Predomination Notes

This question has come up in the game a couple of times, and I have given my ruling on it before, however, there have been discussions regarding my reasoning. I will let you know my reasoning and thought process in making my decision.

The issue: It is not possible to do a Predomination Action as a Group Action. Period. That also means you cannot Aid someone in Predomination actions. **

Reasoning: The rubric and the theory of Predomination as it is described in the BRB do not match up well yet, and I'm unsure that what "Predomination" means is fully understood.
- When you Predominate an area, what you are doing is infusing the area with, for lack of better terms, aspects of you. Whether you understand this to be aspects of your soul or mind or whatever, the important bit is 'aspects of you'.

- Predomination is a willful act. That is, you cannot 'accidentally' Predominate an area, and an area does not 'become' Predominated without your INTENDING to do so. (Note: Predomination is different from an area becoming an affection).

- Predomination is a highly, intensely personal act. You are bending the Symphony in an area to resonate as you resonate. Your Will shapes the Symphony. That's huge.

- When you Predominate an area, your Embodiment (and aspects of your Morality) seep into the minds of the people in that area.

- If an area is already Predominated, there will be a mechanic for 'attuning' it further (ie. If someone Predominates an area to a Pleasant Temperance area, a Moral Charity could 'attune' the area to Pleasant Charity. Because this doesn't actually change the Morality of an area, the Charity ought to be able to have an easier time attuning it). Currently, there is no mechanic for this, but I have suggested reducing the Difficulties, so that attuning a Paradise/Hellhole would be a Difficulty of 5, and attuning a Pleasant/Slum area would be a Difficulty of 2. This is still an Opposed Roll, however. This is my suggestion, and it is what we will use for now until I hear otherwise.

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** Previously, I had allowed people to Aid one another in Predomination actions, providing their Embodiments and Moralities matched. I believe this used to be tangentially mentioned in the BRB. However, with the introduction of Secular Potency (it's in the Secular Actions section of the BRB), Predomination is *only* a personal action.

Also, for anyone who submitted a "Group Predominate" or "Aid Predominate" action this month, I'm willing to change that one action into something else, to free up those points.

*Update*
There will be a new Preeminence in Providence that allows you to "attune" a Predominated area. The Preeminence is called...wait for it...drumroll please....Predomination Attunement

Predomination Attunement (Preeminence and Potent Preeminence)
This Preeminence allows you to "attune" to yourself, at a lower Difficulty Rank, to a previously Predominated area with which you already share a Morality (ie. you're trying to 'switch' the an area from Wrath Slum/Pleasant to Fortitude Slum/Pleasant). Normally, you would have to reduce the area previously Predominated (by another character) to Neutral before proceeding with your own Predominance. If the Predominated area was a Hellhole/Paradise, you would have to reduce it through two Difficulty Ranks: Difficult (8) (H/P -> Slum/Pleasant), then Moderate (5) (Neutral) before embarking on your own Predomination. This Preeminance reduces that Difficulty by one Difficulty Rank each. There is still an Opposed Challenge for the Predomination.

As a Potent Preeminence, it allows you to "attune" to yourself to a previously Predominated are with which you already share an Embodiment (ie. you're trying to 'switch' the area from Wrath Slum/Hellhole to Wrath Pleasant/Paradise). The Difficulty for Attuning the Predominance to your own Embodiment in this case is Difficult (8) for a Slum/Pleasant area and Epic (15) for a Hellhole/Paradise. NOTE: You do NOT have to take the area down through the levels to accomplish this Attunement. There is still an Opposed Challenge for the Predomination.

In both instances, you must provide a writeup indicating how you attempt to 'attune' a previously predominated area to your own Embodiment or Morality.

I'm pretty sure that this is written in a most confusing manner, so please let me know what confuses you and I'll try to clarify.

::drool::

This is exactly what I was asking you about and trying to convince you was unclear in the rules. Now it is clear, although I think that it needs to be in both the Predomination and Preeminence sections unless the Predomination section has an area saying that you need this Preeminence for the "short cuts".

