One strong element that the current games have is that your character can slide into Insanity or Corruption. I hope that Black Crusade keeps this, with some modifications of course.

Insanity can stay more-or-less the same. Chaos followers are crazy, but if you become too raving mad to function, I imagine your "friends" would use you as raw material for a daemonhost. A little tweaking of the rules is all I think they would need to do.

Corruption is a different matter entirely. For those of you with some grey hairs, you may have been lucky enough to play the Chaos Warband system from the Realm of Chaos books. Truly wonderful stuff. The lore is that while many Chaos Champions aspire to daemonic immortality, the majority die in battle or are transformed into chaos spawn. Your champion would earn "Favor Points" in the service of the dark powers, which would result in Gifts of the Gods or Mutations. Along the way, there were several ways your champion could be "spawned," While only a very high roll on the "Chaos Reward Table" would transform you into a Daemon Prince (and even then, only if you had become powerful enough). A modification of this would be perfect for the RPG. When you accumulate 100 points (Favor, Glory, whatever), you make a final check to see if your character is rewarded with Daemonhood or cursed with Spawnhood. I know that a lot of people will rage against this idea, crying that if they lose their character, it's no reward. If the system is set up properly, earning these points will not be easy & they will benefit the character in some way (lure of Chaos, right?). Also, a true roleplayer will be quite satisfied that his/her beloved character has acheived their ultimate goal. You can bet that the new Prince would be proudly converted to lead a aemonic Legion on my tabletop. Just wanted to share my thoughts. Thanks & good gaming!

Tome of Corruption for WFRP 2nd Ed does this

That's encouraging. I have not seen any of the Fantasy stuff. Thanks for the info.

What about a "sanity" mechanic, where you character would gradually come to empathize with the suffering of others, or value the stability of reality as we know it? At certain brackets it would compel you to do relatively normal things, and it would increase the difficulty of fear tests according to the "WTF is that?!?!" rule....

Golgenna Grenadier said:

Interesting twist, but I don't think it fits the "Chaos will **** you forever" feel that's been established. With the exception of the Sensei's Redeemer power (anyone remember?), I can't think of any exaples of people coming back from Chaos corruption. To qoute a small, xenos philosopher ", Once you start down the dark path, consume you it will. As it did ++Inqiusitorial Clearance Only++ apprentice."

I suspect that as the whole point of this game would be for your character to be a servant of the ruinous powers, it wouldn't work for your character to ever become completely unplayable due to insanity.

In certain RPGs there were sanity-based game mechanics under which your charcter would effectively be taken over by the GM once a certain sanity threshold was crossed: I'm thinking of Vampire: The Masquerade "humanity"and Cyberpunk's "cyberpsychosis" mechanisms specifically.

In this game, I imagine they might go for something a bit like the Deathwatch sanity system, allowing players to control almost completely human characters on the edge of toying with dark and eldritch powers beyond their comprehension to full blown batshit crazy demi-spawn. You wouldn't want a system that takes characters out of your hands when they fall to chaos when falling to chaos is the point of the game!

Lightbringer said:

No argument about the fall, being the point. I just think that the ultimate "reward" of Chaos needs to be included to do the game justice. The ultimate fates of a follower of Chaos are; death, spawn, daemonhood. It might be a month or ten-thousand years, but they all wind up being corrupted & mutated. I don't think you are really playing Chaos properly if the slide toward incomprehensible madness or complete physical corruption is not represented. Do I think that Chaos PCs should be getting insanity points for witnessing a blood bath? No. Corruption for Perils of theWarp? It should affect them differently, but yes. Giving yourself to Chaos doesn't stop you from losing your mind or mutating, you willingly plunge head first down the slide! Look at the Thousand Sons & the old Realm of Chaos books (the true source) to see what I mean.

By the way, the above was meant as a joke. Should have added a smile or something. Thank you for the intelligent response though, instead of just blasting me.

@Lightbringer

I suspect that as the whole point of this game would be for your character to be a servant of the ruinous powers, it wouldn't work for your character to ever become completely unplayable due to insanity.

