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xanthan posted:So can forming a new cover involve something like someone selling you their family life? Does everyone forget that person had a family but "remembers" your cover did? Yes, you can buy someone's family life. Reality will then locally rewrite itself, so that they never had the family and you always did. This includes direct memories of those involved, but does not necessarily include all of the tangential records and memories of people who were not directly involved. There will absolutely be a bunch of loose, hanging threads that people can research and discover and if they start doing that, your Cover is going to start falling apart. So basically, a bunch of mortals who discover that weird poo poo is going on and start investigating it are making an enemy of the demon involved, because the more they investigate and find the points where the story doesn't add up, the closer the demon gets to being discovered by the God-Machine. (And also, once it all unravels, the entire thing falls apart and reality stops supporting it and now that family just never had that person in it. The family doesn't revert back to the person who sold it - the role that person sold to the demon just stops existing.)
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Mar 19, 2019 15:08
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So far as I can remember, demons can trade in individual relationships (eg “boyfriend of Dave”) and statuses (eg “member of the extended Balducci family”) but not statuses that entail multiple close relationships (eg trading into a close family instead of trading for every relationship in it). People not party to the pact are not affected, so Dave’s friends will say “what happened to your old boyfriend” and nobody will actually remember you from the Balducci family reunions. If I remember correctly, even a full-on soul pact that erases the other party from existence on payment isn’t perfect. Actually since cover is constantly fraying and requires patch jobs as a matter of survival, demons actually kind of are vampiric, just in an extremely weird Kafka/conceptual sense Man DtD is cool. Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 15:15
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Mors Rattus posted:Yes, you can buy someone's family life. Reality will then locally rewrite itself, so that they never had the family and you always did. This includes direct memories of those involved, but does not necessarily include all of the tangential records and memories of people who were not directly involved. There will absolutely be a bunch of loose, hanging threads that people can research and discover and if they start doing that, your Cover is going to start falling apart. So basically, a bunch of mortals who discover that weird poo poo is going on and start investigating it are making an enemy of the demon involved, because the more they investigate and find the points where the story doesn't add up, the closer the demon gets to being discovered by the God-Machine. (And also, once it all unravels, the entire thing falls apart and reality stops supporting it and now that family just never had that person in it. The family doesn't revert back to the person who sold it - the role that person sold to the demon just stops existing.)
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Mar 19, 2019 15:16
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Mors Rattus posted:Yes, you can buy someone's family life. Reality will then locally rewrite itself, so that they never had the family and you always did. This includes direct memories of those involved, but does not necessarily include all of the tangential records and memories of people who were not directly involved. There will absolutely be a bunch of loose, hanging threads that people can research and discover and if they start doing that, your Cover is going to start falling apart. So basically, a bunch of mortals who discover that weird poo poo is going on and start investigating it are making an enemy of the demon involved, because the more they investigate and find the points where the story doesn't add up, the closer the demon gets to being discovered by the God-Machine. (And also, once it all unravels, the entire thing falls apart and reality stops supporting it and now that family just never had that person in it. The family doesn't revert back to the person who sold it - the role that person sold to the demon just stops existing.) So if the Demon wanted to be thorough (and not just kill whomever was poking around, because they were trying to cut back on murder or whatever) they could then go to the Gladys Kravitz and buy her "memory" of going to a barbecue where the demon wasn't manning the grill?
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Mar 19, 2019 15:19
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Dawgstar posted:So if the Demon wanted to be thorough (and not just kill whomever was poking around, because they were trying to cut back on murder or whatever) they could then go to the Gladys Kravitz and buy her "memory" of going to a barbecue where the demon wasn't manning the grill? Yes, but the possible issues with this are fractal. Every patch adds new vulnerabilities, at least until you build up the cover to a sufficient extent that it starts self-reinforcing - and even that is imperfect, because the loose threads still exist, they're just somewhat harder to dislodge. e: or rather - you buy the experiences other people have. If you buy Gladys Kravitz's grill-manning, then you have been to all the reunions as the grill person, but that's not going to fix the issue of Grandma Kravitz being confused because you totally weren't there, that was Gladys, wasn't it? To which Gladys swears up and down that no, it was you. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 15:28
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Years back, someone shared with me the idea of a Demon who buys people's criminal history, and thus gets them out of jail. Just this legendary figure who is basically Crime Jesus; taking other people's sins upon themselves and thus giving them a second chance.
