> I posted this about a month ago in the hostedscripts forum.
> Bob never replied to it, despite my nagging him about it at
> AXNY, so I figured I'd try again over here. :-)
Mm. To quote Ed's character "Legion", in Time and Again:
> If I understood the mechanics of Doug's songpower
> correctly, the first time he hears the song he can tell whether
> it's going to trigger his powers, but he can't tell what
> particular power it's going to be. The second and subsequent
> times, the power activates.
Precisely. (It works a little bit differently in the V&V campaign. There the power takes effect on first listening, but when starting to write, I realized that failed the reality check -- after all, how could he know what the song's general inclination was, if he'd had no exposure to the whole of the lyrics before?)
> However, it seems like there are likely to be a number of
> songs that trigger powers that are only useful in specialized
> circumstances.
That is indeed the case. One such song is seen at the end of chapter 11 -- "Under My Thumb" is a mind control effect, but because of the lyrics of the song, it only affects women...
> So does it sometimes happen that a song doesn't seem to
> do anything the second time it's played, but still is obviously
> triggering?
We see that, too, in the story -- there are at least two scenes where Doug tries a gate song, and feels his personal energies going to fuel the effect, but nothing happens because the conditions (ie, the starting universe for the gate) are wrong.
> How does Doug handle this?
He can tell when the song is supposed to have an effect -- it will still drain power from him. If nothing useful's happening, he'll just shut off the song.
> There are certainly tons of songs about "Freedom" or
> casting off slavery ... Many of these could also likely be
> useful in Doug's homeworld, as anti-mind control and
> whatnot. But in the absense of any such condition within
> Doug's area of effect, it's not clear if the songs would do anything.
Okay, here's a sloppy analogy. Doug's metagift is like a spigot for a garden hose. One of these songs would be like that hose, with the target being a sprinkler that could be attached on the other end. Without the sprinkler, the water still flows -- it just doesn't do anything constructive.
> Another song along the same lines -- "I Get a Kick Out Of
> You". Would likely cancel out the effects of intoxicants and
> other such substances ("I get no kick from champagne/cocaine")
> with, perhaps, a romantic side-effect.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Similar to that, Doug's got a song in his in-game repertoire -- "Good Morning" by the Beatles -- that gives everyone in his radius of effect a "wake up roll" (a game mechanic which should be obvious in context) every combat round. If no one's unconscious when he plays it, it's just a waste of power.
On the topic of side effects, I've told the story elsewhere of the time that I used in-game an old girl-group song, "I Will Follow Him", whose chorus ran something like
"I love him, I love him, I love him,
And where he goes I'll follow, I'll follow, I'll follow."
I wanted to use it to track a villain; the GM ruled that Doug became quite... um... enamoured of the unpleasant gentleman while the song was running. Ack. And then there's Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", which makes him tough enough to bask in the solar core, but at the same time turns him into an absolute bastard to be with.
> Another interesting area is non-combat intellectual songs --
> skills-boosters, effectively.
The girl-group song I cited above was basically that kind of thing; I don't have his game song sheet handy, but I think there are a couple others there.
> though they may well be invoking a Power to do it, which I
> imagine Doug would be exceedingly unconfortable about.
Yes, at least until the end of DW5, and even then, depending on the Power in question.
> It's out-of-period for Doug, but similarly Andy Eigel's Uplift
> seems like a booster of technology/engineering skills, which
> could have interesting effects.
I'll have to go check it out. Thanks!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
> Bob never replied to it, despite my nagging him about it at
> AXNY, so I figured I'd try again over here. :-)
Mm. To quote Ed's character "Legion", in Time and Again:
Quote:My apologies, Jonathan -- I really did mean to get to it, but...
"I'm sorry! I'm so SORRY! It was all a mistake! I wasn't looking! Mackie joggled my elbow! Minerva did it all! I wasn't there! The Moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars! It was the Age of Aquarius! I was doing my taxes! The cops were pounding on my door!" He broke into a full Soun Tendou wail. "IT WASN'T MY FAULT!!!"
> If I understood the mechanics of Doug's songpower
> correctly, the first time he hears the song he can tell whether
> it's going to trigger his powers, but he can't tell what
> particular power it's going to be. The second and subsequent
> times, the power activates.
Precisely. (It works a little bit differently in the V&V campaign. There the power takes effect on first listening, but when starting to write, I realized that failed the reality check -- after all, how could he know what the song's general inclination was, if he'd had no exposure to the whole of the lyrics before?)
> However, it seems like there are likely to be a number of
> songs that trigger powers that are only useful in specialized
> circumstances.
That is indeed the case. One such song is seen at the end of chapter 11 -- "Under My Thumb" is a mind control effect, but because of the lyrics of the song, it only affects women...
> So does it sometimes happen that a song doesn't seem to
> do anything the second time it's played, but still is obviously
> triggering?
We see that, too, in the story -- there are at least two scenes where Doug tries a gate song, and feels his personal energies going to fuel the effect, but nothing happens because the conditions (ie, the starting universe for the gate) are wrong.
> How does Doug handle this?
He can tell when the song is supposed to have an effect -- it will still drain power from him. If nothing useful's happening, he'll just shut off the song.
> There are certainly tons of songs about "Freedom" or
> casting off slavery ... Many of these could also likely be
> useful in Doug's homeworld, as anti-mind control and
> whatnot. But in the absense of any such condition within
> Doug's area of effect, it's not clear if the songs would do anything.
Okay, here's a sloppy analogy. Doug's metagift is like a spigot for a garden hose. One of these songs would be like that hose, with the target being a sprinkler that could be attached on the other end. Without the sprinkler, the water still flows -- it just doesn't do anything constructive.
> Another song along the same lines -- "I Get a Kick Out Of
> You". Would likely cancel out the effects of intoxicants and
> other such substances ("I get no kick from champagne/cocaine")
> with, perhaps, a romantic side-effect.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Similar to that, Doug's got a song in his in-game repertoire -- "Good Morning" by the Beatles -- that gives everyone in his radius of effect a "wake up roll" (a game mechanic which should be obvious in context) every combat round. If no one's unconscious when he plays it, it's just a waste of power.
On the topic of side effects, I've told the story elsewhere of the time that I used in-game an old girl-group song, "I Will Follow Him", whose chorus ran something like
"I love him, I love him, I love him,
And where he goes I'll follow, I'll follow, I'll follow."
I wanted to use it to track a villain; the GM ruled that Doug became quite... um... enamoured of the unpleasant gentleman while the song was running. Ack. And then there's Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", which makes him tough enough to bask in the solar core, but at the same time turns him into an absolute bastard to be with.
> Another interesting area is non-combat intellectual songs --
> skills-boosters, effectively.
The girl-group song I cited above was basically that kind of thing; I don't have his game song sheet handy, but I think there are a couple others there.
> though they may well be invoking a Power to do it, which I
> imagine Doug would be exceedingly unconfortable about.
Yes, at least until the end of DW5, and even then, depending on the Power in question.
> It's out-of-period for Doug, but similarly Andy Eigel's Uplift
> seems like a booster of technology/engineering skills, which
> could have interesting effects.
I'll have to go check it out. Thanks!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.