I disagree. The point will obviously be far beyond that of the other three systems, but both Corruption and Insanity have certain limits - at x Insanity, your character doesn't function anymore in any way that can meaningfully interact with others and at y Corruption, your body can't take it anymore and devolves into chaos spawn. Those I would consider hard limits.

Regarding the mechanics, I certainly hope the decision between Daemon Prince and Chaos Spawn doesn't come down to a die roll like it sometimes did in the Tome of Corruption.

Golgenna Grenadier said:

Really? But you made a lot of sense. After all:

When you look into a brilliant light of warmth and love, the brilliant light of warmth and love also looks into you !

and

Battle not with small children and puppies, lest ye become a small child with a puppy!

Graver said:

Run away!

Golgenna Grenadier said:

<grin> It DID give me a "Huh??" moment! And you're welcome, but I would never blast anyone. I think it's awful when people behave that way. We all share a common interest & should be treated with respect & dignity.

Letrii said:

Lightbringer said:

Or, the OG of all Call of Cthulhu!

L

LETE said:

Yes, exactly!

I guess my point is that I would imagine FFG will go for a mechanic similar to the one in Deathwatch. Under that system, Marines don't go crazy in the same way as normal humans: they just begin to embody the flaws of their primarch more fully until they begin to behave in ways that could be damaging to them.

In Black Crusade, I'm guessing that the ultimate aim of the character development part of the game will be very much like that of the old Realm of Chaos books, namely to become a Daemon Prince. Along the path to that, the player's sanity will become so shattered that, depending upon the god they worship, they will begin to act in ways that embody that god's views and opinions.

According to the character's own terms of reference, then, behaviour that would in any normal society be "insane" is perfectly legitimate, and perhaps wouldn't be a cause for mental degeneration. So a follower of Khorne would be acting in a "sane" way if he were to slaughter people, collect skulls etc etc.

When the character behaves outside the boundaries of behaviour encouraged by his god, he may well, however, begin to suffer not only from mental degeneration, but may also be cursed by the god he follows.

So the ones who end up as spawn are the ones who aren't able to align their mindset with their god. The ones who succeed are-by any "normal" standard-totally insane, but by the standards of chaos worshippers are as sane as you or I. Well, you, anyway.

All this is pure speculation, of course, I have no idea how FFG will go about it, but I liked the Deathwatch system for dealing with insanity/horror among those with who posses what is effectively an inhuman psyche.

Hiyas!

I have a hunch they probably have a set of rules based on the 2nd Edition WFRP Corruption rules from the "chaos book (can't remember the name)," plus some nifty, almost imperceptible, tweak which will make the whole thing click.

White Wolf's Exalted: the Abyssals dealt with "renegade" abyssals (the ones that were forced or began to redeem themselves) quite nicely! Exalted was a cool line that wasn't usually f*ckd up.

In a different vein, the rules for "redemption from the dark side" in the Star Wars RPG which were nice too.

What I'm worried about is something that has been stated before. It's "fun" to wanna play a bad guy, from a distance... Once you get to the nitty gritty (choose your own God & think of different scenarios), maybe some will find this game exceptionally offensive... I mean, aren't the Chaos Gods based on Mankind's deepest & most primal fears (violence, insanity, disease, sexual deviation)?

L

lordmalachdrim said:

LETE said:

I think the devs diary entry here will help you:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2028

It really puts that second spin on things, the chaos gods, while yes do have that side to them, also have the other sides, and other facets too their worship. There is more to heaven and earth than read on twisting and writhing words written on eldrich scrolls, Horatio.

Lightbringer said:

I'm not convinced. Playing with fire should always be done with caution, after all. I certainly think there's such a thing as 'too much warpstone/insanity', and I feel it would help make the game something other than a gore-fest for players to have to manage their insanity/corruption to keep things within a playable threshold. I personally don't want to play a game where there is no brake on player/pc depravity.

After all: Under the RoC rules you could blobble into a chaos spawn due to bad luck. With great power comes great...risk, mostly.