The Mystic Paths

The existence of the supernatural is apparent in many ways: aliens, psionic powers, strange mystical powersets granted by a horribly designed game with an insistence for naming conventions.

If you are psionic, human or troll, you have access to new avenues of action in RPGStuck right off the bat. Assumptions are made about where your psionic powers came from, and what they can do. And eventually, all players will come to learn and wield the powers granted by their mythological role.

We’ll be talking mainly about psionics here. In practice, it tends to be interchangeable with magic, and almost all of the advice for psionics also applies to classpects.

Supernatural Checks

A check is used when there is uncertainty about the outcome of an action. A supernatural check check, therefore, is used when there’s uncertainty about the outcome of a supernatural action. Unlike social or stealth checks, it’s not strictly about how the other side reacts, but a measure of the player’s efforts.

The typical skill used in a supernatural check is your psionic skill, whether it be Occult, Sanity, Performance, or Athletics, depending on how your psionics manifest. We mention psionics first because you will have access to it right off the bat, whereas your classpect abilities will take longer to manifest.

The other side will often respond in kind. Caster-type opponents in RPGStuck tend to be high in Intelligence for Occult or Wisdom for Sanity. Sometimes, Endurance can come into play to resist, or Sanity if used in its capacity as a mental counterpart to Endurance.

The psionic skill may substitute for other skills in appropriate contexts. If you were searching for someone, you might use Perception, or Persuasion to sway someone. In both of those cases, you could justify using your psionic powers to achieve the same ends, but with Occult.

For SMs, know when to let the supernatural substitute for the mundane by the context of their powers. Telekines might justify using Occult in place of Acrobatics by using Lift to maneuver themselves, while Whisperers might switch out Persuasion for it when dealing with the undead. Trying to jury rig a power for something other than its intended purpose falls into this category as well. It should be appropriately difficult for, say, an Electrokine to restart someone’s heart.

A Word about Space

No, not the aspect.

In a social encounter, you have as many ways to approach your goal as there are ways to string together words, and the encounter evolves as the conversation does.

In a stealth encounter, you have as many ways to approach your goal as there are avenues of approach, and the encounter evolves as you move to new areas with new obstacles.

In a supernatural encounter, you have as many ways to approach your goal as there are methods or rites or processes to get the result you want. But how does this encounter evolve? And how do you react to it?

It’ll require some explanation on how your psionic powers work, exactly. To be fairly general, and to link it to something else already in the system, let’s say there exist three ways to go about leveraging your psionic power. You can do it with power, control, or knowledge, where the manner in which you wield your power matters.

You might notice this corresponds with Passion, Artifice, and Erudition, from Decors and Demeanors. …or does it correspond with Slayer, Sentinel, and Strategist, from Pillars and Paths?

Examples

Let’s look over some samples to get a feel for this. Your mileage will most certainly, depending on your SM, the way they like to run their sessions, and how their session treats psionics.

• Example Checks:
  • Regular: Burn through a metal door as a Pyrokine, search for the source of a psychic phenomenon as an Antipsion.
  • Opposed: Resist a mind reading, resist a corrupting influence.
• Example Gambits:
  • Regular: Commune with the spirits of the dead.
  • Opposed: Hold a mind knife fight with a psion, bind a horrorterror to your will.
• Example DCs:
  • DC 10: Reading a dimwit’s mind, juicing up an electric car, tracking the direction of a psionic disturbance.
    • Alternately, a total bonus of +0, for opposed checks.
  • DC 15: Creating a scale model of Istanbul with cryokinesis, compelling a ghost to speak with you, scanning a room for a specific individual.
    • Alternately, a total bonus of +5, for opposed checks.
  • DC 20: Interpreting an omen from a nightmare, compelling a spirit to do a simple task for you.
    • Alternately, a total bonus of +10, for opposed checks.
  • DC 25: Outwitting an all-knowing horrorterror, stacking a troll-sized house of cards with only one’s mind, restarting a stopped heart with electrokinesis.
    • Alternately, a total bonus of +15, for opposed checks.
• Example Stakes and Flaws:
  • 1 Stakes Die: A psionic focus, the proper preparation, psi in the air. An implement. An adherence to the norm. A mystic influence.
  • 2 Stakes Dice: Lesser slots, a celestial alignment, a blood sacrifice, an ancient focus, a six hour rite preceding it. Something scarce. An investment of self, or time.
  • 1 Flaws Die: A tainted focus, the wrong rites, psi in the air. Mistaken tools, or rites. A mystic influence.
  • 2 Flaws Dice: An ancient curse, anti-psionic interference. A greater, hostile power. Targeted interference.\

Tie-Ins

There are a few Decors for supernatural Stakes dice, but they won’t be your main way of getting them.

Spending psionic slots is an easy, albeit costly, way to get more Stakes dice. Maybe your SM will allow you to push yourself instead, giving up hit points instead.

Alchemy geared towards supernatural encounters typically either expands what you can do with your psionic potential, or enhances it. For a Telekine, for example. A bracelet synced to a sword they can wield proficiently purely through their mind. A focus that lets them create solid barriers that bar passage. A ring that boosts the range they can throw objects.

You’ll notice this is specific to the Telekinesis power. Each power has its own ways it can diverge from others, such that no two players’ movesets will be alike, despite having the same power.