Discord.pdf

A World of Possibility

Stacy walked the circle very carefully, making sure

that everything was right. The moon would be in its best

aspect soon, and everything had to be right. The candles

were all lit and properly placed. The reagents were

ready.

The circle was etched with care. She had traced over

the pattern in the book at least a dozen times now. Every

line, every curve, and every intersection was perfectly

made. Even the tiny little flourishes at the ends of the

lines were properly curved.

As the moon rose into prominence, Stacy took

position at the edge of the circle. Lifting her dress

carefully, she knelt down into the soft earth and began to

chant the mantras.

Hour by hour passed, but she was vigilant. Her

throat was dry and cracking, the words coming out in a

strained whisper. The candles burned low as the way

spread over the ground. The wind slowly died down to a

whisper.

At long last, the time had come. Stacy's heart

quickened, pumping hot blood into every part of her. Her

breath come faster, more ragged. She had even begun to

feel a little excited in that most special way. There was

something erotic about a spell working out the way you

wanted it to.

The circle began to glow red and a mist rose up as

the candles died out in a burst of wind. The mist

coalesced into a human form, with dark ruddy skin.

Stacey raised her head to it and said, “Welcome great

spirit, I have called you here to serve me.”

The demon grimaced down at her and replied, “I

think you made a mistake little girl. This circle is all

wrong and your not at all powerful enough to command

me.” He then took a step towards her, but Stacy did not

move. She smiled as a slight worry shook through her.

She didn't make a mistake, but the thought of it gave her

a chill.

Reaching behind her back, Stacy removed the

twisted ritual knife. “No, I am quite confident that this is

how I wanted things to go,” she spoke. And then she dove

towards it thinking, “This is always the best part.”

Table of Contents

• Page 3 – Introduction

• Page 4 – The Basics

• Page 9 – Character Creation

• Page 11 – Behind the Curtain

• Page 15 – Physical Paradigm

• Page 20 – Mental Paradigm

• Page 21 – Spiritual Paradigm

• Page 22 – Wielding the Unseen Powers

• Page 24 – Shaping Events

• Page 25 – Items and Inventory

• Page 26 – Paradigms

Introduction

A while back, I found out about the 24-Hour RPG

project and though to myself, "Damn, that's a cool idea."

Making a whole game in 24 hours perfectly suited my

attention span, so I started thinking about ideas that would

make a good one. After sifting through a few in my

muddled mind, I decided upon an idea that had occurred

to me after reading a Wikipedia article about occultism.

Apparently, there's this kind of magic(k) called

"Chaos Magic," that works around the idea of paradigm

shifting and such. The idea of a modern magic game

suddenly seemed really cool. Of course, I quickly realized

that stuff like Mage and Unknown Armies had already

treaded this ground, but I thought I could do a good job

and bring something different to the table. So here it is,

Discord, my 24 hour game about modern mages and

casting your way through life. Enjoy.

A Few Words on Style

Throughout this text, I try to keep the tone light, but

within the realm of its material. Since this is a game about

magic and mystical stuff, I wanted the text to sound kind of

"whoOoOOoO" mysterious. More than likely, it will not

quite have that effect, but I hope it remains legible.

As to my use of gender pronouns, an issue that every

game designer just has to talk about these days, I decided

to be funny and use the Spivak pronouns, "e," "em," and

"eirs."

Nothing is True

...And everything is permitted. This paradox is the

fundamental law of chaos magic. Everyday, everywhere,

people are creating their own realities. In every corner,

there is the stirring of magic, but most just cannot fathom

it. They look at it, all the time, but they do not see it .

What does it mean to see? How can anything be

permitted if nothing is true? Understanding comes with

time and study. At the surface, it simply means that you

can see and do anything you want, but nothing you do is

absolutely true. There is no higher Truth, no one great

force that governs all. There is only you, and your will.

There is more to it, however, than simple acceptance.

Chaos magic is not about accepting, but about rejecting.

First you reject the idea that anything is absolutely True,

then you learn that anything can be true. Belief, faith,

dogma, and ritual are all tools for the magician to wield.

They are clothes that the mage wears to aid in creating er

effects. The changing of belief systems, the "paradigm

shift" is one of the primary rituals of chaos magic.

In this game, you take on the role of a magician. You

can be a chaos magician, or you can stick to one paradigm,

or something else entirely, whatever works for you. In the

next few pages, the various things that make up a character

will be discussed. But first, take a look at the character

sheet at what a character is made from, then you can

explore what the individual parts of each character are.

What You Need

All you need to play are pencils, copies of the character

sheets, and a bunch of six sided dice. You will probably

need about 5 per person.

The Magician

In Discord , characters are defined by their beliefs.

These beliefs are called paradigms. All characters have

three fundamental paradigms that define how they interact

with reality at the basic level. These are Physical, Mental,

and Spiritual.

The physical paradigm defines that everyone has a

body, that can be used to manipulate the world at the

physical level--the most mundane level.