Any news on when the Predomination clarification I asked you about after the last game will come through?

Any news on when the Predomination clarification I asked you about after the last game will come through?

Yes.

Also, just to be clear, this Preeminence is one that I have drafted and it will not necessarily be extant in the final edition of the rulebook. I meant to post it in the House Rules section, but didn't want to start a new topic. Maybe I'll go start a new topic.

Does having the Potent version get you the not-so-Potent version as well? Or would you have to spend 3 points to get both?

Can you spend points from any Archetype to get this?

You'd have to spend 3 points to get both, I should think, and the points should come from your Mind Archetype.

cenobyte wrote:Also, just to be clear, this Preeminence is one that I have drafted and it will not necessarily be extant in the final edition of the rulebook. I meant to post it in the House Rules section, but didn't want to start a new topic. Maybe I'll go start a new topic.

But it isn't so much a House Rule as it is a New Preeminence available for players.

So then what is the rule, Jill? Even if you are the same Morality or Embodiment, all Predominations must go through Neutral to change?

For the basic Preeminence, you have to take the Predomination down through Neutral, but for the Potent Preeminence, you do not.

cenobyte wrote:For the basic Preeminence, you have to take the Predomination down through Neutral, but for the Potent Preeminence, you do not.

I'm sorry. Let me clarify.

If you have NO Preeminence, is the rule that you ALWAYS go through NEUTRAL?

Um. Okay, I don't understand the question.
Case 1: You have not Predominated an area, nor has anyone else. Follow the regular Predomination rules.

Case 2: There is an area which has been Predominated by someone, or something, else. You may or may not have Predominated another area yourself. For the Preeminence, you must take the area through Neutral to attune its Embodiment to your own (AND your Morality must match that of the current Predomination). The Difficulties for doing so are lowered by one Rank. [I'm thinking of tossing in an Inspiration or a re-roll on the Opposed Roll if the Embodiment is your Opposed Path]

For the Potent Preeminence, you do NOT have to take the area through Neutral to attune its Morality to your own. You must achieve a Moderate (5) Difficulty *and* succeed on the Opposed Challenge to attune the Morality to your own (the Embodiment must match your own, and will remain unchanged) if the area is a Pleasant/Slum. You must achieve a Hard (8) Difficulty *and* succeed on the Opposed Challenge to attune the Morality to your own (the Embodiment must match your own, and will remain unchanged) if the area is a Paradise/Hellhole. There are no re-rolls for the Opposed Challenge in this case.

I think I'm missing the point of your question, though, Alan.

I think you are two. I'll try using an example. I don't think that the BRB deals with this.

Let's say that my name is... oh, I don't know... Gabe. Let's also say that he is both Immoral and... Avarice! Further, let's assume that the city is for some strange reason almost entirely an Envy Slum. He has no preeminences.

(Whew! Making stuff up is hard. ::grin::)

Let's say that this Gabe fellow wants to Predominate an area. He is immoral so he is aiming for a Slum. He is Avarice so he wants Avarice. Now, he knows that he needs to change the area from Envy to Avarice and from Slum to Slum. Wait. Slum to Slum... doesn't that mean half the work is already done? What happens as he Predominates?

1) He Predominates the area and it goes from Slum Envy to Neutral Unembodied and then he must make another Predomination to take it from Neutral Unembodied to Slum Avarice.

2) He Predominates the Slum Envy to Slum Unembodied and then Predominates again from Slum Unembodied to Slum Avarice.

3) He Predominates from Slum Envy to Slum Avarice.

This "Gabe" of whom you speak would have to purchase the Potent Preeminence. Then he would do the following:

Predominate the area; his Difficulty would be 5, because *all he is doing is attuning the Embodiment to his own*. He's not doing ANYTHING with the morality. The area would then go from Envy Slum -> Avarice Slum, providing "Gabe's" Opposed Roll was successful.

