Watcher Spirits, Questions and ideas Options

[Turjon Apocritus]

I am running a campaign where one of the runners took Spirit Bane (watcher spirits) i said he could but no i think i might be regretting it because i normally like to really play up negative qualities because its free BP if you don't. So here is my question the Spirit Bane quality says that the runner "really torques" when in presence of the spirit picked.

Does anyone have any ideas i can use in the campaign, that a watcher spirit always force 1 and as dumb as a dog can harass a player.

[Magus]

This is actually a fun flaw to roleplay both as a PC and GM......

[Gothic Rose]

You could have the Watchers run around to every single mage they can find, talking about the character and what he's doing.

[Azralon]

I'm not sure watchers were intended to be a selectable Bane. They're too impotent, and can't do anything other than nonviolently harass a mundane.

[Feshy]

[JRDobbs]

Consider that watchers provide cheap, reliable, secure messaging services in the 6th world, suggesting that normal urban astral space is filled with watchers zipping about every couple of minutes on errands. Now imagine a character with spirit bane (watchers) being buzzed by each and every one of these watchers who crosses his path on the street. The "chill" sensation associated with astral forms crossing an aura could quickly go from informative (there's an astral intruder about) to horrifying ("I'm being groped by dozens of watcher spirits!").

[Magus]

Like I said typically watcher are the most unused overlooked aspects of spirits. There have been threads of watcher packs in astral space giving the friends in melee bonus on attacking elementals. But even if the subject is mundane you can do so much with them kinda like a lower form of gremlins as feshy said. Have fun go nuts with this. It is not a fatal flaw like if he chose Fire or Earth spirit bane. But one that can cause havoc and good times.

[Azralon]

If you're lousy with orbiting watchers to where they're interfering with every public and private moment, then at that point I'd say 10 BPs are an inadequate compensation.

The whole Affinity/Bane thing is woefully underquantified anyway. I'd be much more comfortable with it if they had outright said something clean like "You are at +1/-1 dice to all Opposed Tests with this kind of spirit."

[Feshy]

[Azralon]

Yeah, anything vaguely written can be made cool with the right GM's interpretation.

Therein lies the weakness, too. :)

[Eyeless Blond]

[Feshy]

[Demon_Bob]

A Spirit's Intuition and Logic are equal to its force.
So a powerful free spirit might not wish to kill a character but to make his life miserable.
For example: During the middle of a simple run the Fire Spirit set off the fire alarm; The character come home from a great night out at the bar to ind a fire spirit roasting marshmallows over what used to be his apartment; The item you were sent to retrieve is torched.
10 BP for this is a little low to happen more than once in a great while.

[Lilt]

The problem with watchers hating you is that they seem to glitch more often than they succeed. I just ran a sample combat for my flatmate yesterday (using the combat mage sample character) and on one turn his watchers *all* glitched initiative, two of them critically.

Basically, they can try and do stuff but unless they're working together they won't be able to do much and may well end-up helping you as, with only 1-2 dice to roll, are fairly likely to critically glitch in their attempts to harm you.

I mean, they don't even have the perception skill. When defaulting you roll attribute -1. With an attribute of 1, that leaves 0 dice meaning you need to spend edge or to extra dice. Watchers have an edge of 0, so they'd need extra dice. Unless multiple watchers are actively looking for you as a group, they can't even see you unless you're obvious. Astral forms are obvious, we know this much, but what are auras? Note that even if they did get to use their assensing skill, which is hardly appropriate unless you're precieving or projecting, it's not hard to give someone even a -1 or -2 dice penalty to make them fail. If you ever start sneaking, then they'll probably lose track of you, or maybe even forget you were ever there.

[Turjon Apocritus]

Thank you so much everyone for all of the ideas and suggestions i start this run sunday so i will let you all know how it goes and see what i can do.

[The Jopp]

So the player choose spirit bane and watchers…Is he INSANE?

Ok, here are the perks.

They cannot really physically harm him.

Here are the drawbacks.

Lonestar Watchers: Will keep a few extra eyes open on him, and report him, constantly – no matter how innocent he is.

Team Mage summons watcher: Watcher refuses to cooperate until the character leaves the group.

Random Watchers: Well, they can probably find SOME reason to harass him. Let’s see…they had some nifty powers didn’t they? Alarm for example? Having a watcher popping up every few minutes/seconds/at important meetings blaring out a searing sound of alert might not be very fu

Corporate Watchers: Might be reported as an intruder as long as he is on the premises, or simply just attacked by the local spirit since the watchers told him that they had an intruder.

[Azralon]

That's what I mean about these Qualities needing hard rules rather than relying completely on GM interpretation. Watchers can be totally ineffectual wisps or a devastating zergling horde, depending on how your gamemaster sees them and the gameworld.

[The Jopp]

Agree, Lilts example made me wonder if one can rely on a watcher acting independently at all. Still, my example was more in the line of what watchers would do on a regular day when the character is just walking on the street or just going shopping. The watchers just have a strong dislike to the persons aura and will attack it in one way or another (not physically, that would be silly).

Having the GM interpreting the rules for a flaw, or at least coming to an agreement with the player in how the flaw would affect the character is something I find as a good thing, a flaw is just that, a flaw. Flaws should be felt and just not be a freebie point. I see spirit bane working in different ways depending on the spirit type and what background the player might have for the character.

Watchers: Deals in information and harassment, would not harm the character physically. Harassing you with Alarm power, constant manifestations and yelling profanities at the character every 30 seconds on the other hand…

Animal Spirits: these might call upon local animals to attack you or just make sure that those guard dogs know where you are.

Elemental spirits: These can be a pain. Have the wind spirit made sure that your car is beneath a huge pile of snow for the third week in a row, in the middle of summer? Have the earth elemental removed your house again, oh, its there, five meters below the surface. Water spirits can be very destructive, especially if they find out where you live…constant flooding anyone?