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Mar 19, 2019 15:36
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One thing to note is that much like an actual spy (again, DtD is extremely well-constructed), a Demon is going to want to gravitate toward inconspicuous cover. Cover with more significant relationships is worth more but also naturally carries greater risk. The best cover identity is one you patch together gradually out of small details without any big loose ends
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Mar 19, 2019 15:36
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Man, I wanna play Demon.
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Mar 19, 2019 15:44
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It's good(tm) I'm still more into Changeling, if only I could get my paws on 2nd ed.. 
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Mar 19, 2019 16:08
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I really miss playing Demon, but it's been very hard for me to think about playing or running it after all the Matt stuff, given how heavily he was involved in its development and writing.
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Mar 19, 2019 16:12
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I would be remiss if I didn’t also point out that every time a human being says “wait a second” about you, the red hot eye of Skynet-Sauron locks onto you and will strip your cover if you’re unlucky. This happens every time a new question comes up (eg “wait, Gladys was at that party” and “how did this guy get a parks dept. job in the middle of a hiring freeze?” Is two red hot God scans) and also every time a new human is brought to that same question. So the snoopy aunt pulling folks aside and saying “do you remember this dude?” is going to destroy you. Also, I don’t believe it’s mechanically required, but it is highly recommended that if you are red hot God scanned multiple times a Terminator will be despatched to check you out even if your cover holds. Also, incredibly, if a large number of people are brought to question at the same time, that’s only one roll. So as a demon impostor you are incalculably better served falling under suspicion of a drama queen who tries to out you in the middle of a town hall meeting, vs. a pre-teen Nancy Drew quietly checking you out and doing research with her school librarian. Also also, when you’re red hot god scanned you’ll know it’s happening but not necessarily why, hope you don’t have better things to do than some counterintelligence (and that you’re feeling merciful when you finally find Nancy with half your cover shredded)! Also also also, you can do this to yourself. So if you decide you’re in love with a human and want to go whole hog truthful, you stand a good chance of wrecking your cover so badly that you’re erased from their lives and they don’t remember you. And even if that doesn’t happen, a Terminator’s about to pay a visit
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Mar 19, 2019 16:18
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Basic Chunnel posted:So as a demon impostor you are incalculably better served falling under suspicion of a drama queen who tries to out you in the middle of a town hall meeting, vs. a pre-teen Nancy Drew quietly checking you out and doing research with her school librarian. Now if I ever run Demon one of the angels after the PCs is absolutely going to be based on Veronica Mars.
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Mar 19, 2019 16:23
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Basic Chunnel posted:One thing to note is that much like an actual spy (again, DtD is extremely well-constructed), a Demon is going to want to gravitate toward inconspicuous cover. Cover with more significant relationships is worth more but also naturally carries greater risk. The best cover identity is one you patch together gradually out of small details without any big loose ends There's also weird follow up effects if children are involved. If you buy some inconspicuous old Grandma's life to stay on the DL, well, guess what? You now have children and grandchildren. And due to the crazy rear end bullshit involved in how a cover works those children and grandchildren are now descended from a demon. And that comes with supernatural consequences. You could just wake up one day and end up with the ability to manipulate Aether and Embeds out of nowhere, because someone bought their way into your life. Which in addition to being a terrible thing to do to random people, actually puts everyone in even *more* danger, because the children of demons are quite interesting to the God-Machine. So if they get on the radar, well, you've just magnified the threat against you.
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Mar 19, 2019 16:33
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Huh, I was under the impression that you had to actually sire / birth a child in order for it to be a weirdo Was trying to imagine what happens when a pregnant cover gets switched and the fetus gets shuffled into a quantum nega-space, but I guess that’s why they can hack reality once they’re born.
