Players as "spirits" turning NPCs into PCs
- Thread starter Bullgrit
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Cerebral Paladin
First Post
I've toyed for a while with running a tongue-in-cheek game, probably for conventions, where the characters are in a world which they know follows RPG rules. (One of my hypothetical plot ideas is the characters trying to track down a copy of the BBEG's stat block, so they can figure out how to fight him best.) I now have the idea of the characters agreeing to adventure together because, "well, we all know that we're PCs, because we follow the rules for PCs not the rules for NPCs. So it makes sense for us all to work together and trust each other." And of course, characters who know that they're built as monsters would be particularly unhappy about meeting PCs. 
That said, I think you could use the idea of spirits changing people into PCs in a serious game. It's another version of any idea of "the PCs are the set of people with a destiny," which is pretty common in fantasy gaming.
That said, I think you could use the idea of spirits changing people into PCs in a serious game. It's another version of any idea of "the PCs are the set of people with a destiny," which is pretty common in fantasy gaming.
FireLance
Legend
I had toyed with a similar idea for an Eberron campaign - the PCs are a group of quori spirits possessing a variety of individuals to implement their nefarious plans.
I never actually went through with it for a number of reasons: according to Eberron canon, the quori are evil (the non-evil ones merged with humans to become kalashtar) and I prefer to run campaigns for heroic PCs, the mechanics for possession imposed some fairly tight restrictions on the people that could be possessed, and gave them too many benefits (IMO), and since this was during the days of 3e, I was less prepared to toss the default flavor and rules out the window and come up with my own.
I might actually do this once I've wrapped up my current campaign, though.
I never actually went through with it for a number of reasons: according to Eberron canon, the quori are evil (the non-evil ones merged with humans to become kalashtar) and I prefer to run campaigns for heroic PCs, the mechanics for possession imposed some fairly tight restrictions on the people that could be possessed, and gave them too many benefits (IMO), and since this was during the days of 3e, I was less prepared to toss the default flavor and rules out the window and come up with my own.
I might actually do this once I've wrapped up my current campaign, though.
Psychotic Jim
First Post
Actually, I don't think you would necessarily need to put any sort of mechanics with it. It could just exist as an in game justification for how replacements PCs are typically introduced in the game. You know, how players joke about their characters having a special PC identification card? And there always seems to be PCs of appropriate level waiting in the wings? Well, now, BANG! Now you've got a fun and interesting in character reason for it. Adds a new twist on character death and the ramifications.
As for existing game resources that could provide flavor to support this, I'm not very familiar with 4e, but I understand that devas are reincarnated over a long time, right? What if something caused them to have to merge with living mortals instead?
In 3e, IIRC, there was an Oriental Adventures spell (might have been in the Rokugan book), that took the spirit of a departed character and shunted in into a relation or close friend of the departed character and brought them into the game. This was because raising the dead was seen as unnatural in the game world. You could always take the concept and apply it here.
Finally, if you really wanted a mechanical take on things in 3e and actually stat out the spirit itself, you could always apply the rules from Ghost Walk. The dead PC's spirit would take the form of a ghost until she could find a new host body (a new PC). If every PC of the same player is inhabited by the same ghost, then the ghost itself could get a separate character sheet.
As for existing game resources that could provide flavor to support this, I'm not very familiar with 4e, but I understand that devas are reincarnated over a long time, right? What if something caused them to have to merge with living mortals instead?
In 3e, IIRC, there was an Oriental Adventures spell (might have been in the Rokugan book), that took the spirit of a departed character and shunted in into a relation or close friend of the departed character and brought them into the game. This was because raising the dead was seen as unnatural in the game world. You could always take the concept and apply it here.
Finally, if you really wanted a mechanical take on things in 3e and actually stat out the spirit itself, you could always apply the rules from Ghost Walk. The dead PC's spirit would take the form of a ghost until she could find a new host body (a new PC). If every PC of the same player is inhabited by the same ghost, then the ghost itself could get a separate character sheet.
Here's one to try if you're just looking for a justification mechanic for new PCs showing up...
Deck of Legends
This relic contains cards, each of which has a unique face depicting some kind of heroic being. To use the deck, several cards are placed face down on a flat surface in a pattern called a tableau. When a card is chosen from a tableau, the person who drew the card will encounter the heroic being depicted upon the
There are several different kinds of tableaus, each of which affects the odds of what kind of hero (alignment, class, race, etc.) will be chosen...but determining what kind of specific tableau will work for a particular kind of hero requires a Spellcraft Check of DC 30. No deck holder can learn more than 4 tableaus.
Deck of Legends
This relic contains cards, each of which has a unique face depicting some kind of heroic being. To use the deck, several cards are placed face down on a flat surface in a pattern called a tableau. When a card is chosen from a tableau, the person who drew the card will encounter the heroic being depicted upon the
There are several different kinds of tableaus, each of which affects the odds of what kind of hero (alignment, class, race, etc.) will be chosen...but determining what kind of specific tableau will work for a particular kind of hero requires a Spellcraft Check of DC 30. No deck holder can learn more than 4 tableaus.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
I would have thought that the fact that non-evil quori have previously found it necessary to merge with humans would just make it easier to justify non-evil quori doing so again...
Haha, good point. However, I think FireLance was suggesting that the good quori spirits all already did merge with humans in centuries past -- permanently. OTOH, it's Eberron of course, so a handful of contemporary non-evil quori (5 or 6 should do ) wouldn't be a setting-breaker.
FireLance
Legend
Yeah, I could have added a small group of non-evil quori into the campaign, but I didn't think of it at the time, and the "official" possession mechanics were not really suitable for PCs (yes, I could also have changed them, but again, I didn't think of it at the time).
While it sounds like a good idea, I still see some issue.
A great book to read: Lord of Light by Zelanzy.
Does your world myth support it? You will have to make sure the players know about it and any restriction you place on it; like saving thrown by the NPC to prevent the spirit from taking over. Also, how many times can it take place and what spells can cause more damage to the spirit than the host (spells effecting the mind). Also, can more than one spirit have control of the body; if no, what happened to the other guy.
A great book to read: Lord of Light by Zelanzy.
roguerouge
First Post
I do this in my bi-weekly beer and pretzels style game. The justification is that there's a mithril space station run by a group of people who believe that mortals, not the gods, should write their own destiny. They use magic jars, plane shift/teleportation circles, regeneration baths, programmed illusion rooms and other sci-fi in fantasy garb devices to send the PCs to places across the infinite earths where their diviners say the world has reached a probability knot whose untangling will have a ripple effect across that world's history. The PCs go, do their thing, and set the world on its course. When characters die, they're whisked off by the teleporters to the regen baths, then reinserted after that combat.
The campaign name? Dungeon Leap.
The campaign name? Dungeon Leap.
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