New HavenForumsAsk the StaffInvitation and you
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Matias.
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With all the talk of invitation in other thread I would like some clarification for whether it is reasonable for my character to say these things. A yes or no would suffice! This is presuming that what happens with invitation is a known thing.
1) Oh if my invitation gets any higher people will be able to climb in through my bedroom window
2) Oh you can hack my myhaven because my invitation is high
3) Oh no I can’t see you because if I talk to you I will be easily pinned by strong people
4) If I talk to you too much people will be able to kill me and I cannot be resurrected
5) Oh I forgot how to play chess to make a bargain for purity to be less invitedThank you
Honestly, all of these statements sound very meta-gamey to me.
You can RP that the principle of invitation is something you know about ICly.
Obviously, those actual examples would be terrible RP like any other sort of super literal RPing about mechanics.
The problem is. Unless there is a book in game that says
When the aura gets smokey you can hack their myhaven.
Why would your character EVER think they can hack someone’s myhaven?Why would your character EVER think they can climb through the bedroom of someone who’s hung out with evil even if there’s cameras and security and bars? (like Security 4 is meant to be high tech security system)
Why would your character think oh I can bite so and so without hypnotising first when normally they always need to be hypnotised?
Why would your character know the ‘locate’ command exists and can magically tell you what room they’re in and which direction they are?
Your character would have no IC reason whatsoever to think they can achieve any of these things.
I assumed it was a matter of trouble you had invited. You owe a lot of powerful beings some favors, and this has resulted in some vulnerabilities that others can take advantage of.
No but how would YOUR character know these are advantages you can take? Unless there’s a list of when aura is this grey this is possible? Do you regularly IRL see someone can go heyyy I can force this guy to imagine stuff! Hey this guy’s aura this dark so I can just steal from him.
Gonna throw out my personal interpretation of invitation and how to go from an OOC list of additional antag options to an IC scenario.
If you view your aura as a representation of your psyche/person. Than a high invitation shows in the aura. You as a person are inviting (invitation right) darkness into your life. So instead of locking your door every night and setting your alarm maybe you are subconsciously not bothering. So your bedroom might be toughness 100 security 100 but it doesn’t matter because you leave your window unlocked because deep down you unknowingly want to be antaged you want the darkness to come. That is invitation.
Additionally if the habit/subconscious explanation is not sufficient you can go to option 2. That higher invitation equals more susceptible aura equals more susceptible to suggestion. Someone tip taps at your bedroom window and you open it even though you know you shouldn’t. Someone wants to brainwash you and you think you’ll resist, but they are so powerful and eventually they’ll break you so just give up now.
How can someone know soandso is brainwashable or you can break into their bedroom or hack their myhaven. Their aura shows they have given into inviting darkness. They will have habits and susceptible to make those things possible. The antagonizer just has to test and see if it works.
When the aura gets smokey you can hack their myhaven.
Why would your character EVER think they can hack someone’s myhaven?Why would your character EVER think they can climb through the bedroom of someone who’s hung out with evil even if there’s cameras and security and bars? (like Security 4 is meant to be high tech security system)
Why would your character think oh I can bite so and so without hypnotising first when normally they always need to be hypnotised?
Why would your character know the ‘locate’ command exists and can magically tell you what room they’re in and which direction they are?
Your character would have no IC reason whatsoever to think they can achieve any of these things.
My take is: Your character wouldn’t know. If your character is not a hacker or tech savvy, they would not try to hack someone’s myhaven. If your charcter is not magically inclined they would not try to send an illusion someone’s way.
If your character is tech savvy then they do not try to hack someone’s myhaven IC because they know it is possible, they try it because they want to mess with the person and for some reason they manage to do it this time while other times they failed. They credit their tech skill for it, not invitation. Same with other mundane things, like breaking and entering, or stealing.