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Mar 19, 2019 16:46
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Mors Rattus posted:remind me again why this applies to Demons but not to Deviants, whose entire backstory is 'an evil conspiracy tortured and broke you and destroyed your life and made you what you now are' I haven't said anything to the contrary! I'm not sure Deviant is going to be my cup of tea, but I'm withholding judgment for now.
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Mar 19, 2019 16:53
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Whether or not it works on kids you "adopt" via cover-gaining is up to the GM, IIRC.
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Mar 19, 2019 16:53
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Heirs to Hell, the book on reality-twisting cambions, indeed specifies that "adoption" by demonic pact is enough to give someone demon blood of the type potent enough to naturally learn Embeds and suffer stigmata.
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Mar 19, 2019 17:02
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The results of what happens when you mess with a cover a fetus requires to exist are "Literally anything, potentially changing from moment to moment". From the tragically practical to the wildly impossible. From "Your male cover is carrying this child now" to "Every single female cover you have is pregnant at the same time" to "Well, there's no human covers left that could carry this, guess demon you has to do it". They make the children of vampires and werewolves look practically mundane. e: vvvvv Nope, works for patch jobs where you just pick up the relationship to the kid. Mulva fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 17:05
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I guess it makes a kind of sense. If pacting someone’s job means your name is on all their business cards and company directories, pacting someone’s family life would entail a kind of timeline editing in which you actually conceived your mark’s children and they are literally your descendants. I’m assuming this is full-on soul pacts only?
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Mar 19, 2019 17:09
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And the children of two demons have lots of crazy weird stuff going on.
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Mar 19, 2019 17:26
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Kurieg posted:And the children of two demons have lots of crazy weird stuff going on. If one of more of their Covers get trashed, does the kid still remember their parent(s)?
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Mar 19, 2019 17:36
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Dawgstar posted:If one of more of their Covers get trashed, does the kid still remember their parent(s)? Yes, because Fractals don't actually perceive Covers the same way normal people do. A Fractal is always aware of both their parents' Covers and demonic forms, at all times, and can recognize and remember everything clearly.
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Mar 19, 2019 17:38
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Man, I want a Demon game for PC. Like, Deus Ex is a thing already. We can do it better.
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Mar 19, 2019 17:43
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Basic Chunnel posted:I guess it makes a kind of sense. If pacting someone’s job means your name is on all their business cards and company directories, pacting someone’s family life would entail a kind of timeline editing in which you actually conceived your mark’s children and they are literally your descendants. Nope. If you can convince somebody to sign their parenthood of a child over to you, you don't have to take over the rest of their existence to retroactively pass down the Devil Gene. (The book even specifies that bargaining for somebody's firstborn, before they have yet had any children, works fine.) I don't know whether the pact has any other retroactive genetic effect on the child. I'm torn between liking that a DNA trace would find a match between the child and the appropriate Cover identity, and liking that the Devil Gene is a purely metaphysical property and if somebody notices that your parent Cover couldn't biologically produce a child with this hair or eye color or whatever, well, you just have to start bullshitting. Just like how relationship pacts alter the memories and historical details most intimately connected with the relationship, but get hazier for more distant acquaintences, leaving you with people who can't agree whether it was you or Gladys at the party two years ago.
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Mar 19, 2019 17:46
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Demons are cousin Nicky.
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Mar 19, 2019 19:28
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Axelgear posted:Years back, someone shared with me the idea of a Demon who buys people's criminal history, and thus gets them out of jail. Just this legendary figure who is basically Crime Jesus; taking other people's sins upon themselves and thus giving them a second chance. Florida Man: The Cover
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Mar 20, 2019 01:55
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The Cover that the Demon never uses: this is Maureen Dubois, her family has been in America after fleeing Haiti in the 19th century, her family has been solidly middle class for a while after overcoming huge adversity but they've got a solid line of businesses they own. She's educated, has a Masters in Business and Finance, a husband named Len who has been unfaithful but they're working on it and a child named Belle. The paper trail is accurate and impeachable and impregnable. The Cover that the Demon always uses and never gets blown: this is baryl its a combo between barry and daryl he likes fireworks and insurance fraud and using fireworks in insurance fraud and his ssn belongs to andrew cuomo the governor of new york
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Mar 20, 2019 02:11
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Hostile V posted:The Cover that the Demon always uses and never gets blown: this is baryl its a combo between barry and daryl he likes fireworks and insurance fraud and using fireworks in insurance fraud and his ssn belongs to andrew cuomo the governor of new york
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Mar 20, 2019 02:56
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You joke, but the demon I played a ways back had picked up a spirit cover that that one exploit. Specifically, a spirit of conflict and war. That cover developed quite a reputation by the end of the game.
