Author Topic: Divination Foci--Beyond Crystal Balls and Little Chicago  (Read 3120 times)

Offline bibliophile20

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Re: Divination Foci--Beyond Crystal Balls and Little Chicago
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2011, 02:41:32 PM »
Part of the reason I made this thread and leaned on the PC to design a focus in the first place is to have the narrative ability to describe what the PCs are seeing, and let them interpret it with the help of judicious lore checks.  It's significantly less out of character and alot more fun to describe what you're seeing through the medium of your focus than it is for the player to say, "Okay, I roll some dice and cast a complexity 12 but otherwise non-specific divination ritual.  I roll lore to interpret.  What did I find?"  And without a focus to present it through, I was having to just present it in a straight up "Just The Facts, Ma'am" fashion that I wasn't enjoying as GM, especially after canonical things like Little Chicago, the tracking glasses from Welcome To The Jungle, and even the map that the ectomancer sprayed with ink. 
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#12. If the seemingly helpless person you have just cornered is confident and unafraid despite being outnumbered and surrounded, you have encountered a Hero in disguise. Run while you still can.

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Offline Daeglan

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Re: Divination Foci--Beyond Crystal Balls and Little Chicago
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2011, 07:48:42 PM »
Love the fortune telling machine idea. Gotta put one of those in my world in general.

I have a player whose divination foci is a mechanical thingie that looks like a pocket watch, but has a compass, and aspects of a psudo-abucus/calculator type nature (maybe think beautiful circular slide rule?).

Dian

Sounds like the thing from the Golden compass