4 PP per attack. Which he will have to, because he has Appearance 1 and so will fail a lot of attacks (he must roll a d66 under 24 to hit - a 28% chance - and that can still be resisted with Willpower). His secondary attack would be his Paralysis (contact) power, but has no combat skill or power to hit first (he must roll a d66 under 23). The fight can go down really fast if the angel just outrange him (Charm has a range of 5 meters), or he can possibly wipe the entire party if he can charm one with good offensive capabilities on his first move.

The grade 1 demon of Nisroch that act as his henchman may be much more lethal, with a lot less of power points but more combat-oriented powers and skills.

That's quite typical of INS/MV. Since there are no bestiary and every opponent must be built with the entire palette of powers, skills and attributes (a number of them the same than those who are available to PC), it is sometimes difficult to properly assess how lethal an encounter will be.


Okay, so, as an investigation adventure, it is rather good. There is always the risk of the PC dropping the thing or following a false lead too far, but it does provide pretty good advice about how making them notice the important clues. It also do a god job at introducing to audience some aspects of angels' life on Earth.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if they put it first by negligence or by design, since the five months hiatus at start would likely require having some other adventure to play in the meantime.

Also, the illustration on the fifth page is totally unrelated. It is the illustration of Belial taken from the first edition INS book, while this adventure does not feature even one Belial demon.

La suite : Scénarios - "Les contes d'apéro"

[Nath]

Scénarios

"Les contes d'apéro" is a Magna Veritas adventure.

The angels are sent to retrieve magical armored leggings. They're warned a team from the opposing force may be also searching for it (indeed).

The action takes place in the city of Orleans, which has no significance at all, except for some running gag about every bar, hotel and shop being called "Le Jeanne d'Arc".

To find the leggings, the PC must first find the heir to the family who originally owned them. He happens to be a crazy guy living in a cabin in a countryside. The PC must learn from him that he sold all his ancestor's items to an antiques collector. He also mentions he searched for magical leather boots his ancestor was said to own, and couldn't find them, but he never heard about armored leggings.

The key to solve this adventure is to understand the magical property of the armored leggings is to change their aspects to always pass as contemporary clothing, which requires either a clever player or the idea to search books about local folklore. Their additional power is related to their adopted appearance.

In the meantime, two girls are assassinated at night, both known for being regulars of a local swinger club ("Le Jeanne d'Arc", indeed), as is the daughter of the antiques collector. The armored leggings currently are fishnet stockings, that the daughter brought to the club and that another girl mistakenly picked up. About their additional power, let's say that as stockings they no longer increase defense and that the girl wearing them at the swinger club display a lot of energy.

The PC and the enemy team, made of two vampires, will be inside the swinger club to retrieve the stockings at the same time. They are rather powerful for mere undead, and their Human (control) power can be particularly effective in a public place. However, the rules for undead makes them low on hit points. The biggest problem is going to detect them at all, as the adventure insists on how little reason the PC should have to notice them at all.

Full victory requires to retrieve the stockings and destroy the two vampire. Normal victory if the stockings is retrieved, or if the two vampires are destroyed. Nothing if only one vampire is destroyed, and penalty for the team if none of these objectives is met.

While not entirely linear, this adventure provides little to no indication for the GM to help the PC getting through. They may succeed without having picked all the hints, but some of them are crucial enough to understand what is going at the club and stop the vampires before they get away. It requires the players to be really attentive, possibly at the expense of the roleplay that could be made of a team of catholic angels venturing into a sex club.

La suite : Scénarios - Subway

(Six more to go !)

[TheFlatline]

That being said, I can't recall any In Nomine campaigns actually lasting any amount of time. People who liked that sort of thing seemed to find talking about the setting to be more interesting and accessible than actually playing the game. Failed to hit the playability threshold of like Cosmic Bumfights.

Having run a few stories in In Nomine, it's difficult because like... the corporeal song of shields level 1 makes you basically immune to physical damage. Period. Unless someone has a higher level song or a relic or some shit like that.