Now if another character, say, "Schmabe", was a Moral Envious character, and wanted to change the Embodiment of this "Envy Slum" to an "Envy Pleasant", Schmabe would have to purchase the Preeminence, then he would have to take the area from Envy Slum to Neutral (at a lowered Difficulty of 2), then to an Envy Pleasant, at a lowered Difficulty of 5. Because he's not *touching* the Embodiment, only the Morality of the area. And Schmabe's Opposed Rolls would have to be successful, of course.

And what about if this "Gabe" decided that he couldn't afford the Preeminence and was doing this stuff *without it*.

Well then "Gabe" could go through the regular channels and adhere to the regular Difficulties, and the rules that you *always* have to go through Neutral to Predominate an area, regardless of whether all you're trying to do is change the Embodiment of the area.

Also, the Potent Preeminence can NOT be used to sidetrack the Difficulty cost for changing an area from Slum/Pleasant to Hellhole/Paradise.

cenobyte wrote:Well then "Gabe" could go through the regular channels and adhere to the regular Difficulties, and the rules that you *always* have to go through Neutral to Predominate an area, regardless of whether all you're trying to do is change the Embodiment of the area.

Lovely! That's what wasn't clear to me! Thanks!

I've been thinking about this a lot (too much, actually) and I think the potent version should either be made the normal preeminance or simply done away with. It is a great power, but the situation would rarely come up.

Also, with the normal version, I don't see why morality should be an issue if you are simply good at attuning people/places to your own morality and embodiment. I think the preeminance would work well if it let you reduce the difficulty be one step. Period. Regardless of your morality or that of the target location.

In post 12 Cenobyte said:
For the Potent Preeminence, you do NOT have to take the area through Neutral to attune its Morality to your own. You must achieve a Moderate (5) Difficulty *and* succeed on the Opposed Challenge to attune the Morality to your own (the Embodiment must match your own, and will remain unchanged) if the area is a Pleasant/Slum. You must achieve a Hard (eight) Difficulty *and* succeed on the Opposed Challenge to attune the Morality to your own (the Embodiment must match your own, and will remain unchanged) if the area is a Paradise/Hellhole. There are no re-rolls for the Opposed Challenge in this case. (Emphasis added)

I just want to be sure I understand the rules. Do you have to achieve the number of marks AND THEN you get to make an opposed challenge at the set difficulty OR is the difficulty set by the level to which you are trying to predominate and the number of marks you achieve will set what you need to roll on the opposed roll? I thought it was the latter for typical opposed challenges...is it different for predomination or did I misinterpret the BRB?

Also, with the normal version, I don't see why morality should be an issue if you are simply good at attuning people/places to your own morality and embodiment. I think the preeminance would work well if it let you reduce the difficulty be one step. Period. Regardless of your morality or that of the target location.

This exists already. It is the Sloth specific pre-eminence. Speaking of which, Jill do these new pre-eminences stack with the Sloth pre-eminence.

First, I've re-thought this, and I think the Pre-eminence should be able to come from either Mind *or* Body Archetype.

Dave: No, these Pre-eminences do not stack with the Sloth Pre-eminence to make sure I'm not *exactly* duplicating it; I'd forgotten about that, actually.

Mike wrote:Do you have to achieve the number of marks AND THEN you get to make an
opposed challenge at the set difficulty OR is the difficulty set by the
level to which you are trying to predominate and the number of marks
you achieve will set what you need to roll on the opposed roll? I
thought it was the latter for typical opposed challenges...is it
different for predomination or did I misinterpret the BRB?

I believe it's the latter. Hopefully, I have not been doing it wrong all this time.

Mike wrote:Also, with the normal version, I don't see why morality should be an
issue if you are simply good at attuning people/places to your own
morality and embodiment. I think the preeminance would work well if it
let you reduce the difficulty be one step. Period. Regardless of your
morality or that of the target location.

See, the thing is that your morality is ALWAYS an issue, because morality is one of two things that Predomination is based on. You can *not* attune an area to a morality opposite to yours. The reason morality is an issue is because these pre-eminences are designed to target *one half* of the Predomination issue only.

Also, just because something "might never come up" is not a good reason to not have the pre-eminence/potent pre-eminence. Just because it might never come up for one player/character doesn't mean that three others haven't been asking about it for months.