Subject: Re: Point of Rotes
From: [email protected]
Date: 1998/05/05
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: alt.games.whitewolf
In article <[email protected]>#1/1,
C. CZERNIAK wrote:
>
> I was wondering on how people run rotes in their game. I have
> found little to no point to them for use with rules, or adding to the
> actual roleplaying experience. I have actually found them to be a crutch
> for players, who instead of doing something creative, cast a rote in which
> they say "I'll cast Ricochet, or Rip the Man Body." My usual reply is
> "That's great, but what the hell does that do." Which results in breaking
> out the book and looking up the details of the rote. What is the point to
> spending all this time learning a rote when it would be just as easy to
> cast a non rote spell on the spot.
Rotes, even in the standard rules serve some purposes. First off, they
are examples of composing effects. 'Rip the Man Body' for instance,
is not a Rote, it's an effect. The sample Rotes were pulled out of the
main book in 2nd Ed, (I believe you can find them in Hidden Lore - packaged
with the GM screen), in 1st, there were a number of Rotes that nicely
illustrated how to create interesting conjunctional effects. Secondly,
the allow some fixes and exceptions to be inserted into the rules. For
instance, the OOH Tradbook has the 2nd ed version of Ball of Abysmal Flame -
normally or forces attacks do the same amount of damage, but that rote
does 5 HL/success, a little tweak to the rules on high level forces. Third,
they help add color and feel to a Trad, again in OOH, the Phlogiston
Manipulation rote does a wonderful job of conveying the alchemical elements
of the OOH paradigm, and just how different it is from the consensus (the
SoE book could have used such rotes!). Finally, they allow you to cook up
Rote-specific foci. If all you ever use are your general 'sphere' foci,
you lose a lot of color and individuality - and can leave yourself at a
disadvantage at times. For instance, as a Virtual Adept, I'm stuck
stringing together various commands and programs on the fly when I try
to 'wing' an effect - I'm just begging for a large initiative penalty,
if not multiple turns of casting, just to use my focus - but, if I have
a pre-programmed rote ready to go, I'm just a keystroke or few away from
getting the effect off. Many's the time that jabbing [ESC] has saved my
bacon. ;)
> I would understand if white wolf gave
> some advantage for using a rote (or hinderance for not using it) but they
> don't so they seem like silly example spells (useful in the mainbook) that
> take up space in seplements. Does anyone make decent use of rotes, or are
> they just floating spell descriptions.
I happen to be very fond of Rotes (this is not unusual among the Virtuals
and Hermetics, BTW). If the 'standard' uses of rotes don't seem worthwhile
to you, there have been a number of possibilities. Just on the net, you
can find:
http://www.slacker.clara.net/rotedat/roterules.html
(Alternate Rote rules by Chris Bell - I use something very similar myself)
http://www.slacker.clara.net/rotedat/aboutrotes.html
(a triest on Rotes)... these are both on the Online Rote Database, which
is also pretty cool: http://www.slacker.clara.net/rotedat/
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/1317/structur.html
(my own take on tailoring the Paradox of your Rotes)
One possibility, since rotes are supposed to be teaching tools, is
to allow mages to learn rotes they don't quite have the spheres for.
For instance, I allow characters to buy, with exp or study points,
rotes that are 1 dot too high (in the highest sphere) for them to
cast - thus an Adept of Correspondence could spend points to learn
SemiAuto CAD/CAM (Corr 5 Matter 3), he wouldn't get the bonuses like
in Mr Bell's article, but he would be able to use the Rote. When he
finally buys his Corr 5, the points spent on the rote count towards that
next sphere level... making it a true teaching tool.
A closely related trick, is to allow mages to learn a particular
Rote that has a secondary sphere that they lack. This is good, when
the character concept and paradigm of the mage call for the rote, but
not for one of the spheres needed to cast it. I charge 1 exp/level of
the rote + 2 exp per level of the sphere that the mage lacks. For instance,
say you have an Hermetic who's intent on being a 'fire mage' but whom
the player pictures as being ignorant of the Prime sphere... he could
buy Ars Ignes (Forces 3 Prime 2) for 7 exp. This would allow him to
conjure flame, without gaining the ability to sense quintessence, use
anti-magick, and so forth. In this case, he's not really learning the
prime sphere at all, and the 7 points wouldn't go towards Prime if he
ever did learn it, rather, he's taking a tiny bit of what is normally
Prime, and incorporating it into his conception of Forces. A largely
semantic distinction, but helpful to define the character's abilities
in greater detail.
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