Re: [DL] Re: Harrowed Manitous

["Jeff Yates" <jyates@poboxes.com>]

<SNIP>
> That reminds me of another point - given that the rules change  in Book of
> the Dead so that the manitou always at least the same spirit stat as the
> Harrowed (unless the manitou happens to be Legion), how do you deal with
the
> player inevitably losing dominion point by point until the manitou takes
> over pretty much pemanently? I understand that's the main point of being
> Harrowed, fighting against the demon within, but with the dice weighted in
> the manitou's favour it seems that the battle will always be lost in the
> end. I end up trying to even things out with a - limited - supply of the
> Prospector's Elixir or something similar, but it seems like a bit of a
> fudge. Maybe I'm just stuck with the image of the Harrowed as a loner, a
la
> Ronan Lynch in the Dime Novels - he can't trust himself to stay with a
group
> for any length of time in case he loses his grip. . .
>

This is why players have fate chips.  If the player wants to help assure
that he/she doesn't lose dominion completely, he/she should spend a chip to
get a really good Spirit check once in a while.

I've had two Harrowed that lasted any length of time in the posse that I
run.  One player just didn't get it, and combined with some just plain bad
Spirit rolls, lost dominion pretty quick.  I haven't sprung him on the posse
yet.  But I let the player continue playing for quite some time without
dominion, because he tended to cause more mayhem and chaos than I had the
time to make up myself.  Gotta love players that help out the Marshal
without even realizing...

> D
>
> P.S.    Anyone noticed a tendency for posse members and marshals to play
> manitou-controlled harrowed like bad Angel from Buffy? : )
>

And the second Harrowed in the posse that "lived" for any length of time was
a martial artist.  Had a big, gnarly Manitou inside o' him, too.  When he
eventually lost dominion (took real long time), I didn't do anything.  The
posse was again _causing_ more fear than a lone Harrowed ever could, so I
just let the player go.  He was just loyal enough to pull the posse's
collective butt out of the fire when necessary, but also just cautious
enough that the Manitou never felt the need to take over and get it's own
butt out o' the line o' fire.  I even told the player that he had lost it,
so he kept up the good work -- protect the posse, prod the posse, get the
posse to do the dirty work, avoid all personal blame.  With just an
occassional Soul Eating to quick-heal when noone was looking.  Too bad he
blew a Cognition check once, and two (PC) Rangers snuck up on him while he
was sucking the life outta someone.  He Seized The Pearl a few times, but
with two Rangers fannin' their guns, eventually some bullets hit.

Just another player character that died and I didn't get credit for it ;-)

Jeff Y.
Marshal for the Dynamite Gang