Not that you always need to bust out miracles. A rank 5 shell could basically have a sky scraper dropped on it and come out bruised and pissed off.

So yeah, any combat in the corporeal world was a temporary setback at best, and celestial combat, where you could *actually* kill off angels and demons took forever and was like dropping the DEFCON to 2. So it was *really* hard to make games where the stakes mattered and it wasn't... you know... Armageddon.

So yeah there was a lot of talking and shit.

[Omegonthesane]

That being said, I can't recall any In Nomine campaigns actually lasting any amount of time. People who liked that sort of thing seemed to find talking about the setting to be more interesting and accessible than actually playing the game. Failed to hit the playability threshold of like Cosmic Bumfights.

Having run a few stories in In Nomine, it's difficult because like... the corporeal song of shields level 1 makes you basically immune to physical damage. Period. Unless someone has a higher level song or a relic or some shit like that.

Not that you always need to bust out miracles. A rank 5 shell could basically have a sky scraper dropped on it and come out bruised and pissed off.

So yeah, any combat in the corporeal world was a temporary setback at best, and celestial combat, where you could *actually* kill off angels and demons took forever and was like dropping the DEFCON to 2. So it was *really* hard to make games where the stakes mattered and it wasn't... you know... Armageddon.

So yeah there was a lot of talking and shit.

Somehow my group never got the memo that soul killing was a Big Fucking Deal. It was one thing when we all ganked a Shedite when we were angels, but when I ran a demons game the party were outright shocked to find themselves facing any kind of IC consequences for soul killing a Shedite of Belial merely for having pissed them off. Like, they thought it was standard levels of retribution to destroy a trusted agent of another Demon Prince who they were not all openly at war with in an area where there was meant to be some level of detente. They didn't even try that shit with the Habbalite of the Game turned Elohite of Flowers running a brainwashing camp that had previously imprisoned one of the party or any of her servants.

You're both over and under estimating Corporeal Shields though. It can't be broken through by physical force, period, end of story, but it does jack shit against purely magical attacks like Celestial Light or Calabite resonance and it doesn't last long enough per casting to be something you keep running and it's not something you want to rely on if you're the kind to want to fight back because it blocks attacks in both directions.

[TheFlatline]

Somehow my group never got the memo that soul killing was a Big Fucking Deal. It was one thing when we all ganked a Shedite when we were angels, but when I ran a demons game the party were outright shocked to find themselves facing any kind of IC consequences for soul killing a Shedite of Belial merely for having pissed them off. Like, they thought it was standard levels of retribution to destroy a trusted agent of another Demon Prince who they were not all openly at war with in an area where there was meant to be some level of detente. They didn't even try that shit with the Habbalite of the Game turned Elohite of Flowers running a brainwashing camp that had previously imprisoned one of the party or any of her servants.

You're both over and under estimating Corporeal Shields though. It can't be broken through by physical force, period, end of story, but it does jack shit against purely magical attacks like Celestial Light or Calabite resonance and it doesn't last long enough per casting to be something you keep running and it's not something you want to rely on if you're the kind to want to fight back because it blocks attacks in both directions.

Heh yeah my party had trouble with that at first too. Plus, when they'd go Celestial combat as a first option, the opposition would go celestial and they'd whine it wasn't fair. I'd be like "dude... you went there *first*" and they'd be like "Yeah but I wanted to kill him. Now you've basically level drained me semi-permanently" and I'd be like "Well... yeah. Your point?"

And now that you mention it yeah, the corporeal shields was interesting but limiting. I think we used a lot of the etherial shields? The one that basically let you do dissonance without getting in trouble with reality because the scene is like all coated in fog and nobody can see in from the outside?

I'll give the game some credit. The system, as designed, really did seem to result in a basic stalemate between heaven & hell. Angels were more powerful but Demons had the numbers. That made for weird/silly/boring gameplay, but the setting matched the mechanics.

I came away from the game knowing that Humans were fucking ants compared to celestials but with the conviction that a Human centered game would be the most fun.

Also, they made Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar a relic that could only be activated by playing your heart out on it, which will always be a high point for me.