The mental paradigm defines that everyone has a

mind, that can be used to perceive and understand reality.

The mind operates at a higher level than the body.

The spiritual paradigm defines that everyone has a

soul, that feels other souls around it and tries to be one

with the universe. The soul is about social change, as it

combines ideas of empathy and emotion.

Beneath the paradigm qualties are five lines to write

out the character's tricks. A trick is something that a

character can do or knows which aids in manipulating

reality. A character can have a number of tricks under one

paradigm equal to the Belief rating in it.

Along the side of the sheet, you will note a Will track.

Mages need Will to change things. The more a mage has,

the more often and more powerful eir changes can be.

The Magic

Magic is everywhere around you, all the time. This

fact may be hard to believe, but the reason you so easily

overlook it is that most magic is not that stunning. Indeed,

you could be doing some minor magic right now and not

realize it. When you ask someone to grab you a soda from

the fridge, that's a minor command spell. When you head

into the kitchen to get it yourself, you are performing the

minor miracle of teleportation. It's a very slow and short

ranged teleport, and it involves a tiresome ritual known as

"walking" but its a minor magic none-the-less.

Of course, most people don't want to play a game

about walking to the corner mart to pick up beer. Magic of

the more spectacular sort is very possible, but everyone has

to start somewhere. With all that said, the method of

performing change in Discord is quite simple.

First, state what you want to do. This could

something mundane, like writing a novel, or it could be

something more amazing, like shooting out fireballs.

Whatever you are going for, have in mind what effect you

would like to go for.

Once you have figured out what it is you want to

accomplish, pick a paradigm that aptly defines it. You may

use any of the three core paradigms freely, or you may use

There are many other paradigms, but everybody has

these three. Each paradigm is in turn defined by no less

than three aspects. These are the qualities of Power,

Control, and Belief.

Power is how much force you bring to bear. When a

mage tries to change the world, er power defines how

much of a change is possible.

Control is how able you are to use the force you have.

When a mage tries to change the world, er control defines

how well that changes is in line with what the mage

wanted.

Belief is the knowledge, the faith, that your changes

will take hold. Mages must have a certain degree of belief,

in order to make changes, but they can become lost in

dogma if they are not careful of their belief.

another paradigm if you have shifted into it. Paradigm

shifting will be covered in a moment.

Now, you get to roll dice to figure out what happens.

You may roll a number of six sided dice (d6) up to or equal

to the Power quality in the paradigm you are using. For

each die that rolls to four or higher, count one "Event." If

any dice roll up as 6, reroll those and check again for

number of four or more. Reroll any more 6s and keep

going until you stop getting them and have a final count.

Next, take a look at the value of Control for that

paradigm. If the number of Events is equal to or less than

the Control, then each Event is yours to use as you want.

Events that you scored in excess of the Control value are

events outside of your control. In a simple situation, they

might just remove events that you have earned. In more

complex events, the extra events may be used by other

characters.

Events can be used to change the course of the story.

To do this, you set variables that your events will update.

Woah! That's kind of complicated huh? Not so much as

you might think. A variable is just some defining quality of

a situation. An example is probably in order about now.

Jenna is attempting to draw a picture for her art

class. She needs to make a roll to see how it turns out.

First, it is determined that making a peice of art will use

the Spiritual paradigm. Jenna really feels as though she

puts a peice of her soul into every drawing she makes.

Next, she determines that there are two important

variables in this test, time and quality. Quality is how

good the drawing is, and time is how long it takes her to

do it. The consensus is that it will take 3 hours to make a

drawing, and it will be of average quality, if nothing but

a minimum effort is given. Jenna rolls 5 dice, and gets 5

events. Her control is 4. Up to four and she would have

gotten all her events. Because she rolled one over four,

one event is removed from her usable total. That means

that she has 3 events to herself. She uses 2 events to raise

the quality of the drawing twice, and 1 event to lessen the

time required. After 2 hours, Jenna creates a great peice

of art.

The immediate question that arises is "How much

can one event change?" The answer depends on the group,

and what the players think is fair. In general, a single

Event can:

• Raise or Lower a variable by about 10%.

• Increase or Decrease time by one of whatever unit is

being used (hour, minute, second, etc).

• Raise or Lower a descriptive quality by one level.

• Add one new variable to a situation.

• Raise or lower one variable in order to double raise or

lower another one.

By this point, if you have played an RPG before, you

might be wondering exactly who gets to decide on all this

stuff. I have yet to mention a gamemaster (GM), because

that role is optional. Discord , being a game about chaos,

runs well as a communal storytelling exercise. Every

player can tell a part of the story as it develops. For a given

situation, everyone can pick a paradigm and roll, and then

use the events they get to individually alter the outcome of

the entire situation.

Of course, playing the traditional method by having

one player take the role of GM is acceptable as well. The

GM plays all the minor characters and directs the story as a

whole. Either way, you should do whatever best suits the

group.

Although a situation can have many variables, one is

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