With supernatural events I think it is more plausible that the perpetrator realizes that invitation is involved. But more in a vague way and not in the exact sense of “my victim has level 6 invitation so I can bite them without needing to trance them”, more in the sense of “I feel that my victim has been corrupted, it will be easier if I try to influence them, or compel them with my magic”
That all these supernatural effects have a 100% success rate because of invitation is more meta knowledge than anything else. Our characters don’t necessarily know that, only that it is easy to influence people that have touched the supernatural.
It is the same with any game mechanic. Just because it is possible does not necessarily mean that your char would do it or could do it. Trying to shoehorn it in just because it is an option is very meta-gamey. Using invitation commands without your char having at least a shred of related technical/magical knowledge is metagaming.
It is like that one chatroom channel in H6 where the helpfile said that your char needed Hacking and Occult Knowledge stats to know about it. It was not mechanically enforced and technically anyone could tune in. Or any IC note that says: Your char needs this or that to access the information provided within this. There is no mechanical enforcement of it, but it relies on people RPing in good faith.
Or a different example: All the stats that have no coded benefit.
If you, for example, RP your char being a world-class poker player while having the Games stat at 0, that would be metagaming, even though it is possible and no one is going to police it.
It is unclear how naturals are able to fimagine.
As I said, I’d argue that it is bad form to use it as a natural unless you are Sensitive/Psychic or have arcane focus points.
I mean, what your character observes to occur through mechanics is one of the few concrete methods of portrayal the system has. Invitation must be a mark of how much your character knows you can do, because the effects they produce are occasionally nonsensical.
How else does one rationalize ‘One moment someone was a block down the street in another building, in the next second they broke through the window of my windowless room?’ When characters have to engage with one another through the system, such as say, wanting to chip another character to their virtuous or evil ends, they must understand such logic as ‘They have not invited an acceptable increment for me to do this.’
What I think about those examples seems poor RP or meta-gamey is how they specific of consequence they are? The better thing RP, as a character, is like;
1) I’m afraid that anyone can break into my home at night, afraid I’ll forfeit my safety and privacy.
2) Even if I’m just scrolling social media, I won’t be able to escape temptation.
3) I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist corrupted people.
4) If I invite too much Charon will no longer consider payment for my soul, for I am in some way already dead.
5) (You’re not really supposed to neg-train as an excuse for ‘experience currency.’) I’ve spent the last week, giving up on the progress of my hobbies and ambitions and self, to spend some time in contemplation with God/Buddha/some essence of human morality that assuages temptation towards sin.There are limits, of course, to how much you can rationalize IC. I try not to think about bedwindow or how some abilities and powers are entirely arbitrary in how they don’t effect NPCs. It’d be nice to see more explanation for that stuff, and it’s a little frustrating, but it’s not the end of the world.
That said, I think Matias has the most reasonable, actionable interpretation of how invitation works, which is that your character should act invited. They should, through their actions, be more conscionably inviting of the actions of darker forces- or resigned to them.
No real stake in this but would like to strongly disagree with it being bad form to use invitation’s more magical abilities as a natural without arcane knowledge.
If Nova didn’t want us doing that, it would be /trivially/ easy for him to add a check for it. And you can absolutely suggest doing so.
I would say as a natural non-sensitive, you’re free to RP invitation in various ways that make sense for your char. if you like, you’re unable to use it. But also, you’re free to just, have one of your contacts hack on your behalf and give it to you. Have some creature you’ve a pact with aid you. Have an eidolon from your cult aid you. Have a magical tool you’re using for it. Have literally knowledge of nothing else but know that.
invitation is a tool to enable antag, any tool that is enabled for you this way, in New Haven, is a tool you are allowed to use and roleplay being able to use in whatever way is defined (in this case, none specifically) or whatever makes sense for your character. It’s the flipside of the coin where, no matter how cool you think it is, you’re not allowed to RP abilities you don’t mechanically / lorewise have.
I’d take it all fairly loosely. Figure it out with a handwaive. Leave the limiting to Nova, not each other.
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