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Mar 20, 2019 05:11
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Hostile V posted:The Cover that the Demon always uses and never gets blown: this is baryl its a combo between barry and daryl he likes fireworks and insurance fraud and using fireworks in insurance fraud and his ssn belongs to andrew cuomo the governor of new york Investigator: "Why is this man never, ever seen except when lighting something on fire" Demon: "Huh somebody's investigating Arson Guy, I better break it down for parts and build a new cover"
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Mar 20, 2019 05:28
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The Man in the Suit. E: Would a demon create a lovely low value/effort cover for the express propose of going loud in? One they don't care about blowing? It is that metagaming too much. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Mar 20, 2019 |
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Mar 20, 2019 14:15
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Kurieg posted:The Man in the Suit. They’re called burn covers, they explicitly exist. You use them once to do an op, go loud if you need to, then ditch them if they still exist.
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Mar 20, 2019 14:25
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Erika Ishii of LA by Night asked the dread question 'tell me about your vampire character' and a lot of people.did. There were some that were interesting. There were also a lot of Fishmalks.
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Mar 20, 2019 14:49
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My character in Vampire is a Glass Walker.
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Mar 20, 2019 16:43
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Demon GM here - If anyone's thinking of running it pacts are the biggest headache. You really need to work out a good way to cut down on the writing associated with them. Keeping all the covers straight can be a job onto itself as well. Absolute hardest part tends to be coming up with things that can actually threaten a demon. With the right embeds and exploits they can be a stacking doll of empty faces, make themselves disappear from a scene retroactively, and temporarily halt time. I find it helpful to think of it less Le Carre and more Hideo Kojima. They're all halfway to being MGS bosses anyway. 
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Mar 20, 2019 23:40
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I can think of worse Themes to Demon: the Descent than Arsenal's Guts. While they're the dessert and not the bread & butter of game conflict, my favorite choice of Demon antagonists has always been rival Unchained. I could say things about themes, but honestly, it's just as much that you need that flair of individuality to make a man in a bomb suit drinking wine through a straw work.
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Mar 21, 2019 00:03
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The Unlife Aquatic posted:Demon GM here - If anyone's thinking of running it pacts are the biggest headache It feels like coming up with Interlocks would be a pain, honestly.
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Mar 21, 2019 00:06
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Dawgstar posted:It feels like coming up with Interlocks would be a pain, honestly. yeah I felt the same way on reading it - its neat conceptually but its weird to have a game assume that it's cool to FORCE the DM to generate multiple custom powers for every player in mechanically complex system with little to no guidance
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Mar 21, 2019 00:14
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Don't be afraid to ask players what they want out of their interlocks and/or brainstorm them up with them and if you can read the Demon Storyteller's Guide. I found it really helpful for coming up with Interlocks.
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Mar 21, 2019 00:22
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We ran a Demon game for a year and a half or so? And yeah it's got some pretty heavy duty GM requirements. Interlocks are extremely cool conceptually (like everything in Demon) but are still subject to the laws of powergaming (like most things in Demon). There's bullet time and surveillance erasure, and then there are the embeds that allow you to literalize puns. If you can't come up with a system of interlocks that are both satisfying to use and jibe with character development? That's some rough going. Genre fiction post-GRRM has the tendency to map out and explain every single fuckin thing but CoD + Demon, by dint of being designed for tabletop game hooks, comports itself exceptionally well as a weird fiction setting, if for no other reason than the rule of good world-building is suggestion. But what's good for fiction isn't necessarily good for live play. There are so many insane moving parts to Demon and so many ways for reality to break that it's just really heavy. Fun to imagine all the things you could do, a lot of work to actually do them.
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Mar 21, 2019 00:43
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